Paul DelPonte

Career
Paul DelPonte a long-time communications professional and advocate. He is currently Executive Director of the National Crime Prevention Council, the organization most noted for the iconic McGruff the Crime Dog®. In that role, DelPonte has become a leading proponent of community solutions to reduce violent crime. DelPonte's career took an unexpected turn in 2016 when he came forward as a federal whistleblower and helped uncover millions of dollars in fraud in the Senior Community Service Employment Program by the now defunct organization Experience Works, Inc. DelPonte was one of only a handful of whistleblowers to receive full federal projection.
Public Relations Executive
DelPonte helped launch and lead two public relations firms. He was A co-founder of Hyde Park Communications, representing the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Oral Health America, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Health Professions and other clients. While at the firm, he produced an award-winning public service campaign with Morgan Freeman. The second was IssueSphere, part of Nelson Communications, Inc. There, he opened and grew Washington, DC office of the New York-based public affairs firm. He created a specialty practice focusing on headline-grabbing news including the release of landmark report, To Err is Human, by National Academy of Medicine which reported that tens of thousand of Americans die in hospitals each year as the result of medical errors. His first position at a public relations firm, Porter Novelli, quickly brought him industry recognition, winning PR Campaign of the Year. The effort featured using frozen chickens as bowling balls to point out the absurd logic of a U.S. Agriculture Department rule allowing deep-chilled poultry to be labeled fresh. The rule was changed as a result.
Nonprofit
Much of his formative public affairs work was developed working in the nonprofit sector. During the mid 1980s through the 1990s, he worked to establish the Alliance for Aging Research. There he developed a signature programs asking Americans if they wanted to live to be 100 years old, and launched a push to dramatically increase medical research to help people live longer, healthier lives, as way to reduced dependency on nursing homes. He would later head the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare Foundation and serve two terms as a Montgomery County, Md. commissioner on aging.
Early Career
While still finishing his undergraduate degree, he started as a press intern for California Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif) presidential campaign. While short-lived, DelPonte advance to assistant press secretary. After the senator dropped out of the presidential race, he began working in the hunger movement. First for WHY Hunger, the organization originally founded by popular singer Harry Chapin. After he became public relations director of the Food Research and Action Center. While at both organizations, he collaborated with USA for Africa, Hands Across America, and Comic Relief, to help the entertainment industry's effort to aid famine, hunger, and homelessness relief efforts.
Education
DelPonte received his bachelor's degree from The Catholic University of America, where he was president of the student government. He was also a community organizing fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Early Life
He was born in Providence, R.I. where he grew up in a predominantly Italian-American neighborhood before his family moved to suburb of Smithfield, where he graduated from high school. He was one of eight children of Armando and Livia DelPonte.

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