Board of Directors
Brianna Brown is a 4th generation Texan and the Co-Executive Director of the Texas Organizing Project, the largest grassroots, community-based organization in Texas. As Co-Executive Director, previously Deputy Director, she’s focused on building a bomb staff and membership that centralizes the experiences of Black folks and Latinos. In her role, she works internally to operationalize TOP’s mission with purpose and performance, and externally corralling resources and telling the story about the victories realized through a decade of TOP organizing and the Texas-sized possibilities that are ahead. With more than a decade of experience working in the social justice movement--on issues ranging from ex-offender re-enfranchisement to immigration reform, Brianna was the Center for Public Policy Priorities, Future of Texas Award Honoree in 2016, was recognized in Texas Monthly’s 2018 Power Issue along with TOP’s, ED, Michelle Tremillo as one of 31 Texans taking charge and is a frequently quoted expert in local, state and national news media. Brianna is a founding board member of the African American Center on Global Politics and Human Rights. She is proud to be a product of Texas public schools and graduated Phi Sigma Alpha from Brown University where she earned degrees in Africana Studies and Political Science. Personally, she’s over-the-moon to be a new mom, loves mushrooms, basketball and is desperate for the return of Emerge and YSB magazines!
Aaron is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), a research and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. NCRP works to ensure America's grantmakers are responsive to the needs of those with the least wealth, opportunity and power. Before joining NCRP in 2007, Dorfman served for 15 years as a community organizer with two national organizing networks, spearheading grassroots campaigns to improve public education, expand public transportation for low-income residents and improve access to affordable housing. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Carleton College (where he studied under the late Senator Paul Wellstone) and a master's degree in philanthropic studies from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Dorfman frequently speaks and writes about the importance of diversity in philanthropy, the benefits of foundation funding for advocacy and community organizing, and the need for greater accountability and transparency in the philanthropic sector.
Matt Hollamby advises donors on high-impact and innovative mobilization and communications programs that engage voters in our democracy. Previously, as Senior Program Officer at the Wyss Foundation, he was responsible for state and media strategies to secure shared opportunity and strengthen American democracy. Over an 18-year career at the foundation, he led an expansion into social justice work – building grant-making programs to secure health reform, win voting reforms and increase civic participation, strengthen social programs, address barriers to women’s participation, and increase wages and work standards across the country. Matt has also worked on conservation and clean energy issues, advocating for a new system of National Conservation Lands that was signed into law by President Obama in 2009. He has a Master’s degree from the Yale School of the Environment and lives in Sixteenth Street Heights in Washington, DC.
Christina has been organizing throughout California since 2004. She first became interested in organizing while studying for her B.A. in Sociology at UC Berkeley. (Later she earned an MA in Sociology from Cal State Los Angeles). Her first organizing work was through Union Summer where she worked with the AFL-CIO’s community arm, Working America. Soon thereafter she began organizing with Los Angeles ACORN where she worked across South Los Angeles recruiting members, developing leaders, and running local campaigns for community improvements. Along with other dedicated staff and members she helped open the statewide California community organization ACCE (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment) where she served as both Field Director and Deputy Director. She was recently appointed to the position of Executive Director by the ACCE board of directors. Her current work focuses on coordinating ACCE’s statewide campaign calling on big corporations and the wealthy to do their part to end the foreclosure crisis, restore communities, and refund California.
Jose Lopez is one of the three Co-Executive Directors of Make the Road New York. For two decades, Jose has demonstrated his commitment to Make the Road New York and the communities which we serve. Prior to being named Co-Executive Director, Jose served as Deputy Director and Co-Director of Organizing where he helped to shape and deliver on impactful projects and policies in the arenas of housing, education, labor and police reform. His commitment and policy expertise on affordable housing and renters rights helped to secure the strongest rental protections passed in Albany in a generation. Outside of providing campaign support to our team of 44 organizers, Jose sits on the board of Communities United for Police Reform Action, a coalition committed to ending discriminatory and abusive policing in New York State. In December 2014, Jose was appointed to President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing and since has published pieces on changing youth attitudes towards policing. Jose is a graduate of Hofstra University and father of Amelie Soleil.
