Stephanie Perkins Clifford

Stephanie is thrilled to join the University of Southern Maine Foundation as a Senior Major Gifts Officer. It’s truly a full circle moment for her to be working on the beautifully transformed Portland campus after earning her J.D. at the law school. She’s looking forward to connecting people, both old friends and new, to create meaningful opportunities for USM students to reach their full potential. 

She has deep family roots in Maine, with ancestors having worked the Maine coast and farmland for generations. After graduating from Duke University and spending two years working on Capitol Hill, she returned to Maine. Over the last thirty years, she’s lived in the Greater Portland area where she worked in the political and public policy arenas managing campaigns and directing public policy initiatives on the local, state and national levels. Her experience includes strategic planning, fundraising, communications, and community organizing. She was President of Baldacci Communications for ten years and also owned her own consulting firm. 

Her community involvement includes the Maine Women’s Lobby, Maine League of Women Voters (Youth Vote Project), Maine Suffrage Centennial, Guardian Ad Litem (CASA), Family Ice Center, Boys and Girls Club, Children’s Museum of Maine. And most recently she was an advisor for the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute where she mentored five high school girls for three years. 

She loves walking, reading, tennis, travel and spending time with her partner, family and friends. She has three adult children and one grandchild.