W. Wilson Goode

Dr. W. Wilson Goode, Sr. is the President and CEO of Amachi, Incorporated, a nationally acclaimed faith-based program for mentoring children of incarcerated parents; and Chairman and CEO of Self, Incorporated – a nonprofit corporation dedicated to serving homeless men and women. Dr. Goode is Chairman and CEO of the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation. He is a Senior Fellow at the Fox School at the University of Pennsylvania. Because of his innovative and ground-breaking work with the Amachi Program, he received two prestigious awards from the Civic Ventures Purpose Prize, and the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Citizen of the Year Award.

Dr. Goode has served as an officer in the United States Army where he received the Army’s Commendation Medal for his outstanding leadership. As President of the Philadelphia Council for Community Advancement, he led ground-breaking work in faith-based housing for low and moderate income persons. And, he was the first African American member and Chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission where he presided over the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in 1978. He broke racial barriers again with his appointment as Managing Director for the City of Philadelphia. He became the City’s first African American Mayor in 1984 and served two terms. He subsequently spent 7 years as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education in the Clinton Administration.

He is an Emeritus Board Member and Former Chairman of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Independence Region, and an Emeritus board member of the Free Library of Philadelphia; He is also former Chair of Partners for Sacred Places and the Cornerstone Christian Academy. He is an Emeritus Board Member of America’s Promise Alliance; He is a board member of Community In Schools of Philadelphia, and a Trustee of Eastern University. He is an Emeritus board member and former Chairman of Leadership Foundations, and Trustee of Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School.

Dr. Goode led the construction of 2,000 housing units for low-and-moderate income families in the 1960s and 70s. – for that work he was honored as the Outstanding Young Leader of the Year by the Jaycees. He is responsible for the City’s Skyline. He created the First Homeless Program by any city in the country. He created the first HIV/AIDS Program in the country. He created the first Literacy Commission established in the mayor’s office. He created the Minority Set-aside Program. He appointed more Blacks to management positions than the first 94 mayors combined over 300 years – he was number 95. He placed 6 African American lawyers in the “Red Book” – more than any other city in the country. Dr. Goode assisted six Black businesses in reaching the million dollar status. He increased contracts to Blacks and women from less than one million to more than 50 million in his first 4 years in office.

Dr. Goode has earned degrees from Morgan State University (BA), the University of Pennsylvania (MA), Palmer, Theological Seminary (D. Min.), and fifteen conferred honorary doctorates. He is a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.