she/her

Deborah is an attorney who led a prior life as an organizer. She has worked for progressive candidates, not-for-profit advocacy organizations, policy coalitions, social justice networks, and foundations. She started her career as an organizer, worked as a journalist, and is also an attorney. She left her law career in 2016 and is now the executive Director of a multi-entity organization: New Left Accelerator and NLA’s affiliated 501(c)(3), The Capacity Shop. Deborah has a law degree from U.C. Berkeley School of Law, a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University, and a M.A. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley. She serves on the boards of Women Lawyers On Guard and Action Squared. She lives in San Francisco, and is the proud and tired mom of Ryder Jane (9) and Hudson Townes (7).

she/her

Jen developed a passion for process, planning, and systems through her time working for political and grassroots campaigns including the Obama Campaign and Organizing for America. She honed her skills in the nonprofit world as the Director of Acceleration Services at Citizen Engagement Lab (CEL). There she oversaw a fiscal sponsorship program that provided organizational development and fundraising services to social change start-ups, including Vote.org, 18MillionRising, and MPowerChange. Jen has extensive experience building effective grassroots organizations, running organizational systems, and nonprofit infrastructure. Jen lives in Oakland, California with her husband and dog Stanley.

she/her

Mery Concepción Pacheco is an Afro-Caribbean immigrant, abolitionist, and writer building and thinking at the intersection of the literary arts, prison abolition, and creative storytelling. Her written work deals with themes of embodiment, familial unravelings, racial (un)becomings, and healing. Her poetry has been previously published by Newtown Literary and QA Poetry. She lives, dreams, and loves in the margins.

Shawn Fischer is a Southern Appalachian-based community organizer and activist. They are deeply informed from their experiences living in rural and small communities across the US South, and have over 15 years working in government and 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) sectors. Much of their practices are informed from working with grassroots organizations focused on providing abolitionist-based safety and security, mutual aid, and disaster relief. As a military veteran, Shawn uses their experiences from within the Military-Industrial-Complex to aid and assist organizations and communities struggling at the intersections of social, racial, gender, and economic justice. Shawn has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Villanova University, and is an avid student continuously looking to develop and share skills aimed at collective survival and liberation.

they/he

Sahim is a queer & trans facilitator and advocate currently residing in DC / Piscataway land. Their work has primarily centered around programs management, healing justice, transformative justice, community safety, wellness, and abolition, working within and for queer and trans communities of color. He has facilitated at various events and conferences, including Allied Media Conference, Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference, and the National Trans Visibility March, and has received grants for his transformative justice work through the Trans Justice Funding Project and the Healing and Transformative Justice Fund. They are the co-creator of an accountability and support collective for transmasculine and masculine-of-center Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). In their spare time, they love to share food and thoughts with loved ones, get out in nature, and sip lots of tea.

she/her

Blake enjoys putting the "people" in People & Culture. Most recently, Blake led People and Culture at a growing nonprofit in Seattle (Duwamish land) focusing on opportunities to address organizational cultural challenges and ensure internal policies and systems were human-centered and equitable. Volunteering with nonprofits since a young age, she is particularly passionate about spaces held for grieving children and their families. She’s a Pacific Northwest gal at heart, kayaking in the summer and hibernating in the winter. Blake is excited to promote employee wellbeing at NLA with advocacy and enthusiasm!

Born and raised in New Jersey, JoJo began organizing as an undergrad at Rutgers University. There she worked on the Fight for 15 and Nike campaigns, exposing exploitative labor practices on campus and abroad. After graduating, she joined the first ever WILL Empower cohort as an apprentice and research intern. Since then, she has worked with local, national and international unions and nonprofits fighting for racial and economic equity, fair labor practices, and co-op development.

she/her

Before joining New Left Accelerator, Christelle’s work primarily focused on program management, operations, and racial equity competency building. Christelle has worked at Living Cities where she led projects toward building racial equity practice within a network of 21 cities across the country. Christelle also worked at Demos where she managed a cohort of 35 grassroots organizations across 17 states through successful national convenings, curated monthly content, and essential financial assistance. At Data & Society Research Institute, she oversaw Whisky Wednesdays, a weekly networking mixer, and Data Bites, a regular speaker series that focuses on interrogating the purpose and power of technology in today’s society. Christelle holds a Master in Public Administration with a focus in government from Pace University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Stony Brook University. Christelle is a native New Yorker who enjoys reading speculative fiction, practicing her swim technique and daydreaming about daring futures.

