Who We Are

CONNA CRAIG, Co-founder and Board Chair

Conna Craig is a nationally recognized leader in foster care and adoption policy.

Her expertise is rooted in personal experience: she spent the first eight years of her childhood in foster care before being adopted by the Craig family, who cared for more than 100 foster children over four decades. She was the first in her family to attend college, graduating from Harvard with honors.

In 1993, Conna co-founded the Institute for Children (IFC) with the late John Blundell, director of London’s Institute of Economic Affairs. The IFC advised governors and the White House and produced the original "Assignment Adoption: A Home for Every Child" policy blueprint.

Conna was profiled in The Leader Within You by Robert Danzig as one of 34 Americans, including Nelson Rockefeller, Lee Iacocca, and Jack Welch, “who, together, define leadership.” In 1996, she received the first annual Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship, recognizing “extraordinary efforts by American citizens who are helping their communities solve problems the government has been unable to solve.”

Her published work includes “What I Need Is a Mom,” on foster care and adoption, published by Policy Review and Reader’s Digest, and “The State of the Children: An Examination of Government-Run Foster Care,” published by the National Center for Policy Analysis. She has appeared on CBS’s 48 Hours, CBS’s Up-to-the-Minute News, ABC’s Why Don’t the Kids Have a Voice? with John Stossel, C-SPAN, MSNBC News, and CNN.

After taking time away to spend with her mother, she returns to the think tank world with the State of the Children Project.

Conna is an experienced public speaker who has shared her story and vision for children before audiences totaling more than 30,000 people.

COL GREG WILSON, USA (RET.), Co-founder and Board Member

Greg brings over 28 years of distinguished service as a career Army Green Beret, complemented by extensive entrepreneurial experience within the defense sector. He believes every child is a gift from God and emphasizes that, just as soldiers are never left behind on the battlefield, every foster child deserves the same commitment to a loving family.

His military career is marked by leadership in diverse global humanitarian endeavors, including his pivotal involvement in the successful 2008 rescue operation of U.S. and Colombian hostages from a Colombian Rebel Group (FARC), providing lifesaving assistance to Kurdish refugees in Northern Iraq during the Gulf War as well as delivering medical aid, educational programs, and support to orphanages in regions impacted by conflict.

‍A graduate of West Point, Greg holds an M.S. in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), where he later served as Chair Professor for Special Operations. His research and publications focus on military deception, counterinsurgency, and identifying covert networks.

‍Greg lives in Monterey, California, with his wife Lori, and is a father to two children, Kerri and Scott, as well as a grandfather to Enzo.

DONALD A. THOMAS, JR., Co-founder and Board Member

Don Thomas has devoted much of his life to helping young people. A Stanford University graduate, he is a retired public school teacher who brought American history alive for his students. He is also a retired teaching pastor of Shine Church, and has spent more than 30 years teaching the Bible and counseling Christian leaders. Don received a Masters Degree in Education from Chapman University.