Social change

In my paid work, I've occupied a variety of different roles in Chicago's nonprofit sector, as a funder and fundraiser, program developer, capacity builder, strategizer, researcher, synthesizer and facilitator. I have more than 15 years of experience creating and implementing effective initiatives and strengthening organizations, with expertise in systems thinking, grantmaking, collective impact, collaboration, meaningful stakeholder engagement, youth development, racial, social and environmental justice, and community development and organizing.

As a Senior Consultant with Foresight Design Initiative, I've spent more than a decade leading consulting projects and professional development cohorts for diverse funders, coalitions and organizations working on affordable housing, the racial wealth gap, Equitable Transit-Oriented Development, environmental sustainability, and other issues. I also served as Program Director for Foresight Prep, a summer leadership development and experiential learning opportunity for high school students passionate about social justice, the climate crisis, and creating change, leading our outreach/marketing, fundraising, curriculum development, staff oversight, and teaching. Prior to my time with Foresight, I was program staff at Crossroads Fund, an activist-led community foundation that supports grassroots and radical social movement groups in the Chicago region. 

Beyond my paid work, my time, energy, and hope belong to radical movements for social, racial and economic justice and collective liberation, including police and prison abolition, transformative justice, and disability justice. I have an emerging interest in healing justice and somatic practices. 

Project Porfolio

Crossroads Fund Evaluation Tool

Crossroads Fund is a community foundation that supports movements for social, racial, and economic justice. Working with Lisa Marie Pickens, Crossroads Fund staff, and a group of community organizers and experienced evaluators, we created this tool to gauge the social change impact of the foundation and its grantees. 

Foresight Prep Summer Institute Syllabus

For the past decade, I have directed Foresight Prep, a summer experiential learning and leadership development opportunity for national high school students passionate about social justice, the climate crisis, and creating change, leading curriculum development, recruitment, fundraising, and staff oversight, and teaching course content. This is our most recent syllabus. 

Elevated Chicago Workplan

Elevated Chicago is a multi-sectoral, regional collaborative focused on Equitable Transit-Oriented Development. To create this citywide/regional workplan, I synthesized individual workplans, and synthesized insights, goals and project priorities, from four neighborhood-based collaborations, three citywide working groups, and more than 15 coalition members, creating a framework to align members around the relationship between neighborhood-based capital projects and programs, and efforts for regional systems change.

Practitioner Engagement,
Chicago Community Trust

As part of supporting the team that developed one of the priority areas for the Chicago Community Trust's strategic plan, I co-designed and implemented four community and practitioner engagement sessions, through which nearly 50 individuals from government, the private sector, finance innovation, academia and diverse nonprofits shared their insights regarding cross-sectoral collaboration and systems change. I wrote this excerpt from our project's final report, describing our process, and synthesizing key takeaways from these sessions.

Guide to Transformative Philanthropy

For the Community Foundation of McHenry County, I helped lead a collaborative process with Foundation staff, board members and stakeholders to develop the Foundation's first high impact grantmaking initiative, facilitated Appreciative Inquiry sessions with foundation stakeholders to identify priorities for improved quality of life in the county, and co-authored this comprehensive handbook for Foundation staff in the implementation of a Collective Impact program. 

Social justice op-eds

Resume

Work Experience

Foresight Design Initiative
Senior Consultant, Education & Equity
Chicago, IL
September 2012-Present 

Foresight Prep
Program Director
2014-ongoing 


American Institutes for Research
Intern, Afterschool and Expanded Learning Team
January-June 2014
For graduate school field placement, conducted environmental scan, designed and implemented practitioner survey and interview protocol, and completed analysis to inform the development of a new program area targeting small youth and after school service providers.


Crossroads Fund
Program Associate
Jan 2008-Sep 2012 

 
Social Movement Organizing & Volunteer Positions

Nonprofit Industrial Complex Practitioners Lab
Member, July-September 2024
Co-strategizing to address the de-radicalizing constraints imposed upon organizers and social movements by nonprofit funding mechanisms and professionalization.


Pushing Envelopes
Collective Member, 2023-Present
Participate in penpal, mail reply and fundraising efforts of organization led by and focused on currently and formerly incarcerated LGBTQIA individuals.


Member, Giving Project
Crossroads Fund, Feb 2023 - Jun 2023
Helped raise more than $100,000 and practiced participatory grantmaking to support strategic, necessary, and underfunded social justice organizing work.

Guild Row
Organizer, Abolition Study Group
June-July 2023
Convened six-member, eight-week learning group at neighborhood-based, social impact-focused co-work space, where individuals interested in better understanding the police and prison abolition movement undertook deep learning and relationship-building, toward the aim of more informed action. 


Donors Forum (Now Forefront)
Chair, Funding LGBT Issues Group
Summer-2011-Fall 2012
Chaired member issue group at Illinois' premier membership association for grantmakers, nonprofits, and advisors, convening programs to advocate for philanthropic support of LGBTQIA issues and communities.


Access Living
Program Facilitator
Jan 2009-Fall 2011
Facilitated social support group for LGBT youth with disabilities, developing monthly activities and managing outreach and communications. 


Professional Development

Education

University of Illinois at Chicago
M.Ed., Youth Development
August 2012-May 2014
Training to promote emotional, physical, social, and intellectual developmental needs of young people in urban contexts.

DePaul University
B.A., Women's and Gender Studies
2004-2007
Graduated with honors; Recipient, Excellence in Critical Analysis for Social Change Award; Received Ballenger Memorial Scholarship for Women's and Gender Studies for excellence in academic and activist engagement.