Our People

Yasmeen Ajdari is a program assistant on the Managed Organizations team. In this role, she provides financial, administrative, and operational support to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, all 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Yasmeen’s portfolio includes projects concerning climate reform, women’s rights, and political advocacy.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Yasmeen was a Teach For America corps member in the Baltimore region working with stakeholders such as school administrators and regional business advisory boards to generate grant proposals for the donation of laptops. During her time in the classroom, she was granted a two-year contract with TutorMate, a program that provides one-on-one tutoring sessions for students below grade level in core subjects with tutors from Under Armour, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley, as well as membership into the Baltimore Business Advisory Board. More recently, Yasmeen worked on staff for Teach For America as an operations director for the Philadelphia institute team, planning the logistics and operations behind large-scale projects and systems, including the distribution of national curricula, subject specific handouts, and classroom materials for over 500 corps members and thousands of students in the Philadelphia area.

Yasmeen graduated summa cum laude from Catholic University in Washington, DC with a BS in philosophy pre-law. While in college, she interned at the US Environmental Protection Agency and was the captain of the women’s lacrosse program. She also holds a master’s in the science of education, with distinct honors, from Johns Hopkins University and is currently pursuing her MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Yasmeen is originally from Bethesda, Maryland.

Makkah Ali is an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. In this role, she provides operational support to a diverse portfolio of innovative social sector projects and liaises with philanthropic partners to develop, structure, and maximize the impact of these projects. Her portfolio covers a range of social issues, including education, the environment, and civil rights.

Makkah joined Arabella with nearly a decade of experience in nonprofit management and philanthropy. She previously served as grants manager at the El-Hibri Foundation (EHF), a philanthropic institution focused on building the capacity of American Muslim nonprofit leaders. At EHF, Makkah developed grant-making priorities, managed grantee relationships, oversaw implementation of the annual grants cycle, and designed and implemented programs focused on advancing inclusive norms, building nonprofit organizational capacity, and organizing communities to catalyze social change. Prior to joining EHF, Makkah served as a mediator at Meridian Institute, where she designed and implemented collaborative decision-making processes for leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Makkah is a fellow of the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute, president of the board of directors for the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, and co-host and executive producer of the Identity Politics podcast. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and holds a master’s in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.

Tasha Babiarz is the special assistant to Arabella’s founder and principal, Eric Kessler. She works out of the Washington, DC office to support Arabella’s business development initiatives, manage Eric’s day-to-day operations, draft client communications, and conduct research. In addition, she plays an integral role in supporting the launch of Arabella’s new Good Food practice.

Prior to joining Arabella, Tasha served as the staff and executive assistant for US Representative John Carney (D-DE). Tasha began her time in Congressman Carney’s office during her senior year of college as an intern supporting the staff with office administration and constituent services. Upon graduation, she returned to Congressman Carney’s office to serve Delaware constituents in a greater capacity. Her responsibilities included overseeing the congressman’s internship program, administering and responding to constituent mail, and managing his Washington, DC office.

Tasha has a BA in political science from James Madison University, where she also minored in music. In her spare time, Tasha instructs swim lessons for children and adults.

Susan Baedorf joins Arabella Advisors as a senior human resources associate on the Culture and Talent team. Her work includes onboarding new employees, administering payroll and benefits, auditing employee information and benefits to ensure accuracy with vendors, and reconciling pension payments with the Finance team. Susan strives to uphold the firm’s commitment to providing exception HR services and complying with all applicable employment and benefits laws and regulations.

Susan has 20 years of experience with benefits, payroll, and finance—taking on increasingly complex roles throughout her career. In her most recent position prior to joining Arabella, Susan was responsible for administering the benefits (including health and welfare, 401(k), and pension) and was the point person on the Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution audits.

Susan received her MBA from the University of Phoenix. She enjoys spending time with her husband, playing golf, and traveling.

Gabriella Barrow is a grants manager on the Managed Organizations team. She provides operational, programmatic, and financial support to a portfolio of clients and projects hosted at the New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund. Gabriella successfully manages her portfolio by developing, processing, and executing grants and contracts, along with reporting on their financial progress.

Gabriella has four years of experience working in philanthropy. Prior to joining Arabella, Gabriella worked with a community foundation focused on creating economic security for all residents of the Washington, DC metropolitan region. There she managed donor-advised and designated funds focused on supporting workforce development, housing advocacy, youth enrichment, educational initiatives, and other issues. Gabriella cultivated and maintained donor relationships by managing grant-making processes, facilitating advisory board meetings, researching issues on behalf of donors, and providing other kinds of support. With her assistance, one fund successfully granted a total of $125,000 to five organizations, helping over 900 individuals gain education, support services, technical certifications, and the soft-skills training necessary to gain and maintain employment, moving them closer to personal economic security.

Gabriella holds a BA in peace and conflict studies from Colgate University and an MPA with a concentration in nonprofit management from the Andrew Young School of Public Policy at Georgia State University.

Alexandra Bass is an associate director at Arabella. She works with Arabella’s institutional and corporate clients to provide strategic guidance on program implementation and evaluation. With extensive methodological training and a background in social and political theory, she designs and implements research tailored to address each client’s distinct challenges and identify opportunities to enhance their impact.

Her current work includes conducting research to monitor and evaluate client-funded fellowship programs through which fellows become leaders and policy champions on global development issues. She is also guiding work to develop strategies funders can use to address systemic socio-political problems, such as mass incarceration in the United States. Alexandra is particularly interested in developing evaluative methods that both produce objective data and enrich the capacity of communities and organizations to continue developing self-knowledge through evaluation.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Alexandra was a social scientific researcher, advisor, and educator in diverse settings. She instructed graduate courses in social theory and methods at the University of Chicago. As a development consultant for the nonprofit Forest Preserve Foundation, she supported initiatives to make nature more accessible to all communities, and particularly youth, in the Chicagoland area. As a market researcher, she managed and executed a wide range of consumer insights research projects.

Alexandra has a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, where she concentrated on environmental politics and public opinion. She received her MA in political science from the University of Chicago and has a BA in political science and psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As a director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, Krista Batey supports Arabella’s managed nonprofits, primarily the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. In this role, she partners with clients—including philanthropists, foundations, and social entrepreneurs—to design and structure their projects to maximize impact. She also oversees a diverse portfolio of public interest projects focused on international development, global health, and social justice issues. Krista has a background in grant making and 12 years of experience in the philanthropic sector. She is passionate about designing and promoting effective grant-making practices and enjoys working with clients to develop customized, grant processes that align with their values, goals, and mission.

Before coming to Arabella, Krista worked as a program officer at the American Medical Association Foundation, where she managed 10 grant programs, led initiatives to increase stakeholder engagement in the organization’s grant making, and developed partnerships with aligned organizations to launch new programs. During her six years at the Rotary Foundation, Krista designed and piloted a new grant program to fund sustainable, higher-impact projects, managed a portfolio of grants in 20 countries, and trained Rotary leaders in English and Spanish.

Krista is a member of PEAK Grantmaking, a national association of professionals who specialize in grants management, and she guest-edited its online journal issue on intermediaries. She has also presented at the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors Annual Conference. She has a BA in Spanish and international relations from Knox College and an MS in public service management from DePaul University.

Jordana Belke is an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She oversees a diverse portfolio of projects and helps clients achieve their charitable goals by providing operational, financial, and human resources support. Her projects span a range of public interest areas, including gun violence prevention, education, and youth justice. While at Arabella, Jordana has developed a specialization in managing and structuring donor collaboratives.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jordana oversaw planning, evaluation, and improvement at a FEGS Health and Human Services program that helped youth in the South Bronx re-engage in education and the workforce. In this role, she managed a portfolio of 25 private and government grants and oversaw all grant reporting and compliance. In addition, Jordana was responsible for all program evaluation and data visualizations, as well as budget management.

Jordana began her career as a social worker working with children and adolescents. She worked one-on-one with youth in foster care and/or the juvenile justice system, pregnant and parenting youth, and homeless youth. With a background in direct service, Jordana played many different roles in the social service field, including managing a Social Innovation Fund program through the New York City Mayor’s Office and the Center for Economic Opportunity. She is passionate about social innovation, especially as it relates to programs for young people.

Jordana earned a BA in education from Colgate University and is a licensed social worker with an MSW from Columbia University.

Hal Berger is an operations assistant on the Managed Organizations team. His primary task is to provide support for the boards of directors of Arabella’s managed nonprofits, such as the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Hal works closely with the boards and their support staff on everything from compliance to logistical planning. In addition to supporting the boards of directors, Hal assists with administrative responsibilities within Arabella, such as planning professional retreats and workshops.

Prior to joining Arabella, Hal worked for NCC Media in its political advertising department, where he drafted daily advertising spending reports for relevant agencies. He has also worked for the Georgia Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit in his home state. In that role, he worked in the business development department, as well as assisted with environmental advocacy efforts at the Georgia State Capitol. He also served as chief of staff for the 2018 International Model NATO conference, which is a personal passion.

Hal graduated summa cum laude from Kennesaw State University in 2017 with a BA in international affairs with a concentration in international relations and diplomacy. In his free time, he is an avid history buff who enjoys traveling to historical places, building and painting various projects, reading, boxing, and volunteering at a local animal rescue.

Jeremy Bernton is a director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He provides support to Arabella’s managed nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Jeremy manages a diverse portfolio of impactful public interest projects primarily focused on civil rights, health, and social and economic justice.

Jeremy brings diverse experience working at the intersection of campaigns, advocacy and engagement, operations, politics, and policy. Prior to joining Arabella, Jeremy served as the deputy director of logistics for the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, providing strategic direction and management oversight for a department of over 65 staff and consultants responsible for credentials, housing, transportation, security, and convention center operations. Jeremy spent the four previous years in the Obama administration, serving as director of outreach and recruitment in the White House Presidential Personnel Office and as advisor to the Bureau for Europe and Eurasia at the US Agency for International Development. He previously spent five years at the Democratic National Committee in a variety of roles.

Jeremy earned his JD from the Georgetown University Law Center and his BA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Cara Binder is a director on Arabella’s Philanthropy Management team, specializing in individual and family philanthropy. She partners with donors to build and implement grant-making strategies across a wide breadth of issues, including racial justice, civic engagement, immigration, early education, mental health, and the arts. In addition to providing strategic advice, she supports donors in governance and operations planning to navigate complex transitions and make the most of all internal resources. She oversees a team of individuals who support the firm’s work with families and individuals.

Prior to joining Arabella, Cara was a program officer at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development for the City and County of San Francisco. In this role, Cara co-authored San Francisco’s first citywide strategic plan for workforce development. She also directly managed several public-private partnerships for programs focusing on LGBTQ, homeless, and immigrant populations. Previously, Cara worked at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, where she supported grant-making portfolios both internationally and locally, with a focus on reproductive health, youth development, basic needs, and organizational effectiveness. She also oversaw communications, grants management, and monitoring and evaluation projects at the foundation.

Cara holds a master of public administration from the University of San Francisco, where she graduated with high honors. She also holds a BA in journalism with a specialization in social justice from Michigan State University.

Liz Birnbaum is senior counsel and director of advocacy at Arabella. She works with the general counsel to ensure legal compliance and provide expert guidance to the firm and the nonprofit organizations it manages on a broad cross-section of tax, legislative, and regulatory issues. With more than three decades of experience in public policy litigation and advocacy, Liz specializes in lobbying and political compliance and reporting matters, but she also has a range of expertise in legal issues surrounding corporate management.

Liz came to Arabella from the law firm Klamp & Associates, P.C., a boutique practice supporting the legal needs of the nonprofit community. There, she provided legal advice to a broad range of nonprofits of all sizes and types, including local charities, international multi-chapter advocacy organizations, trade associations, and academic societies. In that work, Liz is proud to have assisted with the founding of several new nonprofits. In her spare time, she serves as the president of one of those new nonprofits, Alexandria Harmonizers Inc., a corporation supporting the community work of a 70-year-old men’s barbershop chorus.

Much of Liz’s career has focused on natural resources law and policy, including several years as vice president for government affairs and general counsel at American Rivers. She also spent 10 years working for House committees on Capitol Hill and had two stints in senior positions at the US Department of the Interior. She holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. Liz is a member of the DC and Colorado bars, as well as the bars of several federal courts.

Bruce Boyd joined Arabella Advisors as a principal and senior managing director in 2007 after spending 20 years building and leading for-profit and nonprofit ventures. Bruce is based in Chicago and has worked with Arabella’s individual, family, foundation, and corporate clients, helping them to effectively and efficiently deploy philanthropic and investment capital. Those engagements have focused on strategic planning, due diligence, program development, implementation, and evaluation of impact. Bruce has worked on regional, national, and international projects stretching across a range of issues, including community development, human rights, education, and the environment.

In addition to his work at Arabella, Bruce serves as an advisor to the New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund, and on the board of the Windward Fund—all 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsors and grant-making intermediaries often used by Arabella clients. Bruce also serves on the boards of the Morrison Family Foundation, Forefront, and his own family’s foundation. He writes and speaks widely about philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

Prior to joining Arabella, Bruce served for 13 years as a senior manager at the Nature Conservancy, where he led the Illinois Program, the Upper Mississippi River Project, and the four-continent Great Rivers Partnership. He is also a former member of the board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Opportunity International, and the Merit School of Music in Chicago. Bruce started his career in law but left legal practice to buy a manufacturing company out of bankruptcy, which he ran and later sold to a Fortune 500 company.

Bruce graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College, earned his law degree from the University of Chicago, and studied business at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Rachel Brinkers is the associate director of payroll on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She leads payroll and its related processes and functions across all of the nonprofits organizations that Arabella manages, including managing all associated systems, technology, and resources; leading system improvement initiatives; and providing expert guidance on payroll-related matters. In addition, she manages multi-stakeholder initiatives to ensure the payroll function is consistently delivered to clients in a manner that is timely, efficient, accurate, and compliant in every state.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Rachel spent over four years in client services at Celergo Global Payroll. There, she consulted diverse clients, including nonprofits, to simplify their global payroll experience and ensure employees were paid accurately and in compliance with local standards. She was the team lead for enterprise accounts, improving service delivery processes, facilitating new payroll implementations, and managing HRIS and payroll software integration projects. Rachel was also a supervisor of client services for one and a half years and coached team members to successfully manage their client workloads, collaborated cross-functionally to make strategic resourcing decisions, and executed the department’s onboarding program.

Rachel is fluent in Spanish and previously spent nearly two years working and volunteering in Lima, Peru. She has a BS in business administration from the University of Evansville and an MBA with a concentration in entrepreneurship from Loyola University Chicago.

Rod Broady is an accounting manager on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He is responsible for maintaining the general ledger, overseeing the financial reporting process for the nonprofit organizations that Arabella manages, supporting financial audits, preparing Form-990s, and ensuring compliance with federal grant reporting requirements. Rod provides technical accounting and operational guidance to a portfolio of public interest projects. Rod also looks for ways to make his team more efficient and streamline processes to enhance internal controls, as well as ensure the quality and accuracy of financial data.

During his tenure at Arabella, Rod has assisted in the coordination and ongoing management of the monthly financial close process and has led the planning and preparation of financial statement audits for the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. He also helped to clarify and improve his team’s policies and procedures in order to streamline internal controls and improve operational efficiency. Rod is particularly interested in helping Arabella become a model for other fiscal sponsors looking to establish sound financial practices.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Rod worked for six years for two public accounting firms. Throughout his public accounting career, Rod managed, planned, and supervised financial statement audits several industries, including the nonprofit sector and health care. He has also developed significant expertise in auditing organizations that receive federal funds. In addition, Rod served as a career coach and mentor while leading internal office trainings for colleagues on various topics such as audit planning, testing internal controls, utilizing substantive procedures, and testing journal entries.

Rod has an MS and a BS in accounting from the University of South Carolina. He is a certified public accountant in South Carolina and Virginia.

Lily Brown is a program manager on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella. She provides operational, programmatic, financial, and business development support for hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) managed by Arabella.

Prior to joining Arabella, Lily worked as an AmeriCorps VISTA Leader at Housing Action Illinois, where she was responsible for managing a team of 17 VISTAs across the state. While with Housing Action Illinois, Lily developed a recruitment strategy for new host sites and new VISTA members, and developed and maintained new tools to keep the team of VISTAs connected. Previously, Lily served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at the DART Organizer’s Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, where she identified student leaders across the country, developed a social media strategy, analyzed organizational capacity, and conducted one-on-one sessions with community leaders.

Lily volunteers as an ESL tutor at Howard Area Community Center and as a family-to-family teacher with NAMI-Greater Chicago. She graduated magna cum laude from Ohio University with a dual degree in world politics and Spanish with an Alternative Educator’s License.

Molly Burchfield is an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She oversees a diverse portfolio of projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. In this role, Molly helps donors achieve greater impact through implementation of innovative philanthropy. She manages a variety of projects, including domestic and international grant-making focused on global health and development.

Prior to joining Arabella, Molly served as a director of fundraising and development at Orr Associates Inc. (OAI), a consulting firm to the nonprofit sector. At OAI, Molly worked with dozens of nonprofit organizations to advance their fundraising strategies, engage leadership, and develop comprehensive approaches to strengthening infrastructure. As a director, Molly worked on a broad range of projects in the areas of campaign planning and implementation, strategic planning, and event management.

Molly graduated cum laude from Bucknell University with degrees in political science and Spanish.

Briana Burroughs is a program associate on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides financial, compliance, programmatic, and operational support to a diverse array of social impact projects within the New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund, both 501(c)(3) public charities managed by Arabella. Her portfolio focuses on civic engagement and advocacy.

Prior to joining Arabella, Briana managed over 90 service and social justice projects and a team of 15 student coordinators as the coordinator of Dwight Hall at Yale University. She also oversaw the 501(c)(3)’s $1 million annual budget as a full-time undergraduate. During her time at Dwight Hall, Briana built out university-wide volunteer programs that engaged thousands of students in the New Haven community.

Previously, Briana implemented community outreach programs and educational campaigns at the United States and Greater New Haven Chambers of Commerce. She has interned with Mastercard’s corporate social responsibility team and participated in Salesforce’s sales development training program.

Briana graduated from Yale University with a BA in American studies with a concentration in urban history and politics. In Chicago, Briana works as a freelance writer and community advocate, focusing on underreported issues that directly affect Southside neighborhoods.

Arianna Calderon is an associate on Arabella’s Philanthropy Management team, where she provides strategic grant-making, due diligence, grants management, and administrative support for family and individual clients. Arianna has worked with foundation and individual clients that support international human rights, educational equity, secondary education, animal welfare, and chronic disease research and treatment. Recently, she worked with family clients to help establish and manage the inaugural year of an endowed philanthropic prize in the medical field. She also helped a foundation client refine and implement a grant-making strategy in educational advocacy and social-emotional learning in postsecondary education.

