About Pinwheel
Pinwheel mobilizes high school students to meaningful action by efficiently connecting them to volunteer jobs in their communities. Five Stanford students who believed that both student and community would stand to benefit, envisioned a website that links the natural extracurricular activities of high school students with civic volunteerism. Pinwheel is based in San Francisco.
Staff
Sam Fankuchen – co-founder and CEO:
During high school, Sam founded a student peer counseling program and graduated with the Sage Hill School’s pioneer class. He brainstormed the initial plans for Pinwheel while driving cross-country with friends during the summer before college. He is currently enrolled in undergraduate and graduate course at Stanford University and plans to graduate with degrees in Urban Studies and Economic Sociology, concentrating in Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Laura Adams – co-founder:
Laura Adams graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a degree in English and an emphasis in creative writing. Before Stanford, she attended Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina. Laura has worked in many different realms of the nonprofit world from tutoring programs to foster care initiatives to foundation work. Currently, she is involved with Nike’s “Right to Learn” education project.
Advisory
Brad Aaronson continues to infuse Pinwheel with his energy and ideas as a member of the founding team. He graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a BA in Urban Studies, specializing in Community Organizations. He is now a Real Estate Investment and Development Analyst with the CIM Group in Los Angeles.
Charles Best helps Pinwheel with his knowledge of technological social entrepreneurism. As founder and CEO, he leads DonorsChoose.org, a simple way to fulfill needs and foster innovation in public schools. Before moving full-time to DonorsChoose, Best taught social studies at Wings Academy, an alternative public high school in the Bronx for five years. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1998.
Brooke Chapman Correll provides Pinwheel with marketing expertise. She has more than two decades of marketing experience including senior executive roles with Clos Du Val Winery in Napa, CA, and WineShopper.com, a Bay Area start up backed by Kleiner-Perkins and Amazon.com. She has also held executive positions at Ziff-Davis and MTV. Ms. Correll holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Gregory Craig offers Pinwheel legal, moral, and general life advice. Greg is the father of five children, attorney to former President Clinton, Elian Gonzales, and others, and an engaged citizen.
Chase Ormond provides Pinwheel with financial and strategic advisory. Mr. Ormond draws from his experiences in private equity, venture capital and investment banking. As a co-founding member of a successful internet start up, he shares Pinwheel’s entrepreneurial spirit and passion. Mr. Ormond earned his BA in Economics from Stanford University.
Laura Scher brings Pinwheel vast business acumen as co- founder, Chairperson and CEO of Working Assets, a long distance, credit card, and wireless company dedicated to building a world that is more just, humane and environmentally sustainable. Under her leadership Working Assets has donated over $35 million to progressive nonprofits and has appeared on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing, privately held companies for five years in a row. Scher holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Yale University. Leigh Steinberg has remained, above all, a humanitarian throughout his illustrious career as a sports agent and Hollywood muse. His track record of community support and non- confrontational negotiation has lead each of his clients to integrate volunteer work into their contracts and to donate over $100 million to charities and foundations in total.
Robert Sudderth, Jr. offers Pinwheel his vast experience in community development and foundation work. He currently serves as a trustee of the Benwood Foundation in Chattanooga, TN and previously served on the boards of both the United Way and the Community Foundation of Chattanooga. Sudderth retired as the Chairman and CEO of Suntrust Bank in 2002.
Clint Wilkins brings Pinwheel a wealth of knowledge on teenagers having spent his career guiding them as a teacher, coach, college counselor and principal at such schools as Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. and the College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. He was the founding headmaster of Sage Hill School in Orange County that enjoys a national reputation for its signature service-learning program before retiring in 2005. Wilkins is currently an Associate at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. He earned an AB from Williams College and a Master of Divinity from Harvard University.
