About Share Our Strength
Leadership
Bill Shore
Founder and Executive Director
Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength®, the nation’s leading organization working to end childhood hunger in America. Shore is also the chairman of Community Wealth Ventures®, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength that provides strategic counsel to foundations and nonprofit organizations interested in creating community wealth — resources generated through profitable enterprise to promote social change. Continue reading…
Shore founded Share Our Strength in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine and subsequently renewed concern about hunger in the United States. From 1978 through 1987, Shore served on the senatorial and presidential campaign staffs of former U.S. Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado). From 1988 to 1991, Shore served as chief of staff for former U.S. Senator Robert Kerrey (D-Nebraska). His transition from politics to innovative community service and his prescription for community change are documented in his first book, Revolution of the Heart (Riverhead Press, 1995). Shore’s second book, The Cathedral Within (Random House, 1999), profiles a new breed of community leaders who are tapping every sector of society to improve community life. Shore’s most recent book, The Light of Conscience, published by Random House in February of 2004, explores how acts of conscience can and have changed the world.
A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Shore earned his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the board of directors of The Timberland Company, College Summit, and Venture Philanthropy Partners. Shore has been an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business and is currently the Faculty Advisor for the Reynolds Foundation Fellowship program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Public Leadership.
In October 2005, “US News & World Report” selected Shore as one of America’s Best Leaders.
Debbie Shore
Co-Founder and Associate Director
Together with her brother, Executive Director Bill Shore, and Managing Director Pat Nicklin, Associate Director, Debbie Shore oversees the general direction, long-term planning and strategy for Share Our Strength®, the nation’s leading organization working to end childhood hunger in America. Continue reading…
In addition to leading the organization’s efforts to cultivate and build the next generation of leaders in the fight against hunger, Shore also leads the organization’s newest initiative, Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out™, presented by American Express®. This national campaign mobilizes thousands of restaurants and diners across America during one week in the fall to raise millions of dollars to help end childhood hunger.
Shore co-created, directed, and continues to oversee Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation®, the nation’s largest and finest culinary benefit dedicated to making sure no kid in America grows up hungry. Now in its 20th year, the annual event has raised more than $70 million and has built a nationwide network of thousands of volunteers in more than 55 cities.
In partnership with Catherine Townsend, Shore edited Home Food, a collection of recipes published in March, 1995. Since then, more than 40,000 copies have sold nationwide. One hundred percent of the authors’ royalties supports Share Our Strength’s anti-hunger efforts.
Prior to starting Share Our Strength in 1984, Shore was a political organizer and fundraiser for former U.S. Senator Gary Hart’s (D-Colorado) presidential campaign. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., Shore earned her B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy from Ohio University. She has studied and traveled extensively throughout Mexico, Central America, Europe, South America, the former Soviet Union, and West Africa. She is the mother of Sofia, age 6.
Patricia Nicklin
Managing Director
Patricia Nicklin is the managing director of Share Our Strength®, the nation’s leading organization working to end childhood hunger in America. Nicklin oversees programs, operations, and finances of Share Our Strength. She leads the strategic planning for the organization, including that of its childhood hunger strategy. Working with anti-hunger leaders across the country, Nicklin developed Share Our Strength’s focus to end childhood hunger in the United States. Continue reading…
Nicklin works with Share Our Strength’s staff, chefs, restaurateurs, corporate partners, grant recipients, volunteers and leaders in the field to ensure the success of Share Our Strength programs which include Taste of the Nation, Great American Bake Sale, Great American Dine Out, Operation Frontline and cause-related marketing efforts.
Nicklin is also a board member of the Alliance to End Hunger and NAHO, the National Association of Hunger Organizations.
Prior to joining Share Our Strength, Nicklin founded and ran The Virginia Company, a national mail order, e-business and retail company specializing in Virginia-made products. Prior to The Virginia Company, Nicklin served as senior vice president of programs and planning for The Points of Light Foundation in Washington, D.C. where she was a founding staff member. From 1986 to 1991, she worked for McKinsey and Company in the New York and Washington, D.C. offices, where she focused on consumer marketing, healthcare and communications clients. She was also Associate Publisher of Mid-Atlantic Country Magazine and worked in advertising for the New York Times Magazine Group.
Nicklin earned her B.A in English Literature from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia’s Darden School. Nicklin lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband and son.
Chuck Scofield
Chief Development Officer
Chuck Scofield is the chief development officer of Share Our Strength®, the nation’s leading organization working to end childhood hunger in America. He is a member of the organization’s executive team, along with Founder and Executive Director Bill Shore, Co-Founder and Associate Director Debbie Shore and Managing Director Patricia Nicklin. Continue reading…
Scofield oversees Share Our Strength’s donor and foundation development, corporate partnerships and cause-marketing programs. During his 12-year tenure with Share Our Strength, Scofield has built strong relationships among these groups, taken a leadership role in Share Our Strength’s hurricane relief and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, maintained heavy involvement in the organization’s ongoing relief efforts in Ethiopia, and championed Share Our Strength’s strategy to end childhood hunger.
In addition, Scofield created Share Our Strength’s Hinges of Hope™, a series of experiential learning tours that open the eyes, hearts and minds of leaders in the public and private sectors to the challenges facing community leaders as they work to end childhood hunger in traditionally impoverished neighborhoods. Scofield is also a board member of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., The Opportunity Fund, and Students for International Medical Action.
Scofield began his career with Share Our Strength in 1996 as its Executive Assistant, and has served as the organization’s Development Manager and Development Director. Before joining Share Our Strength, Scofield worked for Who Cares Magazine: A Journal of Service and Action and The Relatives, Inc., an emergency shelter for homeless and runaway youth.
A native of Houston, Texas, Scofield graduated with honors from Davidson College with a B.A. in psychology. He and his family of four live on Capitol Hill in the District of Columbia.
Eric Schweikert
Chief Financial Officer
Eric Schweikert is the chief financial officer of Share Our Strength®, the nation’s leading organization working to end childhood hunger in America. He is a member of the organization’s executive team, along with Founder and Executive Director Bill Shore, Co-Founder and Associate Director Debbie Shore, Managing Director Patricia Nicklin and Chief Development Officer Chuck Scofield. Continue reading…
Schweikert oversees the finance, accounting, information technology and human resources functions. He and his team work with Share Our Strength’s program staff to ensure that the organization’s resources are put to their best use in our fight against childhood hunger and that we are careful stewards of the donations entrusted to us.
Schweikert joined Share Our Strength in 2008. Prior to that, he was CFO of the Global Financial Services segment at Capital One, home to Capital One’s faster-growing businesses and $29 billion in assets. His other roles at Capital One included running Capital One France during its start-up phase. Schweikert joined Capital One in 1996 from Mercer Management Consulting where he had 10 years’ experience in strategy consulting focusing on telecommunications companies.
Schweikert holds a BA in Economics from Yale University and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the boards of the Heart of America Foundation, an organization that teaches volunteerism while promoting literacy to children, and the Yale Alumni Chorus foundation, which promotes harmony through music in the US and abroad. He is married with two children.