Prior to joining Arabella, Arianna held multiple roles with Global Brigades, an international nonprofit based in Panama City, Panama. As a program assistant for its Environmental Program, she worked with a local team and student volunteers to promote sustainable agriculture solutions for rural communities. Later, she worked as a program associate on the community development team—the organization’s monitoring and evaluation arm—where she helped implement new monitoring systems and designed and implemented a community feedback survey for the organization’s community partners. Prior to that, she interned at the United States Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam with the US Commercial Service, where she provided economic research and support to the Lead Commercial Counselor.

Arianna holds a BA in economics with minors in global studies and Latin American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is certified in Foundant Technologies online grants management software.

Adam Carrico is a staff accountant on Arabella Advisors’ finance team. He is responsible for a variety of accounting functions, including managing the accounts receivable process, coordinating investment activity schedules, providing assistance on the firm’s annual tax return, and maintaining financial records for the firm’s family foundation clients.

Prior to joining Arabella, Adam served as the US director of finance and operations for Fabretto Children’s Foundation, a nonprofit working to improve education and nutrition among low-income populations in Nicaragua. In this role, he was responsible for managing all US financial responsibilities, including annual audits, financial reporting, and budgeting, as well as operational tasks related to the foundation’s corporate 501(c)(3) status.

Adam holds an MPA with a focus on nonprofit management from Syracuse University, as well as a BS in business economics from the University of Kentucky. Additionally, Adam serves as the treasurer for Punk Talks, a nonprofit that aims to provide mental health services to musicians as well as advocate for self-care. Adam’s hobbies include attending as many concerts as possible and expressing his love for his home state of Kentucky.

Dana Castillo is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. She provides operational, financial, and administrative support for a portfolio of projects hosted within the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Her projects focus on education, advocacy, and conservation.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Dana worked as a policy associate at Women Employed, where she led the organization’s advocacy strategy in support of the Illinois Monetary Award Program, which provides grants to Illinois college students who demonstrate financial need. Additionally, while at Women Employed, Dana worked with community-based organizations in Chicago to implement a career exploration curriculum in their English as a second language and adult basic education classrooms, and workforce programs. Developed in partnership with City Colleges of Chicago, the curriculum was designed to help adult students with low literacy and numeracy skills transition to postsecondary education and obtain a degree or credential of economic value.

Dana is passionate about education, racial and economic equity, and social justice. She earned her MA in social work with a concentration in social service administration, and a BA in English from the University of Chicago. Dana volunteers with the Community Writing Project, facilitating writing workshops for adults in marginalized communities.

Alysha Catalano is a senior analyst on Arabella’s Consulting team. Working out of the firm’s San Francisco office, she works with family, corporate, and institutional clients on a range of projects, including developing grant-making strategies, implementing and evaluating programs, and overseeing donor collaboratives to advance common goals. Her recent work includes managing a major education initiative to support teacher development across the country, and supporting a nationwide collaborative of funders in their efforts to improve early childhood education systems and outcomes. Though her portfolio is wide-ranging, much of her work at Arabella has focused on education.

Prior to joining Arabella, Alysha held numerous fundraising roles in the nonprofit sector. Most recently, she was responsible for strategy and project management, with a focus on communications and events, at a San Francisco-based nonprofit that works to prevent child abuse and reduce its devastating impact. There, she managed events and maximized fundraising potential by implementing a new corporate sponsorship strategy that resulted in record-breaking fundraising levels.

Alysha graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a BA in sociocultural linguistics. She is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In her spare time, Alysha serves on the Young Professionals Council of Project Open Hand, an organization focused on using food as medicine to heal the critically ill and elderly in the Bay Area community.

Lesley Chacon is a financial analyst on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides financial support for a diverse group of projects housed within the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity that Arabella manages. This support includes ensuring quality control of monthly financial reports, assisting with budgeting and forecasting, and reviewing grant proposals and donor reports.

Prior to joining Arabella, Lesley worked in the financial grant reporting field for a Chicago-based social service nonprofit, and before that as a collateral analyst and a business developer at a B2B factoring company. She has managed city, state, and federal grants and has substantial experience tracking and reporting usage of restricted funds. Lesley assisted her prior organization in transitioning to a new accounting software, assisted with implementing effective cost centers to better track revenue and expenses, and assisted with transitioning payroll systems. Her background also includes forecasting, budgeting, audit preparation, and grant accounting.

Lesley graduated from Dominican University with a bachelor of business administration in finance with a minor in accounting. She holds an Illinois real estate license and continues to further her education in finance and accounting. Lesley enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and staying active.

Hilary Cherner oversees Arabella’s client services. In this role, she works with the Consulting, Philanthropy Management, Managed Organizations, Impact Investing, and Editorial and Content Development teams to build upon their expertise, efficiently collaborate across teams and projects, and enhance their operational models, leading to continual improvement of the firm’s client service delivery.

Hilary joined Arabella in 2007 as a project manager and most recently oversaw the firm’s strategy and evaluation consulting practice. During her tenure, Hilary has steered these teams through a growth in the number and diversity of projects, as well as through the acquisition of Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. She played a critical role in building staff skills and firm efficiencies, and in ensuring Arabella’s work is rigorous and impactful.

Hilary has a passion for effective philanthropy and, in particular, how advocacy and cross-sector partnerships can lead to greater good. She spent the decade prior to Arabella working in the nonprofit and public sectors. Most recently, she served as an Emerging Leader Fellow for the US Department of Health and Human Services, where she developed evaluation measures for the Community Food and Nutrition Program, managed grant reviews for the Administration of Children and Families, and conducted monitoring and evaluation for Head Start grantees. Hilary holds a BA in sociology from the University of Colorado and an MA in public affairs with a concentration in nonprofit and public management from Indiana University.

Austin Chu is a manager of marketing and business development on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He supports a wide range of business development, donor relations, and marketing activities to advance the continued growth of the nonprofits that Arabella manages, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, an affiliated 501(c)(4). In addition to helping launch and incubate innovative social change projects, Austin’s work also involves enhancing client relationships, improving business processes, analyzing data and metrics, and conducting market research.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Austin served as the program coordinator for emergency response in the northeast region for the Tzu Chi Foundation, an international humanitarian aid organization. In that role, he helped manage the disbursement of $10 million in emergency financial aid to families and individuals affected by Hurricane Sandy. As a result of that work, Tzu Chi was honored as the 2013 Agency of the Year by Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), and as a White House Champion for Change. Austin also served as the United Nations representative for Tzu Chi in New York, helping build strategic partnerships with other NGOs and UN agencies in humanitarian aid.

Austin holds a BA in sociology from Harvard College, where he was involved with the Asian American Association and Harvard Student Agencies.

Lucy Codron is an associate on Arabella’s Philanthropy Management team. Based in Chicago, she provides due diligence, grants management, operational, and administrative support for family and individual clients. Lucy has worked with foundations to improve their grant-making strategies and has helped foundation boards with succession planning. Recently, she led a family foundation through the process of streamlining its grant-making processes to ensure compliance and efficiency.

Prior to joining Arabella, Lucy worked for Heroes for Children, a nonprofit in Houston that provides financial and social assistance to families with children battling cancer. As program services coordinator, she planned and coordinated events, implemented new programs, and managed donor and client relationships. Lucy also served as office manager, providing all administrative support for the Houston team.

Lucy holds a BA in history from Rice University. As an undergraduate, Lucy coordinated and led Urban Immersion, a two-week community service program for incoming freshmen. She also studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark and traveled to Guatemala for an international service trip. Lucy is certified in Foundant Technologies online grants management software.

Ann Marie Connolly works across many departments in the organization, supporting the operations, business development, and marketing teams. Serving as office manager in New York, she helps create a fun, inclusive, and welcoming culture, and ensures that day-to-day functions run smoothly.

Prior to her role at Arabella, Ann Marie served as a company assistant for Janis Brenner & Dancers, an acclaimed NYC-based dance company. Ann Marie has also worked in fundraising and development for Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, assisting in gala planning, processing all donations, and preparing financial reports for the board.

Ann Marie holds a BA in economics from Boston University with minor concentrations in Italian and dance.

Dana Conroy is an associate director on Arabella’s Consulting team. She helps philanthropic organizations develop strategies, implement and evaluate programs, and convene working groups to advance common goals. She also manages projects and advises clients on a variety of issues, with a special focus on the education field.

Prior to joining Arabella, Dana worked at Continuum, an innovation and design consulting firm, where she advised global corporations as they developed plans for new products and services. In this role, she worked with companies in the financial services, health care, retail, and consumer goods industries, as well as small community-focused nonprofits, international development organizations, and major philanthropies.

Dana also worked for Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino in his innovation-focused Office of New Urban Mechanics. There, she developed projects and programs that improved life for city residents. She also worked on the program team at the Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, a private foundation in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, and spent a year as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow with the Congressional Hunger Center.

Dana earned a master of public policy from the University of Michigan and a BA in history from Davidson College.

Daniel Crickmore is a program manager on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella. Daniel provides operational support to the team, with a focus on financial management, data and impact reporting, training and learning, and team structure. He also manages monthly team-wide meetings. For Arabella’s clients, he provides operational and financial services to the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund—all 501(c)(3) public charities—as well as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). At the New Venture Fund, Daniel has a small portfolio of fiscally sponsored projects for which he provides operational, financial, and compliance management and services.

Prior to joining Arabella, Daniel worked at a private family foundation, where he aided the executive director in grants management. While there, he also provided administrative and IT support and played a key role in managing a major international research project that examined Christian leadership in Africa. For that project, Daniel helped administer a survey to nearly 8,000 people from several countries, provided French translation services, organized events, and provided input to executive leaders. Previously, he served as a volunteer regional director for the Borgen Project, a national advocacy movement supporting US foreign aid.

Daniel grew up in West Africa and has also lived in the Middle East. He enjoys supporting nonprofits working in both of those regions. An avid dog lover, he adopted an American pit bull terrier and occasionally fosters dogs for Foster 2 Home, a rescue in the Chicago suburbs. He graduated summa cum laude with a BA in ancient languages from Wheaton College. Daniel is an avid hobbyist who spends far too many hours assembling and painting various model kits. He also enjoys pretending to be a woodworker.

Collin Czilli is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team, based in the Chicago office. He provides operational, financial, administrative, and compliance services to projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund—all 501(c)(3) public charities—and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). His portfolio consists of projects focused on water conservation, civic engagement, and social action.

Prior to joining Arabella, Collin worked for Indiana University Northwest, where he oversaw placement testing operations for newly admitted students and worked with the Academic Success and Achievement Programs office in direct student support roles, including serving as the scholar mentor for 21st Century Scholarship students.

In addition to his role at Arabella, Collin serves as an elected member of the City Council in his hometown of Portage, Indiana. In this role, he serves as a direct link between residents and city government. As a member of the city’s fiscal and legislative body, he has championed fiscal responsibility in project management. He has worked with various stakeholders to create a “youth advisor” position for high school students and to launch new, inter-governmental cooperative agreements to reduce the duplication of services from overlapping units of government.

Collin earned his bachelor of arts in political science with a minor in earth science from Indiana University Northwest. While at IU Northwest, he was the recipient of the John and Patricia Ryan Scholarship and the 2014 Political Science Department Award. Collin was also awarded the Promise of the Future Award by the One Region/Quality of Life Council in 2013.

Batsuuri Dashjamts is a staff accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. His work focuses primarily on the accounts payable process for the organizations that Arabella manages, including the New Venture Fund, 501(c)(3) public charity. He also supports his team on various accounting and financial projects throughout the year.

Prior to joining Arabella, Batsuuri worked as a bookkeeper and office manager in the for-profit sector and as a program manager at an education nonprofit. His previous positions have enabled him to gain valuable experience in the bookkeeping, full-cycle accounting, administration, communication, and project management fields.

Batsuuri received a BA with distinction in economics from the Institute of Labor Economics and an MBA from Strayer University. He constantly looks for opportunities to continue his education, learn new skills, and improve professionally. He has completed a number of professional courses and trainings in the fields of bookkeeping, financial accounting, governmental and nonprofit accounting, economics, and management.

Batsuuri is a longtime sports fan and spends much of his free time either playing or watching soccer, football, basketball, and other sports. He also likes traveling, photography, and learning new software or applications.

Misheel Davaatseren is a staff accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. Her work focuses primarily on the accounts payable process for the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. In addition to the accounts payable process, she supports her team on various accounting and financial projects.

Prior to joining Arabella, Misheel worked for a private company on its accounts receivable team and for the Fairfax Circuit Court as an administrative assistant and interpreter. Through these positions, she gained diverse experience in cost accounting and with the inner workings of a local judicial system.

Misheel graduated from George Mason University with a BS in accounting and is planning to further her education with a master’s in accounting. She enjoys traveling and discovering new places, cooking new dishes, and attending soccer and hockey games.

Frederick Dechow is a senior accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He provides financial and operational support to the New Venture Fund and the other nonprofit entities that Arabella manages. He reviews monthly financial statements, prepares financial reports for clients, and provides audit support.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Fred worked in accounting roles with several notable production companies and sound and visual effects houses in Southern California. He spent nearly seven years working at World of Wonder Productions, helping the company to bring challenging and transcendent new programming to a global audience. Fred then worked at Zoic Studios, where artistry and cutting-edge technology are combined to create beautiful images that have helped define the digital media age.

Fred graduated with a BA from Michigan State University, and works as a freelance personal trainer in his spare time to help inspire a love of health and fitness in people of all ages.

Julia Dinkel is an operations assistant in Arabella’s Washington, DC office. She works with her team to manage the office and meet the daily needs of staff and visiting clients. Additionally, she assists with onboarding new hires and coordinating orientation sessions, as well as curating the firm’s cultural programming and events in partnership with the DC office’s culture committee and the firm’s Culture and Talent team.

Prior to joining Arabella, Julia served as general manager for The Great Republic, a store that carries a collection of rare European and American historical works, as well as luxury handmade furnishings, goods, and accessories for men. Julia moved from Los Angeles to Washington, DC to support the launch of the store’s first standalone location in City Center, a newly established downtown luxury shopping and dining promenade. She assembled the visual display of the collection in the store’s new space, developed the inventory database, and managed the hiring process. In addition, she oversaw all DC operations including: the selling, handling, maintenance, and development of the collection; client relations; vendor management; hosting on- and off-site events; and brand development through marketing, social media and local business partnerships.

Julia hails from North Carolina and received dual BA degrees in urban and environmental studies and Italian studies from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Gabrielle-Faye Dompor is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella. Gabrielle provides operational, financial, and programmatic support for projects hosted at the New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund, both 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Her portfolio consists of projects focused on global development, education, and civic engagement and advocacy.

Prior to joining Arabella, Gabrielle was a consultant at BLX Group, a public finance group, in the Post-Issuance Tax Compliance department. She was responsible for preparing financial analyses of bond proceed investments for municipal bond issuers and borrowers. She also provided financial management and consultation to nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, and health care organizations. Gabrielle was also an intern at the Ford Foundation, in its Global Operations department, where she provided operational support and assisted with data management for global offices.

Gabrielle graduated from Syracuse University with a BA in economics and a minor in information technology and management.

Jessyca Dudley is an associate director at Arabella. She helps philanthropic organizations develop strategies, evaluate programs, and explore responsive fund development plans. Jessyca manages projects and advises clients focused on a variety of topics, including violence prevention, education, and public health.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jessyca worked at the Joyce Foundation, where she developed grant-making and advocacy strategies to reduce gun deaths and injury in the United States. In this role, she directed the program’s effort to address and reduce racial disparities by developing staff and grantee capacity to advance racial equity. Jessyca also held positions with the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago. With these organizations, she has developed and implemented community-based prevention and outreach programs and conducted clinical and social science research to improve the health of communities in Chicago.

Jessyca holds an MPH in maternal and child health from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BA in women’s studies from Skidmore College. Additionally, as a certified Community Health Education Specialist, Jessyca partners with community organizations to help create effective public health campaigns and programs.

Jason Edelen joined Arabella in July 2015 as the director of information technology. He is responsible for overseeing all technology investments and activities for the firm. Jason leads the selection and implementation of software systems to create a highly integrated application portfolio across all lines of business. He ensures that all technology investments position the firm to better serve its mission.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jason was a senior IT advisor at Hartman Executive Advisors, an IT leadership and advisory firm. In this position, he served as a part-time IT director for a number of small and medium-size businesses, helping companies align their IT investments with their overall business strategies.  Before joining Hartman, Jason spent six years as the IT director at Counterpart International, a development nonprofit. In this role, he oversaw infrastructure and key business systems for the company’s headquarters and global offices.

Jason holds a BS in computer and information technology from the University of Maryland.

Rebecca Edelstein is an assistant on Arabella’s Consulting team. She provides administrative and operational support to her colleagues, including organizing team meetings, coordinating knowledge-management practices, and supporting business development. She also supports clients who are interested in convening likeminded donors to advance shared priorities and learn as a group.

Prior to joining Arabella, Rebecca gained policy and logistics management experience through positions in federal and local government, public affairs consulting, campaigns, and the international development field. As a public affairs intern at Hamilton Place Strategies, she provided communications and research support for a foundation’s early learning initiative. She also worked as a national events associate for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, traveling across the country to plan and execute campaign events that were designed to effectively communicate the campaign’s message to the public and the press. Most recently, she served as the strategic initiatives and communications intern at FINCA Impact Finance, an international development organization working to alleviate poverty through microfinance.

As an undergraduate, Rebecca was involved in student government and political activism. She also participated in numerous study abroad programs. Notably, she completed a women and gender studies course in the Dominican Republic that focused on the ways in which gender, race, and socioeconomic status affect adolescent girls in developing countries. During this course, she was able to experience and evaluate the work of a local nonprofit empowering Dominican girls.

Rebecca holds BA in leadership and public policy from the University of Virginia, where she graduated with highest honors, a second major in history, and a minor in government.

Kyle Eisenman is a senior accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He provides financial support to the New Venture Fund and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. He works on both day-to-day accounting procedures and the financial reporting process. He reviews monthly financial statements, prepares financial reports for clients, and provides support for audits. Recently, he helped manage the firm’s transition to accrual accounting procedures.

Kyle began his career as an auditor for Deloitte, where he supervised field audit engagements, helped design the approach to audits, and supervised staff auditors for public and private clients, which primarily were large government contractors and nonprofits, including the Special Olympics. Prior to joining Arabella, he worked as a senior accountant focusing on financial reporting for both private and public companies in the government contracting and real estate industries before deciding to return to the nonprofit sector.

