While working for Sherman Winn, a Brooklyn-born Democrat with a 30-year political career in Florida’s state legislature representing Miami, Nancy Parrish saw firsthand how policies could silence voices and how laws could be used to combat injustice. From that experience, she found her calling in politics. Rather than running for office herself, Parrish excelled behind the scenes as a political consultant, strategist, adviser, and operative for Southern Democrats, including the Carters and both Clintons.

In the mid-1990s, Parrish retired from her political consulting firm in Georgia, relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, and shifted her focus more toward philanthropy. She worked with several organizations dedicated to supporting disadvantaged children and co-founded a Northern California chapter of Human Rights Watch, where she and her family resided. Upon learning about Terry Odom, a Navy and Army veteran who had been raped by a superior officer and left for dead, she uncovered that many servicewomen had suffered sexual assault and rape, often followed by responses that further humiliated and dismissed them. Motivated by this, she took immediate action.

In 2011, Parrish established Protect Our Defenders to rally hundreds of service members and veterans to raise awareness among lawmakers about their experiences of assault and the additional harm caused by the military system. She collaborated with then-U.S. Representative Jackie Speier of California, who began delivering speeches on the House floor about military sexual assault and worked on introducing legislation aimed at reforming the system.

In 2014, Robert Draper of The New York Times described Protect Our Defenders as “the nation’s leading advocacy organization for victims of sexual assault in the military.” For her efforts with the organization, Parrish received the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage in 2016. In December 2022, Protect Our Defenders achieved a landmark legal reform for the U.S. military, the largest employer worldwide, when top Democratic and Republican lawmakers agreed to remove military commanders from most prosecution decisions in cases involving rape, sexual assault, murder, manslaughter, and kidnapping. Nevertheless, Protect Our Defenders remains committed to advocating for further protections.

Parrish also served two terms as a development trustee on UCSF’s Friends of the Department of Psychiatry Hospital Board, contributing to the establishment of a children’s center. Additionally, she held the position of Chair at the Ringling Museum and served as Vice President of the Children’s Guardian Fund Board in Sarasota, supporting efforts to meet the basic needs and improve the lives of foster children.