Archives: Team

Dimple Abichandani is the Executive Director of the General Service Foundation (GSF), a private foundation that supports grassroots organizations building power and shifting narratives to advance racial, gender and economic justice. She is a passionate advocate for justice and a lifelong student of social change.

Over the past two decades Dimple has advanced justice as a funder, lawyer and educator.  She has served as the Executive Director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law, the founding program officer of the Rise Together Fund at the Proteus Fund, a staff attorney and then later Director of Program Development at Legal Services NYC.

Dimple serves on the boards /steering committees of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, Solidaire Network, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees and Northern California Grantmakers. She earned a JD at Northeastern University School of Law, and a BA in English with Honors at the University of Texas at Austin.

Tell us why you joined the board.

I joined the Solidaire board because I believe in the power of networks to do things individuals and isolated groups can’t, the power of grassroots movements to secure lasting transformative change, and the power of radical calls for social, environmental, and racial justice to inspire and guide us on the path to healing our world.

What’s most important to you about being part of Solidaire?

Two things: First, being a part of a network with interconnected relationships that share deep values but span movements and geography.  Second, being a part of a community of practice that is creating and modeling radically different and more effective ways of doing philanthropy and funding.

What does liberation mean to you?

On one level liberation is very practical, it means not being subject to oppressive systems and people who wield power to subjugate and extract for themselves. But on a deeper level, for me liberation isn’t just the end result of struggle, it is the ongoing practice of faith and belief that we can heal and transform the world, that nothing is fixed and immovable, that we can live in a world built on love, connection, and generosity.

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Robin is a social change activist, strategist, and funder. He has spent his career supporting and running people-powered social justice, environmental, and political campaigns. He is currently president of his family’s foundation, the Max and Anna Levinson Foundation, and works as an advisor to numerous global funders and activist leaders through the Climate Breakthrough Project.

Before shifting his focus fully to philanthropy, Robin was Director of Innovation at Citizen Engagement Laboratory where he led strategy development services for incubated social and environmental justice startups and for larger legacy organizations looking to innovate. He was previously a Campaign Director at MoveOn.org where he focused on online to offline mobilization, viral campaign creation, and volunteer-powered election turnout. Before joining MoveOn, Robin led the launch of Change.org’s petition platform as the company’s first Organizing Director. He also previously ran the online organizing program at Rainforest Action Network and before that ran small-gift fundraising at Drug Policy Alliance.

Robin is passionate about supporting radical societal transformation. His work as a funder centers around supporting people creating widespread, lasting, and systemic change. He is especially interested in funding people typically without significant access to philanthropy, people using new approaches to scale their impact, people working through networks more than institutions, and people explicitly pushing for an end to capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

Tell us why you joined the board: 

I had direct experience with the value, benefit, people and power of Solidaire as it supported early actions in the beginning of the Movement for Black Lives.  I felt that I could bring what I was learning in supporting M4BL and the immigrant justice movement to Solidaire and also support Solidaire in continuing to grow and deepen its strategies and efforts.

What’s most important to you about being part of Solidaire?

The Solidaire vision for the redistribution of wealth, access and power.  The Solidaire belief that everyone should have access to enough resources to live in our fullest dignity.  The belief that this society fundamentally does not work for people and the planet and we need to transition to a just and equitable world for our own survival as human beings. A curious space that is always learning and growing. To be effective we need to always reflect and refine our work.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation means to be living in my biggest visions of a world that supports each human being to embody and actualize our fullest humanity, to embody joy, love.  Liberation means a world in which all Black people in the Diaspora everywhere are thriving, joyful, valued  and celebrated.

Farhad Ebrahimi (he/him) is an organizer, trainer, and story-based strategist active primarily in the philanthropic sector. For the past 16 years, his principal role has been as the Founder and President of the Chorus Foundation, which works for a just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States. In addition to his work at Chorus, Farhad is a Co-founder and returning Board Member of Solidaire, and a member of the Center for Story-based Strategy trainer network.

Farhad identifies first and foremost as an abolitionist with respect to the concept of private philanthropy. As such, he’s most interested in the question of how extracted and consolidated wealth can be redistributed in ways that directly support a Just Transition to a world in which such wealth is no longer extracted and consolidated in the first place. It’s in this context that the Chorus Foundation itself has been structured as a transitional form, and will have spent down its entire endowment by the end of 2023.

Farhad’s family history has been defined by multiple cultures, nationalities, political revolutions, and refugee origin stories. To say that his parents talked politics when he was growing up would be an understatement, and his experience as a first-generation Iranian American has had a profound impact on him in ways that he’s still unpacking. This history – combined with a lifelong love of punk and subversive art in general – has seeded a political trajectory that’s informed both his personal and professional outlook ever since.

Farhad is also a musician, a lover of film and literature, and an occasional bicycle snob. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with Computer Science, and he lives in an intentional community with thirteen adults and five children on Tongva land in Los Angeles.

