Faculty | 2020 New Grantmakers Institute

Dimple Abichandani is the Executive Director of the General Service Foundation (GSF), a private foundation that supports organizations building power at the intersection of  racial, gender and economic justice. Dimple joined General Service Foundation in 2015, bringing almost two decades of experience advancing social justice as a lawyer, funder and educator.
 
Prior to joining GSF, Dimple was the Executive Director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the Center, Dimple launched a social justice innovation lab aimed at generating new long-term approaches to persistent social justice challenges and providing law students opportunities to develop skills and mindsets including creativity, empathy, collaboration and social justice problem solving.
 
As the founding program officer of the Security and Rights Collaborative (SRC) at the Proteus Fund, Dimple managed a donor collaborative aimed at challenging post-9/11 Islamophobia and discrimination and restoring civil rights and liberties. Earlier in her career, Dimple worked at Legal Services NYC, first as a staff attorney where she represented low wage workers and later as the Director of Program Development.
 
Dimple currently serves on the board of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees and has served on the boards of Asian Americans Advancing Justice- Asian Law Caucus, Forward Together and the Third Wave Foundation. Dimple earned a JD at Northeastern University School of Law, and a BA in English with Honors at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Oakland, CA with her daughter and partner.

Jamie Allison is devoted to building a healthy, just, and vibrant society, one in which we work creatively and collaboratively to bring the benefits of inclusive community to all. Before joining the Walter & Elise Haas Fund as its Executive Director in 2018, Jamie helped lead the S. H. Cowell Foundation. She started there as Program Officer in charge of Youth Development in 2006. Her portfolio at Cowell steadily grew to encompass affordable housing and program-related investment management as she took the role of Senior Program Officer in 2012, then as Vice President Programs in 2016.

When not at work, Jamie keeps active as a hiker, runner, and frequent attendee of film festivals and Major League Soccer games. She was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but feels at home around the globe, experiencing and volunteering in places from Benin to Peru. Jamie earned undergraduate degrees in Political Science, Economics, Spanish, and Humanities from the University of Tennessee and went on to receive her Masters from the University of California at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. Her breadth of civic involvement includes serving on the board of The Whitman Institute, a philanthropy focused on promoting trust and equity, and serving as faculty for Northern California Grantmakers’ New Grantmakers Institute.

Meaghan’s primary work at the Moore Foundation focuses on bringing together diverse interests in Canada to resolve conflict and ensure a healthy ocean and sustainable communities. Previously, she was at Conservation International, where she evaluated community-based conservation and economic development projects in the Philippines and Indonesia. Meaghan also taught middle school environmental education in Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina, the latter through a fellowship with the National Science Foundation. She facilitated an ocean conservation funder working group in the Biodiversity Funders Group. Meaghan also served on the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy’s San Francisco Bay Area steering committee and as board secretary for the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network. She currently serves on the board of directors at the Environmental Grantmakers Association. She was selected as a member of Council on Foundation’s Career Pathways in 2019. Meaghan is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame,Duke University, and Cape Breton University.

Angie brings deep experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors to her work at The Libra Foundation, with particular strengths in nurturing community and building coalitions. In her role as Senior Program Officer, she leads Environmental and Climate Justice grantmaking and Libra’s community programs.

As founding Executive Director of the Blue Sky Funders Forum, Angie created and oversaw all aspects of a national funder collaborative focused on expanding equitable access to opportunities to learn,  play, and grow outdoors. Prior to Blue Sky, Angie served as an advisor to the Pisces Foundation during its formation and as Program Officer at the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, where she supported  capacity building efforts during its spend down. Angie has also designed and managed strategic initiatives at the Pacific Forest & Watershed Lands Stewardship Council and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. And she previously consulted and worked at nonprofit and government organizations that provide safety net services.

Angie has served on the board of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and was an American Express NGen Fellow. She is a graduate of Harvard University and UC Berkeley.

(she/her) Cecilia Chen is the Chief Strategy Officer at Akonadi Foundation, where she supports strategy development across Akonadi’s program areas and implementation of Akonadi’s five-year initiative, All in For Oakland. 

Before joining Akonadi, Cecilia was the Public Policy Director at Northern California Grantmakers. She built the association’s policy advocacy infrastructure and led advocacy to protect immigrant rights, ensure an accurate census, and fight for equitable tax reform. Cecilia also served as a Deputy Attorney General at the California Attorney General’s Office, advancing the Attorney General’s policy priorities around criminal justice reform and childhood trauma. Cecilia was previously the Associate Director of Policy at the Center for Youth Wellness, where she led statewide efforts to prevent and address childhood adversity and the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on children’s health. She was also the 2011-2013 Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. Cecilia graduated from Tufts University and received her J.D. from Boston College Law School. 

