Playworks Welcomes Ellen Goodman

After working jointly with the East Bay program for seven years, Playworks launched an independent San Francisco office in 2009. After searching far and wide for an individual to lead San Francisco, Playworks is excited to introduce Ellen Goodman as the first San Francisco Executive Director.

Ellen began her public service work as a hotline volunteer in 1986 for the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. Deeply moved by helping others, Ellen made a professional shift into the world of non-profit and grassroots management and spent five years as the National Training Director for a Boston-based franchise company. 
 
Over the next 11 years, Ellen designed and developed Washington's first peer training program for HIV-positive incarcerated men and women. Her celebrated speaker's bureau was designed as a trainer-of-trainers program for ex-offenders, designed to teach others about their voting rights and how to lobby congress and other elected officials. Trainers went into prisons, shelters, community-based organizations, and schools sharing their stories throughout the metropolitan area.

In the mid-nineties Ellen worked for the Victory Fund, a political action committee, raising funds for minority candidates running for local office. This national profile gave Ellen the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the United States working with candidates and incumbents on campaign programming, grassroots organizing, and fundraising.

Before moving to San Francisco, Ellen spent one year in Israel working with the New Israel Fund as the Development Officer for the Israeli AIDS Task Force. Once in San Francisco in 1999, Ellen turned her focus to low-income families whose children are suffering from medical complications and special needs. As Executive Director of Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California, Ellen launched community-based service programs to prevent low-income families from financial hardship because of a child battling cancer, disabilities, or marginalized circumstances.  

Ellen was introduced to Playworks by a trusted friend and colleague. After multiple school visits, Ellen became convinced that Playworks was an organization she wanted to be a part of. With a long range vision of making the world a better place, Ellen saw how her experience would help meet the goals of Playworks: positively impacting children’s health and well-being by harnessing the power of play at school.

Contact Ellen directly at egoodman@playworks.org or (415) 230-0939.