Following a two-month search, the West Marin Fund has announced a new executive director: Sarah Hobson of Inverness. Ms. Hobson will become the community foundation’s first full-time director, replacing Catherine Porter, who announced her resignation earlier this year. Ms. Hobson brings the experience of a career in community development that spanned the globe. She served as the executive director of the New Field Foundation, a San Rafael-based nonprofit that assists women’s organizations in West Africa, for 12 years, until 2015. Previously she worked as the executive director for the International Development Exchange, a San Francisco nonprofit that supports grassroots organizations in South Asia, Central America and Southern Africa. As a consultant for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a United Nations agency, in the 1980s, she established a local language literacy and communications project for Gambian women farmers. She said her global focus will benefit her local work in West Marin. “What’s key is that I’ve been fortunate to work with a big network of individuals and organizations outside of West Marin for over 18 years. I’ll be able to build upon this network,” she said. “I feel there’s a real interest among many institutions in the Bay Area that want West Marin to thrive.” Ms. Hobson, who spent her early life in England and Scotland, moved to Inverness in 2003. She served on the Dance Palace Community Center board from 2009 to 2014 and, for the past year, as the acting head of strategic grant-making for the Global Fund for Women. She said she was immediately interested in working with the West Marin Fund after a colleague sent her the job opening. She stressed the importance of building on the fund’s successful programs, such as the Giving Through Youth effort, which teaches philanthropy in West Marin schools, and the quarterly skill-building and networking workshops for nonprofit directors, known as ConFabs. She also plans to undertake a major campaign to bring in funding from donors outside West Marin. Harriet Moss, the chair of the fund’s board, said her colleagues felt strongly that whomever they brought on had to have a passion for West Marin, as well as be highly qualified to run a community foundation. “Ms. Hobson has lived in Inverness for 13 years, knows and loves the region and has extensive experience in running foundations. It was an unbeatable combination,” she said. The fund, established in 2010, has provided over $500,000 in small grants to over 60 coastal Marin nonprofits. It recently announced its latest round of donations: $63,000 to various organizations, including the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin, Saint Columba’s Retreat House and the West Marin Collaborative.