Our Team

Tell us why you do what you do.

Traditional grantmaking models can take ages to move money, and potential grantees spend hours putting together a packet with only half the information ever read. We are trying to make grantmaking as painless and quick as possible while still being compliant so that our grantees can spend more time doing their amazing work instead of writing a ten page summary.

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

I worked for many years with companies that did not align with my beliefs. At the end of the day, I’m proud of the work that I am doing to help make changes in the world.

What does liberation mean to you?

To me, liberation means freedom from unnecessary restrictions and oppression.

Tell us why you do what you do.

I deeply value interdependence, pluralism, truth-telling and authentic relationships.  I put my cherished values to work with our team to resource social justice movements in such a way that they have what they need to transform the lives of people impacted by injustice and dispossession.  Together with our team, we seek to organize donor and funders so that they too can be protagonists in the struggle to transform the conditions that perpetuate white supremacy and oppression.

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

Solidaire network, our staff and board members all exemplify how to grow from mistakes and mishaps, learn from each other and from grassroots organizers, build community with care and humility, move money quickly and responsively and claim joy in the daily work of social change.   It is not just what we do but how we do that inspires me!

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation means a practice of love, in the poetic words of June Jordan, “the awesome, difficult work of love: loving ourselves so that we become able to love other people without fear so that we can become powerful enough to enlarge the circle of our trust and our common striving for a safe, sunny afternoon near to flowering trees and under a very blue sky.”

Tell us why you do what you do.

I believe in the power of social movements to lead us to a more just, transformed world full of possibilities. I also believe in leveraging the power of organizing and access to assets – whether social, capital, or skills in influencing philanthropy, amplifying different narratives, and co-creating a transformed future together. I refuse to believe that humans cannot course-correct their paths towards self-destruction.

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

This community understands the necessity of solidarity with social movements, building trust, and bringing courage and humility to the work, as well as the importance of leading by example to show that transformation is possible.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation is creating the conditions possible to live into one’s full potential, joy, authenticity, and dignity on both an individual and societal level.

Tell us why you do what you do?

I am a child of spiritual leaders organized by the religious right into a world view in action that I experienced in deep contradiction to the tenets of our God. My name is Malachi, a Hebrew word meaning “my messenger.” I was born and bred to be of service. I have committed my life to this calling, choosing to embed myself in the places love accelerates justice.

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

I have spent over 20 years working in and leading local, regional and national grassroots work and formations. I have been blessed to understand through practice and politic what it takes to lead within various sectors of our movements, toward building power. I am honored to be of service bringing these relationships and wisdom forward to bless this formation. I seek to deeply listen to movement, Solidaire members and our organizational leadership toward being of great service toward the realizing of our theory of liberation.

What does liberation mean to you?

I believe that we all share places of common struggle, places where the salve of what is just soothes our soul and brings forward wholeness. To me liberation is our unique contributions working in collective harmony toward building power. This power allows for the shaping of this world toward collective wellbeing.

Tell us why you do what you do.

I am invested in this work because I genuinely believe in a future time where all living beings vibrantly thrive with dignity. And I see that the work of building movement partnerships and grantmaking as a critical tool to infuse social movements with the resources and collaboration needed to expedite our move from the present moment to that expansive future.

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

In order to imagine and build liberatory futures, I believe we must be rooted in wholehearted relationships, ecological reverence, integrity and care. I was inspired to join the Solidaire community because I feel those values centered in Solidaire’s strategic visioning as well as the daily and mundane practices of this team.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation is a commitment to life; it is a practice of interconnected and embodied living. Liberation is acting on the belief of possibility.

Tell us why you do what you do.

I want to contribute my skills and experiences in community with those working towards transformative change. I like to work with numbers, solve problems, and ensure internal processes and functions are grounded in an organization’s mission and values.

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

Being a part of an organization that reflects a commitment to justice in their culture and operations.

What does liberation mean to you?

It means interconnectedness in that we are able to see and value one another, which shows up in how we reimagine the systems and societies we operate in, our interactions with each other, and our relationship with the natural world.

Tell us why you do what you do.

I was born and raised in India. I became politicized during the “Emergency” period in the mid-70s, a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency. Thousands were arrested and imprisoned without due process. After moving to the U.S. in the late 70s, I was struck by the lack of knowledge most people had about the global south. This led to me working to educate and organize around U.S. foreign policy.

