Board of Trustees

Patti Crane

Patti Crane has devoted her professional life to advising the CEOs and trustees of independent schools, colleges, and universities across the country since 1980. As a speaker, thought leader, and in-the-trenches problem-solver already nationally known for protecting the values of independent education, she founded Crane MetaMarketingin 1996 in Atlanta to focus specifically on connecting schools with best-fit audiences, enhancing revenues, and building fundraising messages. While an undergraduate at Drake University, she was appointed the first-ever student voting member of a State Arts Council, and the first intern at the National Endowment for the Arts. Later she served on various nonprofit boards and task forces and led trustee groups within religious denominations, state bar associations, and higher ed consortia in strategic planning and visioning processes. After 38 years of traveling, in 2017 Patti passed CRANE on to her longtime team and moved to Los Angeles. She lives four miles from the beach (though still just eight miles from the airport) in the South Bay, near both of her grown sons who work in the film industry, and close enough to teach her beloved young granddaughters to cook.