Who I AM
When I was six years old, I organized my first protest. I rallied kids from my block to stand against child labor — which I knew was wrong, though I didn’t quite realize it wasn’t the same thing as doing your chores (and, truthfully, that was what I was really protesting, in classic six-year-old fashion). Looking back, that early moment of organizing — misguided as it was — was the spark of a lifelong commitment to building a better world.
I grew up in Philly in a single-parent home where resources were limited and adversity was part of everyday life. In my family and community, I saw up close the impact of poverty, mental illness, substance use, food insecurity, and violence. I also navigated my own struggles with mental health, survived sexual violence, and lost friends I grew up with to drugs, prison, and tragedy. These experiences taught me how deeply inequity is woven into our systems — and how, in these systems, inequity builds upon and reinforces itself. But my experiences also gave me a clarity of purpose: I wanted to dismantle systemic suffering.
At first, I thought I would do that by becoming a counselor. I enrolled in a certificate program for counseling, but soon realized I could go further — I became a first-generation college student, earning my bachelor’s degree in social work. As a big-picture thinker, I began to see how systemic change could be driven through advocacy, policy, and nonprofit leadership. That realization led me to apply to my university’s advanced placement Master of Social Work (MSW) program, where I specialized in communities and policy arenas with a focus on health and mental health.
During undergrad, I discovered I had a talent for fundraising when I wrote my first grant proposal and helped run my first grassroots campaign. That experience showed me how powerful resource-building could be in driving real change. In graduate school, I began to sharpen that focus, honing in on nonprofit management — and specifically nonprofit development — as a career path where I could leverage both strategy and action to create the kind of change I wanted to see in the world. At the time, I was working with an organization that gave me the chance to dive deeper: I led advocacy and policy initiatives, strengthened my grant writing skills, experimented with grassroots fundraising, and even began exploring major gifts. It was then that I realized fundraising wasn’t just about raising money — it was about fueling movements, amplifying voices, and laying the groundwork for justice-focused change.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked across diverse issue areas, but always with the same goal of helping nonprofits grow their resources and deepen their impact.
I began in community development and policy, working in a local university’s social policy department, where I supported program evaluation efforts that assessed effectiveness and translated data into strategies for stronger community initiatives. During that time, I also earned a Citizen Planner certificate through the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, which sharpened my understanding of how thoughtful planning, grassroots input, and civic engagement can drive lasting change. I carried this systems-focused approach into my role at a community development financial institution, where I oversaw fundraising and marketing and built a diversified revenue base to sustain programs providing entrepreneurs and families with the tools to achieve economic stability and opportunity. These early experiences cemented my belief that community-driven development, paired with innovative resource strategies, can lay the groundwork for stronger, more equitable futures.
Education has also been a key thread in my career, offering another avenue to expand opportunity and equity. As a first-generation college student myself, I know how transformative access to education can be. One of my earliest fundraising roles was in development and communications for an after-school STEM program serving public school students in Philadelphia. Years later, I brought that same passion for access and opportunity to several different organizations: a special education nonprofit where I directed fundraising and community engagement, and a nonprofit student finance institution in the Midwest, serving low-income and first-generation college students from Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul, where I focused on building institutional partnerships. Across each of these roles, I saw firsthand how education can transform lives, and I built fundraising strategies to help make those opportunities possible.
I’ve also dedicated a significant part of my career to environmental justice, advancing efforts that link sustainability with social equity. At a leading national environmental nonprofit in the United States, I directed a development team that was responsible for major gifts, corporate partnerships, and grants, designing strategies that broke fundraising records and expanded reach. My commitment to environmental equity also extends to my writing, including a published chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Green Social Work that explores the intersection of food insecurity, social injustice, and environmental exploitation. Beyond my professional work and academic contributions in this space, I’ve volunteered with food security organizations, organizing awareness-raising campaigns and food drives for individuals experiencing food insecurity and hunger — efforts I see as inextricably tied to environmental sustainability and equity, given how industrial farming practices deplete soil, the overproduction of livestock that drives deforestation and pollution, and the realities of environmental racism so often combine to cause food insecurity in the first place. In that same vein, I served as the greening committee chair for a civic association, where I led local environmental projects ranging from community cleanups to gardening initiatives to drafting greenscape proposals for underutilized city spaces.
