Shirley Sagawa

Shirley Sagawa is a leading expert on national service policy and author of The American Way to Change: How National Service and Volunteers and Transforming America (Jossey-Bass 2010). She is co-founder of sagawa/jospin, a consulting firm that provides strategic counsel to nonprofits. She was called "a founding mother" of the modern service movement in The Bill by Steve Waldman, and in 2009, received the Lifetime of Service Award from AmeriCorps Alums.

Sagawa served as a presidential appointee in both the first Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration, and led the Obama transition for the Corporation for National and Community Service. As special assistant to President Clinton for domestic policy, Shirley drafted the legislation that created AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service. After Senate confirmation as the Corporation’s first managing director, she helped lead the development of the new agency and its programs. She also served as deputy chief of staff to First Lady Hillary Clinton and Chief Counsel for Youth Policy on the Labor Committee staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, where she was lead drafter of the National and Community Service Act of 1990.

Shirley was the founding executive director of the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of national education associations. She served as senior counsel to the National Women's Law Center. She has also served on numerous nonprofit boards.

She is the coauthor of the award-winning books The Charismatic Organization: Eight Ways to Grow a Nonprofit That Builds Buzz, Delights Donors, and Energizes Employees (Jossey-Bass, 2008) and Common Interest, Common Good: Creating Value Through Business and Social Sector Partnerships (Harvard Business School Press, 2000).

Sagawa is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, holds an MSc degree from the London School of Economics, and graduated magna cum laude from Smith College.