Celebrating Candid’s first year with our social media followers

About the author

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  Suzanne Coffman (she/her)

  Editorial Director, Candid

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  As publisher of the Candid Blog and Candid Newsletter, Suzanne strives to give Candid’s stakeholders information to help them do good. As chief writing guru, grammar and style maven, and English usage referee, she works to help her colleagues communicate effectively.

  Suzanne followed a circuitous route to Candid. Each stop enabled her to strengthen her research, writing, and editing abilities. Early in her career, she was a research assistant and then historian at the U.S. Department of State. She left this position to undertake doctoral work in American history. As part of her doctoral program, she received formal editorial training at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History. After completing her doctoral exams, she was assistant editor at the Papers of John Marshall. From there, she moved to the Publications Department of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, where she served as associate editor and then editor/writer. In November 1999, she joined GuideStar, where she held a number of roles: web content coordinator, managing editor of the GuideStar website, director of communications, and editorial director. She retained the position of editorial director when GuideStar and Foundation Center joined forces in February 2019.

  Suzanne holds an A.B. in English and history from The College of William and Mary and an M.A. in American Civilization from The George Washington University. She abandoned her doctoral dissertation after a computer crash ate some of her research and led her to reevaluate her career goals. It was the right decision, but she regrets it.

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