Richard Tate (he/him) is executive vice president of The California Wellness Foundation, where he leads strategy development, public affairs, learning, and innovation. He serves as chief deputy to the president and CEO and plays a key role in aligning Cal Wellness’ board, management, and staff to advance the foundation’s mission and vision.
Tate joined Cal Wellness in 2016 as vice president of public affairs and built the foundation’s first integrated public affairs department, a multidisciplinary team responsible for communications, community relations, and public policy activities. Since then, Tate has led the expansion of the foundation’s digital communications infrastructure, advocacy and government relations, and organization-wide learning and innovation capacity. He played a key role in launching the foundation’s inaugural Advancing Wellness Poll and developing the Advance and Defend integrated public affairs and grant-making campaign.
Prior to his time at Cal Wellness, Tate served as an executive leader at Hopelab, the Omidyar Group’s health-focused nonprofit organization and a pioneer in digital health research and development. He oversaw all public relations, media outreach and product marketing, including Hopelab’s participation in the launch of the federal Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation at the White House, where President Barack Obama featured HopeLab and its products as exemplars of social innovation. Before working in philanthropy, Tate was a director of corporate communications in the field of biotechnology; he began his career in communications as an editor and journalist.
Tate has served has served on the boards of OUTWORDS and Northern California Grantmakers and as a volunteer and board member for the Bay Area Surgical Mission. He has lived and worked in California since 1991 after spending his childhood in Missouri and Oklahoma.