DBT40 Honoree: Tierra Fair

Title: Senior Director of Community Engagement

Workplace: United Way of Delaware

Age: 32

From volunteerism to public policy, Tierra Fair strives to live each day in service to others. As the senior director of community engagement at United Way of Delaware, Fair helps create the public and private partnerships that drive her organization’s success.

Fair rallies the support and resources communities need in order to make Delaware a better place. Her work, both professionally and personally, has positively impacted thousands of Delawareans.

COVID-19 hit nonprofits like United Way of Delaware hard, but it also revealed the true character of leaders. Fair made sure that families got the support they needed most, such as food, medicine and basic necessities. She was also able to offer a dozen teenagers their first-ever job and, on her personal time, supported the delivery of 5,000 masks and 200 pounds of food to those in need.

Fair, who was also named Miss Delaware Black America 2020, co-led the effort to raise over $2 million for Delaware nonprofits during the 2021 Do More 24 initiative – more than the previous six Do More 24 events combined. She also led the Delaware 21-Day Racial Equality Challenge team with over 8,000 virtual participants, a success that has prompted another year-long online challenge to raise awareness of systemic racism.

Fair started off with United Way of Delaware as a marketing and community relations professional before joining in this leadership role in 2019. Outside of work, she’s also helped revitalize the Delaware Racial Justice Collaborative and is a board member of the Charter School Accountability Committee, the Delaware Community Foundation’s Grants Committee and Spur Impact.

She is also an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and offers free martial arts (Fair is working now to earn her black belt in Goju Tai Jitsu) and physical fitness training to students in vulnerable populations.