Pastor Curtis Smith is the Executive Director of Faith in the Valley, a multi-racial grassroots organization of congregations, community members, students, and allies in five counties across California’s Central Valley. Pastor Curtis supports the organizing team in the organization’s core program of leadership formation around community organizing and civic engagement, amplifying the voices of historically excluded Central Valley residents, equipping them to tell their stories, build power, and act together for systems and policy change, rooted in advancing racial equity. He ensures that the experiences of those most impacted are driving change across a vast region that faces some of the greatest social, economic and environmental challenges in the nation.
Pastor Curtis has dedicated his entire career to building power and giving voice to young people, their families and overlooked, low-income communities vulnerable to crime and mass incarceration, and homelessness and poverty. He has led clergy and community teams in two cities to launch evidence-based models for violence reduction and has partnered with internationally recognized civic leaders to advance economic justice models in Central Valley towns including Stockton. He also supported his team in studying international models through the Global Policy Leadership Academy to learn about the most livable city in the world to create a roadmap for towns and cities in the Central Valley. As a Central Valley native, he brings deep knowledge and lived experience of the struggles local communities face and a statewide perspective as an anchor federation of the PICO California network.