A Bay Area native, Cecilia lives in San Francisco with her husband, daughter and fur baby Sherlock. In addition to being an unabashed dessert lover (especially ice cream), Cecilia enjoys exploring the Bay Area and trekking internationally. 

Charles Sidney Fields joined the Irvine Foundation’s San Francisco office in late August 2016. He has more than a decade of leadership experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector, funding and supporting social change organizations to achieve greater impact.

He previously served as a Senior Program Manager for The California Endowment. There he was responsible for strategy development, grantmaking, and leadership activities in Southern California. He also co-developed and managed Sons & Brothers, the Endowment’s $50 million grantmaking and leadership program focused on improving the health, wellness, and opportunity of boys and young men of color. During his tenure there, he co-developed a $260 million public-private loan fund, the FreshWorks Fund, to increase access to healthy foods and spur economic development in underserved communities in California.

Prior to the Endowment, Charles was a grantmaker at the Marguerite Casey Foundation, managing a $8 million portfolio of grants focused on community economic development, civic engagement, educational equity, violence prevention, and family support.

Charles was also an Initiative Coordinator and Neighborhood and Community Development Fellow at the San Francisco Foundation, where he provided day-to-day management of the West Oakland Initiative. Other positions of note include: Social Action and Policy Coordinator for The National Community Building Network in Oakland; Empowerment Zone Coordinator for the Transportation Resource Information Project in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Organizer and Economic Development Specialist for Welcome House (Northern Kentucky Welfare Reform Task Force) in Covington, Kentucky.

Charles currently serves as the chair of the Edward W. Hazen Foundation and was recently awarded a German Marshall Memorial Fellowship to Europe.

Fields has his master’s in education and bachelor’s in organizational communications from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Seyron Foo brings together changemakers to advance public policy goals that help create and sustain thriving communities. He is the Senior Advocacy Officer at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, a grantmaking partner to nonprofits working to improve the lives of individuals living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage throughout the world.  He manages the advocacy strategies that advance the foundation’s programmatic goals of ending chronic homelessness in Los Angeles, supporting transition-age foster youth, and cultivating successful career pathways to transform the lives of opportunity youth. Previously, Seyron was the Vice President of Public Policy and Government Relations at Southern California Grantmakers and Philanthropy California, where he led advocacy efforts that strengthened philanthropy’s voice with federal, state and local governments. He has experience in various government sectors, including the California State Senate, United States Treasury’s Office of International Affairs, and the City of Long Beach.

In June, Governor Gavin Newsom re-appointed Seyron to the California Board of Psychology, where he currently serves as Board President. He belongs to the 2018 American Express NGEN Fellows Program of Independent Sector, a group of ten individuals selected from across the country for their ability to strengthen civil society’s capacity for future impact.

He earned his master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and his bachelor’s degree in rhetoric and political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

A lover of food and an avid traveler, Seyron loves to translate his adventures into (hopefully tasty) dishes to feed family and friends in his cozy Long Beach kitchen (in non-pandemic times!).

David Greco is a nationally recognized nonprofit leader, speaker, and author on creating a more sustainable and effective social sector. Today David serves as Executive Director of All Stars Helping Kids providing early stage investments in emerging nonprofits working to help break the cycle of poverty for youth in the Bay Area.

David began his career working on political campaigns before moving into the nonprofit sector where he has worked to provide access to education for economically disadvantaged youth, built community coalitions around improving the social determinants of health for young people, and supported environmental education and wildlife habitat conservation. In all of his work, David has focused on helping organizations scale programs, expand services and increase impact.

Prior to leading All Stars, David founded Social Sector Partners to help nonprofits and funders better understand what it really costs for nonprofits to be sustainable and achieve impact.  He worked with nonprofits on how to develop revenue and fundraising strategies that cover their full cost; and he partnered with funders to adapt grantmaking practices to better support nonprofit sustainability and impact.

He created and led the Full Cost Project in California to increase the number of grantmakers providing full cost funding, served as Interim President and CEO for Northern California Grantmakers, was the Vice President of the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) for more than 5 years and Vice President of the Youth Leadership Institute.  He regularly speaks at national conferences, has trained thousands of social sector leaders on financial sustainability, and he has partners with the staff, trustees and grantees for dozens of foundations.

David is a professor in the Masters in Nonprofit Administration program at University of San Francisco. He is the author of “Nonprofit Financial Management” featured in “Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals” edited by Darian Rodriguez Heyman and Laila Brenner and "Think Money First! Ending the Culture of Scarcity and Achieving Real Impact.”  David served for ten years in the Air Force and Air Force Reserves and earned his M.A. in Political Science from Villanova University and B.S. in History & Politics from Drexel University.