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

Organizing on foreign policy, I began to see the connections between U.S. policies towards the global south, and the country’s domestic policies in Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities. Much of my work, over the last four decades, has been in progressive philanthropy. Helping to move funds to Indigenous, Black, and Brown led organizations. I was drawn to Solidaire because of its deep relationships with and commitment to resources in these communities.

What does liberation mean to you?

Regardless of where we live, our ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, religion, or sexual orientation our liberation is intertwined. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “no one is free until we are all free.”

Tell us why you do what you do.

I believe that collective liberation should be just that– collective and for everyone. We all need to see ourselves as a part of a liberated future and creating a supportive community is a part of that process. I also believe deeply in the brilliance and vision of grassroots organizers and movement leaders and see my role as flanking movements so that we can win.

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

We’re a part of undoing the capitalist and white supremacist systems that pervade our society. And I get to do it while in joyful community with visionary, radical, vibrant folks.

What does liberation mean to you?  

Having a world that isn’t just about surviving, but thriving.

Tell us why you do what you do.

In my role as a Donor Organizer, I strive to help members identify and build alignment across shared values rooted in liberation work. I am moved by the work of animating people’s senses of solidarity and helping them recognize the roles they might play in this collective work.

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

I believe in Solidaire’s commitment to collective liberation and in the work of taking leadership from those most impacted by oppression in transforming our shared reality. I believe this community has a unique and important role to play in collaborating with movements for racial, gender, and class justice.

What does liberation mean to you?  

To me, liberation is building deep solidarities across lines of struggle, where each of us recognizes how we can contribute to getting ourselves and each other more free

Tell us why you do what you do.

In my work, I am an organizer first and foremost. I believe in the power of impacted people to mobilize together to resist and transform oppressive systems. We are organizing to resist immediate harms and to build long term capacity for a radical new future. I am a Black, woman, immigrant. These identities, and many others, orient how I see the world and the kind of world I am organizing to realize. Organizing works. Period.

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

I do this work as part of a long tradition of folks who know that collective resistance is the only way we will truly get on the road to liberation. I continue to believe in Solidaire’s work because it constitutes a needed effort to organize people with access to wealth to be class traitors in a way that helps them bolster and deeply align with liberation movements.

What does liberation mean to you?

For me, liberation is an ongoing effort to realize the most just, loving, verdant and compassion filled world we can. For me, we win liberation one step at a time and over and over again.

Tell us why you do what you do.

At Standing Rock I was advised by an elder that the way to live life is to be righteous, to do the right thing, and I took that to heart. I believe being a part of Solidaire allows me to continue living a righteous life, by supporting an org with so much love for community.

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

Being in the movement, helping weave connections and continuing to build community.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation to me means that all humans will have the resources to reach their full potential.

Tell us why you do what you do.

I am guided by the belief that movements for social justice will get us to the liberated world we need for every person and the Earth to thrive.  I see my role in mobilizing resources to people and communities most impacted by the systems and structures created to oppress and harm, as one way to contribute to this re-imagined world.

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

Being in beloved community with people who are committed to justice, equity and building trusted relationships.  I am excited by Solidaire’s values and principles and the intentional ways it embodies them in how we organize donors and move resources.

What does liberation mean to you?

It means that every person is living each moment free from violence, full of joy and, thriving in the unique way they envision it for themselves. Justice, equity and wellbeing are abundant and celebrated.

Tell us why you do what you do?

I do it because I have hope that we can all co-create a world filled with love, safety, peace, and justice.

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

It feels important to “walk the walk” as examples of solidarity and integrity.

What does liberation mean to you?

Freedom of mind and body.

Tell us why you do what you do.

My politics are informed by Appalachian & rural landscapes, and the myriad forms of resistance therein. After 15 years of movement building, I dream and build for what’s to come, believing liberation is possible in our lifetime.

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

Resourcing can be a libertatory tool. Solidaire’s team is dedicated to assisting our movements in winning, and I hope to be a part of that team effort.

What does liberation mean to you?

Operating from abundance, finding ways to tend to our land and resources in commons, and sustaining one’s cultural practices & beliefs to build connection.

Tell us why you do what you do.

My work in Solidaire is rooted in a belief that the education that happens in movements – enables us to become more fully human and alive.  My life has been shaped by these practices of popular education – and my aim in Solidaire is to deepen and broaden the ways we learn, teach, and grow together in service of movements for collective liberation.