A certified public accountant, Kyle holds a BS in accounting and finance, as well as a master’s in accounting, from James Madison University.

Betsy Erickson provides strategic guidance to Arabella’s family and individual clients to support them to further their philanthropic goals. During her nine years at Arabella, Betsy has helped dozens of clients design and launch strategies and run grant-making programs in issues ranging from conservation to experiential education. Betsy draws on her study and practical experience in systems and family dynamics to facilitate groups to make decisions and work together effectively. Applying her expertise in enabling learning and collaboration, Betsy has significant experience working with multi-generational families.

Prior to joining Arabella, Betsy worked for eight years in the nonprofit sector with groups focused on cancer research. She provided independent consulting services to national and regional nonprofit organizations such as CureSearch National Childhood Cancer Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. She helped these organizations develop corporate partnerships, garner support from family foundations and major donors, and establish and grow their workplace giving campaigns.

Betsy is active in her community, volunteering with a local service organization and advocating and fundraising for cancer research organizations. She has a BA from Colgate University, from which she graduated with honors in two programs: philosophy and religion, and art and art history. Betsy has also completed a three-year post-graduate program at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family at Georgetown University.

As a senior director in Arabella Advisors’ New York City office, Renée Eyma leads team members in providing strategy, initiative design and management, and convening and engagement services to a variety of philanthropic clients. In her work at Arabella, Renée draws on a combination of facilitative leadership, strategy, and thoughtful business and implementation planning to build and sustain effective social enterprises. She also engages and manages diverse stakeholders within and across organizations to plan and act for impact.

Renée brings over 15 years of experience in the social sector and has managed convenings and complex communities of practice in education, international development, and other fields. During her time at Arabella, Renée has helped incubate and launch organizations in the education sector and designed and managed initiatives impacting tens of thousands of teachers and many more students. She has also spearheaded due diligence and grant decision-making processes for various clients.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Renée was at the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), where she advised nonprofit executives, board members, and funders on strengthening the capitalization of organizations and the nonprofit sector more broadly. Renée facilitated strategic conversations on organizations’ future planning efforts, led research and analysis efforts, and delivered educational workshops.

In addition to consulting experience, Renée brings significant investment experience to her work. She served as vice president of Investment and Consulting Services at the New American Schools Investment Fund, a social investment fund devoted to meeting the financing and technical assistance needs of nonprofit organizations and private companies operating in K-12 public education. In that capacity, Renée worked to establish systems and infrastructure for a start-up fund and managed a portfolio of loans and equity investments. Earlier in her career, Renée was part of NFF’s financial services team, responsible for underwriting, closing, and monitoring loans to nonprofit clients. She has also worked on strategic charter school financing initiatives at the National Cooperative Bank Development Corporation.

Renée holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and an AB in history from Harvard University. She also holds a certificate in leadership and organizational development from New York University.

Kara Federico is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella. Working out of the firm’s Washington, DC office, Kara provides operational, programmatic, financial, and business development support for projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Her portfolio focuses on international development, human rights, civil liberties, and a range of other issues.

Prior to joining Arabella, Kara served as a program associate at International Business and Technical Consultants Inc. (IBTCI), a consulting firm that monitors and evaluates international development programs, where she supported the start-up, management, and operations of two five-year, $25 million USAID-funded projects in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Previously, Kara worked as a program assistant in the Office of Energy and Environment at The Ohio State University, where she supported on-campus and community programming focusing on sustainability.

Kara graduated magna cum laude with a BA in political science from The Ohio State University. While in school, Kara spent time in Uganda and Rwanda studying genocide and crimes against humanity.

Pamela helps lead strategic initiatives at Arabella. Formerly, as an impact investing associate, she worked with a range of institutional, family, and corporate clients to conduct due diligence, source and structure deals, and implement strategic initiatives. Pam brings an expertise in philanthropic strategy development, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation efforts, and she designs and executes strategies for funder collaboration and learning. She has experience assessing the impact of investment portfolios across asset types for private wealth managers and has performed due diligence on a variety of investment opportunities, including early-stage social enterprises and regional CDFIs.

Prior to joining Arabella, Pamela taught physics, chemistry, and physical science in Holly Springs, Mississippi through Teach for America, and received the 2013 STAR Teacher Award. Pamela also served as a corps member advisor during Teach for America’s Summer Institute training program, where she trained and mentored a group of new teachers.

Pamela holds a BA with honors in history from Haverford College.

Sampriti Ganguli is Arabella Advisors’ chief executive officer. She oversees all aspects of the firm’s performance, including revenue, operations, strategic growth, marketing, and client services. Sampriti drives and executes Arabella’s business strategy, sets operational priorities, and manages senior staff. She is also responsible for enhancing systems and policies that enable Arabella to deliver on its mission—to help foundations, philanthropists, and investors who are serious about impact achieve the greatest good with their resources.

Sampriti joined Arabella after 14 years at Corporate Executive Board (CEB). As executive director of CEB’s legal, risk, and compliance practice, she focused on operations, strategy, marketing, and new business development, and managed the firm’s subscription-based research programs for internal auditors, general counsel, chief risk officers, and chief compliance officers. She also spent three years as managing director of CEB’s government practice and, before that, eight years as managing director of the company’s finance practice. She has authored more than 25 major papers on topics ranging from risk and talent management to collaboration, benchmarking, and technology adoption.

Earlier in her career, Sampriti worked at JPMorgan Chase’s Emerging Markets Research division in Singapore and as a consultant for the World Bank’s East Asia Environment and Social Development Unit. She also sits on the board of InsideNGO, an association dedicated to strengthening operations and leadership capabilities of international non-governmental organizations.

Sampriti is the recipient of the Corporate Trailblazer Award from the National Black MBA Association in recognition of her focus on increasing diversity in the workplace, and she received a 2016 Brava Award from SmartCEO magazine for her focus on women and leadership in the charitable sector.

Sampriti received a BA with distinction in economics and political science from Swarthmore College. She was awarded a full-tuition Freeman Fellowship to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she earned an MA with distinction in international affairs. She then received her MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

A mother of two, Sampriti speaks five languages and enjoys Latin dancing, Zumba, historical fiction, and Asian cooking.

Patrick Garziglia is Arabella’s IT manager. Based in the Washington, DC office, he works across the firm to both develop and support technology solutions. Patrick joined the firm in August of 2016. Currently, Patrick is helping Arabella transition to a new communications platform, Microsoft Teams. As a part of this transition, Patrick is thinking about how the firm can communicate better, developing new processes, guidelines, and solutions for making sure people can reach one another without being overloaded by messages.

Patrick began his career at Arabella as the knowledge manager, where he worked to increase collaboration, retain organizational knowledge, and generally help Arabellans work smarter. Prior to joining Arabella, Patrick worked at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice LLP, a law firm in Washington, DC, where he helped the staff transition from a paper-centric file system to a digital one.

Patrick graduated with a BS in physics and a BA in mathematics from the University of Virginia in 2014.

Alice Geglio is an associate director on the Managed Organizations team. Alice partners with philanthropists, institutional funders, and social entrepreneurs to implement innovative models for achieving social impact. She provides operational support to a portfolio of nonprofit projects, empowering them to build their capacity. Alice has experience with multiple approaches, such as international grant making, advocacy campaigns, and corporate philanthropy. As the Managed Organizations team continues to grow, Alice helps develop and improve internal policies and systems.

Alice brings experience with diverse models within the social sector. Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, she worked at National Community Investment Fund, helping to manage an impact investment portfolio and to convene member institutions in service of underbanked communities. Previously, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica, designing and implementing community development projects in small business, microfinance, and women’s empowerment, and collaborating with local governmental programs and NGOs.

Alice is proud to contribute to local nonprofits in her community, serving on the boards of the Chicago Area Peace Corps Association and Tango 21 Dance Theater. She graduated from Cornell University with BA degrees in economics and Spanish.

Lucy Geglio is a financial analyst on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides financial support for a diverse group of projects housed within the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. This support includes ensuring quality control of monthly financial reports, assisting with budgeting and forecasting, and reviewing grant proposals and donor reports.

Prior to joining Arabella, Lucy worked as the controller for a national education nonprofit, and before that as a financial reporting administrator at a Chicago-based environmental organization. She has managed a wide variety of grants from government, foundation, corporate, and individual partners, and has substantial experience tracking and reporting usage of restricted funds. Her background also includes budgeting, audit preparation, and financial training.

Lucy, a native Hoosier, received her undergraduate degree in sociology and international peace studies from the University of Notre Dame. She has also completed accounting and business courses at Harold Washington College.

Elisa Gilson is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. She provides financial, compliance, programmatic, and operational support for a portfolio of projects within the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity managed by Arabella. Her portfolio consists of several fiscally sponsored and grant-making projects focused on a wide range of issues, including environmental advocacy, civic engagement, education, and health.

Prior to joining Arabella, Elisa served as grants manager for ioby, a nonprofit crowdfunding platform for neighborhood projects. At ioby, she managed a portfolio of foundations, streamlined its grants management system, and provided development leadership to spearhead new philanthropic partnerships for large match-fund campaigns focused on health and green infrastructure. Previously, Elisa supported fundraising and research to address language inequities in health care at Transcendent Endeavors, a startup incubator. While obtaining her MS, she supported local government initiatives in New York City to make food access policy for children and teens more inclusive.

Elisa graduated from The New School with a MS in environmental policy and sustainability management, and obtained her BS in biology at the University of British Columbia.

Jessica Gingerich is an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which oversees several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3). Jessica helps donors and social entrepreneurs implement innovative donor collaboratives, campaigns, and grant-making initiatives to realize their philanthropic goals. Jessica oversees a diverse portfolio of domestic and international grant-making projects focused on education, global health, and development.

Jessica brings 14 years of nonprofit and foundation experience dedicated to building successful organizations and programs that advance social change. Prior to joining Arabella, Jessica served as a senior development officer with the International Crisis Group, where she managed a global portfolio of private-sector supporters and led innovative fundraising, outreach, and cultivation events to elevate Crisis Group’s conflict prevention mission. From 2006 to 2011, she was a program officer for South and Southeast Asia at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Jessica traveled widely in Asia to monitor, evaluate, and develop NED’s grant programs in the region, which focused on providing targeted support for grassroots organizations seeking to advance human rights and strengthen democratic institutions.

Earlier in her career, Jessica worked at The Century Foundation (TCF), a public policy think tank, where she worked both in New York City and Washington, DC. At TCF, she provided research and analysis on US foreign policy and conflict prevention as well as administrative support for all aspects of the foundation’s operations. From 2002 to 2003, she helped develop Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution’s Afghanistan program, including leading a fact-finding mission to Kabul during the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002.

Jessica graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Reed College with a BA in history.

Helen Goldberg leads engagements with philanthropists to enable them to work more strategically and effectively. She also partners with Arabella’s senior leadership to drive internal strategy and innovation. Helen recently returned to Arabella, having begun her career with the firm in 2010 as an analyst. In that role, Helen supported and led strategy development and evaluation projects in a range of sectors, including public health, education, and international development.

Prior to rejoining Arabella, Helen was a senior strategy advisor at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global humanitarian aid NGO. At the IRC, Helen led internal consulting projects related to programs and operations, and supported delivery of the organization’s five-year strategy. She also served as the acting director of planning for strategic growth during her time there. Before the IRC, Helen was at Encourage Capital, an environmentally focused impact investing firm, working on domestic freshwater conservation investing.

Helen is on the advisory board of the Resolution Project, a nonprofit that funds and mentors college-aged social entrepreneurs. She has an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA in international studies and Spanish from Johns Hopkins University.

Andrew Grainey is a senior human resources associate on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He provides HR consultation services for a variety of philanthropic projects that Arabella manages. His work includes guiding employees through their day-to-day personnel needs, as well as conducting strategic process and systems improvements to help increase project efficiency and, ultimately, social impact.

Andrew works with a spectrum of clients, from executives to assistants, all of whom work for one of the many projects hosted or sponsored by Arabella’s managed nonprofits, such as the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. He primarily plans and implements process and systems improvements that reduce the administrative burdens on employees. In his time with Arabella, Andrew has worked to increase employee efficiency and improve client relationships by implementing a new timekeeping system. Additionally, he is leading the effort to find and implement a new human resources information system. Andrew’s work also includes payroll and benefits administration, legal and policy compliance, employee relations, and new-hire management.

Prior to joining Arabella, Andrew worked in labor relations and data management and analytics for a chemical manufacturing company. He has also done work in culture building, diversity, inclusion, and engagement for a major foodservice distribution company.

Andrew holds a BA in sociology and government from the University of Texas and an MBA with a concentration in strategic management and data analytics from the University of Houston.

Kathryn Grover is an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which oversees several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3). She partners with clients—including philanthropists, foundations, and social entrepreneurs—to design and structure their projects to maximize impact. In her primary role with Arabella’s learning and operations unit, Kathryn manages a number of internal projects aimed at increasing team efficiency, championing technology, and developing innovative programs for growing resources and retaining organizational knowledge.

Kathryn has extensive experience in both the nonprofit and financial sectors. Prior to joining Arabella, she managed corporate partnerships at Ladder Up, a Chicago-based nonprofit committed to providing free financial education services to working families. While at Ladder Up, Kathryn oversaw a portfolio of over 50 volunteer programs, developed a tax training curriculum, and designed strategies to increase program efficiencies while reducing costs. Previously, she served as a personal finance strategist for a socially conscious, fee-only planning firm, helping clients navigate their financial values and goals. She has also contributed to the mission of the AFL-CIO as a political and logistics coordinator in Washington, DC and Oregon.

Kathryn holds a BA in political science and international relations from Carleton College and an MBA in entrepreneurship from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Marissa Guerrero advises clients and oversees projects on strategy development and evaluation. She brings extensive research experience and a passion for facilitating engaging and productive discussions to all of her work. Her current projects include learning partnerships focused on increasing evidence-based decision making in county and state governments and combatting domestic human trafficking. She also builds the capacity of foundation staff members and grantees to develop outcomes and indicators to track their progress toward goals. Though her strategy engagements are wide-ranging, much of her work at Arabella has focused on early education.

Prior to joining Arabella, Marissa was the resource development manager at the California Court Appointed Special Advocate Association. In this role, she partnered with the CEO and board of directors to create and implement the organization’s fund development plan. She also managed and evaluated initiatives to strengthen advocacy for California’s foster children, particularly focused on supporting young adults and LGBTQ+ youth in care.

For more than a decade, Marissa has worked with low-income and systems-involved youth to help them graduate high school; matriculate to college; and develop as writers, researchers, and advocates. She has taught gender studies, social theory, and graduate research colloquia at the University of Chicago. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles with a BA in political science and women’s studies. She also holds a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, where she specialized in American politics and research methodology.

In her spare time, Marissa serves on the board of California Youth Connection, a youth-led organization that develops leaders who empower each other and their communities to transform the foster care system through legislative, policy, and practice change. She is also on the leadership team of Horizons Young Professionals for Equality (HYPE), a giving circle of LGBTQ+ young professionals in the Bay Area.

Alissa Gulin is an editor on Arabella’s Creative and Editorial Services team. Working from the firm’s Washington, DC office, she helps her colleagues craft clear and compelling written materials and strives to ensure that all Arabella proposals, reports, presentations, and other documents reflect a consistently high standard of professionalism. Alissa also helps manage and develops content for Arabella’s website.

Prior to joining Arabella, Alissa worked as a reporter for The Daily Record, a Baltimore-based newspaper that covers business, law, real estate, and government across Maryland. She started at the paper while still in college, as an intern covering general business, and stepped back into that position after graduation as a full-time reporter. She wrote breaking-news stories and in-depth analyses about small business, technology, tourism, finance, urban agriculture, and myriad other industries before transitioning to the health care and higher education beat. In that role, Alissa kept readers apprised of the vast changes in Maryland’s health care system and monitored the significant economic impact of the state’s colleges and universities.

Alissa has a BA in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also minored in philosophy. A Baltimore resident, Alissa tends a plot at a community garden, participates in several social sports leagues, and attends as many concerts as she can.

Lydia Guterman is a senior director on Arabella’s consulting team. She works on a range of strategy, evaluation, and donor collaboration projects for institutional, family, and corporate clients. Prior to joining Arabella, Lydia worked at The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Open Society Foundations, where she developed and implemented global and domestic grant-making and advocacy strategies to increase access to quality health care for underserved populations. In these roles, she managed capacity-building initiatives for emerging nonprofit organizations and oversaw funding for innovative training programs for health professionals.  At the Open Society Foundations, Lydia led the Campaign to Stop Torture in Health Care, a multi-year global effort to end severe rights abuses against marginalized populations in health settings. Her other professional experience includes conducting research and strategy reviews for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and the Treatment Action Group and overseeing evaluation for a women-focused business development organization.

Lydia holds a BA in journalism and social and economic justice from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an MPH from the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Lauren Halminen is a program assistant on the Managed Organizations team, providing administrative, financial, and operational support to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, all 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4).

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Lauren worked closely with donors, members, and community partners at the Tennessee Aquarium, a nonprofit organization focused on freshwater education and conservation.

Lauren graduated from Southern Adventist University in Chattanooga, Tennessee with a BS in nonprofit management.

Annie Hankins is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. She provides operational, financial, and programmatic services for a portfolio of projects within the New Venture Fund and Windward Fund—both 501(c)(3) public charities—and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization.

Prior to joining Arabella, Annie served as a research and communications manager for the Maryland Horse Industry Board (MHIB), a program of the Maryland Department of Agriculture. At MHIB, Annie conducted research and developed outreach materials to promote the Maryland horse industry. While pursuing her graduate degree, Annie worked as a graduate assistant for the University of Maryland School of Public Policy’s Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership. There she helped teach an undergraduate philanthropy class that enabled students to award grants and participate in the Do Good Challenge, a campus-wide philanthropy competition. Driven by her love for animals and the environment, Annie has worked with a variety of nonprofits, including the American Horse Council, the Humane Society of the United States, the Grameen Foundation’s Bankers Without Borders, and the Wildlife Trust of India.

Annie has a BA in equine business management with a minor in economics from Otterbein University. She earned her MPP with specializations in nonprofit management and environmental policy from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

Diana Tyler Heath leads Arabella’s work with families and individuals, helping them achieve impact in ways they find most meaningful. An expert in governance and strategic planning, Diana has helped clients, including a $1 billion foundation, structure their governance and staffing, build grant processes, and establish foundations from the ground up. She has also helped family foundations successfully integrate next generations onto boards, navigate leadership transitions, prepare for an influx of assets and growth in grant making, and refine strategy as their work evolves. Additionally, she has helped clients implement their grant-making strategies across a broad range of issues, including STEM, local community engagement, water access and conservation, youth development, and specific religious identities and tradition. As the head of this team, Diana oversees client service, develops and implements the team’s strategy, and manages day-to-day operations.

