Shirley Fredricks

Shirley Fredricks is a vice president and trustee of The Lawrence Welk Family Foundation, which works to stabilize Southern California families in poverty. In 1981, she established the Foundation’s Junior Board (ages 13-23)—the first of its kind in the nation. In 1997, after serving as President for 17 years, she transferred leadership to her daughter, Lisa Parker, and shepherded a third generation onto the full Board.

Shirley is a founding board member of the National Center for Family Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. and was chair of their first ever statewide donor research project, What California Donors Want: In Their Own Voices, published in 2005. She is also a founding board member of LA Urban Funders, an economic development collaborative of thirty foundations that worked for twelve years in three Los Angeles neighborhoods. She served two separate terms, in different decades, on the Board of Southern California Grantmakers and was their Board Chair for four years. Shirley was also a board member and officer of the Council on Foundations Board in Washington, D.C., during which she served on their Family Foundation Committee and chaired the Host Committee for their Annual Conference for 2500 grantmakers from across the nation.

Shirley writes and speaks to a variety of organizations about family foundations, intergenerational grantmaking, and the power of youth philanthropy. She has been engaged in virtually every important movement in the country to educate and inspire family foundations dedicated to supporting the public good.