Having worked in philanthropy and grassroots organizing and advocacy for over 20 years, Faron brings deep knowledge of the community organizing, advocacy and political strategy. He is known for inspirational thought leadership and pioneering new and exciting projects. 

Faron joined NFG in 2019 as a former member leader and a founding member of the Integrated Rural Strategies group (IRSG), NFG’s rural power building project. Faron currently leads NFG’s Program Team, NFG’s National Convening, and oversees all of NFG’s programs and the development and evaluation of all new NFG programs including establishing a space for Midwest funders to organize around infrastructure. 

Prior to NFG, Faron served as a Program Officer at The Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, where he managed their New York State and Environmental portfolios. Faron has also served as the Executive Director of the Center for Third World Organizing, one of the oldest and most storied racial justice organizations in the country and was an organizing director for several large unions at the national and local levels.

Pronouns: he/him

Courtney shapes, manages, and drives NFG’s communications strategies to inspire members and the broader philanthropic community to move more money to racial, economic, gender, and climate justice. She’s also NFG’s lead on membership engagement and works to ensure that foundations and their staff are benefiting from and co-conspiring with the NFG network. 

She joined NFG’s staff in July 2019 after working with the organization as a consultant via Moxy Group, a QPOC and women-led organization that she co-founded to partner with social justice and philanthropic organizations on fundraising, communications, and design projects. Prior to that, she served as the Director of Partnerships at Global Greengrants Fund, where she mobilized more than $10 million to propel grassroots environmental action. 

Courtney holds an M.A. in International and Intercultural Communications from the University of Denver and degrees in Ethnic Studies and American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. She served on the Board of Directors at the Chinook Fund from 2015-2020. She is currently a volunteer grantmaker at the Another World is Possible Fund, which directs rapid response grants to social justice organizations in Colorado that are fighting for a just response to COVID-19 in the short-term and a visionary future for our world in the long-term. 

Pronouns: she/her

Lauren facilitates the day-to-day administration of NFG’s business operations and processes. Her work is primarily focused on leveraging internal systems and technologies to improve the efficiency and performance of membership and revenue processes.

Lauren joined NFG in 2018, inspired by the organization’s efforts to move resources and power to people of color and communities that have been systematically marginalized and disenfranchised. She has a background in education and public health advocacy, diversity efforts in STEM and healthcare professions workforce development. Prior to NFG, Lauren worked with the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Science Educational Equity Program, and the Greater Sacramento Urban League. Lauren holds a MS in Statistics with an emphasis in applied applications and data science. 

Pronouns: she/her

Nicole Washington is the Operations Manager for the Amplify Fund. She coordinates logistics, contracts, finances, and overall project management for the Fund.  She also works closely with the Steering Committee and provides support to programmatic work across Amplify’s eight partner sites. 

Nicole joined NFG in June 2020 after working at Foundation for Louisiana, National Geographic, and Alliance to End Hunger. She has coordinated day-to-day operations for a political consulting firm, a magazine department, and a liquor distributor. As such, she brings a wide range of logistical, board management, and event planning skills. 

She currently serves as Chair of the board of the Made in New Orleans Foundation (MiNO) and as a member of Foundation for Louisiana’s Armature Scholarship Committee. She lives with too many plants, a very spoiled dog, and an ever growing collection of kitchen equipment.

Pronouns: she/her

Melody leads Amplify’s program work including grantmaking, capacity building and grantee learning in and across its eight places: Missouri, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and California (through the Fund for an Inclusive California (F4ICA).

Melody joined NFG in August 2018, inspired by Amplify’s commitment to support Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities to build power and influence decisions about the places where they live and work. Driven by her commitment to racial justice and shifting power, she has served in various roles within the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Most recently Melody was the Deputy Director of Programs at The Inner Resilience Program, which focused on cultivating the inner lives of students, teachers and school communities. 

Previously, she served as the Director of Grantmaking and Capacity Building at the Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) and as a Program Officer at the Edward W. Hazen Foundation. In these roles, Melody primarily supported youth-led community organizing and honed her skills in multi-issue collaborative grantmaking. Committed to creativity, she also managed jewelry design and production for women-led businesses for six years. 

Melody is dedicated to supporting the inner transformation of people and the outer transformation of communities working for racial justice and liberation. She holds a BA in African-American Studies and Sociology from Wesleyan University.

Pronouns: she/her

Rob supports Funders for a Just Economy's Director and membership in efforts to build stronger partnerships among funders, community and labor organizations, and other grassroots experts to support worker and BIPOC-led organizing to transform economic justice. His work includes co-leading the Building Power in Place multi-year research and funder engagement project examining the ways in which worker-led movements reshape local economic landscapes, especially in the face of challenges like state pre-emption and in rural geographies. 

Rob comes to NFG from more than 15 years of front-line organizing and movement-building challenging intersecting inequalities tied to labor, race, gender/sexuality, and ability. He recently completed his doctoral degree at the University of Southern California, and is completing a book manuscript examining the ways labor and community organizing shift urban power and redefine economic and governance models through an abolitionist lens. This research focused on Los Angeles’s cannabis industry and was developed through on-the-ground work with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 and partner queer and Black/brown-led community groups. 

Rob also researched movement-building and urban equity with the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity. In the continual fight to generate hope and support new imaginaries of freedom, he draws continual grounding from his Nichiren Buddhist practice with the multi-racial, global Soka Gakkai International organization, and from everyday dialogue with community, family and friends.

Pronouns: he/his