Previously, Diana worked as both a government consultant and a nonprofit fundraiser. As a strategy and organization consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, she provided project management and process efficiency expertise for Department of Homeland Security clients. She spent six years with the US Ski and Snowboard Team Foundation, the national governing body for Olympic skiing and snowboarding. She served primarily as a major gifts manager and was instrumental in the development and growth of the major gifts program. While with the Ski Team, she gained additional experience in direct marketing, event planning, and scholarship grant administration.

Diana holds a BA in economics from Cornell University and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Elizabeth Henderson serves as staff counsel for Arabella Advisors. In this role, Elizabeth handles contracts and assists with compliance efforts for Arabella’s managed nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Elizabeth was a transactional attorney with Mercer Thompson, a boutique energy law firm. There, she worked on deals for the development of large-scale wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy projects. During law school, Elizabeth was a legal extern in immigration services at the Latin American Association, and a legal intern in the Office of the General Counsel at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Elizabeth holds a BA in political science from Northwestern University, where she was a Brady Scholar in Ethics and Civic Life. She earned her JD from the Emory University School of Law, where she was a student attorney in the International Humanitarian Law Clinic, president of the International Law Society, and a managing editor of the Emory Corporate Governance and Accountability Review. Elizabeth is admitted to practice law in the state of Illinois.

Lanita Higgs-Jackson is a manager of financial planning and analysis on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. Based in Chicago, she provides financial support for a diverse group of projects housed within the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the other nonprofit organizations that Arabella manages. This support includes providing quality control of monthly financial reports, assisting with budgeting and forecasting, and reviewing grant proposals and donor reports. She also provides a suite of financial trainings for Arabella and project staff to increase financial literacy and ensure responsible management of charitable funds.

Lanita is an experienced accountant who specializes in grants accounting. Prior to joining Arabella, Lanita worked as a post-award administrator at the University of Chicago, and before that as a grants accountant at Mercer University. In those positions, she worked with a diverse portfolio of funding types, including grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Education, and private foundations. Her expertise includes developing and managing grants budgets, overseeing the financial reporting process, and ensuring compliance.

Lanita received a bachelor of science in accounting from Louisiana State University-Shreveport and an MBA from the University of North Alabama.

Chris Hobbs leads Arabella’s management of several nonprofit organizations: the New Venture Fund, the Windward Fund, and the Hopewell Fund—all 501(c)(3) public charities—and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Chris is a natural problem solver who helps philanthropists and social entrepreneurs achieve their charitable goals by implementing innovative collaboratives, developing groundbreaking national and international campaigns, and designing effective grant-making programs.

Under Chris’s leadership, Arabella has led the way in establishing the practice of fiscal sponsorship and the use of intermediaries as an industry standard for innovation, advocacy, and donor collaboration. Chris applies this approach across issues, including conservation, education, global health, and gun violence prevention. He has years of experience leading a diverse team, and his expertise spans business development, donor management, compliance, and financial management.

Prior to joining Arabella, Chris worked for the global health organization PSI, where he developed and implemented HIV and family planning programs in southern Africa. Before joining PSI, Chris managed grants and programs for the National Park Foundation. He holds a BS in business administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso. Chris and his husband live in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC with their daughter Zuri.

Adam Hoffman is the director of finance on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. He is responsible for maintaining the general ledger, managing the financial reporting process, and supporting the financial audits for the nonprofit organizations that Arabella manages. Adam is also responsible for providing support services through technical accounting and operational guidance.

Adam became interested in not-for-profit accounting after an internship at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, where he realized he could apply his accounting expertise toward assisting organizations in their effort to create positive social impact. Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Adam specialized in nonprofit auditing as a senior associate at the public accounting firm CohnReznick LLP. During his time as an auditor, Adam was exposed to a variety of nonprofit organizations and developed deep knowledge of internal controls, financial reporting, Form-990 preparation, and best practices.

Adam is a certified public accountant, and he has a BS in accounting from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s in accounting from George Washington University.

Oscar Huang is a client technology associate on the Information Technology and Managed Organizations team. He provides technological, operational, and strategic support for all four nonprofit organizations that Arabella manages. This support includes online fundraising management, customer-facing systems development, and customer feedback analysis.

Prior to joining Arabella, Oscar served as a fiscal sponsorship program associate on the Grants and Finance team at TSNE MissionWorks. There, he maintained the technology platforms and provided advanced administrative support and financial reporting to his projects. He also served as the in-house specialist on all matters pertaining to online fundraising, tech procurement, and client tech strategy. Prior to his work at TSNE, Oscar served as a research associate at Keystone Strategy, a strategy consulting firm for Fortune 500 technology companies. There, Oscar worked primarily with large Fortune 50 enterprises on crafting their internet of things and digital transformation strategies, with work covering product development, technical due diligence, and competitive landscape analysis.

While obtaining his BA, Oscar held several policy-oriented internships, including as a research assistant in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and at several government consulting firms. Oscar is a trained statistician and actively participates in data visualization and analytics conferences.

He graduated from Boston University with a degree in political science, specializing in research methodology on studying American voting behavior.

As one of Arabella’s accounting associates, Colin Hughes works with the Managed Organizations team to provide accounting support to the New Venture Fund and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. His work includes vendor maintenance, credit card support, accounts receivable, leases, and projects that involve Salesforce, Concur, and other software.

Prior to joining Arabella, Colin worked in the financial research field as a research editor for S&P Capital IQ, a company of McGraw Hill Financial, identifying investment manager-related RFPs for clients, reporting changes in retirement system investment portfolios, and working with team leaders to design database queries for better information management in Microsoft Access. Colin has additional experience working in accounting and fundraising roles, both personally and professionally. He recently volunteered as a GED/ESL teacher’s assistant with Charlottesville Public Schools, and in 2013 raised $5,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Colin has a BS in accounting from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he served as recruiting officer in the accounting honors society, Beta Alpha Psi.

Kheira Issaoui-Mansouri is an associate director at Arabella, where she works with foundations to design, implement, and evaluate grant-making programs. Kheira has expertise and experience in applied research design and implementation, including survey design, interviews, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. While at Arabella, she has conducted an evaluation of a national initiative to ensure all children have an equal opportunity to learn in a supportive environment, has helped a corporate funder understand and communicate the impact of its early-math grant-making portfolio, and worked with a national funder to better understand the reach and capacity of the environmental justice movement in the United States. Kheira has a strong interest in social justice, inclusive grant making, and program evaluation.

Prior to joining Arabella, Kheira worked as a public affairs officer at the Quebec Government Office in Chicago, where she helped design an arts and culture grant program. Kheira also worked as a research fellow at Northwestern University’s Ford Center for Global Citizenship, where she contributed to research initiatives on corporate social responsibility and reputation management.

Kheira holds an MA in political science from the University of Montreal and a BA in economics from Laval University. She is passionate about equity, applied rationality, and storytelling.

Alaa Itani is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team, providing administrative, financial, and operational support to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, all 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Her projects focus on civic engagement, advocacy efforts, and education.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Alaa researched donor and partnership opportunities for TulaLens, a social enterprise that aggregates feedback from women in low-income communities on health care facilities. The anonymized data is then returned back to the women, empowering them to make informed decisions for themselves and their families. Alaa’s previous background is in refugee, migration, and diaspora work; infrastructure development; and humanitarian relief. She has interned for various international organizations, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Ashoka.

Alaa graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis with a BA in anthropology and environmental studies.

J. M. Johnson oversees the firm’s portfolio of fiscally sponsored environment work. He provides high-level oversight and management of the Windward Fund’s central operations, including governance, communications, development, and finance, in addition to directly supervising the management of several complex hosted projects at the Windward Fund and New Venture Fund, both 501(c)(3) organizations. He helps philanthropic partners achieve environmental gains through developing, structuring, and maximizing the impact of public interest programs. J. M. supports private foundations in incubating and launching public interest projects, establishing donor collaboratives, and developing grant-making programs.

Prior to joining Arabella, J. M. managed global operations and human resources for Climate Policy Initiative, an international think tank focused on climate finance. Before that, he managed the nationwide communications operations for the Sierra Club’s largest priority campaign, Beyond Coal. J. M. has extensive experience with fiscal sponsorship, having spent the earliest years of his career managing operations for a fiscally sponsored public health project in San Francisco.

J. M. graduated with honors with a degree in psychology and a minor in religion from Bluffton University.

Gabriel Jones is a senior analyst on Arabella’s Consulting team. Working out of the Chicago office, he supports Arabella’s portfolio of conservation and climate related projects, which help protect critical environmental resources and address climate change. Gabriel supports advocacy, impact investing, and grant-making projects across the firm’s conservation and climate work. He also conducts research and analysis on a range of strategy, evaluation, and implementation projects for family and institutional foundations.

Gabriel has experience across the fields of environmental justice; food systems; and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Prior to joining Arabella, he worked as the membership and equitable initiatives coordinator for the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA). In this role, he spearheaded efforts to develop an alumni network for the Environmental Fellows Program and supported EGA’s communications and membership services. Before joining EGA, Gabriel worked as a research assistant to develop an online food policy database for the Food Access in Michigan project at the University of Michigan.

Gabriel received a BA in anthropology from California State University, Dominguez Hills and a dual MS/MUP in natural resources and environment and urban planning from the University of Michigan. He was also honored with the Bunyan Bryant Environmental Justice Award during his time in graduate school.

Robin Keithley is the director of sales enablement, providing the firm’s client development team with the right support, insights, information, and tools to win new and continued business. With a background in nonprofit management and fundraising, Robin works with clients to develop, structure, and maximize the impact of public interest programs. She also partners with Arabella’s leadership to further engage clients across our suite of services.

Prior to joining Arabella, Robin was the director of development and communications for Worldfund, a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of education and boosting learning outcomes for students in Latin America. She directed all revenue-generating strategies and cultivated relationships with donors to ensure long-term, sustainable support for the organization’s teacher- and principal-training programs. Before that, she was the senior center manager at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution. While there, she developed and implemented the Echidna Global Scholars Program, a research initiative focused on girls’ education.

Robin holds a BA in international communication from Texas Christian University and an MA in international communication from American University. She also has an executive certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University.

Eva Keller is a program manager on the Managed Organizations team, working out of the Chicago office. She provides operational, financial, and loan and grant-making support for projects hosted by the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, and Hopewell Fund. Her portfolio consists of projects focused on women’s reproductive rights and criminal justice reform.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Eva worked in fundraising and philanthropy, focusing primarily on the performing arts. While pursuing her MA in philanthropic studies, she held graduate assistantships at The Fund Raising School (within the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy) and the St.Vincent Foundation, both in Indianapolis. She also held an internship at the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, a private family foundation providing support primarily to performing arts organizations in Indianapolis. While there, she managed a $40,000 grant allocation pool that funds youth summer programs. Before pursuing her master’s, Eva was the advancement associate for Chicago Children’s Choir, a nonprofit serving over 4,000 young singers in the Chicago area. While there, she worked on a team that raised more than $2 million annually to support the Choir. She has also held internships with major theaters, orchestras, and opera companies, as well as a youth development organization.

Eva graduated from DePaul University in 2011 with a bachelor of music in performing arts management and a minor in business administration. In 2015, she earned her MA in philanthropic studies from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). She also holds a certificate in fund raising management from The Fund Raising School at IUPUI.

Shayna Keller is an associate director on Arabella’s Consulting team. She works closely with funders to design strategies and implement solutions that advance their philanthropic and impact investing goals. Her portfolio spans a wide range of issues, including health, conservation, economic opportunity, and sustainable energy access. Shayna also helped launch Arabella’s flexible financing platform, expanding investment opportunities for institutional, corporate, and individual funders.

Prior to joining Arabella, Shayna worked as a senior advisor with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. There she managed a diverse array of internal and external strategic initiatives, including business planning for Lincoln Center’s global strategy group, large-scale bond refinancing, a grant-making program to support nonprofit cultural organizations, and convenings on the arts and climate change.

From 2011 to 2014, Shayna served as executive director of the Dance Resource Center, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to building infrastructure, capacity, and visibility for the dance field in Southern California. There she conducted economic research on the sector, managed the organization’s fiscal sponsorship practice, and developed strategies for regional growth.

Shayna holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA from Wesleyan University. While earning her MBA, she worked with the National Park Service’s Business Management Group and lived in the Grand Canyon, where she developed financial, organizational, and operations strategies for the agency’s primary workforce training center. At Yale, Shayna was active as finance chair of the Yale Philanthropy Conference, co-chair of Nonprofit Board Fellows, and board member of Elmseed Enterprise Fund, a New Haven-based small business advisory organization. As a choreographer and dancer, Shayna has produced, performed, and toured domestically and abroad.

Eric is a serial entrepreneur who has started, led, and advised organizations pursuing social change across the country and around the globe. As founder of Arabella Advisors, Eric has been at the forefront of innovation and impact in the philanthropic sector during one of its greatest historical expansions.

While guiding Arabella from a small startup to a company with more than 160 employees that advises on several billion dollars of philanthropic resources annually, Eric has focused on helping clients achieve their philanthropic goals by devising grant-making strategies, mounting effective advocacy campaigns, evaluating impact, and managing their foundation’s operations. In addition to serving a broad range of family, institutional, and corporate clients, Eric leads the firm’s work with clients who are working to improve our food system through policies and business investments that promote nutritious, sustainable, and affordable food.

Eric’s interest in the food sector extends well beyond his work at Arabella. He chairs the committee at the James Beard Foundation that oversees efforts to engage the culinary community in advocacy on food policy, and he created the foundation’s Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change. Eric also co-founded the Chef Action Network and has a personal private equity portfolio invested in businesses at the forefront of improving our food system. And, he proudly serves as an appointed member of Washington, DC’s Food Policy Council.

In addition to his work at Arabella, Eric founded and serves as chairman of the New Venture Fund, a nonprofit that incubates new social sector innovations, and co-founded the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.

Earlier in his career, Eric served as the national field director for the League of Conservation Voters. Then, as a White House appointee, he helped manage conservation issues during the Clinton administration. Before that, Eric spent six years with the National Democratic Institute, which sent him to the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and throughout the Middle East to train civic and political leaders on strategies to encourage democratic change.

Eric is on the boards of the James Beard Foundation and the National Democratic Institute. He is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and Summit Series. He also serves as a trustee of his own family’s foundation, which holds assets generated by the sale of a fifth-generation family-owned business.

Eric holds an Executive MBA from Georgetown University and a BA from the University of Colorado.

Cyrus Kharas is an associate director on the Impact Investing team at Arabella. He works across a broad range of Arabella’s individual, institutional, and corporate clients, and contributes to the firm’s analysis of trends and opportunities in the impact investing field. He has substantial experience in economics, international development, capital markets, and social impact, and brings this expertise to support projects across Arabella. In his time at Arabella, Cyrus has managed several projects ranging in focus from capital markets dynamics for minority and female entrepreneurs to climate change initiatives. Cyrus is driven to find creative ways to unlock philanthropic and private capital to solve global challenges.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Cyrus spent several years at Goldman Sachs in the investment management division, where he focused on cross-asset class allocation and portfolio strategy. His team focused on institutions and the current and retired partners of Goldman Sachs. Previously, he was an analyst at Calvert Impact Capital, where he designed and managed portfolios of impact investments for institutional clients with specific impact goals. He participated in the underwriting and presenting of investments to the clients, as well as ongoing financial and impact monitoring of the portfolio. Cyrus began his career at the US Treasury Department in the Office of International Affairs.

Cyrus serves on the junior board of the New York City-based Advocates for Children, a nonprofit organization dedicated to representing disadvantaged kids in the NYC school system. He has a BA from Tufts University in psychology and economics and an MBA with a concentration in economics from NYU Stern School of Business. Cyrus is an avid soccer player and fan. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Sarah Krulik is the special assistant to Managing Director Shelley Whelpton in the Washington, DC office. Sarah supports Arabella’s business development initiatives, manages Shelley’s schedule, conducts research, and manages logistics for events and meetings.

Before joining the Arabella team, Sarah served as a White House intern in the Office of Presidential Correspondence during the Obama administration. In this role, Sarah read and responded to incoming mail on behalf of the president, assisted in the creation of new guidance for response letters, and compiled correspondence on specific topics to share with external offices.

While at the University of Rochester, Sarah was the student assistant for political engagement. She spearheaded voter registration efforts, coordinated event logistics for the 2016 Election Day, and planned nonpartisan events that focused on educating fellow students on current events.

Sarah graduated cum laude with a BA in political science from the University of Rochester, where she also minored in public health. Sarah spent a semester abroad in London, where she was a visiting student at Oxford University and held an internship with an NGO that promotes physical activity across the United Kingdom.

Chloe Kuh is a program manager on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides operational, programmatic, financial, and grant-making support for a portfolio of projects at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Her portfolio consists of several fiscally sponsored and grant-making intermediaries focused on a range of domestic and international issues, from policy and advocacy for global health and development to protecting internet user rights and privacy in a challenging regulatory environment. Chloe has a particular focus on international grant making and related compliance requirements.

Prior to joining Arabella, Chloe served as an operations and business development associate at Green Century Capital Management, a Boston-based investment advisory firm that manages environmentally responsible mutual funds. While at Green Century, Chloe was responsible for monitoring and reporting on the funds’ overall performance and asset flows, assisting with SEC filings, casting proxy votes on behalf of companies held in the funds, corresponding with investors and financial advisors, and speaking at conferences and events. Before working at Green Century, Chloe held internships at the Boston Harbor Island Alliance, the nonprofit partner of the Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park. There, she focused on program work and assisted with fundraising, event planning, and media outreach.

Chloe graduated from Williams College with a BA in political science and Spanish. After graduating, she worked for a year as the assistant coach of the Williams women’s soccer team.

Rachel Kuiper is the human resources manager on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. Based in San Francisco, she provides HR consultation services to Arabella’s managed nonprofits. Her work includes developing human resources content and policy, providing clients with coaching and training, and supporting general human resources administration.

In her role, Rachel primarily manages and advises on issues related to performance and personnel, as well as termination, layoff, or spin processes. She is leading the effort to maintain compliance with ever-changing labor laws nationwide. Additionally, she is working to create a library of resources for clients who are involved in all stages of the employee lifecycle, with a focus on recruiting and hiring, performance reviews, compensation negotiations, and more.

