About Me

I currently lead three organizational functions: effective philanthropy; movement building; & research. 

I manage, coach, and develop a team of four full time staff and four part-time, core consultants.

Effective Philanthropy | Make the organization the most effective grantmaker possible, including to:

• Facilitate quarterly grant cycles to evaluate 100+ grantee requests per year; run internal standing meetings and semi-regular deep dives to build consensus among staff on grant recommendations;
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to set annual grantmaking budgets (e.g., 2024 = $50M);
• Coach other staff members on how to be effective Program Officers and develop resources for them;
• Stood up a v1 Planning, Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning function to evaluate grantee impact.

Movement Building | Coordinate the election reform movement in the United States, including to:

• Manage a $8M/yr grantmaking budget to 25+ movement building grantees;
• Conduct due diligence on grants, advise grantees on strategy, provide in-kind value, set benchmarks;
• Host convenings, coalition calls, and trainings to facilitate collaboration and shared learning;
• Develop shared resources for campaigns across the country (e.g., template RFPs, budgets, job descriptions)
• Build and run programs for our organization and movement, including: a right-of-center research initiative; a fellowship program; aggregated messaging insights; a job board; and a resource library.

Research | Run a small think tank that conducts and commissions research on the impact of election reforms:

• Authored six white papers full of original research and syntheses of other scholars’ findings — each of which has been used to attract media attention, educate donors, and lobby policymakers;
• Approve new research products; help direct reports formulate arguments; review and edit work products;
• Regularly publish research work products to keep up with the news cycle. My research has been cited in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Real Clear Politics, The Hill, Chicago Tribune, and many more;
• Commissioned 25+ individual papers and provided grant support to 10+ think tanks;
• Built a community of 50+ university scholars and think tankers who regularly meet & collaborate;
• Do outreach to distribute research findings via media, donor briefings, and legislator education.

• Hired as the second employee and facilitated growth from 2 to 20 employees and from $300k budget to a $15M annual budget within three years; we now have 30 employees and a $60M+ annual budget;
• Oversaw a diverse portfolio of work streams and departments, including: grassroots organizing; political data; operations and compliance; finance and budgeting; digital content; and key stakeholder engagement;
• Served as Board Secretary, working closely with the Executive Director to prepare quarterly board materials; 
• Led hiring processes and contributed to 20+ hires, including recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding candidates;
• Worked directly with the Executive Director to pivot the organization from an operating organization to a philanthropic venture fund, and transitioned to a more external facing role with our grantee community.