CHRISTINE AHN, Global Fund for Women
Christine Ahn writes and speaks regularly on human rights, globalization and militarism and has addressed the United Nations, Congress, and the South Korean National Human Rights Commission. She is a fellow with the Korea Policy Institute and Oakland Institute and a columnist with Foreign Policy In Focus. Christine has appeared on CNN, NBC, Al-Jazeera, NPR, and has published op-eds in the International Herald Tribune, Asia Times and other media. She edited Shafted: Free Trade and America's Working Poor and contributed to The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. Christine produced Fashion Resistance to Militarism while program director at the Women of Color Resource Center. She was inducted into the OMB Watch Public Interest Hall of Fame and recognized as Rising Peacemaker by the Agape Foundation. She served on the board of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy for six years.
ANGELO FALCON, National Institute for Latino Policy
Angelo Falcón is a political scientist known for starting the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy (IPR) in New York City in the early 1980s, a nonprofit and nonpartisan policy center that focuses on Latino issues in the United States. The organization is now known as the National Institute for Latino Policy and Falcón serves as its current President. He was also recently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia University School of Public and International Affairs (S.I.P.A.).
LOIS GIBBS, Center for Health, Environment and Justice
Lois Gibbs is founder and executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. She speaks with communities nationwide and internationally about toxic chemicals and children’s unique vulnerability to environmental exposures. As the author of Love Canal: The Story Continues, published in 1998, Lois brings the Love Canal story up to date and discusses the issues society faces today with chemical exposures. Ms. Gibbs has been recognized extensively for her critical role in the grassroots environmental justice movement. She has spoken at numerous conferences and has been featured in hundreds of newspaper articles, magazine, and textbooks. Ms. Gibbs has appeared on many television and radio shows including 60 Minutes, 20/20, Oprah Winfrey, Good Morning America, The Morning Show and the Today Show. CBS produced a 2 hour prime-time movie about Lois’s life entitled “Lois Gibbs: The Love Canal Story” starring Marsha Mason.
JESSICA GORDON-NEMBHARD, Department of African American Studies, John Jay College, City University of NY
Jessica Gordon Nembhard is Associate Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Department of African American Studies at John Jay College, of the City University of New York (CUNY) in New York City, USA. She recently completed a year as a visiting scholar in the Economics Department’s Center on Race and Wealth at Howard University, and was Master Teacher (July 2007 and 2009) at the Center’s Summer Institute for Research on Race and Wealth. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Cooperatives at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada (academic year 2008-09), and is a research affiliate for that Centre’s “Linking, Leverage, Learning: Social Enterprises, Knowledgeable Economies and Sustainable Communities” project.
Dr. Gordon Nembhard is a political economist specializing in economic development policy, Black political economy, popular economic literacy, and community justice. Her research has focused on community- and asset- based economic development and democratic community economics; cooperative economics and worker ownership; alternative urban economic and youth educational development strategies; and racial and economic wealth inequality and wealth accumulation in communities of color.
ROBERT GRIMM, JR., PhD, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland
Robert T. Grimm, Jr., Professor of the Practice of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management at the University of Maryland, heads the School of Public Policy's program in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management for graduate and undergraduate students to develop the skills and habits of effective philanthropists and public leaders. Before joining the University of Maryland, Grimm served as Director of Research and Policy Development at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) from 2004-2010.
CYNTHIA GUYER, Independent Consultant
Cynthia Guyer served as the executive director of the San Francisco Schools Alliance, an independent, non-profit organization that builds partnerships, raises money, and advocates for policies to ensure that every student, in every classroom, in every public school in San Francisco receives a world-class education. She previously served as executive director of the Portland Schools Foundation, a community-based organization that promotes high quality education in Portland schools. Created in 1994, The Portland Schools Foundation is an independent, community-based organization that mobilizes ideas, leadership, political support, and money necessary to ensure a first-rate education for every child, in every public school, in every Portland neighborhood.
ROBERT HERMAN, Freedom House
Dr. Robert Herman has more than twenty-five years of experience in democracy promotion and human rights. He is presently Director of Programs for Freedom House, where he oversees a range of programs to advance democracy and human rights in every region of the world. He has done work in dozens of countries as both an NGO representative and a U.S. Government official, having been directly involved in efforts to support democracy and human rights, whether through citizen participation in the policymaking process, conducting analyses, taking part in conferences and strategy sessions, or designing and implementing programs.
JOHN A. POWELL, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, The Ohio State University
Professor john a. powell is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties and a wide range of issues including race, structural racism, ethnicity, housing, poverty and democracy. He is executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University and he holds the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the University’s Michael E. Moritz College of Law. Previously, he founded and directed the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. He also served as Director of Legal Services in Miami, Florida and was National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory.
CINTHIA H. SCHUMAN OTTINGER, The Aspen Institute
Cinthia Schuman is associate director of The Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program. Previously, Ms. Schuman was deputy director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, where she managed grantmaking programs in women’s rights, civic participation and other areas. From 1989 to 1994, she was executive director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), where her work received national media coverage. She also served as executive director of Cleveland Women's Counsel. Ms. Schuman is currently a member of the board of directors of the Ottinger Foundation, and serves on the National Advisory Panel of FairTest and the Council of Editorial Advisors for BoardSource. Previously, she served on the boards of the National Association of Public Interest Law/Equal Justice Works, the National Network of Grantmakers, Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement and NCRP. Ms. Schuman was a Root-Tilden Scholar at New York University School of Law, where she received her Juris Doctorate. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College.
HEIDI SWARTS, Rutgers University
Heidi Swarts, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-Newark. Before earning a Master of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University, Swarts worked in various nonprofits in member publications, and also as a community organizer. her book comparing ACORN and faith-based community organizations is titled Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith-Based Progressive Movements (Minnesota 2008).
*Organization affiliation listed for identification purposes only.