Prior to joining Arabella, Rachel developed a human resources program from the ground up for a registered investment advisor, while also serving on the financial compliance team. Shortly thereafter, she provided counsel and support to clients of a human resource information system (HRIS) start-up in regards to employee management, labor relations and compliance, and other HR topics across all 50 states.

Rachel is a member of the Society of Human Resource Management and is a certified professional in human resources. She holds a BA in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she graduated with honors.

Alexandra LaForge is a director on Arabella’s Impact Investing team. Working out of the firm’s San Francisco office, Alexandra works with foundations, families, and individuals who are interested in creatively deploying capital to achieve social and environmental impact as well as financial return. Alexandra works with Arabella clients on both impact investment portfolio strategy as well as the investment process and individual investments, bringing a decade of knowledge in early-stage impact investing to the Arabella team.

Previously, Alexandra served as interim executive director of Investors’ Circle – Social Venture Network (IC-SVN), a community of more than 550 impact investors and business leaders creating social, economic, and environmental change. Before orchestrating the IC-SVN merger, Alexandra spent 10 years at Investors’ Circle designing and managing programs focused on energizing, educating, and engaging impact investors and entrepreneurs. While at IC, Alexandra oversaw the sourcing, screening, and review of over 5,000 investment opportunities and more than $30 million invested. Her work has been both local and global: she oversaw the growth of local impact investing ecosystems across six US markets while also leading entrepreneur development and investor capacity building in the global health sector. Closer to home, Alexandra serves as a portfolio strategy facilitator for Pipeline Angels and volunteers for the Young Women Social Entrepreneurs’ San Francisco Chapter.

Alexandra graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where she studied English and international peace studies, and where her interest in social change sparked her fascination with social enterprise.

Beth Lampson is an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, and she joined Arabella with experience in project management, financial analysis, and nonprofit budget planning. Beth provides support to Arabella’s managed nonprofits, primarily the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. She manages a portfolio focused on a broad range of topics, including advocacy, education, capacity building, and international development.

Prior to joining Arabella, Beth worked in higher education administration for Northwestern University, and held roles in central administration and at the Kellogg School of Management. During her seven years at Northwestern, Beth managed a special projects team focusing on analysis for strategic initiatives and improving operations. She also directed the budgeting process for some of the largest schools and units within Northwestern and implemented an institution-wide budget and forecasting system. Beth has developed in-depth experience running a charitable organization, as she has served as treasurer and currently as president of the working board of CROSO, a small nonprofit providing postsecondary education and employment support for former Ugandan street children. She was also a Big Sister with Big Brother Big Sister for eight years.

Previously, Beth worked at the Field Museum as an accountant, where she gained experience in nonprofit fund accounting and post-award grants administration. She began her career in litigation consulting working on forensic accounting cases for Navigant Consulting. Beth has a BA and an MS in accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Maggie Lane-Moore is a senior recruiting associate on Arabella’s Culture and Talent team. Based out of Chicago, she supports hiring managers across the company in identifying and attracting exceptional and diverse candidates. Her work includes coordinating and managing Arabella’s recruiting and applicant tracking systems, social media, and new-hire orientation.

Previously, Maggie worked as a human resources assistant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team where she provided HR support to the New Venture Fund and Arabella’s other managed organizations. Her work included onboarding new employees, payroll and benefits administration, and guiding employees through their day-to-day personnel needs.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Maggie worked as an administrative assistant at Human Capital LLC, a Michigan-based professional employer organization. There she worked with a diverse group of clients and provided backup support for payroll processing, employee benefits, workers’ compensation insurance, and human resources.

Maggie graduated cum laude from Oakland University with a bachelor of science in human resource development.

Jill Laumbacher is a program associate on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team in the Chicago office. She provides administrative, financial, and operational support to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, all 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Her portfolio consists of projects focused on civic engagement, political advocacy, and international security.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jill worked at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Illinois, where she supported the CEO; liaised with board leadership; and assisted the development team with fundraising, event coordination, and donor cultivation. While pursuing her MA in international affairs, she held a graduate research assistantship with Marquette University’s Political Science Department, where she provided qualitative and quantitative research support to various academic projects. She also held an internship with Soroptimist International of the Americas in Philadelphia, where she advised the organization’s board of directors on advocacy strategies for protecting and defending women’s rights at the global level.

Jill graduated summa cum laude from North Central College in 2014 with BA degrees in global studies and economics and minors in Spanish language and gender studies. She received Outstanding Student awards in both of her major disciplines and delivered the keynote speech at graduation. In 2016, she earned her MA in international affairs from Marquette University with a focus on human rights and social movements. In her free time, Jill enjoys reading about current events and hip-hop dancing.

Kristina Lazarevic works with foundations, corporations, and individuals to develop and implement investment strategies based on their financial and social goals. Kristina recently joined Arabella from Vital Healthcare Capital, a social impact fund focused on health care for low-income and vulnerable populations, as well as high-quality jobs for frontline health care workers. She was involved in all aspects of social impact lending, including structuring, underwriting, and closing loans, as well as defining, measuring, and tracking social impact goals to ensure mission alignment. Kristina also managed the fund’s loan portfolio and led investor management. ­

Previously, Kristina was an equity research analyst on an Institutional Investor-ranked team at Barclays. Focused on the commercial real estate sector, she identified and formulated investment recommendations, built financial and valuation models, and published company-specific and industry research reports.

Kristina graduated magna cum laude from the George Washington University, earning a BBA with a concentration in finance.

Claire Leopold is a program manager on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides operational, programmatic, financial, and business development support for projects hosted by the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Her portfolio consists of projects focused on conservation, economic disparity, women’s health, and civic engagement. Claire also works to expand and scale Arabella’s flexible financing offerings for institutional and individual investors.

Prior to joining Arabella, Claire was an analyst for TripAdvisor, where she provided data analytics for several marketing channels across multiple points of sale. Outside of work, she manages her own fiscally sponsored project, Mawuli Apeme, a small program in Accra, Ghana, that helps young adults transition out of orphanages to lead successful, productive lives. Claire has also spent time in the Dominican Republic researching microfinance, as well as in South Africa as a consultant to small social enterprises.

Claire received a BA in international affairs with minors in business and social entrepreneurship from Northeastern University. She has since received high honors in a certificate program at Harvard Business School focusing on the fundamentals of business.

Carly Levin is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. She provides administrative, financial, and operational support to her colleagues and to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, all 501(c)(3) organizations, as well as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Carly helps monitor the organizations’ incoming funds while also assisting on projects focused on issues such as environmental conservation and reproductive rights. 

Prior to joining Arabella, Carly spent a year tutoring and mentoring seventh grade students in a Chicago public school through City Year AmeriCorps. Carly has also interned with a variety of organizations in the social impact sector, including Chicago’s Anti-Defamation League and Ideaction Corps, a B Corporation that consults with both nonprofit and for-profit entities to drive positive and comprehensive social change.

Carly graduated from the University of Michigan in 2015 with a BA in international studies, a minor in community action and social change, and a certificate in entrepreneurship.

Jessica Robinson Love is a senior director in Arabella’s San Francisco office, where she partners with foundations, corporations, families, and individuals to advance social change. Jessica helps donors, investors, and social entrepreneurs turn their philanthropic visions into reality by designing and implementing innovative donor collaboratives, campaigns, and grant-making initiatives. At Arabella, she has overseen the launch of a $50 million grant-making initiative to transform international seafood markets; helped to rapidly scale a campaign to eliminate barriers to women obtaining contraception; and developed a strategy for a national parent education initiative to advance student success.

Jessica brings nearly two decades of experience with the practice of fiscal sponsorship, as well as deep expertise in organizational development and capacity building. Previously, as a strategic philanthropy advisor and social impact consultant, Jessica helped individual philanthropists design and launch new foundations, supported established foundations in implementing capacity-building programs for grantees, and advised social-sector leaders on organizational strategy.

As a social entrepreneur, Jessica was the founding executive and artistic director of CounterPulse. Over 14 years, she led the organization through a merger, relocation, and 10-fold expansion, establishing it as a national model in the field of arts for social justice. She designed and led a statewide initiative to build equity in the performing arts, and helped launch a major public-private partnership to preserve cultural spaces. Earlier in her career, Jessica was an adjunct faculty member at the New College of California, where she designed and taught undergraduate courses on arts, nonprofit management, and social justice. She served on the board of the grant-making organization Alternate ROOTS, and on numerous selection panels for private and public grant makers, both in California and nationally.

Jessica was selected by National Arts Strategies as one of the nation’s top 50 arts CEOs, tasked with re-imagining how cultural institutions contribute to society. She was the inaugural recipient of the Bay Area Dancers’ Choice Award for her leadership of the dance community, and she has received additional awards from Dance/USA and the Bill T. Shannon Leadership Institute. Jessica holds a BA in the humanities from the New College of California and a certificate in nonprofit leadership from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Joelle Luongo is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. She provides operational, financial, administrative, and compliance services to projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Her portfolio consists of projects focused on conservation, civic engagement, and social action.

Prior to joining Arabella, she supported the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in stewarding the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards initiative, the nation’s highest honor for after-school youth development programs. As program assistant, she managed the intake, review, and selection process of 350 applications; implemented outreach efforts to increase the applicant pool and its diversity; and served as lead project coordinator of White House ceremonies and orientation meetings.

Joelle’s professional experience also includes her work as an office administrator at Callahan Consulting for the Arts and as an assistant of the Office of Finance at the University of Puget Sound. She has interned with nonprofit arts organizations such as the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Seattle Art Museum, and METHOD Gallery, and studied abroad in Senegal, where she independently investigated the iconography of Mouride art.

Joelle holds a BA in art history and French from the University of Puget Sound.

Molly Lyons leads Arabella’s Creative and Editorial Services team, overseeing the firm’s editorial style, publishing practices, and design. She also works closely with Arabella client service teams to help create compelling and clear content, advising and supporting them throughout the deliverable creation process. In addition, she helps clients tell their stories by producing their legacy statements, donor intent letters, annual reports, presentations, and other materials.

Molly has edited for and has overseen special projects at Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, Time Inc., Meredith, Hachette Filipacchi, and Gannett properties. Her writing has appeared in multiple national publications, including USA Today. She was a founding editor of Lifetime Magazine, a joint venture of Hearst and Lifetime Television. She’s also ghostwritten books and book proposals. As a literary agent, she’s worked with authors to conceptualize and sell fiction and non-fiction projects. Her client list includes two New York Times bestselling authors. She’s been a publishing consultant for SheWrites.com and has spoken frequently at writers’ conferences and seminars.

Molly has served on the board of the Women’s Media Group and is a graduate of Amherst College.

Emma MacFarlane is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella Advisors. She provides operational, financial, and programmatic support for projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, the Windward Fund, and the Hopewell Fund, all 501(c)(3) organizations. Her portfolio of projects focuses on international development, women’s empowerment, global health, and conservation.

Prior to joining Arabella in the San Francisco office, Emma worked as a consulting associate for Inviso Corporation in Seattle, where she served as a contracted operations sales specialist for three metric-based scorecards in Microsoft’s international business sector. In addition to Microsoft, Emma worked in a research role for a social impact strategic advisory firm supporting mission-driven projects that addressed a range of issues, from local and global development to environmental protection and advocacy. Emma has worked with various social enterprises, including a microfinance organization in Nicaragua, a human rights nonprofit based in Chicago, and a for-profit fair trade company that sources goods from women-led cooperatives around the world.

Emma graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a BA in international relations and a focus in development.

Christy Mahan joined Arabella in May 2015 as the corporate controller. She is responsible for overseeing all financial, accounting, and reporting activities for the firm. Christy directs the budgeting process, prepares financial forecasts, manages audits, and monitors tax compliance. In addition, she supervises the accounting and reporting services provided to Arabella’s foundation clients.

Prior to joining Arabella, Christy was a vice president and accounting manager with GMMB, a subsidiary of public relations firm FleishmanHillard and part of Omnicom Group. In that role, she oversaw the daily operations of the accounting department, directed activities related to corporate compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and managed the election-cycle media reconciliation process.

A certified public accountant, Christy holds a BS in business administration from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a master of accountancy from George Washington University.

Outside the office, Christy is an avid runner, fair-weather cyclist, and proud aunt to six future philanthropists.

Michael Marron is a senior accountant on Arabella Advisors’ finance team. He is responsible for several accounting functions, including revenue recognition, treasury management, and financial reporting.

Prior to joining Arabella, Michael began his career as a senior associate at KPMG, where he coordinated the planning and execution of compliance, financial statement, and integrated audit engagements for clients in sectors such as energy and natural resources, health care, manufacturing, and construction. Most recently, Michael served as the assistant controller for a Midwest-based commodity trading company, where he supported the firm’s day-to-day accounting activities, provided financial analysis for senior management, and assisted in the preparation of consolidated financial statements.

Michael is registered as a certified public accountant in his home state of Nebraska. He holds a BS and a BA from the University of Nebraska, where he double majored in accounting and Spanish.

Natasha Massie is a staff accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides accounting support for various projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. She contributes to monthly closings, ensures that payments to vendors and contractors are made in a timely manner, and helps her colleagues accurately enter financial information into the firm’s systems.

Natasha has over 10 years of accounting experience in both the health care and nonprofit fields. Prior to joining Arabella, she worked for two years at Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP) as a staff accountant. She was responsible for monitoring fixed assets, reconciling monthly balance sheets, processing vendor invoices, overseeing accounts receivable, tracking incoming payments, supporting the audit process, and managing other tasks associated with the month-end close. Before working at CHAP, Natasha worked for 10 years with Maxim Healthcare Services, starting as a medical biller and working her way through several promotions to become a staff accountant.

A native of the Washington, DC area, Natasha spent many summers as a teenager working with youth at camps hosted by the Montgomery County Department of Recreation. She has a BS in accounting from University of Maryland University College. Natasha loves to travel and spend time with family and friends.

Kate McAdams is a managing director in Arabella’s Chicago office, where she works with a wide range of families and individuals, foundations, and corporations to conceive, design, and deliver the solutions they need to achieve their philanthropic and impact investing goals. Kate works extensively in the Chicago area and across the Midwest, using her deep networks, philanthropic expertise, and leadership skills to help clients drive impact regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Kate’s career demonstrates a commitment to public service and to solving difficult problems through partnership and collaborative change-making. Prior to joining Arabella, Kate was appointed by President Obama to serve as senior advisor to US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. Her portfolio consisted of developing and implementing the secretary’s strategic priorities, including growing entrepreneurship, strengthening community and economic development, and leading policy initiatives to support 21st-century skills development, a pillar of the department’s “Open for Business” agenda. In this role, Kate created and led the department-wide Skills for Business effort, which broadened the role of employers in federal workforce policy, supported the growth of talent pipelines in important sectors, improved alignment between workforce and economic development, and expanded apprenticeship models.

Before joining the Department of Commerce, Kate served as executive director of The Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, where she guided investments in programs to improve schools, health and fitness, arts and culture, and skills training in Chicago and nationally. She also held policy advisor roles in the Mayor’s Office in New Haven, Connecticut and the Office of Mayor Richard M. Daley in Chicago. While serving the City of Chicago, Kate implemented public-private partnerships, created new initiatives to expand access to technology, and streamlined government processes through performance management.

Kate earned a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Kate lives in her hometown of Chicago with her husband and two sons.

Loren McArthur is a senior director on Arabella’s Consulting team. He works on a range of strategy, evaluation, and donor collaboration projects with institutional, corporate, and family clients, with a focus on helping donors develop and execute high-impact advocacy strategies.

Loren has more than 15 years of experience in advocacy campaigns, electoral organizing, strategic communications, and policy development. Prior to joining Arabella, Loren was the deputy director of civic engagement at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the country, where he directed state and national policy campaigns and oversaw the organization’s national Latino voter mobilization program. Previously, Loren served as director of the Merrimack Valley Project, a faith- and labor-based organization in Massachusetts, where he advanced pioneering campaigns for affordable housing, workers’ rights, and immigrant justice.

Loren graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received a master’s in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he was a recipient of the Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship in Democracy.

Kelsey McCamey is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. Kelsey provides administrative, financial, and operational support to her colleagues and to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund.

Prior to joining Arabella, Kelsey worked as a paralegal at a law firm in Richmond, Virginia, where she was responsible for a portfolio of more than 50 clients. Before that, Kelsey traveled to Cambodia to work with a women’s rights NGO called Rachna Satrei. There she researched grant opportunities, drafted grant applications, and visited families in the countryside to assess their economic and social circumstances.

During college, Kelsey studied abroad in Italy and was extensively involved in leadership programs such as new-student orientation and student government. Kelsey graduated from James Madison University with a BA in international affairs, and minors in humanitarian affairs and Italian.

Samantha Merin is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team. She provides financial, compliance, programmatic, and operational support to a diverse array of social impact projects within the New Venture Fund and the Windward Fund, both 501(c)(3) public charities managed by Arabella. Her portfolio consists of a wide range of both domestic and international projects focused on environmental advocacy, food security, education, human rights, and energy conservation.

Prior to joining Arabella, Samantha served as a legal analyst on the employment legal team at Warner Music Group. There, she prepared and negotiated domestic and international employment, separation, and independent contractor agreements for various music executives, producers, and employees. She also spearheaded Warner’s international data privacy initiatives, ensuring compliance with dynamic data privacy regulations in over 30 countries. Prior to her work at Warner, Samantha served as a paralegal at CBS for the television program Inside Edition.

While obtaining her BA, Samantha interned at the National Lawyers Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest progressive bar association. Samantha is a trained legal observer and attends demonstrations to monitor public protests and mitigate potential conflict between law enforcement and demonstrators.

Samantha is currently pursuing her MPA at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College in New York City, specializing in policy analysis and evaluation. She graduated summa cum laude from Temple University with a BA in political science.

Jonah Meyers is a program manager on the Managed Organizations team. He provides operational, financial, and programmatic services for a portfolio of projects within the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund—all 501(c)(3) public charities—and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. His portfolio focuses on civic engagement, social justice, and advocacy issues. In addition to working with fiscally sponsored projects, Jonah helps to manage the firm’s advocacy compliance practice.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jonah served as a graduate assistant for the University of Maryland School of Public Policy’s Do Good Institute (DGI) while pursuing his graduate degree. At DGI, he taught an undergraduate philanthropy class and organized the Do Good Challenge, a campus-wide philanthropy competition, among other responsibilities. Before and during graduate school, Jonah gained a wide array of nonprofit experience at the International Rescue Committee, InterAction, the Rights and Resources Initiative, Tostan International, and the CLINIC.

Outside work, Jonah volunteers with the Outdoor Alliance and Miriam’s Kitchen and enjoys mountain biking, snowboarding, skiing, cooking, and home brewing. Jonah has a BA in anthropology and an MPP with a concentration in international nonprofit management from the University of Maryland.

