Our Leadership

Safe Families founder, Dr. David Anderson, is a licensed clinical psychologist with over 20 years of experience in adolescent psychology. He has served as the Executive Director of since its founding in 2003.

Dave has experience in performing forensic clinical evaluations, providing administrative/clinical oversight to a 40-bed residential facility and foster care program, an 18-bed inpatient unit, professional foster homes, a counseling center, and a respite program. He has also taught at Wheaton College in the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology (Parenting Evaluation Course), Trinity International University in undergraduate and graduate programs, and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology.

David is a leader with extensive experience designing, building, growing, and improving organizational systems, structures, and culture. Before coming to Safe Families, he worked for 35 years for Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru in the US). With graduate degrees in theology (MDiv. – Denver seminary), counseling (MA – Denver seminary), and business (MBA – MIT), he has served in a wide variety of roles and locations—as a youth pastor in San Francisco, leading Cru’s collegiate ministries at Marshall University and Colorado School of Mines, working as a hospital chaplain in Denver, and helping plant churches in the Middle East. Most recently David served as Campus Crusade for international CFO and Director of Global Shared Services. His broad experience, strong spiritual leadership, and both vision and passion for the mission, all add to the deep heart and skilled hands he brings. David grew up on the West Coast, mainly in Portland, Oregon. He and his wife have four adult children and now live in Orlando, Florida where he misses the West Coast regularly and enjoys cooking, rowing, fixing, and building. He first became acquainted with Safe Families when he and his wife hosted the parent of a child being hosted by close friends. He started with SFFC as SVP and COO in May 2022.

Jeff began working at SF five years ago doing Church Engagement in Chicago. Last year, he started working with the finance and HR teams. Prior to working at SF, Jeff’s career included various roles in owning and managing businesses. He has also served in church leadership volunteering, teaching, and leading ministries. Jeff is married and has three daughters. His family is a host family. Jeff has an MBA in finance/leadership/nonprofit management and doctoral work in ethical leadership.

Cheri joined Safe Families for Children (SFFC) in 2019 and brings a wealth of wisdom with over 25 years of experience in strategic communications, volunteer engagement, and public policy work. She has previously worked with other non-profit organizations such as Concerned Women for America, Proverbs 31 Ministry, and the North Carolina Family Policy Council to motivate change and transform communities through shared responsibility and collaborative efforts. Cheri is passionate about giving a voice to the underserved and supporting vulnerable parents so children can thrive and families can stay together. Cheri has a BA in Communications and graduate work in Organizational Leadership. She is the wife to Paul Jimenez and has two children, Emma Grace and Harrison.

Mr. Ortiz has extensive expertise in public agency program development, implementation, budgeting, and organizational change management. Mr. Ortiz served in Utah’s Human Service system and as Senior Policy Advisor for Governor Perdue of Georgia. After leaving public service, he joined the Annie E. Casey Foundation as Evidence-Based Practice Group Director. In 2013, Mr. Ortiz relocated to Moscow, Russia, where he developed and implemented a small business incubation project. He returned to the US in 2019 and began work at Safe Families for Children.

Nicole Zorn and her husband Aaron live in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin where along with their 7 children, they have served as a host family for 8 years. Nicole left her work as a public health nurse to start a small, local SF chapter in her community in July 2014. Since then, she has merged her team’s efforts with the Milwaukee office and built a statewide model of Safe Families for Children in WI. SFWI now has staff in 14 counties across the state and is made up of a team of 24 many gifted and passionate leaders working collaboratively to serve families across the state.