Pia believes we have the collective imagination and power to redesign philanthropy to center the people we serve. Philippine-born, California-grown, and queer, oldest daughter in an immigrant family, Pia navigates difference to broker connection. Pia brings her chops as a former high school teacher, organizational development consultant, and nonprofit manager to her work. Pia is a nationally recognized advocate for trust-based philanthropy and radically embodied leadership. She chairs the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project steering committee and serves on the board of MediaJustice.org. Pia is visiting faculty at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment, and speaks and teaches in many settings. She holds a M.A. in Education from the New School for Social Research, and a B.A. in Rhetoric from The University of California at Berkeley. Pia is a proud long time resident of Oakland, CA. 

Karla Mercado supports SCG's public policy efforts and manages Philanthropy California initiatives.

Prior to SCG, Karla was the director of special events for a public relations firm where she developed and coordinated strategic networking events for local nonprofits, institutions, and corporate clients, with the goal of expanding their community involvement and exposure. She began her work in the nonprofit sector as a case manager for the Los Angeles Chapter of Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters, where she supported and maintained records for youth and their mentors to ensure positive youth and match development. Karla has a B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Los Angeles and an M.P.A. and certificate in Non-Profit Management from the California State University, Northridge.

Zach Norris is the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, author of We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities, and co-founder of Restore Oakland, a community advocacy and training center that will empower Bay Area community members to transform local economic and justice systems and make a safe and secure future possible for themselves and for their families.  Zach is also a co-founder of Justice for Families, a national alliance of family-driven organizations working to end our nation’s youth incarceration epidemic.

Zach helped build California’s first statewide network for families of incarcerated youth which led the effort to close five youth prisons in the state, passed legislation to enable families to stay in contact with their loved ones, and defeated Prop 6—a destructive and ineffective criminal justice ballot measure.

We Keep Us Safe, released in 2020, has been praised by Forbes, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, and Kirkus Reviews.

In addition to being a Harvard graduate and NYU-educated attorney, Zach is also a graduate of the Labor Community Strategy Center’s National School for Strategic Organizing in Los Angeles, California and was a 2011 Soros Justice Fellow. He is a former board member at Witness for Peace, Just Cause Oakland and Justice for Families. Zach was a recipient of the American Constitution Society’s David Carliner Public Interest Award in 2015, and is a member of the 2016 class of the Levi Strauss Foundation’s Pioneers of Justice.

Zach is a loving husband and dedicated father of two bright daughters, whom he is raising in his hometown of Oakland, California.

Shaady Salehi is a strategist, facilitator, and network builder who has dedicated nearly 20 years to advancing social impact across various sectors. She currently serves as the director of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, a 5-year learning and advocacy initiative to make trust-based practices the norm in the philanthropic sector. She also is Principal and Founder of Skyview Strategies, a social impact consultancy for nonprofits, foundations, and changemakers. Previously, Shaady was Managing Director of Distribution and Impact at ITVS, where she led a team to advance the reach and impact of documentaries on public television. Prior to ITVS, she was Executive Director of Active Voice, a pioneering organization that uses storytelling to catalyze social change. Shaady is a 2014 Aspen Institute Fellow and sits on the board of Let It Ripple, a nonprofit that experiments with collaborative filmmaking for the common good. She holds an M.S. in Strategic Communications from Columbia University and an M.A. in Anthropology from UC Davis. 

Monika has dedicated her career to human rights and social justice work.  Before relocating to California, Monika spent five years serving as the Executive Director of the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, the largest provider of pro bono legal services in the District of Columbia serving 20,000 individuals, nonprofit organizations and small businesses.  Monika previously served as the Director of the Center for Human Rights at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights which partnered with social movement leaders domestically and internationally, providing long-term advocacy, legal and direct programming support.  Prior to the RFK Center, Monika worked as an associate legal officer with the Office of the Prosecutor at the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where her trial team secured the Tribunal’s first conviction of the crime of terror against General Stanislav Galić, the Serb military commander in Sarajevo from 1992-1994.

Monika is the recipient of the 2016 South Asian Bar Association’s Public Interest Achievement Award.  Monika is married to attorney Anurag Varma.  They have an eight year old daughter and five year old twin boys.  Monika enjoys writing children’s books that inspire the next generation of social movement leaders and change agents.

Eileen Yang leads Genentech’s K-12 STEM education charitable giving. Eileen was a social impact consultant supporting clients that included Adobe, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Chicago Public Schools, Gates Foundation, and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises. Most recently, Eileen was at LinkedIn and NerdWallet where she led business development and partnership efforts. She began her career in management consulting after graduating from Yale University with a BA in Political Science. Eileen’s a first generation college student, daughter of refugees from Vietnam, and life-long beneficiary of opportunities.