Laura is writer, teacher and activist. She is the author of the memoir Swallow The Ocean (Counterpoint Press 2008), and editor of Eyes Of The Heart: Seeking A Path For The Poor In The Age Of Globalization by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, (Common Courage Press, 2000). She was born and raised in San Francisco, California, and received her BA at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She lived in Haiti from 1994-2000 and remains deeply involved in the struggle for democracy and human dignity in that country. She serves on the board of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. (And is particularly proud that IJDH’s groundbreaking lawsuit against the United Nations recently forced the UN to admit responsibility for introducing cholera to Haiti!) She also helps shepherd Friends of UNIFA which raises funds and support for UNIFA, the Haitian University founded by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide dedicated to opening higher education to groups who have traditionally been excluded.

While her primary philanthropic interests are in Haiti, she joined Solidaire in order to broaden her focus, heighten the impact of giving, and to benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of this group. She continues to be inspired by the creativity, strength and courage of a new generation of activists, particularly those driving the movement for black lives in the Twin Cities. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband Mike Rollin and their two children.

Melanie Havelin is the Executive Director of the John M. Lloyd Foundation, a Los Angeles-based private family foundation. She helped guide the board’s learning journey that led the foundation from a focus on international AIDS policy to its current concentration on ending mass incarceration in Los Angeles County.

She has served on the boards of Funders for Reproductive Equity (formerly the Funders Network on Population, Reproductive Health, and Rights) and Funders Concerned about AIDS. In addition, she served on the steering committee for the California Criminal Justice Funders Group. She is currently an active member of the Solidaire Network’s Decarceration Working Group and co-lead of Funders For Justice’s Healing Justice Group.

In addition to her work for Lloyd, Melanie has a consulting service providing fundraising, philanthropic, and organizing expertise and services to social justice organizations.

Before joining the John M. Lloyd Foundation in 2001, Melanie was a Development Associate managing donor advised funds for the Liberty Hill Foundation, which supports grass roots social justice organizing in Los Angeles. Prior to her involvement in philanthropy, she worked as grassroots organizer and fundraiser for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, the California Abortion Rights Action League, and the California League of Conservation Voters.

She graduated from Millersville University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English with certification to teach, after which she taught English in Korea.

Beth Jacobs (beth/they) is a queer and gender non-conforming White Ashkenazi Jew. They are an occasional farmer, a carnivorous plant lover, a reclaimer of Jewish ritual and song, and is devoted to joy. Originally from San Diego, now based in their mothers hometown of Brooklyn, NY. Beth is the second generation in their family to inherit wealth. They are committed to our collective liberation through disrupting the intergenerational wealth transfer, sustainable agriculture, queer and trans liberation, and personal and political healing. Beth believes they have a role to play in our collective liberation through honest and authentic relationships AND by funding and investing in movements for freedom and sovereignty. Beth is a Director at JG3: Jacobs Grounded Guided Giving a family collaboration building towards liberation in our lifetimes.

Sam Jacobs (he/him) is an organizer, fundraiser, and a funder of grassroots social movements from Palestine to Puerto Rico to his home in Brooklyn. As a young person seeing the Occupy movement and the Movement for Black Lives unfold, he became passionate and politicized about racial, economic, and gender justice. Since then, he has worked to redistribute his inherited wealth and power and has organized individuals and programs to learn about and fund social movements. He is a Co-Director of JG3: Jacobs Grounded Guided Giving, a trans-feminist, anti-imperialist family collaboration building towards liberation in our lifetimes. He is a member of the technical staff of Virewirx and a board member of Grassroots International and Worth Rises. Sam was raised in San Diego, loves to cook, and holds an Engineering degree from MIT.

For 15 years, Anna Lefer Kuhn was the Executive Director of the Arca Foundation, which seeks to advance a world based on respect for human dignity and the just distribution of economic, democratic, and cultural power. During Anna’ s tenure, Arca turned its attention toward racial and economic justice by supporting multi-racial grassroots organizing that challenges the structures upholding inequality. Prior to Arca, Anna was a Program Officer at the Open Society Foundation where she conceived of and led initiatives to support youth media, organizing and leadership development.

Anna is on the board of directors of the Just Vision, Solidaire Network, United for Respect Education Fund and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. Anna previously served on the boards of the White House Project, the Center for Working Families, the Urban Justice Center, the League of Young Voters Education Fund, and was the co-chair of the Funders Committee for Civic Participation. Anna was a 2019-2020 Aspen Institute Philanthropy Forward Fellow and was a member of the 2004-2005 class of Coro Leadership New York.

Tell us why you joined the board.

I joined the board to help expand Solidaire’s efforts to mobilize philanthropy to support transformative BIPOC-led social justice movements.

What’s most important to you about being part of Solidaire?

To be in community with other donors committed to transforming the relationship between movements and philanthropy.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation means having the resources, community power and security to live with dignity.