Lamia Mezouar is an accounting manager on Arabella Advisors’ finance team. She is responsible for overseeing accounting operations and detailed reporting for Arabella and the nonprofits it helps manage.

Lamia has more than seven years of accounting and finance experience. Prior to joining Arabella, she worked at a public accounting firm in northern Virginia, where she provided assurance and tax services to individuals and for-profit companies in various industries, including professional services, retail, information technology, consulting, real estate, and construction. Lamia assisted her clients with tax and financial planning and federal and state tax compliance and filings. She also helped develop and maintain accounting practices and procedures to ensure accurate and timely financial reporting, and she helped train and mentor entry-level staff accountants.

Lamia has a BS in accounting from George Mason University. She is a certified public accountant and a chartered global management accountant.

Nicole Munro is a senior human resources associate on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She supports employees at the four nonprofit organizations that Arabella helps to manage, including the New Venture Fund. Nicole supports payroll administration, including aggregating employee changes and terminations, collecting documentation, and maintaining data integrity in HR systems. She facilitates the onboarding processes for new employees with benefit enrollment and documentation processing. She also helps to manage the case logging system and maintains data flow systems.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Nicole was a personnel coordinator at ECC, an English language school in Nagoya, Japan, where she facilitated communication between native English-speaking teachers, Japanese office staff, and clients. ECC’s founding philosophy is to promote more interaction and understanding among the peoples of the world, thus contributing to world peace. This perspective, along with her work with clients such as international aid workers, inspired Nicole to continue supporting international philanthropic work upon returning to the United States.

Nicole has a BA in anthropology from Brandeis University and is a TEFL-certified teacher of English as a foreign language. She also volunteers with the dog rescue organization K-9 Lifesavers.

Matthew Murawski is a human resources assistant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. Based in Chicago, he provides HR support for Arabella’s managed nonprofits. His work includes fielding day-to-day questions, as well as supporting strategic team goals, processes, and systems improvements.

Matt supports the full spectrum of employees working on projects hosted or sponsored at the New Venture Fund, the Windward Fund, and the Hopewell Fund—all 501(c)(3) public charities—as well as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. He primarily works to ensure compliance with state employment laws, maintain and update the online information portal for employees, and assist employees with departure and leave planning.

Prior to joining Arabella, Matt worked as a paralegal at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City, where he supported the private equity and credit teams, and as a business writer at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive outplacement firm.

Matt graduated from Yale University with a degree in English.

As a founding Arabella employee, Graham Murphy leads programs that guide the firm’s design, implementation, and adoption of strategic transformational changes. As the head of organizational development and change management, Graham works closely with executives and senior management to ensure the organization is prepared to achieve its strategic goals. Graham also oversees leadership development, succession planning, and firmwide learning and development programs.

Prior to his current role, Graham led Arabella’s Culture and Talent team and HR function for more than a decade. As head of the Culture and Talent team, he focused on developing HR strategies that ensured strategic alignment, continuous organizational learning, and increased impact for clients as the firm grew. Graham started out managing Arabella’s business operations, finances, and human resources in 2007. During his tenure, he has advanced the firm’s operational capacity, overseen the organization’s finances, managed its real estate portfolio, developed its contracting processes, established new human resources capabilities, provided outsourced HR services to clients, and overseen staff integration during the firm’s first acquisition. Graham previously oversaw Arabella’s managed nonprofit organizations—including setting up an affiliated 501(c)(4)—and served its family foundation clients. He also oversaw Arabella’s diversity and inclusion work.

Prior to coming to Arabella, Graham supported the executive director’s office and board of directors of a national child care association and managed operations for Teach For America’s Washington, DC office. He also served as an officer for SMYAL, DC’s largest organization serving LGBTQ youth. He has been recognized by George Washington University and DC’s Youth Pride Alliance for his work on behalf of LGBTQ youth.

Graham holds an MS in learning and organizational change from Northwestern University. His master’s capstone study examined the effectiveness of MBA programs in preparing the next generation of nonprofit leaders. Graham also holds a BA in human services from George Washington University, where he graduated summa cum laude, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He holds a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the HR Certification Institute.

Aditi Naik is a director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which supports Arabella’s managed nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund (NVF), a 501(c)(3) public charity. In this role, she partners with clients—including philanthropists and foundations—to design and structure their projects to maximize impact. With an emphasis on donor collaboratives and grant-making projects, Aditi’s work at Arabella includes managing a diverse portfolio of public interest initiatives housed at NVF and focused on education, youth advocacy, international development, women’s health and reproductive rights, and political advocacy. Aditi is passionate about working directly with clients to design and promote efficient and impactful projects, especially those that are large and complex.

Aditi has extensive experience in grants management and nonprofit operations. Prior to joining Arabella, Aditi worked in international education and nonprofit programming, serving as a program manager at World Savvy, where she developed globally focused curricula and programs for youth and educators in New York City public schools. Her previous work also includes implementing an interfaith debate program for youth in New York, and a consultancy with the Open Society Foundations to build out its debate and public speaking initiatives in South and Southeast Asia.

Aditi has a BA in political science from Macalester College and an MA in international education from New York University.

Abby Newcomer is a director at Arabella. She serves as a project manager and advisor to institutional, corporate, and family foundation clients focused on enhancing the impact of their philanthropic efforts. She has deep experience as a facilitator, researcher, and implementer focused on programs that affect the lives of low-income and marginalized populations.

During her tenure at Arabella, Abby has helped several education grant makers assess how they can more effectively fund college- and career-readiness efforts nationwide. For example, she managed a learning network of grantees in six states working to implement sizable K-12 education initiatives, and led an assessment of a large foundation’s effectiveness in supporting its advocacy grantees to promote, pass, and implement specific education reforms. Currently, she is managing a complex RFP process to fund networks of school districts devoted to soundly implementing education reforms, and she is overseeing implementation of a prize program recognizing innovative work to address a disease that affects the funder’s family.

Abby also brings over a decade of experience in the nonprofit sector. Prior to joining Arabella, Abby served as a policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), where she managed an initiative to assist community colleges in connecting students to resources to finance their education, and advised institutional foundations and policymakers on education and human services policy and program development. She also conducted research on the impacts of economic conditions on low-income families and guided efforts to improve coordination among public income and work supports programs nationwide.

Abby holds a master of public policy from the University of Michigan. She graduated magna cum laude from Bates College with a degree in sociology. She also volunteers as a tax preparer in her community.

Jean Marie Ngounou Youta is an accounting associate on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. His day-to-day work primarily centers on the accounts payable process for the nonprofits that Arabella manages, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. He also supports the finance team on various accounting and financial projects.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jean worked as a finance intern at United Community Ministries in the nonprofit sector, as an advertisement quality rater for Google, and as an administrative officer at the Catholic University of America. His previous positions enabled him to gain valuable experience in accounts payable and accounts receivable, financial statement analysis, and quality assurance.

Jean earned a bachelor of science in accounting from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He spends much of his free time traveling around the world to discover and learn from others. Jean is also passionate about philosophy, math, soccer, and volunteering.

Caroline Nguyen is a senior analyst on Arabella’s Consulting team. Working out of the Chicago office, she supports a range of strategy, evaluation, and implementation projects for institutional, family, and corporate clients. Her portfolio crosses a variety of sectors, including affordable housing, health, education, and advocacy. Most recently, Caroline has helped design, launch, and implement several grant-making and investment initiatives that promote health access for underserved populations around the world.

Prior to joining Arabella, Caroline worked as the director of communications at GlobeMed, a nonprofit organization that partners university students with grassroots organizations to promote ethical engagement in global health. In that role, she developed and implemented GlobeMed’s communications strategy and managed the organization’s partnership with USAID’s Global Health Fellows Program II. Previously, Caroline led student programs and services as a program director at GlobeMed, conducted research on reproductive health and decision making at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and organized sexual and reproductive health education workshops at the Nwoya Youth Center in Anaka, Uganda. She is particularly interested in projects that work at the intersection of health and education.

Caroline graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Los Angeles with a BS in anthropology and a minor in public health. She is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Scott Nielsen joined Arabella Advisors in 2015 as the firm’s first managing director of advocacy, bringing decades of experience designing, executing, and evaluating strategies for achieving policy reform and social change. He leads Arabella’s advocacy team in helping foundation, family, and individual clients use their resources to effectively pursue the social and political goals that matter to them. His areas of expertise include civic engagement, issue advocacy, public policy, and infrastructure development and field building.

Prior to joining Arabella, Scott founded Alexander Nielsen Consulting (ANC), a firm that partnered with foundations and individual donors to conduct research and evaluation, design and implement grant-making programs, and develop communications strategies and infrastructure. As principal of ANC, Scott worked with a range of leading donor institutions, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Democracy Alliance, the State Infrastructure Fund, and the Open Society Foundations.

Before founding his own firm, Scott spent 13 years as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, including seven years in the MacArthur Fellows Program. He designed, managed, and assessed major foundation initiatives in issues such as campaign finance reform and citizen participation, Native American education and culture, international human rights, economic globalization, and racial and ethnic pluralism in the United States.

Scott has written widely on philanthropy and the independent sector, and he serves as an advisor and board member to several national nonprofits, including State Voices, Boston Review, Faith in Public Life, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. He is a regular panel contributor and speaker to groups working with or within the nonprofit and civic engagement sectors.

Scott holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a BA from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Desy Osunsade is the senior director of Arabella’s Culture and Talent team. In this role, she is responsible for leading all facets of human resources for Arabella Advisors and for all people-related functions, including: compensation and benefits, diversity, employee relations, HR policy, performance management, talent acquisition, and talent management.

Desy has more than 10 years of experience in human resources, having worked in recruitment, employee relations, training and development, and diversity and inclusion. Prior to joining Arabella, Desy worked in workforce development for Maryland’s Prince George’s County Economic Development Corp., the nonprofit arm of the county government, where she matched job-seekers to area businesses. Before that, Desy worked in sales, operations, and human resources for American Greetings in Cleveland, Ohio.

Desy sits on the board of Byte Back, a Washington, DC nonprofit whose mission is to improve economic opportunity by providing computer training and career preparation to underserved DC residents. She is also a member of a local giving circle, Black Benefactors.

Desy holds a BA in journalism from the University of the District of Columbia.

Prutha Patel is a program assistant on the Managed Organizations team, providing administrative, financial, and operational support for both internal initiatives and projects hosted at the nonprofits Arabella manages, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Her portfolio includes projects that focus on youth justice, education, and international development.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Prutha worked in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. She gained client management, marketing, and media outreach experience while serving as a national video negotiator at Zenith Optimedia for various clients, including Verizon Wireless and Hulu. Before working at Zenith, Prutha served as the online reporting and water projects intern at charity: water. In this position, she helped manage data associated with various international grants, improved the organization’s “Dollars to Projects” donor reporting process and experience, and assisted in various marketing and production team tasks.

During college, Prutha was involved in service organizations such as Global Brigades and Alpha Phi Omega. She graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey with a BA in public health and a minor in economics. She also holds a certificate for public health preparedness from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and Rutgers School of Public Health.

Richy Peña is a program assistant on the Managed Organizations team. In this role, he provides financial, administrative, and operational support to hosted projects at the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, all 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4). Richy’s portfolio includes projects concerning civic engagement, social justice, and political advocacy.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Richy interned at the Centre for Development Studies and Activities—an NGO in Pune, India. During his internship, he created a Quality of Life Indicator for the Quantified Cities Movement project, which sought to track, promote, and sustain development in Pune. His work focused on improving political efficacy by tracking and troubleshooting the political awareness and participation of Pune’s citizens. Previously, Richy interned at AMERIPAC, a political action committee created by Minority Whip Steny Hoyer to promote the election of Democratic candidates. More recently, Richy worked at Pactiv Co. as a purchasing coordinator. In this role, he was the liaison between 10 manufacturing plants and Pactiv’s corporate procurement office in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Richy graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, DC with a BA in government and a minor in justice and peace studies. Richy was a 2013 national scholar of the Horatio Alger Association and a scholar of Georgetown’s 1789 Scholarship. While in college, he was on the rugby team, volunteered at Powell Elementary school, was a Georgetown Scholarship Program and Preparing to Excel Program mentor for disadvantaged Georgetown students, and was a member of the Latin American Student Association.

Simone Goncalves Perszyk is an associate director on the Managed Organizations team. Simone provides support to Arabella’s managed nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund, both 501(c)(3) organizations, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. With extensive experience in project management and the nonprofit sector, Simone helps philanthropists incubate and launch public interest projects, donor collaboratives, and grant-making programs. She manages a portfolio of projects focused on a range of topics, including youth development and education, criminal justice reform, and the environment.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Simone worked at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, managing a portfolio of national and international capacity-building projects in partnership with funders from the private, public, and philanthropic sectors. These projects provided specialized training benefitting more than 400 arts and cultural organizations across several countries, including Croatia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam. Simone also held positions at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, where she contributed to the growth of Wolf Trap’s leadership and planned fundraising programs.

Simone has served on the Advisory Review Panel of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and on the Host Committee for the 40th Anniversary of the American University Arts Management program. She recently completed Leadership Fairfax’s Emerging Leadership Institute program, a 10-month intensive leadership program for young professionals throughout Northern Virginia.

Simone has a BA in music performance from UNICAMP (Brazil), a dual MA in piano performance and accompanying from the University of Akron, and an MA in arts management from American University. Simone is a dual citizen of the United States and Brazil.

Andrew Peters is an associate director on Arabella’s Consulting team. He helps philanthropic organizations develop strategies, implement grant-making programs, and evaluate their work. He has extensive experience in policy development, state policy, advocacy campaigns, and communications strategy.

Prior to joining Arabella, Andrew was state policy manager at GLSEN, a leading LGBT organization focused on education policy. In this role, he led the organization’s work on the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act and managed a portfolio of grant-funded work to change state regulatory policy on school climate. He also worked for The Pew Charitable Trusts, where he ran state-based legislative campaigns to improve access to school-based oral health care for low-income and uninsured children.

Andrew got his start at Burness Communications, managing policymaker outreach programs for philanthropic clients, and at the Office of Government Relations at Carnegie Mellon University. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a bachelor’s degree in ethics, history, and public policy.

Quamika Pickens-Harris is an associate director on Arabella’s Culture and Talent team. She leads essential human resources activities across the entire organization, including initiatives that are critical to achieving our mission. She strives to uphold the firm’s commitment to providing exceptional HR services, including ensuring payroll is processed accurately, managing benefits properly, and complying with all applicable employment and benefit laws and regulations.

Quamika has an extensive background in human resources. Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Quamika worked in various industries, including nonprofit, for-profit, and academia. She has more than 17 years of experience working as a specialist, as well as a generalist. Some of Quamika’s accomplishments include rolling out human resources information system (HRIS) modules, establishing policies and procedures for efficiency, and leading wellness programs.

Quamika has a BBA with a concentration in human resources management and a minor in management of information systems from Governors State University, as well as an MS in human resources management from Roosevelt University. Quamika also holds designations as a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and a Society of Human Resources Certified Professional (SHRM-CP).

Samantha Plotner is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team, based in the Chicago office. She provides operational, financial, administrative, and compliance services to projects hosted at the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Her portfolio consists of projects focused on education, health, social action, and international development.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Samantha managed the annual gala and the corporate giving program at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. During her tenure, she set a new institutional record for funds raised at a gala and expanded the corporate partner program.

Previously, she worked for the National Organization for Women, New York City managing daily operations and planning the organization’s primary fundraiser, the Women of Power & Influence Awards. Under her leadership, the Awards set an unbroken institutional fundraising record. She was also involved in NOW-NYC’s advocacy campaigns related to campus sexual assault, birth control access, and human trafficking.

Samantha has a BA in political science and human rights studies from Barnard College and is currently pursuing a master’s in nonprofit management at DePaul University in Chicago. She volunteers for Barnard as an admissions interviewer and recently completed a term on the college’s Young Alumna Committee.

Breanne Porter is a program associate on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella. Working out of the Washington, DC office, Breanne provides operational, programmatic, financial, and business development support for a portfolio of projects hosted at the New Venture Fund and the Hopewell Fund, both 501(c)(3) public charities, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. Her portfolio focuses on progressive policy issues and advocacy, including health care and tax reform, civic engagement, and access to education research and resources.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Breanne worked as a paralegal for Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy LLP, a top immigration law firm in Washington, DC. At Fragomen, Breanne analyzed case documents and prepared immigrant and non-immigrant visa petitions for filing with the appropriate government agency. She also regularly interfaced with corporate representatives and foreign nationals to determine eligibility for visa classification and to communicate procedural and processing requirements for the various types of visa petitions and immigration benefits.

Outside of work, Breanne plays in recreational volleyball leagues and volunteers with the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, a 501(c)(3) that serves to cultivate resilience in children experiencing homelessness by providing and expanding access to transformative play experiences. Breanne has a BA in political science from Yale University, where she earned distinction in the political science major and served on the executive board for the Yale Mock Trial Association.

Kristin Pospeschil is a manager of financial planning and analysis on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. Based in Chicago, she provides financial support for a diverse group of projects housed within the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization. This support includes quality control of monthly financial reports, assistance with budgeting and forecasting, and review of grant proposals and donor reports. Additionally, Kristin provides financial management trainings for both Arabella staff and project staff to increase financial literacy and ensure responsible management of charitable funds.

Kristin comes to Arabella from a national public accounting firm, where she worked on financial audits and tax compliance requirements for nonprofit organizations. She has experience preparing financial statements for both nonprofit and for-profit entities, analyzing internal control processes, testing compliance with grants agreements, and preparing federal Form-990 returns.

Kristin graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor of business administration in accounting, and she is a certified public accountant, licensed in Wisconsin.

Wil Priester joined Arabella in August 2013 as chief financial officer. Wil is a certified public accountant (CPA) and has more than 25 years of dynamic financial management experience at both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Wil leads Arabella’s finance, accounting, and human resources teams and helps guide the firm’s strategy. He focuses on aligning our financial systems and operational policies to more effectively and efficiently serve our clients.

Prior to joining Arabella, Wil spent five years as the senior vice president and chief financial officer of the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), a $90 million nonprofit biological resource center and research organization. At ATCC, Wil led and oversaw a number of critical advances, including implementing a new reporting structure, increasing the company’s commercial capabilities through key hires, and driving operational efficiency via automation and process refinement. Wil also restructured the finance and accounting team and helped to launch an entity focused on new product development.

Wil has honed his finance expertise during his more than two decades in the financial industry. He served as the chief financial officer and managing director of Blue Water Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm whose investments targeted the information technology sector. While at Blue Water Capital, Wil advised and worked with growth-stage enterprises on business strategy and operational matters. He has also held management positions at MedImmune and Coopers & Lybrand.

