Ms.Sally Pederson
DirectorJoined Northwest Area Foundation: July 2007
Sally Pederson is Vice Chair of the Northwest Area Foundation Board of Directors. She is Executive Director of the Iowa Initiative, a privately funded non-profit program aimed at reducing the high rate of unintended pregnancies among adult women 18 to 30.
Pederson served as lieutenant governor of Iowa from 1999 to 2007. During her time in office she led successful efforts to expand access to health care for children, require insurance coverage for mental illness and create 1,000 new units of affordable housing for people with disabilities.
In 1990 Pederson helped found The Homestead, a model living and learning center for Iowans with autism. She is a former trustee of Union Theological Seminary in NYC., former board member of the National Alliance for Autism Research (now Autism Speaks), and the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation.
She serves as founding chair of the advisory board for REACH: Realizing Education and Career Hopes at the University of Iowa, co-chair of Justice Not Politics, and serves on the advisory board of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Pederson is a Sister on the Planet ambassador for OxFam and an adjunct assistant professor of Global Health at Des Moines University. An enthusiastic fund-raiser, she has chaired successful campaigns for many charitable causes.
Pederson was a senior food editor of Better Homes & Gardens magazine and an executive for Meredith Corporation. She received a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University. Pederson and her husband, Jim Autry, have an adult son with autism.