PowerMoves: How to Put Community-Powered Funding into Practice

Immigrated to the United States in the late 2000s, Hawi Desta got her start in youth organizing through California’s for Justice. Currently, she has just finished up her second year in college as a political science major while simultaneously working as a youth grantmaker. Hawi has served on both sessions of the grantmaking as a youth representative as well as partaking in the design sessions. She is now a Youth Power Fund fellow working to support YO! Cali’s Capacity Building and Power Building strategies and efforts in northern California. 

Born and raised in Oakland, Joshua Lee has been leading grassroots organizations in the Bay Area for over ten years. A focal point of Josh’s work has been with youth organizing groups in the east bay such as Youth Together and AYPAL: Building Asian Pacific Islander Community Power, centering the voices and leadership of some of the most powerful yet vulnerable populations in the region in BIPOC young people. Josh recently completed his role as a Multicultural Fellow at the San Francisco Foundation (SFF), where he led their Rapid Response Fund for Movement Building and COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund grantmaking. Prior to his role at SFF, he was the Director of AYPAL: Building API Community Power for 5 years. He has a MA from the University of Michigan in Higher Education with a focus on Social Justice, and a BA from UC Santa Cruz in American Studies. After being in the field for many years, harnessing his perspective as both grantee and funder, he is driven by a commitment to building collective strategies towards racial equity, led by those most impacted, towards a Just East Bay.