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

I came to Solidaire to be in community with others finding joy and meaning in transforming power– at both an individual and collective level. I am deeply inspired by the leaderful social movements of our time – and am committed to deepening the ways donors listen, flank, and move in alignment with frontline organizers to build the world we’re yearning for.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation is a process that calls us to be transformed – as we transform the world around us. Liberation is radical love embodied.

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.

I am a creative leader that uses imagination, intuition and inclusivity to solve problems and create experiences that bring people together. 

I’ve spent my career working at the intersection of technology and liberal arts to create new programs, products and experiences, digital and physical, that help organizations and brands move their goals forward. 

I currently work at Apple leading strategy and experience design for the Apple Store globally. One of our goals is to turn Apple “upside down and inside out”, meaning that we want to empower local teams bottoms up instead of tops down, and we want to bring the resources inside Apple out to those communities we operate in. One way we have done this is creating the Today at Apple program that is designed to provide free educational sessions about coding, music making, video, photography, entrepreneurship and digital wellbeing. 

One of the outcomes of my work at Apple that I am most proud of has been inspiring 75K employees across 500 stores in 30 countries about their ability to be “the ripple in the pond” in their communities by demonstrating our values of equality, education, privacy, environmental sustainability and accessibility. Much more is needed, but my work with Solidaire gives me energy and tools to push for progress. 

I’ve been at Apple six years and prior to that worked in creative agencies where designers, writers, animators, producers, strategists and developers came together in a fluid away to solve problems through communications, marketing, branding and content. 

I studied International Relations at The New School and began my career at the United Nations working in communications and media. I continue to bring this global perspective and social responsibility to my life and work today.

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.

Tell us why you joined the board.

Solidaire is an incredible organization that upholds my values of supporting and trusting movement leaders to guide us into a future where we all thrive.

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

The staff and the board’s commitment to liberation and freedom are inspiring. I love being in a community with people who really deeply believe in a future free from oppressive systems.

What does liberation mean to you?

To be free from all forms of oppression. To live in a society that feeds, houses, and celebrities its people. Liberation means freedom.

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.

Tell us why you joined the board: 

I joined the board to support the awesome work and vision of Solidaire’s organizational leaders and membership network in their values based practice of transformative philanthropy that centers racial equity and climate justice within both US domestic and translocal/global efforts.

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

I cherish being part of a community of bold, thoughtful, and heartful donors that increasingly represents the diversity in the activist philanthropist field and that constantly pushes me to be more accountable to myself, my communities, earth, and society at large.

What does liberation mean to you?

For all to have the power and abundance of choice with freedom, dignity, and self-determination that accounts for the health, sustainability, diversity and interdependence of all living things on this planet.

---

Lisl is a mother, historian, writer, and educator. She joined the Panta Rhea Foundation board in 2006 and stepped up as Chair in 2017. Panta Rhea Foundation is a proggresive family foundation based out of California founded by her father. Her philanthropic experience includes personal giving, managing Panta Rhea’s discretionary family giving through the Sunflower Fund (2005-2008); founding the Qinti Fund with her sister (2017-present); and participating in donor and movement organizing networks, including Solidaire and Thousand Current’s Collaborative Leader’s Academy. She brings to her philanthropic work added experience with performance arts; academic and creative writing; education; colonial indigenous history of the Americas, particularly the Andean region; and social and environmental justice efforts. She has lived and worked in places such as Brazil, Denmark, India, Peru, Mexico, and, of course, the United States. She has been awarded the Foreign Language and Areas Studies (FLAS) fellowship to study Quechua in Cusco, Peru in 2013 and 2014; the Fulbright-Hays fellowship to conduct nine months of archival research in Peru in 2017; the Dissertation Year Fellowship from UCLA in 2020-21; and the Getty Research Institute’s Residency Scholar Fellowship in Los Angeles for 2021-22. She completed her BA in Anthropology and Theater Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, MA in Latin American History at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is currently a PhD Candidate in Latin American History at UCLA. Lisl also loves spending time in nature, camping, dancing, reading fiction, writing poetry, trying her hand at guitar and piano, and being with her son and life partner.

 

Tell us why you joined the board.

I have strong convictions around fairness and equality that has forced me off the sidelines in this uniquely unjust and unfair time in our society. I know what it means to be on the right side of history, and because of that knowledge, I cannot remain silent. Joining the Solidaire Board represents the culmination of my efforts (so far) to be a better ally to the Black community.

