Christy Pichel moved to Sonoma County from Southern California in 1971 and soon became involved with nonprofit organizations.
In her early career, Christy was one of the founders and an executive director of Summerfield School in Santa Rosa and then a director and board member of the Farallones Institute in Occidental. After a mid-career MBA in International Business from Dominican University, she joined the management staff of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) in San Francisco and then moved on to the management team at The James Irvine Foundation.
She was as CEO of the Stuart Foundation, from 2003 to 2014, which works to improve statewide public education and child welfare systems in California and Washington. One of the high points was travel with education leaders and policy makers from the US to visit and learn from the high achieving education systems of Finland; Singapore; Ontario, Canada; and Shanghai, China.
Since retiring, Christy has consulted with philanthropic organizations to provide strategy development, development of grant portfolios, and due diligence for grant recommendations. She was the point person for the Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for their grants in Sonoma County for fire recovery.
Christy currently serves on the Board of Directors of West County Community Services and completed ten years with Center for Effective Philanthropy at the end of 2021.