Donald L. Hense
Chairman & Founder
Donald L. Hense, longtime executive director of the Friendship House social service agency, is a founder of Friendship Public Charter School. Donald serves as chairman of the Center for Youth and Family Investment, which provides extended learning programs to more than 2,000 children daily. He also co-founded the Bridges to Friendship Initiative, which spurred the Navy Yard revitalization and was recognized by Vice President Al Gore as a model community initiative.
Donald has served as vice president of the National Urban League, director of development of the Children’s Defense Fund, and director of governmental relations at Howard University, Boston University and Dartmouth College. He is a board member of the Center for Education Reform and the D.C. Arts and Humanities Collaborative and is treasurer of the D.C. Association of Charter Schools. In 2011, Donald was inducted into the National Charter Schools Hall of Fame.
Donald received his B.A. from Morehouse College and attended graduate school at Stanford University. He was a Rockefeller intern in economics at Cornell University, a Merrill scholar at the University of Ghana, a Ford Foundation fellow at Stanford University and a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.
Patricia A. Brantley
Chief Executive Officer
Patricia A. Brantley is an education reformer, charter school advocate and supporter of the right of all children to receive a high-quality education. Two decades ago, she served with the founding planners of Friendship Public Charter School to create better opportunities for D.C.’s children.
In 2003, Patricia became Friendship’s chief operating officer. In that role, she engineered the acquisition and development of six public charter school campuses in Washington, D.C., four partner schools in Baltimore, Md., and a new charter school in Baton Rouge, La.
Patricia oversees all operations at Friendship, has secured more $95 million in public and private funding, effected cohesion among the 12 campuses, and established the Friendship Teaching Institute as a model of professional development. She spearheaded the takeover of Washington’s first multicampus charter management group, ensuring that hundreds of children could remain in their school of choice.
Previously, Patricia served in corporate and nonprofit positions including founder of the Partnership for Academic Achievement; chief development officer and adviser at the National Council of Negro Women; executive director of the Dance Institute of Washington; and national marketing manager for the Black Family Reunion Celebration. She is a board member of the D.C. Association of Chartered Public Schools and a graduate of Princeton University.