David S. Harrison is a senior lecturer emeritus at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. He taught policy analysis and nonprofit program design in the Evans School's Masters in Public Administration program. From 2011-2013, he served as chair of the Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.
Harrison's career has been devoted to creating bridges between the policymaking community, policy researchers, nonprofit organizations and citizens. He came to the Northwest in 1986 to found and direct the Northwest Policy Center, which for many years provided policy assistance on economic vitality issues to governmental leaders throughout the region. In 2003, Washington Governor Gary Locke named him chair of the Washington Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board. He was reappointed by Governor Christine Gregoire in 2005. In 2011, the workforce training system presented him with a lifetime achievement award.
Harrison holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the chair of the Bainbridge Island Land Trust and Washington Nonprofits, the nonprofit association of Washington State. In 2013, he, his wife Cynthia and five other community leaders from Seattle and Bainbridge Island founded Boomerang Giving, to devise new approaches to enable those over 65 to redirect or “Boomerang” their senior discounts for nonprofit support. The new organization has been called “a brilliant idea--- a fresh and inventive way to give back” by Marc Freedman, founder of Encore.org

David's message and story with Boomerang Giving is about a new way of giving back to non-profits; about caring, community engagement and having a positive social impact. People aged 65+ can voluntarily redirect discounts for which they can then support local activities as well as being effective philanthropists. Think goodwill on a personally manageable scale.

David also talks about where this initiative could be in five years with the possibility of "retirement registries and mortgage burning parties at which time people could consider how they might like to engage in positive giving opportunities.