she/her

Maritza joins us from CASA, the largest immigrant rights organization in the Mid-Atlantic, where she was the director of education. Before joining CASA, Maritza was an educator for seven years at both the collegiate and secondary school level in the Washington, DC area. In 2003, she was selected as a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Fellow working in the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives. Maritza earned an BA and MA in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Maryland, College Park and an MEd in Educational Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Shruti Garg has worked across the nonprofit sector as a grantmaker, capacity builder, and consultant. Throughout her practice, she is committed to fostering effective and dynamic pathways for organizational resiliency. Currently a program officer at the James Irvine Foundation, she was most recently a consultant to nonprofits around the country, both in her independent practice and while at the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Shruti also oversaw Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP)’s membership efforts as well as managed the Open Society Foundations (OSF)’s grantmaking to immigrant rights, racial justice, and low-wage worker rights organizations. Shruti graduated from Smith College and received her Master of Public Policy from the University of Southern California.

Cameron is an attorney specializing in tax, corporate, and regulatory law as applicable to nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations. Prior to opening her practice, Cameron worked as an attorney-adviser for the U.S Department of State, serving as counsel to the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Georgia and worked against trafficking in persons in Poland. Cameron formerly served as Vice-Chair of Programs on the California Bar Association’s Nonprofit Committee and graduated Berkeley School of Law in 2007. She live in Alameda, California with her husband and three children.

Suneela Jain is the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer and Chief of Staff at Tides where she oversees Tides’ legal risk and compliance function, supporting organizational awareness and frameworks for risk management that center Tides’ mission and values. Prior to joining Tides, Suneela worked as an attorney at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and Gunderson Dettmer, and as a pro bono attorney at The Nature Conservancy. In those roles, she advised individuals, non-profits, and a range of private and public actors about issues relating to corporate governance, stakeholder relationships, investments, and structuring joint venture and other partnerships. At Cleary, she also advised small businesses as chair of the Microenterprise Project at Volunteers of Legal Services and served as a member of the Pro Bono, Diversity & Inclusion, and Mentoring Committees.

In addition to her role at The New Left Accelerator, Suneela is also a member of the Investment Committee at Realize Impact, and a member of the Ethics Task Force of the Council on Foundations. Suneela received her JD from Yale University, and her BA from UCLA.

As Justice Funders’ Senior Innovation Director, Mario partners with philanthropy and field practitioners to design, pilot, and scale both innovation and collective action that advances social movements through our Movement Commons Lab. Mario comes to the organization via Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), as well as Guidestar, where he held the position of Entrepreneur-in-Residence. He is the founder of the movement-building technology platform Giving Side. In 2010, Mario co-founded the New American Leaders Project. He has held leadership positions at the Kapor Center for Social Impact and the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation. He built significant community organizing experience as the National Coordinator of Racial Justice 911 and at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities in the Northwest Bronx. He is a graduate of Columbia University.

Marj Plumb, DrPH, MNA, (She/They) is a non-profit consultant, executive coach, and trainer specializing in public policy and policy advocacy, community engaged research and evaluation, strategic design, and organizational and leadership development. Marj served as Director of the Women’s Foundation of California’s Solis (formerly Women’s) Policy Institute (SPI) for 16 years, training over 500 diverse nonprofit cisgender women and trans leaders in public policy advocacy, passing 35 statewide bills into law. Marj has created other training programs focused on administrative policy advocacy, replication of the SPI in other states, and for specific communities.

Guillermo is the Executive Director and Managing Weaver of the Partnership for Democracy & Education, LLC helping facilitate synergy among various organizations and programs, weaving together 501c4, 501c3, and investment capital; organizing donors, funders, and investors towards more generative and democratic forms of politics and solidarity economy. Before joining The Partnership, he was Senior Fellow and Founder of the Independent Resource Generation (IRG) Hub at Amalgamated Foundation. Earlier and for several years, Guillermo was the Program Director for both the Solidago Foundation, a public charity, and the See Forward Fund, a 501c4 social welfare foundation where he contributed to the development of independent political organizations (IPOs). Guillermo currently serves on the boards of the Proteus Action League and the Boston Impact Initiative. Guillermo holds a Master in City Planning from MIT and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras.

Maya is the principal and founder of Mandala Change Group, a consulting practice that provides change management and organizational development strategy services with a DREI lens. Maya brings more than 20 years in philanthropy and working with nonprofit and public entities to support organizations and leaders in their efforts to align their organization’s practices, policies, and cultures to values-based mission and visions. She was previously the Director of Racial Equity Initiatives at Borealis Philanthropy where she led the Racial Equity in Philanthropy fund (REP), the Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) fund, which supports nonprofit organizations in advancing racial equity practices, and the Racial Equity in Journalism (REJ) fund. She spent nine years at the Women’s Foundation of California where she supported organizations doing systems-level change work at the intersection of gender and racial justice.