Diane Parnes Bio

Diane Parnes

Diane Parnes has been an SV2 Partner since 1999. She has been involved in two Education grant rounds, including as an Education Grant Round Co-Leader in 2010. Diane also served as the 2009-2010 Board Fellow for past SV2 Grantee, Reading Partners.

Diane is the Executive Director of the Sobrato Family Foundation’s private and supporting foundations. Her 23-year career spans the private, public, and nonprofit sectors including work in the arts, civic engagement and capacity building fields. She has served as a development, marketing, and executive director at four regional nonprofit institutions and was a national corporate grantmaker.

Under Diane’s decade of leadership at the Sobrato Family Foundation, the Foundation received the 2003 Silicon Valley Outstanding Foundation Grantmaker award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and the International AFP’s 2007 award as National Outstanding Foundation for their “People & Places” community investment framework and strategy. The Silicon Valley AFP has also honored Diane for her outstanding work and contribution to philanthropy as an individual. In 2010, the Silicon Valley Business Journal named Diane as one of the top 100 “Women of Influence.”

She is a Board Member of Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits and Northern California Grantmakers. Diane just completed a ten-year tenure on the CompassPoint Nonprofit Services Board of Directors where she served as Chair and Vice Chair for six years.

Diane is a graduate of the University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music & School of Business. She earned certification as a Professional Fundraising Executive from the Association of Fundraising Professionals and advanced certification as a Corporate Community Relations Executive from Boston College. She graduated from the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits Leaders’ Institute, Stanford University's Graduate School of Business Executive Education Program for Philanthropy Leaders, and Harvard Business School’s Governance for Excellence Executive Education program.

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