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.