Arron Jiron, Board Member

Philanthropic Advisor

Arron is a champion for equity-focused transformation in public schools and public systems. He advises state agencies, unions, foundations, and nonprofit organizations to change and enhance systems, even massive ones, by designing for human success. Bring people together around whole-child, human-centered approaches to education, early education, expanded learning, juvenile justice, workforce and anti-poverty intervention is a consistent feature of his 25-year career.

He started his career at a Community Action Program in Lincoln Nebraska where he learned to fight poverty at a local level by connecting youth and families to resources, supports and education. Working with schools and school leaders, Arron created the Youth Opportunities Center, a two-county workforce development strategy that served thousands of youth and young adults through programs like AmeriCoprs, YouthBuild, Restorative Justice, mentoring, youth leadership development, and community building.

Continuing his passion for youth development, justice, and community, Arron’s career took him to California where he worked at a state intermediary and advocacy organization, the California School Age Consortium, to advance child-care and after-school policies for low-income communities. As California began increasing investments into whole-child programs—including Proposition 10 in 1998 and Proposition 49 in 2002—Arron learned the ropes of California’s immense education and human serve system, connecting collaboration possibilities and passionate changemakers. He joined the David & Packard Foundations to build and lead grantmaking strategies that focused on field leaders, advocates, and champions for after-school and in early education to advance a whole-child policy agenda. After six years at Packard, Arron joined the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation—a foundation that sought by its founder’s direction to spend down its resources by 2020 in order to have help California push forward on STEM education, environmental literacy, civic learning, and social, emotional, academic learning and development, and educator preparation.

During his fifteen years of experience in grantmaking. He designed and led six major grantmaking portfolios at two California’s largest foundations totaling nearly $180 million in grantmaking and $20 million in Program Related Investments. He worked at the front end of major policy implementation efforts the led to policy wins, including the scaling of Transitional Kindergarten. As a system building, Arron worked with most of the County Offices of Education in California and has worked in collaboration with the Governor’s Office, the State Board of Education, the California Department of Education, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, the California State University Chancellors Office, the University of California Office of the President, and the Community College Chancellor’s Office. His experience extends beyond California to include work with federal agencies, advocates, and thought leaders, as well as national foundations.