Marnie Thompson

Marnie supports the growth of Seed Commons as a member of the Investment Team and by providing organizational development coaching to loan funds in the network. She was founder and co-Managing Director of the Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC), a private operating foundation in Greensboro, North Carolina, which sunset in 2020. At F4DC she focused on capacity-building for a new kind of economy based in principles of cooperation, democracy, justice, and sustainability. Her portfolio at F4DC included organizing funders to support Seed Commons and strengthening the Southern Reparations Loan Funds, which have now joined Seed Commons as a regional network. Marnie was Senior Research Scientist and Director of Teacher Professional Development Research at Educational Testing Service, where she oversaw a research program on supporting teachers to become more effective in helping students learn. Marnie is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University, where she majored in Computer Science with a secondary concentration in mathematics.