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

Spending time with members and movement allies is the antidote to the PsyOps of constant bad news that poisons my mind against people. When I keep the focus on my Solidaire community, I remember the goodness, ingenuity, brilliance, strength and kindness of people, and that truth keeps me in my power.

What does liberation mean to you?

To be free of fear, and also to be free of projections placed on me by others. The ability to feel, express, to make choices and live a life true to one’s own authentic self. And I know that my liberation is bound to the fate of others; therefore, we must all be free, if I am to hope to be free.

---

Marlena Sonn, CFP(r) is the President and Founder of Amazonia Wealth Management, a New York City based financial planning firm. She specializes in working with progressive, Ultra High Net Worth millennials, women, and family offices. 

Marlena is a widely cited expert on personal financial planning, having been featured on PBS’s Nightly Business Report, Crain’s, and guest lectures at institutions including New York University, New School of Social Research, SOCAP, and the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (US-SIF). She is a recipient of the etsy.org Regenerative Entrepreneur fellowship, supporting her work piloting the first drawdown/GHG-negative portfolios offered to individual investors. 

Marlena serves on the Global Council of the Sacred Headwaters Initiative, a new collaboration between indigenous leaders in Ecuador and Peru, working to permanently protect 60 million acres of the Amazon Rainforest. Marlena is also a member of Solidaire, a donor activist community that funds social movements in the United States. 

Her personal mission is to plant 10 million trees in the Amazon rainforest in her lifetime.

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.

---

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 joined the Solidaire Board because I believe there is radical and transformative work that this moment and the movement is asking us to do in collectivity. Solidaire is special community and uniquely poised to do that work in formation with other orgs in the ecosystem.

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

What’s important to me about being part of Solidaire is that I really feel like I am a part of something. Solidaire is very much alive and one form of what donor organizing looks like in bloom. There are many pathways within the organization for people to engage with the work to redistribute resources, decision making, and power.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation means getting to the root of oppressions and conjuring the boldest imagination for a future in which all peoples individually and collectively have the freedom of self-determination. Its looking back and forward at the same time. As a white cis man with wealth privilege, its an unlearning and practicing of the ways we want to be with ourselves and others. For my work in Solidaire I think liberation is redefining safety and security in a way that is not wrapped up in resource hoarding. Liberation is Black people, trans folks, women, GNC people and men working together for the sheer delicious joy of freedom and the power we can only form together and in our own formations. Its borders blurred and humanity seen. Its everyone sharing resources in healthy ways of care, the tender and intentional way one would with a loved family member. Liberation is practicing the future that we want our next generations to live.

Tell us why you joined the board.

I joined the board to deepen my commitment to funding Black led movements in earnest through the liberation of wealth in its many forms.

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

It’s important for me to be a part of a collective, made up of both individual and institutional donors, striving to fund movements like we want them to win, as Ash-Lee Henderson from Highlander implores us to do.

What does liberation mean to you?

All people having unrestricted access to the tools and opportunities necessary to thrive in abundance.

---

Shannon Cofrin Gaggero is the Director of Grant Services as well as a trustee at the Homestead Foundation, a small, family foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is passionate about moving money to Southern, social and racial justice movements led by impacted communities and holds an endless belief in the power of grassroots organizing. As a mother, Shannon stays curious about the intersections between parenting and social/racial justice advocacy. Every day, she strives to nurture social consciousness within her children and to help them challenge normative narratives. Shannon has written extensively about her own anti-racist efforts, growing edges and mistakes as a parent and a person. Shannon takes deep pride in following her little ones’ leads in actions and the near constant lessons they impart on her about what world is truly possible. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was born and raised, with her family.

Born, raised and educated in the midwest, mother of four, grandmother of 5 (so far), I am passionate about art, music, science, progressive politics and philanthropy which advances equity and justice. I sometimes describe myself as a professional volunteer, with a career spanning the better part of the last 45 years. I’ve served on so many boards I’ve lost count. A sampling includes the Chicago Foundation for Women, Pitzer College, the Illinois Facilities Fund, the Old Town School of Folk Music, Mother Jones Magazine and the Women’s Foundation of California.

In 2006, with my husband and four children, I helped establish a family foundation, The Libra Foundation, whose mission is to support organizations which promote human rights, environmental justice, gender justice and criminal justice reform.

A long time resident of Chicago, I now happily call San Francisco my home.