William (Bill) J. Clark
President and Executive Director
Philabundance

As President and Executive Director of Philabundance, Bill Clark oversees the region’s largest hunger relief organization, which in 2006 distributed over 17 million pounds of food in the Delaware Valley.

A 30-year food industry professional, Clark is a relative newcomer to the nonprofit sector. His transition from business to nonprofit leadership was dramatic. Just weeks before joining Philabundance, he attended the America’s Second Harvest Conference on Hunger, which ended on September 11, 2001. By the time he officially arrived at Philabundance the following month, the organization had already mobilized to respond to the tragedy and the resulting downturn on the region’s economy. Within the year, despite the challenges, Philabundance saw a 35 percent increase in the amount of food delivered to area agencies. His tenure of running and expanding a mission-driven organization had begun.

In 2005, Clark oversaw the integration of Philabundance and the Greater Philadelphia Food Bank, which positioned Philabundance as the largest hunger relief organization in the region. That same year, Clark oversaw Philabundance’s response to the hurricane disaster that struck the Gulf Coast. Philabundance mobilized a massive community-wide effort that delivered approximately half a million pounds of food to the affected areas within a month of the disaster, making Philabundance and the Delaware Valley as the fourth largest Katrina contributor to the Gulf.

Bill Clark has been committed to applying innovative business strategies to help expand Philabundance’s ability to respond in an ever challenging economic environment.  He has encouraged the use of financial analysis and reporting processes to make the organization more cost efficient and more effective. Clark developed an indexing system known as Quality Adjusted Statistical Pounds (QASP), to measure the quality value of the product Philabundance distributes based on the on nutritional and economic benefit to the clients being served. Philabundance now measures performance by the quality and the quantity of food delivered.

Through his extensive business and entrepreneurial expertise, Clark has invigorated Philabundance’s growth and mission. Some of his accomplishments include diversifying sources of funding for Philabundance and reducing the organization’s dependence on fundraising revenue from 95 to 65 percent, while bringing in new revenue through the Philabundance Community Kitchen, which provides approximately 500,000 heat-and-serve meals to shelter programs throughout the region.

In an effort to advance the interests of Philabundance and the hunger issue in the Delaware Valley, Clark has served on the National Affiliate Council, a policy guidance group for America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s Food Bank Network, as well as serving on the Executive Committee for the Eastern Region of America’s Second Harvest.

Bill Clark’s experience in the food industry is extensive and he has served as senior product manager at Swift & Company, a director of marketing for Land O’ Frost, Inc, and a consulting partner at Resources, Inc., a Chicago-based marketing and new product firm where he implemented corporate branding initiatives for several clients including Beatrice Foods, Keebler, and ConAgra Foods.

In 1984, Clark founded his own food manufacturing company, W. J. Clark and Co. that produced and marketed five lines of specialty foods. From a start-up operation in his basement, he eventually grew the company to over 75 employees. In 1996, Clark sold his interests to a large national food company. He then worked as an independent consultant to a number of marketing firms until becoming the assistant to the president of W. Atlee Burpee Company, the country’s oldest and most prestigious seed and garden supply company. While there, he re-engineered the company’s organizational structure and marketing strategy and fortified the core wholesale business with an enhanced array of product and line offerings.

Bill Clark is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance with a BS degree in Economics. He and his wife Cindy Dell Clark live in Villanova, Pa.