Dave Van Patten, MPA
President & CEO

Dave Van Patten 's unique set of visionary skills has been applied to creating restorative programs for prisoners, designing mentoring initiatives for at-risk youth, and building the organizational capacity of not for profit organizations. He founded Dare Mighty Things in 1991 as a conduit for implementing social change with breakthrough scale and effectiveness.

As President and CEO, Dave fosters relationships with key stakeholders and guides the life cycle of all client engagements. His expertise has been instrumental in the development of dozens of programs impacting hundreds of thousands of at risk children and adults in nearly every state and several countries of the world. Dave has received national accolades for program innovations in mentoring high risk populations, prisoner rehabilitation, new venture creation, and building faith-based organizations. He has authored numerous reports, articles, and books in these areas. He has also lectured at Harvard, Princeton, and other universities in social entrepreneurship, not-for-profit management, and volunteer management. Dave is a founder of the National Mentoring Institute, a founding member of the Federal Mentoring Council Working Group, and vice-chair of MENTOR's Research and Public Policy Council. He has served on the board of directors of a variety of nonprofit organizations and is an officer in the United States Coast Guard Reserves.

Dave received his bachelors of science in chemistry from the United States Coast Guard Academy. He earned his masters of public administration, with an emphasis in criminal justice and public/private finance, from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and also completed coursework at Harvard Business School. He and his family, which include his wife, Dana, and children Jessica, Seth, and Chelsi, enjoy adventure traveling. Most recently, their travels have taken them canoeing the Zambezi River, bungee jumping over Victoria Falls, sky diving in New Zealand, and riding Shires in the Scottish highlands.