Starsky D. Wilson

Chair

Starsky D. Wilson, DMin, MDiv, was elected chair of the Board of Trustees of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation effective January 29, 2025. He has been a member of the Board since January 2022.

Starsky is president and CEO of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) and CDF Action Council. Since 1973, CDF has worked to advance child-centered public policies. Since joining CDF in 2020, Wilson has re-activated CDF Action Council as a sister organization for grassroots legislative education and lobbying, established a dedicated Leadership Development and Organizing team focused on base-building, relaunched the Black Student Leadership Network to train young adults in community organizing and policy analysis, and merged the American Youth Policy Forum into CDF, while managing its first leadership transition.

From 2011 through 2020, Starsky was president and CEO of Deaconess Foundation, a faith-based philanthropy for child well-being and racial justice in St. Louis. During most of his time at Deaconess, he also served as pastor of St. John’s Church. Under his leadership, Deaconess constructed a community action tank, the Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being. After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown, Jr., in Ferguson, Missouri, Starsky was named co-chair of the Ferguson Commission, which released the ‘Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity’ report, that called for sweeping changes in policing and the courts, and for improved child well-being systems and economic mobility.

Starsky chairs the Board of Visitors for Duke Divinity School. He also serves boards for the Forum for Theological Exploration and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, which he previously chaired. Starsky earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Xavier University of Louisiana, a Master of Divinity degree from Eden Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Duke University.