Oct
7
Nov
18
2021 Fundamentals of Effective Grantmaking
Va Lecia Adams Kellum
Chief Executive Director, St. Joseph Center
Dr. Adams Kellum holds a gubernatorial appointment to the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s No Place Like Home Program Advisory Committee.
She also served on and continues to support the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness, as well as the National Alliance to End Homelessness’ Race Equity Network. She currently sits on the Housing California Board, Policy Lab Advisory Board, and the Board of Trustees for Mount Saint Mary’s University.
Born and raised in Southern California, Dr. Adams Kellum graduated with a B.A. from the University of Southern California and earned an M.A. from Ball State University before completing her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Stanford University.
Tony Brown
CEO, Heart of Los Angeles
Tony holds a BA from Loyola Marymount University, an MS from the University of Tennessee, and was a Stanford University Fellow in the Business School's Social Innovation Program for Non-Profit Leaders. Since then, he served on an Advisory Board for Scripps College and was also President of the Dean’s Board of Advisors at the University of Tennessee. For his exemplary service, Tony has been named as a Distinguished Alumni by both Loyola Marymount University and the University of Tennessee. Tony served on the Leadership Council for L.A.'s Promise Zone and is an appointed Commissioner of the California Senate Rules Committee as one of twelve Commissioners working at the state level to provide information and advice to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Secretary for Education, and the State Board of Education regarding state and federal policy and funding issues affecting before and after school programs. Tony is dedicated to promoting legislative and administrative policies, both state and federal, that enhance the quality and accessibility of after-school programs in California as a CA3 Advocacy Steering Committee member and he is also the Advisory Board Chair for LA's very first after school Intermediary, Expand LA.
Cecilia Chen
Chief Strategy Officer, Akonadi Foundation
Stella Chung SCG Member
Director of Programs and Operations, The Durfee Foundation
She is co-chair of the LA API Giving Circle and formerly served on the steering committee of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy’s Los Angeles Chapter. In 2021, she was a recipient of Women Cross DMZ’s inaugural Feminist Korea Peace Fellowship, awarded to young leaders dedicated to creating peace on the Korean Peninsula. She has previously held positions with the Office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, Koreatown Youth and Community Center, and USC Annenberg’s Metamorphosis Project.
John E. Kobara
Chief Facilitator, Random Acts of Progress
John is the wildest American dream of his immigrant grandparents who came to this country with nothing. A third-generation Japanese-American. Married over his head to a woman he met on a plane. A proud father of three college graduates with no student debt. A struggling poet. A humbled activist who still is trying to change the world and not grow up.
John’s destiny was forged in the internment camps of 1942, where his grandparents and parents were stripped of all their rights and possessions and incarcerated in the desolate desert of Poston, Arizona for more than 4 years.
His Dad, in his awkward Asian fatherly way, expected John to become a "public person". It took John many years to understand that a "public person" was someone his father wasn't — A person who was social, networked, engaged in the American community, was a good communicator and to have the courage to say what he thought. His mother, a late blooming artist, taught him how to notice the world and to be generous with one’s gifts.
John headed to Los Angeles to attend UCLA which started his 45-year love affair with the imperfect paradise of the City of Angels. His quest to be a public person took him on a career traversing all sectors. His role at the California Community Foundation is his 18th job. He survived three start-ups in three different decades. He worked primarily in the so-called non-profit arena or what he likes to call the “for-purpose” field, interrupted by for-profit and public-sector jobs. He has held big titles and important positions but usually not at the same time. His early work with juvenile felons in maximum security prisons pushed him to become a Big Brother for 10 years and study and eventually teach mentoring all over the world. His work with at-risk youth and recently released felons fulfills him today. His education, both formal and experiential, has empowered his open-mindedness and open-heartedness. He is obsessed with understanding and releasing the unexpressed and untapped human potential in himself and in others. The “public person” journey his father put him on, is infinite. John is grateful for the opportunities to sustain the dream of his grandparents by dedicating his life to helping others build a more joyful, equitable, just, and compassionate world.
John Esterle
Co-Executive Director, The Whitman Institute
Seyron Foo SCG Member
Senior Program Officer, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
Joanna Jackson SCG Member
President and CEO, Weingart Foundation
Felicia Jones
Managing Director, Programs & Operations, Social Good Solutions
for leading program strategy, development, and implementation across the firm’s portfolio of services; and
ensuring operational effectiveness in the firm’s business practices.
