Community Economic Mobilization Initiative: Doubling Down on Community Capacity in 2025

Kaying Hang serves on the executive team for Sierra Health Foundation and The Center as the Senior Vice President of Programs and Partnerships. In this role, Kaying is responsible for strategic program and partnership development, and oversees management of the foundation’s and The Center’s programs and initiatives. She joined the foundation in 2013. 

Before coming to Sierra Health Foundation, Kaying served as associate director for Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, where she worked with foundations, affinity groups, public policy groups and immigrant rights organizations. Previously, she served as senior program officer at the Otto Bremer Foundation in Minnesota, and a program officer and senior consultant with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation. 

In addition to institutional philanthropy, Kaying worked in state government as the state coordinator of the Refugee Health Program for the Minnesota Department of Health, and as assistant regional coordinator for the Refugee and Immigrant Health Program for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. 

A native Hmong speaker, Kaying received a Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University and a Master’s in Public Health from Boston University. Originally from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, she is the oldest of seven children and comes from a refugee family dedicated to social justice and racial equity. She and her family are proud to call Sacramento home.

Kirin Kumar joins Northern California Grantmakers as Director for Climate and Disaster Resilience. Since 2019, Kirin has served as the Deputy Director of Equity and Government Transformation at the California Strategic Growth Council, within the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. In that role, Kirin oversaw a portfolio of capacity building, racial justice, and climate change research initiatives that support community resilience and transform government to enable an intersectional and community-first approach to tackling the climate crisis. As a state grantmaker, Kirin oversaw a $25 million upstream portfolio, funding movement building organizations, tribes, local governments, and coalitions of multi-sector partners to shift power and increase regional capacity to advance climate justice. Translating lessons learned from partnering with communities on the ground, Kirin has led several statewide efforts to shift policy and practice to remove barriers to access, including California’s first ever advanced pay pilot policy and formal cabinet-level commitments to capacity building investments as central to the state’s climate change agenda.

Prior to his role with the Strategic Growth Council, Kirin was the Executive Director of WALKSacramento (now CivicThread) a regional transportation and health equity nonprofit. In that role, Kirin worked to weave health and racial equity into local land use planning policy, facilitate community-led planning, and increase the region’s competitiveness for critical infrastructure funding.

Kirin received a degree in Environmental Policy and Planning from UC Davis. He lives in Sacramento and when not working, can be found exploring California’s parks and wildlife, overcommitting to ambitious recipes, and honing his pandemic inspired woodworking hobby.