Peggy Kidd, A Lifetime Mission Helping People

By Abe Ordover

SDSVP Executive Director Peggy Kidd has dedicated her life to a personal, spiritual mission to be of help to people and communities. Her deep sense of purpose comes from observing at close hand and being amidst some of the catastrophes of humankind. She came from these experiences with a profound sense of purpose.

Peggy received her B.S. in Marketing from Miami University of Ohio, where she spent her junior year studying abroad. After college, she moved to San Diego to work on a cruise ship as black jack dealer. Following her Fun Ship experience, she decided to get serious about her career and launched into the corporate world. She served as Marketing Director for a small agency, then accepted a position leading a division of a consumer based research firm and then was lured to the client side by working at Jenny Craig International as Director of Marketing Research, supervising clinical trials and working with the advertising and creative teams.

To find balance in her life, Peggy started volunteering as a “big sister” for an abused little girl, whom she still helps today. The impact that one person can have on the life of another convinced her of the importance of giving back.

Then, life abruptly changed for her in 1999. Knowing that she wanted to give back, she traveled Africa to work with AIDS orphans in Kikuyu and Capetown. However, while traveling to Uganda to track the Mountain Gorillas, she was awakened one morning at 5am by the sounds of people quietly lurking in the camp. Frightened, she rationalized it away as “irrational fear”, although, she quickly packed up her things and fled. An hour later, the Hutu rebels invaded her camp, burned all the tents and kidnapped the tourists, eventually slaying eight of her friends.

As a survivor, she came to feel deeply that she must devote her life to helping others. Her mission to work for nonprofits matured. After returning to San Diego, she decided to leave corporate America for the nonprofit world and accepted a position at Family Literacy Foundation as their Executive Director. Feeling as if she found her purpose, she recalls thinking, “I would do this for free. I’m just lucky to get paid for it.”

Feeling that desire once more to work with the 3rd world population, Peggy lived in Brazil for a year working with the street children in the ghettos, a crime ridden, drug culture where life was cheap and murder abundant. “That was the most challenging experience of my life”, Peggy recalls. “I was teaching the kids English and other life skills, yet they really needed survival skills. They knew once the center closed at night, they’d need to fight in order to make it to the next day.” After a few narrow escapes with her own life, she decided to settle back down in the burbs of San Diego and tackle some of the challenges kids face right here in our community. Moving from the Board of TKF to staff, as Executive Director, she worked to implement violence prevention programs with San Diego City Schools.

In 2006, she started a private consulting practice assisting nonprofit organizations in building their capacity. This led her to SDSVP, which ultimately hired her as its Executive Director. Peggy believes SDSVP is the perfect fit for her –blending her passion for nonprofits and the strategic aspect of business. She’s excited about the impact that SDSVP is making on the community: “if any group in San Diego is going to make a significant change, it’s going to be SDSVP. Our Partners have the intellect, the passion and the resources to make it happen.”