President & CEO

Daniel O. Magnuson, MA, MSW

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Dan Magnuson has served as President and CEO of Pathfinders since 2003.  Pathfinders was founded in 1970 as a Milwaukee area not-for-profit human service organization which serves over 6,000 people annually by providing help for youth who are confronted by homelessness, sexual assault, and mental health challenges.

Dan has more than 30 years of leadership experience in human services at the national and local levels.  Prior to his current appointment, he served in executive leadership roles at the Alliance for Children & Families, a Milwaukee-based national nonprofit association serving 350 nonprofit organizations and 4 million people annually. He was founding president of Ways to Work, Inc., a sister organization to the Alliance which provides financial assistance to low income families in 20 states.  In the 1980s and early 1990s Dan served as CEO of a mental health center in New York.  For several years, he co-directed the Executive Leadership Institute, a joint educational initiative for senior leaders in human services sponsored by the Alliance and the University of Michigan’s graduate schools of social work and business.

Over the years, Dan has volunteered on many local and national councils dedicated to strengthening the quality of youth, family and community life, including the WI Association of Family Children’s Agencies, Boardstar, the Alliance’s Resource Development Services Advisory Committee, and the Editorial Board of the journal Families in Society.

Dan holds two masters degrees; a Masters of Social Work from Syracuse University and a Masters of Arts from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  He graduated from Carthage College in Kenosha and lives in Milwaukee, WI.