Maximizing Your NCG Membership in 2024

Sarah is passionate about connecting people, exploring new ideas and figuring out how to make things work. She brings these skills, along with a background in program design, network development and learning communities to her work at NCG. As the Manager of Collaborative Philanthropy, Sarah will focus on the work of the Nonprofit Displacement Project and will work with NCG’s collaborative philanthropy groups. Before joining NCG, Sarah provided strategic leadership for an organization that built innovative leadership in the reproductive health, rights and justice sector. Prior to that, Sarah designed and implemented multiple grant programs and learning networks focused on the social determinants of health and safety net healthcare innovation for the Center for Care Innovations.

Sarah received a bachelor’s degree in literary studies with a minor in Latin from the University of Minnesota –Twin Cities. She loves to sew fun clothes and is a bookworm who is very proud to have passed that trait on to her two children.

Arron is NCG’s Director for Member Engagement where he oversees emergent partnerships and key programming to engage NCG’s diverse membership.  Before joining NCG, Arron was a social entrepreneur and strategic advisor who worked with labor, philanthropy, education, and nonprofit leaders to build the capacity of, and sometimes transform, public systems to better serve and support low-income communities.  He previously served as the associate director of education at the now sunset S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, where he worked on policy and system improvement in California public schools, with a focus on STEM education, whole child development strategies, and educator preparation. 

Arron started his career in anti-poverty work with low-income communities in Nebraska before moving to the Bay Area in 2001.  In California, he continued working on family issues including preschool, child care and youth development programs first at a state intermediary and then at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Arron proudly serves as a Trustee of the National Equity Project and as a board member of Oakland-based, Partnership for Children & Youth, and San Francisco-based, Safe & Sound. 

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. 

Dwayne S. Marsh assumed the position of President and CEO of Northern California Grantmakers on September 9, 2020. He brings 27 years of experience in the public, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors with a career commitment to advancing racial and economic equity.

Dwayne recently completed a four-year turn as co-Director of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) and Vice President of Institutional and Sectoral Change at Race Forward Race Forward. During his tenure, the membership network of local, regional, and state entities committed to advancing racial equity through the policies, practices, and public investments grew from just over 20 to nearly 200 participating jurisdictions.

Prior to GARE, Marsh spent six years as a senior advisor in the Office of Economic Resilience (OER) at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. There, he helped advance sustainable planning and development through interagency partnerships, departmental transformation, and funding initiatives managed through OER. He was OER’s principal coordinator for a $250 million grant program and led the development of capacity building resources that reinforced the work of pioneering grantees in 48 states and the District of Columbia. Under his leadership, OER prioritized equity as a foundational principal for its planning and investment initiatives.

Marsh brings to the movement his expertise and considerable experience in coalition building for regional equity and leadership development for policy change. He provides technical assistance and capacity building knowledge to equitable development initiatives that address continuing disparities in affordable housing, transportation investment, and environmental justice. Before HUD, Marsh spent a decade at PolicyLink, the national organization committed to economic and social equity. Before PolicyLink, he directed the FAITHS Initiative for eight years at The San Francisco Foundation, building a nationally renowned community development and capacity building program that continues to this day. His career has been defined by supporting communities traditionally marginalized from full participation in our economy and society to build power and leverage lasting systems transformation.

Q has led many “lives” in professionalized and grassroots movement as a narrative strategist, resource mobilizer, and policy advocate. Within their role at NCG, Q will be centering racial equity to align our policy and narrative strategies. She is excited to lead the brilliant communications and policy teams towards strategies that shift material conditions and build power for marginalized communities.   

Before joining NCG, Q worked on multiple policy advocacy issues including: housing justice, transit equity, climate justice, disability justice, and Trans liberation. For over 10 years, she has served nonprofits in the Bay Area to build narrative power and create pathways for collective liberation. She has a keen eye for co-envisioning the possibilities and joy inherent in resource redistribution and wealth reclamation work.  

Q graduated with a Masters in Social Work in Community Organizing and Management. Q eagerly serves as a board member for HEART. Their deepest forms of knowledge extend outside of the classroom over South Asian brunch, in somatic grief circles, improv spaces, and near Lake Merritt/Lake Michigan.