Susan Epstein

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1995

Susan Epstein

Our Schools, Our Media

San Francisco, CA

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

Our Schools, Our Media (OSOM) inspires and teaches students to mobilize community action on behalf of their schools. OSOM works with students in low-income schools to design and produce media (print, video, and internet) for their local community. The media content includes suggested school improvements, how community members can get involved, and goals for the education of local youth. Students in OSOM’s programs distribute their publications to 280,000 people quarterly.
 
Schools benefit from greater resources for teaching and learning because of the increased community involvement and support.  Students develop literacy and communication skills, and discover their ability to make a difference in their schools and their lives.
 

Biography:

Susan Epstein is the former Executive Director and Founder of Our Schools, Our Media (OSOM).  She spearheaded program design and organizational development as the agency expanded over six years.  She later served as Board Chair.
 
Susan has fifteen years of experience as a strategic management consultant to nonprofit organizations and foundations.  Her past consulting projects have guided agencies in the areas of management, technology, marketing, diversity, and communications.  Susan is an elected school board member with responsibility for 3700 elementary school children, three State-run preschools, a staff of more than 300 people, and a $37M annual budget.  
 
During the first half of 2008 she served as the interim Executive Director of the Nonprofit Support Center during a period in which this management services organization was undergoing substantial transition and growth.  She hired five employees and supervised twelve employees in three offices spanning Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.  She developed the technological infrastructure for this regional organization that provides management training and consulting to more than 2,000 nonprofits through a new website, server, email, phone, backup, data management and branding systems.  Susan nurtured relationships with foundation and corporate donors, and created the roadmap for an expanded individual donor year-long program.  She played an integral role in the creation of a regional public service internship program for college students in partnership with the University of California at Santa Barbara.
 
Susan is also an attorney and in 1994 participated in a ten-person public policy seminar with Barack Obama while attending the University of Chicago Law School.  She served as President and Treasurer of the Chicago Law Foundation.  She has provided corporate legal counsel to business clients and has directed public relations for a six-county Bay Area school reform $100M initiative.  
 
Prior to law school, Susan studied Computer Science while an undergraduate at Stanford University, then worked at Apple Computer in the Advanced Technology Group on development of user-friendly software.  She has published articles in academic journals and op-ed pieces in newspapers.  Susan is passionate about thoughtful and powerful strategies that improve the way nonprofits and foundations have a profound impact.