Danielle Reiff

I’ve been a peacebuilder in my soul for as long as I can remember and a mom for the past twelve years. I had my son so that I would have a partner in making the world a better place.

I’ve been a professional peacebuilder for more than two decades. As the word ‘peace’ increasingly appeared on my resume, I learned different peacebuilding approaches.

After college, I started out as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in the country of Burkina Faso. I was the first female teacher the students in my host village had ever seen. One boy called me “mister” the entire school year. I once taught my francophone students the lyrics to Bob Marley’s “Get Up Stand Up [For Your Rights]”. It was fun to watch the light bulbs go on in their heads as they understood the song and the concept of human rights for the first time.

When I returned to the U.S., I got a job at the United Nations (UN) in New York City at a time when the global peacebuilding paradigm was emerging under the leadership of Secretary General Kofi Annan. I was working there during the Millennium General Assembly in 2000, as well as when the UN won the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. I was in my UN office when the events of September 11 began to unfold.

From there, I won a Rotary Peace Fellowship to complete a Masters degree in International Relations and Peace Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, France. My favorite days were when I walked past Notre Dame Cathedral on my way to and from class.

After graduate school, I joined the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and spent twenty years promoting democracy, human rights, and peace around the world as an American diplomat. In 2022, our work was recognized with a Charles T. Manatt Democracy Award.

In recent years, I have turned my focus to violence prevention and peacebuilding in my own country of the United States. I promote nonviolence and unity in diversity as core values for countering rising polarization and hatred.

I currently serve on the Board of Directors for Grannies Respond, a non-profit that supports asylum seekers in the U.S., and Everyday Peace Indicators, an organization that leads communities in dialogue to understand what peace means for them.

I’m also leading Peacebuilders, and I want to work with you.

Peacebuilders unite!