Why i do this work

And sometimes that instinct even got me into trouble.

In fifth grade, there was a boy who relentlessly bullied and harassed the girls in my class, myself included. After months of watching teachers do little to stop it, I finally reached my breaking point and responded in the most ten-year-old way imaginable: I kicked him squarely in the balls. I earned myself a trip to the principal's office while he escaped any real consequences. I certainly wouldn't recommend my conflict-resolution strategy today, but even then I couldn't understand why the people causing harm so often seemed to avoid accountability while the people standing up to it paid the price.

As I got older, my understanding of justice became more nuanced. I became deeply interested in feminism, environmental stewardship, and anti-racism. I started asking bigger questions about why inequality exists, who benefits from broken systems, and what it takes to change them.

That conviction has stayed with me into adulthood. Years later, I confronted a car full of people shouting racial slurs at pedestrians. They stopped the car, got out, and surrounded me. Looking back, I recognize how badly that situation could have ended. Fortunately, they eventually got back in the car and drove away. That experience reinforced something I had been learning my entire life: I will never be someone who stays silent when I witness injustice or unfairness. Even when speaking up is uncomfortable or carries personal risk, it has never felt like a choice.

Over time, I realized that standing up to injustice in the moment, while important, wasn't changing much. I wanted to understand why unfairness existed in the first place and, more importantly, how to prevent it. I wanted to move beyond reacting to problems and start solving them.

For a long time, I thought that meant becoming a counselor. I wanted to help people through difficult moments, one conversation at a time. But as I became a first-generation college student and studied social work, my perspective began to change. I became fascinated not only by the challenges individuals face, but by the systems that shape those challenges in the first place.

That curiosity eventually led me to earn my Master of Social Work (MSW), specializing in communities and policy arenas. I wanted to understand how organizations, policies, and movements create lasting change.

Around that same time, I stumbled into fundraising almost by accident.

I wrote my first grant proposal. I helped organize a grassroots campaign. And I realized something that has shaped my career ever since: the best ideas in the world don't change anything unless they're properly resourced.

Fundraising wasn't just about money. It was about possibility. It was about helping extraordinary people do extraordinary work.

Since then, I've had the privilege of helping various nonprofits advance educational opportunities, strengthen communities, protect the environment, promote gender equity, improve mental health, defend democracy, and protect survivors of violence. While the causes have been diverse, my purpose has remained remarkably consistent.

Whether I'm helping a nonprofit secure a transformational gift, coaching a board to embrace its role in philanthropy, or designing a long-term fundraising strategy, I'm ultimately trying to accomplish the same thing I've been chasing since I was six years old: helping good people build a better world.

Outside of work, I am endlessly curious and rarely content to experience the world from a distance. I love books, writing, history, travel, gardening, kayaking, swimming, and exploring places that help me see life from a different perspective. I am happiest when I am learning something new, creating something with my hands, or heading somewhere I have never been before.

Travel has always been one of the ways I reconnect with that curiosity. I love everything from wandering through historic neighborhoods and museums to finding local restaurants, exploring the natural landscape, and learning how people in other places live and understand the world. Some of my favorite trips have combined history, culture, and the outdoors: long days spent walking unfamiliar cities, time near the water, visits to places with stories much older than my own, and road trips where the journey becomes as memorable as the destination. I return home from every trip with new questions, new ideas, and usually a much longer list of places I still want to see.

At home, I love writing, reading across a wide range of subjects, and losing myself in a project. Gardening has become one of my favorite ways to slow down. I love planting something, caring for it over time, and watching our yard become a place that feels increasingly alive and ours. Kayaking gives me a different kind of stillness. There is something about being on the water that makes the rest of the world quiet for a while. I also love swimming, spending time outside, making our home beautiful, and settling in with a good movie when everyone is finally ready to be still.

Most importantly, I am the mom of three incredible young children: my four-year-old son and my 15-month-old boy-girl twins. They are funny, affectionate, curious, loud, messy, fearless, and completely themselves. Life with three very young children is rarely calm, but it is full of wonder.

We love going kayaking together, digging in the garden, swimming, being outside, taking little adventures, and cuddling up to watch movies. Some days, our adventures are genuinely exciting. Other days, they involve planting an apple tree in the yard, splashing in the pool, or piling onto the couch under far too many blankets. They have made me pay closer attention to the small things: the excitement of growing something from a seed, the courage it takes to try something for the first time, and the way an ordinary afternoon can become a core memory.

They have also changed the way I understand my work.

When I think about stronger nonprofits, better institutions, courageous leaders, and communities with the resources to care for their people, none of it feels abstract to me. I’m thinking about the world my children will grow up in. I’m thinking about whether they will inherit communities shaped by empathy, justice, opportunity, creativity, and care. I am thinking about the people working every day to protect families, strengthen democracy, expand access to education and health, advance gender and racial justice, and build a future in which more people can thrive.

My children remind me that the decisions we make today do not end with us. The organizations we build, the systems we strengthen, the ideas we fund, and the causes we choose to fight for all become part of the world the next generation inherits.

They are why I do this work.