Wil has served on the board of directors for several private companies and is a co-founder and former board member of Lorien Wood, a K-8 school. Wil has a BS in commerce with distinction from the University of Virginia and an MBA with a concentration in finance from Georgetown University

Alma Pronove is an analyst on Arabella’s Consulting team. Working out of the firm’s DC office, she conducts research and analysis on a range of strategy, evaluation, and implementation projects for family and institutional foundations. Her recent work includes partnering with skincare brand Philosophy Inc. to manage the grant-making portfolio of the Hope & Grace Fund, Philosophy’s charitable initiative that seeks to advance women’s mental health.

Prior to joining Arabella, Alma interned with the US Government Accountability Office on its Defense Capabilities and Management team. There, she was responsible for researching and assessing Department of Defense weapon systems management programs. Alma also worked as a graduate student consultant with Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Twin Cities, where she developed and implemented an evaluation framework to measure the impact of the organization’s youth mentorship programs. Previously, Alma worked for US Representative Tim Walz of Minnesota, Patricia Ferguson of the Scottish Parliament, and Minnesota State Senator Katie Sieben. In college, Alma wrote for the Minnesota Daily and received the 2013 Media Award from NAMI – Minnesota, a mental health nonprofit organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, for a piece she wrote on mental health resources available to students.

Alma received a BA in political science with a minor in anthropology and an MPP with a concentration in public and nonprofit management from the University of Minnesota.

As an associate director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, Molly Quish supports the various nonprofits that Arabella manages, primarily the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. She helps philanthropists incubate and launch public interest projects, donor collaboratives, and grant-making programs. Molly’s portfolio at Arabella includes global development and education projects.

Molly has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector. Before joining Arabella, Molly worked as the assistant director of partner relations at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, where she oversaw the implementation of a school improvement strategy across the country. Previously, Molly worked at the Rotary Foundation, where she served in grants administration and strategic planning roles as well as part of the management team that designed and piloted a new grant program that narrowed the organization’s focus to a few key program areas with the ultimate goal of increasing impact.

Molly has a BA in communications from DePaul University.

Elizabeth Ramirez is a director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She partners with institutional and corporate funders to establish and operationalize innovative models to achieve their social impact goals. Her projects are both domestic and international, and focus on a range of issues. Elizabeth also manages a city-based public-private partnership that connects funders with creative approaches to complex urban challenges.

Elizabeth brings diverse experience in US-based, global, and corporate philanthropy. She previously served at the Social Impact Exchange, where she supported aligned grant-making efforts of leading health and education funders to help high-impact nonprofits achieve scale. She also worked at the Levi Strauss Foundation, where she contributed to the foundation’s signature leadership development and technology capacity-building initiative and supported a global human rights grant portfolio. Elizabeth began her career in the executive office of the United Nations Foundation.

Elizabeth is dedicated to leadership development in the social sector. She has served on the advisory boards or steering committees of Atlas Service Corps, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (in both the Bay Area and Washington, DC), and Full Circle Fund’s Rising Leaders program. She has also served on the New York Women’s Foundation Grants Advisory Committee and is currently an advisor for We Care Solar.

Elizabeth graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University with a BA in international affairs. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Brazil.

Steve oversees Arabella’s marketing, communications, and content development efforts, working with teams across the firm to to plan, create, produce, monitor, and evaluate a wide range of materials in multiple channels–from research reports and thought leadership to marketing campaigns, press releases, web properties, and proposals. He and his team specialize in helping philanthropists and impact investors amplify their impact through effective communications.

Prior to joining Arabella, Steve worked for more than a decade as an online entrepreneur, editor, publisher, and marketing communications professional. He co-founded Every Learner, Inc. and built its flagship publication, Knowledge News. Before that, he led a group of writers, editors, and internet producers at LifeMinders, Inc., delivering customized email newsletters to more than a million users per day. He also ran the team that published the official electronic newsletter of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

Earlier in his career, Steve worked in academia, both as a researcher at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and as an adjunct faculty member in the writing program at George Washington University, where he also did his graduate work.

Jennifer Sargent is an associate director on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella. She provides operational, financial, and programmatic support to Arabella’s managed nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund and Hopewell Fund, both 501(c)(3) organizations. Jenny’s project portfolio covers a wide range of social issues, including juvenile justice, police reform, civic engagement, and gun violence prevention. Jenny also serves as a business development specialist, working with senior management to onboard and support new projects within Arabella’s managed organizations.

Prior to joining Arabella, Jenny served as a program manager at the World Affairs Council of Houston, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public forum that focuses on educating students and members of the community on global issues. Jenny worked primarily on corporate programming and led two groups of members on educational trips to Tanzania and Cuba.

Jenny earned a BS in business administration with a concentration in economics from Babson College. During college, Jenny served as a student proctor director in the Office of Disability Services. In 2011, Jenny spent time in Malaysian Borneo working on community and conservation projects with Raleigh International.

Margaret Schnuck is a senior analyst on Arabella’s Consulting team. Working out of the DC office, Margaret supports Arabella’s Good Food practice, which promotes accessibility, nutrition, and sustainability in the food system. She contributes to business development initiatives and supports the Good Food team’s work across the firm, including with impact investing, advocacy, and grant-making projects. She also conducts research and analysis on a range of strategy, evaluation, and implementation projects for family and institutional foundations.

Margaret has experience working with multiple components of the food supply chain. Most recently, she worked as a graduate student consultant for Fair Food Network, a national nonprofit based in Ann Arbor, Michigan that seeks to support farmers, strengthen local economies, and increase access to healthy food. There, Margaret analyzed data on nutrition incentive programs and prepared a report on the effectiveness of various incentive delivery mechanisms. Previously, Margaret worked for DLA Piper’s Food and Beverage practice group, the Food Marketing Institute, and US Representative Ann Wagner of Missouri.

Margaret received a BA in foreign affairs and an MPP with a concentration in food policy from the University of Virginia.

As general counsel, Andrew Schulz manages Arabella’s legal affairs, provides legal advice to the firm’s leadership and staff, and ensures that the foundations and independent nonprofits Arabella helps to manage, such as the New Venture Fund, are in compliance with the law. He has expertise in a broad cross-section of tax, legislative, and regulatory issues, including tax-exempt organizations, charitable giving, fiscal sponsorship, lobbying, political activity, and international grant making.

Prior to joining Arabella, Andrew was executive vice president at Foundation Source, where he provided executive leadership and implemented the chief executive officer’s vision of building a community of grant makers, philanthropists, advisors, and others who serve private foundations. He was Foundation Source’s voice within policy, legislative, and regulatory circles and cultivated relationships with attorneys to expand Foundation Source’s presence within the legal community.

Previously, Andrew was vice president of legal and government relations for the Council on Foundations, where he headed its public policy department, providing oversight of the council’s legislative initiatives. He also served as in-house counsel, educating council members on legal issues that affected their operations, administering the council’s governance functions, serving as the lead staff member on matters of ethics and best practices, and ensuring organizational compliance with state, local, and federal laws. Andrew is nationally recognized as an authority on private foundations and has been a frequent speaker at conferences related to philanthropy, including for the University of Texas School of Law, the NYU Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising, the Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, Philanthropy Roundtable, the Council of Michigan Foundations, the Southeastern Council on Foundations, Philanthropy Southwest, and many others.

He is a graduate of the College of Wooster and has a JD from the George Washington University Law School. He is a member of the Maryland and District of Columbia bars.

As Arabella’s New York office manager, Sara Schur works across the organization, supporting the operations, business development, and marketing teams. In New York, she helps create a fun, inclusive, and welcoming culture, and ensures that day-to-day functions run smoothly. In addition, Sara supports members of the sales team by managing calendars, sales pipelines, and expenses.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Sara actively promoted the removal of educational and financial barriers facing girls and young women domestically and overseas through a partnership with Circle of Sisterhood and the Greek community on her college campus.

Sara graduated magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh with a master’s degree in speech-language pathology in 2017, and in 2015, graduated cum laude from SUNY Plattsburgh with her bachelor’s degree in communication sciences and disorders with a minor in psychology. During her time at SUNY Plattsburgh, Sara was a member of four academic and extracurricular honor societies and received the Presidential Award for Student Excellence for outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the college community. She was also selected to be included in the 2015 edition of “Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges.”

Tara Severyn is a compliance assistant on the Managed Organizations team at Arabella Advisors, working in the DC office. In this role, she supports the team’s legal, compliance, and human resources departments to manage federal and state registration and reporting, measure the success of internal compliance processes, and bolster these processes so they better fulfill the organization’s compliance goals. Her work ensures that the nonprofit organizations Arabella helps to manage, such as the New Venture Fund, stay compliant with the law and can amplify their programs’ impact.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Tara was a part of the Partner Services Team at GlobalGiving Foundation, a nonprofit focusing on democratizing philanthropy efforts. In this role, she developed expertise in vetting and due diligence as she reviewed applications from nonprofits new to the GlobalGiving community to ensure they comply with the highest standards in international grant making. Tara also helped GlobalGiving’s corporate partners facilitate their corporate giving and employee engagement programs, empowering grassroots organizations from around the world to deepen their impact on their communities.

Previously, Tara worked as an operations manager to a woman-owned yoga studio in Washington, DC, where she oversaw studio operations and finances, managed HR administration, and implemented internal communication systems. She earned her 200-hour yoga teacher certification and uses her love of mindful movement to facilitate free community classes for a DC public charter school’s ESL programs.

As a passionate advocate for racial justice and women’s empowerment, Tara co-founded a women’s Investment and Finance club in Washington, DC and serves as a board member of Traveling Mercy, a startup nonprofit with a mission of facilitating international travel experiences for marginalized communities. Tara received a BA in international affairs with a concentration in international economics from the George Washington University.

As director of operations, Christal Shrader oversees day-to-day operations for Arabella Advisors, including managing vendors, contracts, and facilities and coordinating Arabella’s four offices.

Prior to joining Arabella, Christal spent nearly seven years working for two think tanks focused on US policy in the Middle East. Most recently, as assistant director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, Christal oversaw all operational aspects of the center, including hiring, administrative, and personnel issues; contracting with vendors and visiting scholars; collaborating with external partners; coordinating budgeting and fundraising; and planning events and conferences. Before joining Brookings, Christal worked in fundraising as a development associate at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where she managed foundation relations and grant writing, and planned large-scale events with high-level attendees.

Previously, she worked on Ben Cardin’s campaign for Senate in 2006 and as an associate at the Annapolis lobbying firm Capitol Strategies during Maryland’s 2007 legislative session. Christal holds a BA in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park and is currently completing a certificate in budget and finance at Georgetown University.

Kristen Sibilia is a business analytics manager at Arabella. She works with Arabella’s internal teams to identify key initiatives and create strategies to improve internal revenue reporting. She works across the spectrum of Arabella’s service offerings, including consulting and impact investing, and works closely with the business development team, which manages the firm’s customer relationship management (CRM) software. With over 12 years of experience in Salesforce, Kristen is currently working to implement a system for tracking and reporting on internal business processes.

Prior to joining Arabella, Kristen was with two other B Corporations, IceStone and CSRwire, where she worked with their sales and CRM teams. As the vice president of partnerships at CSRwire, she created protocols within Salesforce to increase internal reporting accuracy. Kristen implemented innovative protocol changes, which increased the organization’s internal and external communication.

Kristen has a degree in computer science from Siena College, where she also played lacrosse.

Julie Slay leads Arabella’s evaluation practice, employing a range of methodologies and tools to help clients understand the effectiveness of their grants and other investments—and ultimately determine how they can best use their resources to achieve the outcomes they seek. She directs teams using both qualitative and quantitative evaluation approaches to conduct developmental, formative, and retrospective evaluations, as well as to develop evaluation frameworks, tools, and instruments that enable ongoing learning, effective monitoring, and practical program management. Julie has over 20 years of experience conducting multi-year, multi-site research and evaluation projects in government, for-profit, and nonprofit settings.

Prior to joining Arabella, Julie directed the Evaluation and Quality Improvement Department for Children’s Health Council, a nonprofit children’s behavioral health agency. Her work included leading outcome evaluation and improvement projects, designing and implementing evaluation instruments, and cultivating relationships promoting cross-functional collaboration.

Prior to joining Children’s Health Council, she conducted research and program evaluation in both the public and private sectors as a senior research associate at Lodestar Management Research, Inc., now Harder + Company.

Julie graduated with honors from the University of California, Irvine with a BA in psychology, and holds an MA and PhD in clinical psychology from University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Emily Spector is an associate director on the Managed Organizations team. Emily provides support to Arabella’s managed nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund, 501(c)(3) organizations, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. With extensive experience in project management, development, and the nonprofit sector, Emily helps philanthropists incubate and launch public interest projects, donor collaboratives, and grant-making programs. She manages a portfolio of projects focused on a range of topics, including education, advocacy, and the environment.

Prior to joining Arabella, Emily spent nearly a decade working in fundraising in the nonprofit sector, raising funds for both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations focused on animals, conservation, education, advocacy, and women’s rights. Most recently, she was the associate director of events at NARAL Pro-Choice America, where she managed all Bay Area fundraising events and relationship management for two leadership donor councils, to raise funds to expand and protect reproductive freedom. Previously, Emily was a development officer at Women Employed, a Chicago-based nonprofit that works to promote the economic advancement of women, where she led fundraising campaigns and managed its annual fundraiser with 1,000 attendees.

Emily graduated from Brandeis University with a BA in health science, society, and policy and a minor in environmental studies, and she holds an MS in public service management from DePaul University.

Lauren Statman guides Arabella’s family and individual clients to develop and implement effective grant-making strategies, establish and manage efficient operating procedures, and build engaged governing boards. Currently, she oversees the daily operations and grant-making activities of a family foundation focused on education reform and the arts, as well as a foundation that is pursuing environmental health and green chemistry. She recently created strategic plans for a donor collaborative seeking to attract and retain young professionals to a specific region in the United States and for a family foundation looking to use its collection of rare historic artifacts to educate the public. Lauren also designed a newly endowed philanthropic prize in a medical field and launched its successful inaugural year in partnership with a family funder. She has helped clients develop, refine, and implement strategies in education, health, and the Jewish community. Additionally, she has worked with foundations at various stages of their life cycles, as she has overseen the incorporation process for new family foundations, helped boards welcome the next generation, and guided foundations to refresh their priorities during times of major transition.

Prior to joining Arabella, Lauren worked at DC Central Kitchen, where she oversaw a meal delivery program and provided nutrition education in low-income communities. She also interned at the Koret Foundation in San Francisco, where she conducted research that helped to identify emerging young adult programs for potential funding. In 2012, Lauren was selected as a StartingBloc Fellow. She completed the program’s five-day Institute for Social Innovation, at which her team was a finalist in the Social Innovation Case competition.

Lauren serves on the programming committee of the Organizational Development Network of New York and recently completed two years on the board of the Glade Dance Collective, during which she overhauled the board and membership structure and introduced collective decision-making models. She has also served as executive director of the St. Louis Area Dance Marathon, a 12-hour dance fundraiser benefiting children’s hospitals through Children’s Miracle Network of Greater St. Louis, and volunteered in Nicaragua through American Jewish World Service.

Lauren graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, with majors in Spanish and philosophy-neuroscience-psychology and a minor in modern dance. In addition to her role at Arabella, Lauren is pursuing her master’s degree in organizational psychology at Teachers College Columbia University, with a focus in change leadership.

Gideon Steinberg joined Arabella in 2014 as the director of human resources for the Managed Organizations team. In this role, he oversees all human resources responsibilities for several nonprofits that Arabella manages, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a separate 501(c)(4). Gideon provides general oversight and direction for the Managed Organizations team’s human resources initiatives, as well as strategic guidance to clients. This includes talent management, executive coaching, organizational development, compliance and risk mitigation, and general human resources administration.

Gideon has worked in human resources at social-sector organizations for more than 10 years. Prior to joining Arabella, Gideon was the director of operations for Community Wealth Partners, where he directed human resources, finance and accounting, information systems, internal capacity building efforts, and resource deployment. He has worked in the areas of human rights, social justice, the environment, social science, and public policy research. Gideon previously worked at the Pew Research Center, a public policy and social science think tank, International Justice Mission, a worldwide social justice nonprofit, and the Center for Public Environmental Oversight.

Gideon is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management and is a certified senior professional in human resources. Gideon holds a BA in political theory from the University of Dallas.

Julia Stellmann is a program assistant on the Managed Organizations team. In this role, Julia works with the three 501(c)(3) organizations that Arabella manages—the New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund—as well as a 501(c)(4) organization, the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Through administrative, financial, and operational support, Julia assists her colleagues in handling the day-to-day operations of several projects. Julia’s portfolio includes a broad range of issues, such as government transparency, internet freedom, and education reform.

Prior to joining Arabella, Julia interned at Hudson Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC. There, Julia conducted research with Hudson’s Center for Global Prosperity on international development and civil society. Julia assisted with the final editing stages of the 2016 Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances, which looks at the current trends and impact of philanthropy and remittances around the world. She also contributed to the Center for Global Prosperity’s blog, where she explored topics such as the impact of changing US policies toward Cuba on remittances and immigration. Julia took on an additional role as Hudson’s presidential intern, assisting scholars with ad hoc research and helping to manage the on-site internship program.

Julia graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in Latin American studies. At UVA, she was an Echols Scholar and a member of the women’s varsity polo team. Julia is originally from Baltimore, Maryland.

Sarah Sullivan is a senior director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which oversees several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a separate 501(c)(4). Sarah helps donors and social entrepreneurs turn their philanthropic visions into reality by incubating nonprofits and implementing innovative donor collaboratives, advocacy campaigns, and grant-making initiatives.

Prior to joining Arabella, Sarah led the strategy practice at Orr Associates Inc. (OAI), a consulting firm serving the nonprofit sector. As vice president of strategy, Sarah developed sustainable organizational and revenue strategies for a broad spectrum of nonprofits. Earlier in her career, Sarah was senior research officer at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where she oversaw the research portfolio and developed the strategic plan. Additionally, she worked in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Group at the World Bank, coordinating a 15-country study on economic mobility.

Sarah is vice chair of the board of directors for Advancing Girls’ Education in Africa, which provides scholarships and life-skills training to girls in Malawi. Sarah holds a BA and an MA in sociology from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Liz Sweet is a senior director in the San Francisco office, where she works closely with Arabella’s individual and family clients to achieve their social impact goals. Liz draws from her extensive experience in the philanthropic sector to help clients understand the root causes of complex social challenges, identify long-term solutions, and effectively measure their impact.

