Amy Saxton

Amy Saxton is the Founder of Saxton Strategies, which guides purpose-driven leaders to achieve the strategic clarity and leadership capabilities that create transformative social impact.

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Amy has over 20 years of experience leading and advising nonprofits, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations to maximize their impact and effectiveness. From 2017 – 2024 she was Vice President of Program Development at the James Irvine Foundation, a $3.2B endowed private foundation with the goal that all low-income workers have the power to advance economically. Amy sat on the executive team, the grant management team, and built a function that identified and developed new grantmaking programs and relationships with public, private, nonprofit, and labor organizations. Over her seven-year tenure at Irvine she led development of over $300M of board-approved grantmaking programs and invested over $50M in emergent partnerships and grantmaking opportunities.

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Prior to Irvine, Amy spent more than six years as Chief Executive Officer with Summer Search, a national U.S.-based nonprofit supporting students from low-income backgrounds to become college-educated leaders. Amy led Summer Search to grow its students and budget by more than 30 percent, launched an initiative focused on males of color that increased male enrollment from 34 percent to 45 percent, and initiated an equity strategy that increased the number of people of color and males on staff significantly. Under her leadership Summer Search was named – for four years – as one of the Nonprofit Times “Best Nonprofits to Work For.”

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From 2004 to 2011 Amy was a consultant and manager at the Bridgespan Group, where she advised foundations and youth-serving nonprofits and led internal firmwide efforts to diversify the staff and create a more inclusive culture. Earlier in her career, Amy was a Summer Associate with the Broad Foundation and a director at a nonprofit focused on workforce development.

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An alum of Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), Amy taught as a Facilitator for the popular GSB course, Interpersonal Dynamics. Amy is known for coaching and advising for transformative results, sustainability, and joy. Amy has spoken and written about maximizing nonprofit and foundation impact, including speaking engagements with the Aspen Institute and the Global Philanthropy Forum, and publications in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and The Huffington Post.

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Amy grew up in Los Angeles, spent most of her career in the San Francisco Bay Area, and since fall 2024 she divides her time between California and Lisbon, Portugal. As the daughter of an immigrant (who was first in the family to complete college), Amy is passionate about economic and racial justice for low income and people of color. She holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, a master’s in education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and a bachelor’s in English from Harvard.

 

Contact Amy at amy@saxtonstrategies.com.