Clare Butterfield

Clare Butterfield joined the Christopher Family Foundation as executive director in 2018. Her broad interests and experiences have helped the foundation to develop its strategic approach and to form strong partnerships with grantees. Prior to joining the Christopher Family Foundation, she served as program director at the Illinois Science and Energy Innovation Foundation, initiating their grantmaking in support of non-profits that provide energy literacy education to Illinois consumers. Prior to that she was the founding executive director of Faith in Place, which works with communities of all faiths to connect the teachings of their tradition to practices of care for the Earth. She has practiced tax and transactional law in private practice and at the Internal Revenue Service, and is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister. She studied history at the University of Illinois, where she also obtained her JD. She earned an MDiv from Meadville Lombard and a DMin from Chicago Theological Seminary.