Shari Silberstein

Shari Silberstein (any pronoun) is a dynamic and equity-driven leader with 25 years of experience building visionary social justice programs and organizations, scaling high-impact teams, and driving transformative growth in nonprofits and philanthropy. As a strategist, facilitator, and collaborator, Shari specializes in turning bold ideas into action and impact, supporting organizations to successfully deliver structural change. Most recently, Shari served as Chief Operating Officer at the Fund for Nonviolence, a catalytic limited-life foundation funding efforts to dismantle structural racism, challenge state violence, and promote active nonviolence.

Before that, Shari led Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) for 21 years, positioning it as a national leader in the movement to transform the justice system, first as a project within another organization and then as its Founder and Executive Director after spinning it off into an independent organization. Under Shari’s leadership, EJUSA worked with partners to end the death penalty in 11 states, secure over $200M in state budgets for healing and violence prevention, generate 1000's of media hits, elevate the leadership of Black and Brown survivors of violence, and shift public discourse through sophisticated narrative change campaigns.

Over 25 years, Shari has honed a deep expertise in strategy and facilitation, helping dozens of organizations identify where they’re trying to go and how to get there. While at EJUSA, Shari facilitated strategic and campaign planning for grassroots partners around the country and led workshops, trainings, and planning sessions for internal teams, external collaborators, and philanthropic partners. Now consulting, Shari leverages decades of facilitation, strategic planning, and leadership experience from inside the field, together with an unwavering commitment to equity and collaboration, to help groups set directions, operationalize their visions, and solve problems along the way. 

Shari holds a BFA from New York University, an MA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has been recognized by several national philanthropic and advocacy networks, including the Change Leaders in Philanthropy Fellowship.