LaDon Love is the Executive Director of SPACEs In Action. SIA is a multi-ethnic membership based community organization that focuses in the District of Columbia in wards 7 and 8, as well as, Maryland in Montgomery County. In 2019, SIA was a lead organization in the campaign that secured $15.8 million in the DC budget for childcare and health services for DC families raising children from birth to three. Love has over two decades of experience in community, leadership and organizational development. She uses grassroots organizing to engage in local, state and national campaigns to affect public policy. She works with local leaders to identify issues and develop solutions to improve the lives of low and moderate income families and their community. She is also a published photographer who uses her photography skills to tell the story of those directly impacted, bringing her subject’s personality to the photography experience. Once a year she is the lead trainer for Empowered Women International’s Entrepreneurs Training for Success program. Through an 18 session program, she guides women business owners in the process of developing a business plan and pitch. Additionally, she is the Vice-Chair of the Algebra Project Board of Directors and a founding member of Community Voices Heard. In her 20 years of experience, she has worked with the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of New York State, the Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Coalition, Citizen Action of New York, the Center for Community Change, the Center for Progressive Leadership, and Community Learning Partnership. She has received the Shirley Chisholm Leadership and Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year awards. A graduate of Hunter College, she also has educational training from the following organizations: Empowered Women International, Life Asset, the Aspen Institute, Rockwood Leadership Institute, Technology Of Participation and Training for Change, Washington School of Photography, and Entrepreneurial Women’s Institute. “I do this work because as a mom I want to work with other families who want to ensure that policy solutions are centered in the needs and demands of those directly impacted. If those most directly impacted are not at the table, it is likely that the policy solutions are not based on life experiences.”
Rafael Návar is a political organizer from East Los Angeles, California, with over two decades of experience leading successful grassroots and national campaigns. From 2019-2020, Návar served as the California State Director for Senator Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign. Due to his success leading the team that secured the Senator’s win in the California primary, Návar was appointed to lead Senator Sanders’ campaign in New York. As the only Latinx State Director forSanders presidential campaign, Návar brought valuable insight and experience to his senior advisor role for Mijente and Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) historic outreach to Latinxcommunities in the successful election of two Democratic Senators in the 2021 Georgia runoff election. From 2012 to 2019, Návar served as the National Political Director for the Communication Workers Of America (CWA), the largest telecommunications union in the world. During his tenure, he reversed the five year decline of the union’s PAC resulting in the record breaking growth of over $4million in yearly PAC contributions with a much smaller membership base. His proudest achievement was helping to build one of the most progressive rank and file led political programs in the country.Under his leadership as one of two Latinx national political directors in the labor movement, CWAbecame a significant political force within labor and the broader progressive movement having developed the innovative leadership development program (CWA Political Boot Camps) that trained over a thousand new labor activists.
Kirk Noden is veteran community organizer who has successfully built community organizations in Chicago, Birmingham England, and Ohio. He now lives in the city of Kent, OH with his wife Rosi and two boys Roberto and Emiliano. Together they own The Battle Ground bar and the microbrew Drink Your Values Beer.
Ramon Ramirez has been a leader in the immigrant rights movement for more than four decades, co-founding and serving as president of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), Oregon’s farm workers’ union and one of the largest Latinx organizations in the state. PCUN, with Ramon as its most recent representative, has been a member of FIRM’s Executive Committee and an active player in the national fight for immigration reform. Ramon’s fellowship docked with Path to Power’s first pillar: Building Black and Immigrant Power. Drawing from his deep history of coalition building, Ramon’s year-long fellowship project will study, document, and glean lessons from a number of local cross-racial organizing efforts throughout the country and culminate in a multimedia report on his findings.
One of 11 children born and raised in Arizona to Migrant Farm workers. In 2006, I served as the Treasurer and Spokesperson for the Arizona Minimum Wage Coalition, which successfully established a minimum wage, with automatic annual indexing to the cost of living through ballot initiative. I have led the community in a campaign for participation and civic engagement to increase latino voter registration and I assisted in reforming the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and I have also assisted thousands of legal permanent residents apply for citizenship at citizenship fairs.
