Melissa Bradley

Tides Foundation

Melissa L. Bradley has been a social entrepreneur and proven leader at several organizations committed to social change. She is currently the CEO of Tides, a San Francisco-based organization that supports nonprofits through grants and programming partnerships.

Prior to leading Tides in 2010, Melissa founded four separate organizations: New Capitalist, where she supported emerging social entrepreneurs and minority entrepreneurs with advising and over $20m in seed funding; Positive Impact – a collaborative initiative to promote diverse voices and visions within independent media; Reentry Strategies Institute (RSI), dedicated to addressing the needs of formerly incarcerated persons as well as advocating for effective and affordable reentry programs; and The Entrepreneurial Development Institute (TEDI), named by the Kauffman Foundation as an “Outstanding National Youth Entrepreneurship Program”. TEDI serves youth ages 7 to 21 and their families in the areas of economic development and community empowerment in the US and abroad.

Melissa has also worked as a Senior Strategist at Green for All, where she created the Capital Access Program in an effort to scale and sustain more green jobs, and as an senior advisor to the Center for American Progress and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Melissa currently serves as an Advisor to Renewal 2 Investment Fund, and holds board positions with Georgetown University Board of Governors, ideas42, and Grist.