Feminism has been another defining theme of my career. I’ve raised awareness and funding for organizations fighting sex trafficking in the United States and supporting survivors of childhood sexual violence (mostly girls) in Bolivia. I also directed fundraising and operations for a South Sudanese girls’ education nonprofit, working to secure the resources needed to expand opportunities for girls and women to pursue independence and stability. I’ve also carried my commitment to women’s rights into my personal life, organizing petitions for women’s access to reproductive healthcare, writing on issues of sexism in the workplace, and marching against sexual violence. For me, advancing gender equity has always meant tackling barriers on every front, through both professional and grassroots efforts alike.
At the same time, my lived experience with depression and anxiety has fueled a lifelong commitment to advancing health and mental health equity. I know how much these struggles can shape lives, and I believe access to care and support should be a right, not a privilege. This conviction shaped my MSW focus on health and mental health and led me to work with a nonprofit in Africa treating women and children with depression, where I engaged major donors to expand services. I also consulted for a crisis text hotline in Pittsburgh, serving mostly teens, where I evaluated program effectiveness to strengthen their ability to help people in moments of crisis. These experiences deepened my conviction that mental health is not a side issue but a pillar of social justice, essential to ensuring that individuals and communities can thrive.
Another area of my work has focused on helping to shape progressive narratives and strengthen the infrastructure of progressive movements. I’ve supported some of the most important movements of my generation — from immigrant rights to Occupy Wall Street, to LGBTQIA+ rights, to Black Lives Matter and the pro-choice movement — sometimes standing in quiet solidarity with causes and at other times lending my voice, my time, and my organizing energy. I’ve also co-founded relief funds and community initiatives, stepped up in moments of crisis to mobilize support, and joined various grassroots campaigns aimed at dismantling systemic injustice. Recently, I even worked with a progressive Christian publication to strengthen its foundation partnerships and increase its institutional funding, thereby amplifying voices for justice, democracy, and peace at a national scale. Whether through narrative change, direct action, or fundraising, I have always sought to resource and sustain social justice movements.
Taken together, my experiences have given me a unique, 360-degree perspective on the nonprofit sector and progressive movements — from grassroots campaigns to institutional partnerships, from community-based organizations to national and international organizations. What unites all of this is my commitment to pairing innovation with action: designing strategies that inspire and then rolling up my sleeves to make them real.
Outside of my professional life, I love having new experiences whenever and however I can, whether through books, movies, or visiting new places. Travel has been especially meaningful for me, offering the chance to immerse myself in cultures and communities beyond my own. In Guatemala, I joined an introspective retreat that invited reflection and renewal; in Italy, I studied the language and found deep friendship in the most unexpected places; in Paris, I set out on a whirlwind solo adventure, walking more than 40,000 steps a day to take in as much as I could; and in Puerto Rico, I reconnected with a dear friend from my graduate program who now calls San Juan home, learning from her and other locals about the island’s rich history and spirit. These experiences, and many more, have deepened my sense of curiosity and reminded me of the value of seeing the world through different lenses. And I hope to travel more often and to many more places in the future. Closer to home, I find joy in kayaking, swimming, practicing yoga, and lately, spending time in the garden growing some of my own food. I’m also an avid reader and lifelong learner, and I enjoy writing as both a creative outlet and a way of making sense of the world.
Most of all, I’m the proud mom of three beautiful kids — a three-year-old boy and five-month-old twins, a girl and a boy — who truly are my world and inspire everything I do. My three-year-old son is kind-hearted, playful, curious, and loving — he keeps me on my toes (literally, he loves to dance) and fills our days with laughter and big questions. One of my twins, my daughter, already reminds me so much of myself: she’s so observant and intent on taking everything in, plus she’s already mastered the stink eye, and she can go from zero to sixty in seconds flat. My other twin, my baby boy, might just be the happiest baby anyone has ever met — his smile is pure sunshine, and he has an uncanny ability to melt your worries away just by looking at you. My children remind me every day why this work matters. I want to leave the world better than I found it, and I hope to raise my kids to be empathetic, kind, and strong — the kind of people who know right from wrong and stand up for what they believe in. At the same time, my deepest wish is to help create a world where there’s less need for them to fight those battles, because by the time I leave it, the world will be fairer, more just, and more whole than it was when I brought them into it.