Previously, Liz guided members of The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW), a global network of over 400 philanthropists, in designing strategies that best leveraged their passions, talents, and assets. Over her four years as a senior officer with TPW, Liz helped lead the network’s flagship cohort program—a year-long course on strategic philanthropy—along with deep dives on human rights, food systems reform, criminal justice, and a range of social justice issues.

Liz believes strongly in the power of collaboration. While working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), she coordinated a collective impact effort to improve education in emergency contexts. In this role, Liz consulted with local stakeholders across five continents to improve educational outcomes while engaging in joint advocacy at the United Nations to increase funding for the field. Liz brings this experience working on both grassroots and policy change to help clients invest in solutions that lead to lasting impact.

Deeply committed to advancing the rights and lives of women and girls, Liz serves on the advisory board of the Alliance for Girls, the largest regional network of girl-serving organizations in the United States. She has consulted on grant making with the Global Fund for Women and worked with a small nonprofit to end violence against women in Bogotá, Colombia.

Liz holds a BA in economics from the University of California at San Diego and a master’s in international development with a concentration in social and economic development from The New School. Liz is a certified yoga instructor and lover of all racquet sports—from racquetball and badminton to paddle tennis, ping pong, and pickleball. She lives with her two daughters and husband in the Bay Area.

Alejandra Tamez is the executive assistant to Arabella’s founder, Eric Kessler. She supports Eric and others on the executive team on a wide variety of operational, administrative, and business development initiatives. She coordinates with internal teams and external stakeholders on many of the firm’s most exciting projects, including the Good Food practice. She also works together with Arabella’s family philanthropy professionals, impact investing experts, and others to ensure our clients’ expectations are being met.

Prior to joining Arabella, Alejandra supported the president and CEO of a private equity firm focused on mergers and acquisitions and real estate development. Alejandra is passionate about philanthropic work overseas, especially initiatives involving children. She often volunteers to go on mission trips that focus on finding sustainable solutions to issues such as hunger, access to education, and access to health care. She is on the fundraising committee of Best Buddies, the world’s largest organization dedicated to ending social, physical, and economic isolation among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She enjoys live music, dancing, and traveling.

Alejandra has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and public relations from Radford University, and an MPA from Virginia Commonwealth University with a focus on nonprofit management.

Yawen Tan is a senior accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides financial support to the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the other nonprofits that Arabella manages. She works on both day-to-day accounting procedures and the financial reporting process. She reviews monthly financial statements, prepares financial reports for clients, and provides support for audits.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Yawen worked as an accountant at Universal Service Administrative Company, a large nonprofit. She has a wealth of experience in operational accounting, reconciliation compilations across various accounting cycles, journal entry processing, and financial reporting. She has also participated in implementing accounting software.

Yawen is a certified public accountant, and she has a master’s in accounting from George Mason University.

Kathryn Than is an assistant on Arabella’s Philanthropy Management team. Working from the firm’s New York office, she supports the firm’s family and individual clients by managing grants, conducting programmatic and financial due diligence, and handling a host of operational and administrative needs.

Prior to joining to Arabella, Kathryn was a volunteer program and special project coordinator for the health system affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In that role, she administered various programs for volunteers working at the two largest UCLA hospitals and supported the onboarding and management of over 400 volunteers at the Santa Monica location. As an undergraduate, Kathryn also worked with a California-based nonprofit focused on building water wells in Kenya. She provided administrative support for day-to-day operations and logistical support for biannual fundraising events.

Kathryn holds a BS in biology from UCLA, and is certified in Foundant Technologies online grants management software. Currently, she serves on Philanthropy New York’s Committee for Equitable and Inclusive Philanthropy and is a member of the Young Leaders Breakfast Club 2017 cohort.

As a senior director, Melanie Torres oversees Arabella’s consulting team, which works with institutional, family, and corporate clients to develop, implement, and assess effective grant-making programs, as well as to launch and manage efforts that go beyond grant making to further their philanthropic goals. Arabella’s consulting practice works with many of the nation’s leading foundations, helping them achieve impact in education, health, international development, conservation, and more.

At Arabella, Melanie has spearheaded a number of high-impact strategy and evaluation projects on behalf of both domestic and international philanthropic initiatives. She has led an evaluation of a women’s donor network that funds global health interventions, assessed a donor-driven advocacy initiative to increase foreign aid, and conducted a community health needs assessment for a major nonprofit hospital system. Melanie also partnered with a place-based funder to develop a plan to evaluate organizational capacity-building efforts across a diverse portfolio of grantees, and she worked with one of the nation’s largest education funders to design and implement a grantee learning network. Currently, Melanie is working with a corporate foundation to establish an evaluation framework that will help the company monitor, interpret, and communicate the impact of its social-sector initiatives.

Prior to joining Arabella, Melanie worked at Grameen America and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, managing corporate and foundation partnership initiatives to improve financial literacy and economic development opportunities among low-income communities. Her other professional experience includes working with Newman’s Own Foundation to identify investment opportunities in the social enterprise sector, and with the Maverick Capital Foundation, a corporate funder focused on poverty-alleviation programs in New York.

Melanie holds a BS in communication studies and international studies from Northwestern University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. While at Yale, she served as the co-chair for its annual conference on philanthropy, and was a member of the Global Social Enterprise program.

Nikki Toten is an associate director on Arabella’s Consulting team. She helps philanthropic organizations develop strategies, implement and evaluate programs, and explore strategic partnerships. Nikki manages projects and advises clients on a variety of topics to advance their social impact goals.

Prior to joining Arabella, Nikki worked as the manager of development and community engagement at Scadding Court Community Centre in Toronto. In this role, she advanced the funding and strategic direction of programs related to economic empowerment, community-police relations, health and wellness, food access, and more. She also spearheaded the development of a social enterprise that uses retrofitted shipping containers to create affordable vending spaces for micro-entrepreneurs. Her other professional experience includes working at Affirmative Investments, a real estate finance and development consultancy that partners with mission-driven organizations to implement projects that stimulate economic development.

Nikki holds a BA in growth and structure of cities from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. While at Yale, she served as co-chair for the Yale Philanthropy Conference.

Ryan Ulbrich is an associate director on Arabella’s Consulting team. He works with philanthropic organizations to develop grant-making strategies, implement and evaluate programs, convene learning and working groups, and oversee donor collaboratives to advance common goals. He manages projects and advises clients on a variety of issues, including education, conservation, social entrepreneurship, and public health.

Prior to joining Arabella, Ryan was an executive advisor to chief ethics officers at the business consulting firm CEB. There, he conducted research and managed a client portfolio of Fortune 500 companies in the technology, consumer products, health care, and retail industries, and advised on functional issues such as corporate integrity, corruption and privacy risk management, and governance. Ryan also worked for Podesta Group, a public and government relations firm in Washington, DC, where he focused on legislative tracking and analysis for telecommunications and energy policies, as well as congressional outreach and activity reporting compliance. He also assisted with business development, marketing, and communications at Dickstein Shapiro LLP. Additionally, he spent several years providing pro-bono consulting services through Compass, a nonprofit servicing organization. During his time with Compass, Ryan helped develop a three-year strategic plan for the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities, as well as an advocacy communications strategy for Miriam’s Kitchen to help end chronic homelessness in the nation’s capital.

Ryan also has experience as a social entrepreneur. In 2012, he co-founded the grassroots fundraising group Raise Your City (RYC), and served as co-owner until 2015. The organization raised critical funds for hyper-local charitable organizations through benefit events and digital advocacy campaigns in DC. Ryan sits on the board of City Blossoms, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering healthy communities by developing creative, kid-driven green spaces. He formerly sat on the community board of Enstitute, the first national apprenticeship program for 21st-century careers in business, technology, and entrepreneurship. Ryan has spoken on a number of topics related to social enterprise, community organization, social media and social activism, and ethical leadership for both Georgetown University and American University, in addition to panels hosted by DC Entrepreneurship Week, UnSectored, gnoviCon, and DC+Acumen.

Ryan earned a BA in philosophy with minors in art history and non-violence studies from Elon University, where he was vice president and treasurer of the philosophy honors society Phi Sigma Tau, and a member of the national leadership honors society Omicron Delta Kappa.

Chan Un is a senior accountant on Arabella Advisors’ finance team. He is responsible for a variety of accounting functions, including maintaining the general ledger, supporting the financial reporting process, and assisting the firm’s annual audit and tax return. He also maintains financial reporting and recordkeeping for Arabella’s family foundation and individual clients.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Chan worked for three years in public accounting, providing tax services to individual, for-profit, and nonprofit clients in various industries, including professional services, information technology, research and development, and real estate. Chan helped clients with tax and financial planning, tax preparation, and state and local tax compliance.

Chan has a BS in accounting from the University of Richmond and is currently sitting for his certified public accountant distinction.

Simran Vazirani is an analyst on Arabella’s Consulting team. Working out of the firm’s New York office, she conducts research and analysis and works with institutional foundation clients to plan convenings and support projects in the fields of conservation, women and girls, and physical and behavioral health and wellness.

Prior to joining Arabella, Simran interned with the Rockefeller Foundation’s innovation capacity team. She was responsible for researching and assessing capacity-building initiatives and developing dashboards and logic models to guide internal decision-making processes. Simran has also worked with the finance team at Social Enterprise Greenhouse, an incubator and accelerator that supports social entrepreneurs and enterprises. She was also previously involved with Sakhi for South Asian Women, where she assisted survivors of domestic violence in attaining financial self-sufficiency and economic empowerment.

Simran holds a BA and an MPA from Brown University, where she studied applied mathematics and South Asian studies through a policy lens.

Gwen Walden is a senior managing director in Arabella’s San Francisco office, where she leads the firm’s West Coast practice. In this capacity, she engages with a range of clients on strategy, evaluation, and impact investing work, implementing programs and projects and managing donor collaboratives. She has expertise in the arts, health, early childhood, and education, and works to meet the needs of a range of philanthropic organizations, from small family foundations to large institutional donors.

Gwen has more than 25 years of leadership experience in the nonprofit sector. Her career encompasses major programmatic, management, and executive leadership roles and is marked both by her encyclopedic knowledge of the history and practice of philanthropy and her hands-on experience managing major foundation initiatives and functions. Gwen joined Arabella after managing her own firm, Walden Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., for four years. Prior to that, she held executive leadership assignments at the J. Paul Getty Trust and the California Endowment.

Gwen has received national recognition for her numerous articles on current issues in philanthropy. She has written for all of the major trade publications, including Foundation News & Commentary, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, as well as in special editions of the annual State of Philanthropy and New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising.

Gwen has been an active member of the field of philanthropy for many years, serving on numerous professional boards and committees. Currently, she is one of only three outside directors of the Surdna Foundation, a five-generation family foundation founded by John E. Andrus with $1 billion in assets. Gwen also sits on the board of the East Bay Community Foundation representing Contra Costa County, and she volunteers her time as a board member of the Breast Cancer Fund, focused on eliminating environmental toxins and radiation that cause cancer.

Gwen earned a bachelor’s degree from the George Washington University and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

Bethany Weise serves as the office manager in Chicago and provides the Managed Organizations team with administrative and project support. She ensures day-to-day operations run smoothly and strives to create a warm and positive office culture. Bethany also plays a lead role in creating cultural events, which aim to connect Chicago colleagues to Arabella’s inclusive culture and values.

Prior to joining Arabella, Bethany worked as a senior executive assistant for a financial solutions firm in Manhattan for several years before relocating back to her hometown of Chicago. While in New York, she volunteered for Empty Cages Collective, an animal and environmental advocacy organization that aims to cultivate a culture where animals are recognized as fellow sentient beings worthy of respectful, compassionate treatment.

Bethany is also a professional actor, with an MFA in acting from the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. She has acted professionally across the country, including in Chicago and New York, and recently finished shooting her first film.

Shelley Whelpton is a senior managing director in Arabella’s Washington, DC office. Shelley partners with foundations, social entrepreneurs, corporations, families, and high-net-worth individuals to catalyze change on a range of social and environmental issues. Shelley believes that social-sector actors can effect sustained change by going beyond grant making to strategically use the range of innovative tools and approaches available to them. She has helped philanthropists develop advocacy and impact investing strategies, launch and incubate new social change initiatives, convene marginalized and influential voices, and collaborate with partners across sectors. Projects she oversees include involving formerly incarcerated people in criminal justice reform efforts, advocating for state policy changes to promote children’s nutrition, and ensuring that women’s voices are equitably represented in public dialogue.

Prior to joining Arabella, Shelley was the vice president of business development and strategy at the Sheridan Group, a Washington, DC-based policy firm dedicated to public interest causes. In this role, Shelley developed the firm’s social entrepreneurship consulting practice, working with grant makers and other clients to identify creative strategies and build cross-sector collaborations for broad-scale social change. She led the team that successfully advocated for a slate of policy initiatives in the 2008 presidential election to catalyze greater cross-section collaboration and accountability in public problem solving. Shelley’s development work with the Sheridan Group spanned a wide range of issues, including new social financing mechanisms, open access, education, youth development, child welfare, and health.

Shelley is a seasoned nonprofit executive with national recognition in the field of international youth exchange. For 10 years, she managed AYUSA International, a nonprofit high school exchange program serving 2,000 high school students from 80 countries around the world. Shelley led the organization during a period of significant growth and program diversification, including a post-9/11 exchange initiative with the Middle East sponsored by the US Department of State.

Shelley is a founding board member of Running Start, a nonprofit dedicated to providing political leadership training for girls and young women. She serves on the advisory boards of the Women’s Equality Center and the Amazon Headwaters Conservation Initiative.

Shelley graduated with honors from Williams College with a BA in political science, earning the Richard Krouse Political Science Award, and completed an MA in education from Boston University. She lives in Washington, DC with her partner and two children.

Daniel Widome is a director at Arabella, where he provides strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation services to a variety of clients and contributes to the firm’s thought leadership. At Arabella, Daniel has led evaluations of a national foundation’s efforts to reduce teen pregnancy and of a major funder’s efforts to spur new media innovation; facilitated strategic planning processes and landscape analyses for California-based health foundations and San Francisco-based funders; helped a family foundation launch a new initiative to develop games and apps to enhance adolescent mental health; and managed a major funder’s effort to expand teacher leadership initiatives and support the implementation of education reforms across the country. Daniel also helps lead Arabella’s Beyond Grant Making campaign, which articulates nontraditional methods that funders can use to amplify their impact.

Prior to joining Arabella, Daniel worked as an evaluation consultant to foundations in the San Francisco Bay Area, with clients including the East Bay Community Foundation and the Northern California Community Loan Fund.

Daniel has over 10 years of experience as a writer, editor, and policy analyst. He has written on topics such as foreign policy, security affairs, and citizen engagement, and his work has appeared in the New Republic, Foreign Policy, Mother Jones, and various newspapers. Daniel also served as editor in chief of the Brown Journal of World Affairs. He presently serves on the board of directors of Mission Neighborhood Centers in San Francisco. Daniel holds an AB from Brown University and an MPP from the University of California, Berkeley.

Maggie Wilder is a senior accountant on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team. She provides financial and operational support to the New Venture Fund and the other nonprofit entities that Arabella manages. She reviews monthly and quarterly financial statements, prepares periodic allocations, and provides audit support.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Maggie specialized in nonprofit auditing as a staff accountant at a public accounting firm in Alexandria, Virginia. During her time in public accounting, Maggie gained valuable knowledge about nonprofit accounting and reporting. Through her interaction with a variety of nonprofit organizations in the DC area, Maggie was able to apply her accounting skills toward helping nonprofit entities realize their missions.

Maggie is a certified public accountant, and she has a BS in business administration with a double major in theatre from the University of Mary Washington.

Jenny Wittner is a senior director on Arabella’s Managed Organizations team, which manages several nonprofits, including the New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a separate 501(c)(4). Jenny leads the Managed Organizations team in Chicago, helping to incubate nonprofits and implement donor collaboratives, advocacy campaigns, and grant-making initiatives.

Prior to joining Arabella Advisors, Jenny was the associate director at Women Employed, where she developed and oversaw the organization’s advocacy, policy, and program work to promote the economic advancement of women. She had a particular interest in ensuring that policies and programs in community colleges effectively helped low-income women and non-traditional students to advance to better employment.

Jenny was one of the founders of Chicago Commons Employment Training Center, which provided comprehensive support services and education and training to women on welfare. She started her career in English as a second language (ESL) classrooms, teaching adults to speak English, training teachers, developing programs, and creating curricula.

Jenny holds a BA in social studies from Harvard College and an MA in linguistics and ESL teaching from Northeastern Illinois University.

Zoe Wong works with foundations, families, and individuals to educate them about impact investing and implement investment strategies based on their social and environmental goals. Her current projects primarily involve sourcing and conducting due diligence on early-stage companies in fields ranging from food and agriculture to education to health care.

Prior to joining Arabella, Zoe founded and ran two social enterprises focused on reducing food waste: one was a consumer packaged-goods company that made jams from surplus fruit (recognized by Whole Foods Market), and the other was a software technology company that created an online marketplace for farms to sell their surplus produce to food businesses. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Zoe worked at Third Sector Capital Partners to develop and implement Pay for Success and innovative financing solutions that addressed social needs such as poverty, chronic homelessness, and recidivism. She also worked at UBS Wealth Management to support family offices in sourcing philanthropic grant and impact investment opportunities in Asia. While studying at Cornell University, Zoe independently researched and published a report that analyzed impact investors’ different approaches to impact measurement and evaluation.

Zoe graduated magna cum laude from Cornell with a BA in sociology. She previously served as an AmeriCorps Fellow, and is a Y Combinator Fellow and an Echoing Green Fellow.

Jeffrey Woolston is an associate director on the Managed Organizations team. In this role, he provides operational and financial support to a diverse set of projects, specifically via grant and contract development, compliance assurance, and financial reporting. He manages a portfolio of projects on a broad range of topics including education, the environment and conservation, and civil rights.

Before joining Arabella, Jeffrey worked at the nonpartisan Council for a Strong America, engaging business leaders to promote smart and promising early childhood programs. He filled a variety of capacities on a small, dynamic team, including grant reporting, website and social media management, and event logistics. From 2013 to 2015, the Council’s advocacy work helped win over $3 billion in state and federal funds for children and youth. These budget allocations have helped expand access to state-funded prekindergarten programs, home visiting services for new and expectant mothers, and career and technical education. Jeffrey has also worked at America’s Promise Alliance and the Pew Charitable Trusts. His varied experience has allowed him to work with foundations, corporations, and high-net-worth individuals, as well as a variety of 501(c)(3) organizations.

Jeffrey holds a BBA in business economics from Grand Valley State University.