Charles Sidney Fields joined the Irvine Foundation in 2016 as the Chief of Staff and Planning, was named Vice President of Program Implementation in 2019, and Executive Vice President of Programs in April 2024. He has more than a decade of leadership experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector, funding and supporting social change organizations to achieve greater impact.

He previously served as a Senior Program Manager for The California Endowment, where he was responsible for strategy development, grantmaking, and leadership activities in Southern California. He also co-developed and managed Sons & Brothers, the Endowment’s $50 million grantmaking and leadership program focused on improving the health, wellness, and opportunity of boys and young men of color. During his tenure there, he co-developed a $260 million public-private loan fund, the FreshWorks Fund, to increase access to healthy foods and spur economic development in underserved communities in California.

Prior to the Endowment, Charles was a grantmaker at the Marguerite Casey Foundation, managing an $8 million portfolio of grants focused on community economic development, civic engagement, educational equity, violence prevention, and family support.

Charles currently serves on the board of ABFE, membership-based philanthropic organization that advocates for responsive and transformative investments in Black communities, and he serves an executive committee member of the Families and Workers Fund.

Charles has a master’s in education and a bachelor’s in organizational communications from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.