About Jonathan Frieman
Throughout his professional and personal career, Jonathan Frieman has striven to be an impassioned community advocate for a sustainable future. The older of two twins (sic), he was born with an acute hearing loss. Age and rock music now gives him a profound loss of 100db loss at 1000 Hz. He is aided very well with the latest technology and can sing and play guitar, but relies on lip-reading for almost 90% of his comprehension.
An early graduate of the University of Denver--his senior thesis attempted a phenomenological reduction of Noam Chomsky’s transformational grammar--Frieman went on to earn a Master's in Public Administration with a Concentration in Health Administration, also from the University of Denver, in1977.
In an attempt to heal his own body of Crohn’s Disease, which started when he was a teen and subject to ____, starting in 1980, Jonathan tried several alternative health practices which led him to train in the advanced hands-on bodywork disciplines of Aston-Kintetics, Upledger's Cranio-Sacral Therapy. He also trained up through the Master's level in Neuro-linguistic Programming. Frieman pursued a private practice in those for over ten years, as well as devoting time to local clinics to work with fibromyalgia patients.
In 1996 Frieman earned a Juris Doctorate from The New College School of Law. He then devoted time to the Homeless Advocacy Project in San Francisco and around that time he voluntarily went homeless in Los Angeles for a few nights to try to feel something of the experience that people who live outside undergo on a daily basis.
His drive for service led him to co-found several different non-profit corporations: the JoMiJo Foundation – a family foundation; Current Innovations – which aimed to generate complementary currencies which stay local; and the Center for Corporate Policy, an action-oriented think-tank based in D.C. The CCP addressed the legal structure of corporations in an attempt to compel large-scale corporations to invest in a sustainable future.
As vice president of the board of the California Clean Money Campaign, Frieman helped run two state-wide initiatives in 2006 and 2010 in an attempt to bring publicly funded campaigns to California. He is a past president of the board of Teen Talking Circles, located on Bainbridge Island; he has been president of the board of InSpirit, in Woodacre, CA, which raises funds to supplement IHSS payments for quadriplegics in Marin County, since 1998 or so, and is now the Executive Director; and in 2016 was Treasurer of the Business Improvement District in San Rafael, California. In 2015 he helped start New Beginnings Law Center, which concentrates on record expungement of misdemeanors heled by low income individuals. Around that time he was president of the Board of Trustees of the Marin County Public Law Library and co-founded its fundraising auxiliary, Friends of the Marin County Law Library, because more than half the patrons of the Law Library are self-represented litigants, rather than legal professionals.
Frieman also developed a growing expertise in fundraising for nonprofits since his entry into the field in the mid-80's. His proudest effort involved raising $1.5 million for Marin Clean Energy in 2010.
Also in the fall of 2010 he helped lead the fight to prevent Target Stores from establishing a major super discount store in San Rafael. Working with an extremely diverse and effective citizens group called Keep it Local San Rafael, the group engaged in the most divisive issue San Rafael has seen in decades. They lost by one vote at the city council level, and then ran a signature-gathering campaign for a referendum to overturn that decision. They fell less than 30 signatures of the 3000 needed, but were able to propagate a lawsuit. Frieman then crossed the aisle and worked closely with the opposition to bring a substantial donation of $250,000 to the city, which aided small businesses in downtown San Rafael in withstanding the economic pull of a super discount store.
In 2011, as secretary of the board of the Marin City Health and Wellness Center in Marin City, Frieman was instrumental in helping the Center acquire the status of being a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). That boosted the income of the Center from $350,000 to more than $1 million in one year, and the center now has several outlets and budget of more than $10 million.
Frieman was an assistant coach for San Rafael High School’s varsity football team, helping the wideouts and defensive backs develop their innate talent to become league leaders. He also coached and was a general manager of the Marin Pride, an unassociated minor league football team.
In 2020 he incorporated Youth Transforming Justice which started out 16 years before as the Marin Youth Court. He also co-founded E-Bike Access, which first focused on gaining access to Mt. Tam for all people who ride e-bikes. They now are also helping to pass legislation in Marin which would prevent kids under 16 from riding illegal Class 2 e-bikes.
He is an ardent autodidact in human prehistory. A fine amateur guitarist and decent singer, he writes music daily and grasped the advanced style of Michael Hedges. He learned bass guitar so he could play regularly with musicians in the Bay Area. He lives in San Rafael, California, and has an an overflowing collection of hats, cool shoes, and guitars.
For almost 50 years he has been an ardent follower of Neem Karoli Baba, an Indian saint. Love is Everything, and Everything is Love.