Kathleen Odne

Executive Director, Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation

Kathleen Odne is the Executive Director of the Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation in Walnut Creek, California. The Lesher Foundation is a family foundation, established in 1989, that provides grants to non-profits in northern California to improve K-12 education, enhance the visual and performing arts and in support of programs benefiting children and families.

Odne currently serves on the Board of Directors and the Finance Committee of the National Center for Family Philanthropy, as well as the board of the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers. She previously served on the board of the Council on Foundations, chairing their Governance, Ethics & Practices and Committee on Family Foundations which developed the Stewardship Principles for Family Foundations in 2005. Odne is a founding member of the Funders Forum of Contra Costa, an affinity group of funders in the East Bay, and a member of the Advisory Council for the Foundation Center in San Francisco. She has previously served on the boards of Northern California Grantmakers and the Association of Small Foundations (ASF). She attended the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, China as a delegate in 1995 and currently serves on the board of Diablo Regional Arts.

A native of Chicago, she holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Illinois and an MA from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. She and her husband, John, reside in Walnut Creek, California, and are the parents of three son.