Diane Matsuda Foundation Board

At it's monthly meeting, the San Francisco Japantown Foundation board of directors unanimously elected Diane Matsuda as a member, effective immediately. Diane is Executive Director of the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco dedicated to improving the quality of life for California’s homeless children and developing policy solutions to prevent homelessness.

She was previously Executive Officer of the California Cultural and Historical Endowment, charged with developing a $122 million grant program to preserve historic and cultural resources emphasizing the stories of the diverse peoples of California. Before that, Diane was Director of the California State Library’s California Civil Liberties Public Education Program (CCLPEP), a grant program whose focus is the infringement of Japanese Americans’ civil liberties during World War II. A native San Franciscan, Diane Matsuda earned her Juris Doctorate from Hastings College of the Law in 1989. Before joining the California State Library as CCLPEP Program Manager, Matsuda was International Coordinator for the California International Relations Foundation in Sacramento and Staff Attorney for Nihonmachi Legal Outreach in San Francisco.