Chris Patterson
Director of Crown Family Philanthropies
Chris Patterson serves as the inaugural Gun Violence Prevention Program Director at Crown Family Philanthropies (CFP), where he leads the foundation’s strategy and investments across community violence intervention, community policing, and gun policy reform.
Prior to joining CFP, Chris made history as the first formerly incarcerated person appointed by Governor J.B. Pritzker to serve in state government at this level. As Assistant Secretary at the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS)—second highest level for the state’s largest agency—he founded and launched the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention (OFVP). Established in 2021 with a $250 million budget, OFVP marked a first-of-its-kind effort to scale evidence-informed violence prevention strategies and invest directly in community-based organizations across Chicago and Illinois.
Before his work at the state level, Chris was one of five founding members of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago (INVC), which has since grown into one of the city’s leading community violence intervention organizations serving the West and South Sides.