She has extensive experience as a non-profit leader, she has spearheaded and facilitated multiple collective impact efforts bringing communities and institutions together to advance racial equity through creation of new institutional policies, practices, and investments in racial equity. In her former role as Deputy Director with Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (COPE), she co-lead a community effort leading the county of San Bernardino to declare racism a public health crisis and to initiate a series of internal reforms to address racial equity.
While serving as a co-chair, she helped to establish the Black Equity Fund, a pooled fund effort and partnership between the Inland Empire Community Foundation and the Inland Empire Black Equity Initiative to strengthen and scale Black-led and empowering organizations’ sustainability and capacity to lead regional systems change work. She also served on the design and implementation committees and now the interim governance board of a new entity, the Innovation-Center (i-Center). The i-Center is a effort to build infrastructure through a network of Centers to deepen the capacity, impact, and sustainability of California’s grassroots movements for racial and social transformation
She was born and raised in South Los Angeles and is a graduate of Mount St. Mary’s University in Los Angeles, California. She resides in San Bernardino county.
Julio Marcial SCG Member
Senior Vice President of Programs , Liberty Hill Foundation
Julio has significant philanthropy experience, beginning his grant-making career in 1998 at The California Wellness Foundation, a $1 billion health equity-focused foundation in Los Angeles. Most recently, Julio served as a Program Director, where he managed a combined grants portfolio of more than $60 million focused on criminal justice, public safety, and other public health issue areas.
Active in the youth justice field, Julio is an appointed member of the Juvenile Justice Standing Committee of the California Board of State and Community Corrections, and the Executive Standing Committee of the California Youth Reinvestment Fund, which provides cities and counties with $37 million in funding for community-based services to divert youth from formal justice system involvement. He is a 2014 American Express/Independent Sector NGen Fellow and a founding member of the Southern California Latino Giving Circle, which has provided more than $130,000 to immigrant-serving nonprofits. Currently, Julio serves on the board of directors for InsideOut Writers and Represent Justice. Previously, he was on the board for the All For One Youth Mentoring Program, the Los Angeles Music and Art School, Hispanics in Philanthropy, as well as the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families. Julio is also a contributor to the new book, “If We Want to Win,” published by the New Press, which brings together 24 leading figures who propose a collective blueprint for moving forward to a more inclusive and just democracy across the United States.
Marcial earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was awarded an American Sociological Association fellowship to study racial and ethnic disparities in the California juvenile justice system. He has also held a graduate fellowship through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation at the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where his research work focused on the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to addressing childhood exposure to violence.
Christine Margiotta SCG Member
Executive Director, Social Justice Partners
Throughout her career, Christine has leveraged a blend of community organizing, grantmaking, and policy change to create progress on racial and economic justice, homelessness, and LGBTQ+ rights. Christine designed and led Home For Good at United Way of Greater LA, an initiative to end homelessness that leveraged over $1 billion to create housing for 35,000+ Angelenos in her time there.
Christine is a graduate of Scripps College and received her MSW from UCLA. She lives in Claremont with her wife and their two kids, Huck and Vivian. She serves as the Chair of the L.A. County Measure H Citizens’ Oversight Advisory Board, and she is a founding Board member of Claremont Change, an effort to end racism in Claremont policing.
Karla Mercado
Director, Philanthropy CA, Philanthropy CA
<p>Prior to SCG, Karla was the director of special events for a public relations firm where she developed and coordinated strategic networking events for local nonprofits, institutions, and corporate clients, with the goal of expanding their community involvement and exposure. She began her work in the nonprofit sector as a case manager for the Los Angeles Chapter of Catholic Big Brothers Big Sisters, where she supported and maintained records for youth and their mentors to ensure positive youth and match development. Karla has a B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Los Angeles and an M.P.A. and certificate in Non-Profit Management from the California State University, Northridge.</p>
Jennifer Price-Letscher SCG Member
President & CEO, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation
Shaady Salehi
Executive Director, Trust-Based Philanthropy Project
Jennifer Vanore, Ph.D. SCG Member
President & COO, UniHealth Foundation
Dr. Rosemary Veniegas SCG Member
Director of Health Programs, California Community Foundation
Patricia Watkins SCG Member
Program Officer, Weingart Foundation
Adrienne Wittenberg SCG Member
Executive Director, S. Mark Taper Foundation