Calvin Jerreau Fortenberry is the Director of Communications for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund & Educational Fund. Joining in 2014, Calvin has held Director of Communications roles for both the Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) working on government responses to poverty through affordable housing and homelessness prevention initiatives. In 2008, he directed a regional media campaign during the foreclosure crisis that helped hundreds of California families avoid homelessness and obtain legal aid services. Calvin most recently served as a consultant for Professional Partnering Solutions on supplier diversity initiatives for some of the nation’s leading advertising agencies.
Calvin has also been a senior communications consultant for Douglas Gould & Company where he worked on a variety of public interest causes including education reform, voting rights, reproductive rights and economic development. He has also worked on national public opinion research and message development projects funded by the Ford Foundation on areas such as arts education, voting rights and community colleges. Calvin is also an experienced media trainer and has trained senior management professionals from non-profit organizations, government agencies and association groups over the past decade.
Calvin received his B.A. from the University of California at Irvine in Comparative Literature, an M.A. from the American University School of International Service in International Communication in Washington, DC and was a research fellow at the Graduate Research Center in Trento, Italy.
