Cliff Underwood

As a professional fund-raiser, Cliff Underwood has helped generate more than $100,000,000 in contributions for non-profit institutions in a career which has spanned 25 years.

From 1971-1979, as Director of Special Campaigns at the University of California, Berkeley, Cliff had overall repsonsibility for the development, coordination and implementation of all major fund-raising activities on the campus. While at Cal, he helped found the U.C. Berkeley Foundation, an organization now recognized as one of the leading University fundraising programs in the country.

He served as Director of Alumni and Development at San Jose State University and Slippery Rock State College before moving to Berkeley in 1971. In 1976, Cliff's program at Berkeley was selected to receive the United States Steel Award for the top fund-raising program in the nation. From 1980 through 1985, Cliff was invited to serve as the first Development Director for the largest zoological society in the world -- The Zoological Society of San Diego. As Director of Development for the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, Cliff was charged with the creation and implementation of the ongoing fund-raising program which enjoys the distinction of being the most successful regional membership program in the world -- one out of every five households in San Diego County became a member of The Zoological Society of San Diego.

Also part of Cliff's responsibility was the organization of a national fund-raising effort to establish The Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species (CRES) at the San Diego Zoo -- a project requiring over $27,000,000 in private contributions. He initiated the program called "Kicks for Critters" with Charger football kicker Rolf Bernirshke. Kicks for Critters was the first fund raising program of its kind and became widely emulated around the country for a variety of not for profit organizations.

In 1985, Cliff left the Zoological Society to found the San Diego based fund-raising consulting firm Underwood & Associates.

He is a former National board member of both the National Society of Fund-raising Executives (NSFRE), and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). He is a frequent speaker on fund-raising at seminars throughout the country, and he serves as a faculty member for the Center for Philanthropic Studies at the University of Indiana. He has been selected as the outstanding Public Relations alumnus of his alma mater, San Jose State University, and was named as the first recipient of the Executive Fund Raiser of the year for San Diego County.

Cliff has served on the Board of the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, the San Diego Zoo'a Ocelot's Steering Committee, the ElderHelp Board of Directors and the San Diego Junior League Community Advisory Board. He is currently a member of the Public Relations Advisory Council at the San Jose State University, the Family Literacy Foundation Board of Advisors and the Elderhelp Community Advisory Committee.