Alana Adams

Learning and Development Associate

Alana (she/they) was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She got her start as a resource mobilizer at seventeen with the Violets’ Giving Circle. As board co-chair she worked to support the education and development of women and girls in her community until moving to Philadelphia to pursue degrees in Psychology and Latin American & Latine Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. While completing her studies, she interned at Juntos, a community-led Latine immigrant rights organization, and Why Not Prosper, a grassroots organization led by formerly incarcerated women for formerly incarcerated women. Through her work, she developed her skills as a writer, disruptor, and community builder, while affirming her commitment to community organizing for systemic change.Prior to joining the FCYO team, Alana served as the Development and Operations Coordinator of Juntos, where she resourced and facilitated their work building power alongside an intergenerational base fighting for our rights as workers, parents, youth, and immigrants.A queer Black Latina, Alana finds joy in baking for her friends, playing with her cats, Peri and Oro, and building community rooted in radical love and unflinching joy.

Mónica Córdova

Executive Director

Mónica Córdova is the Executive Director of the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, a dynamic collective of social justice funders and youth practitioners dedicated to building the leadership and capacity of youth organizers to create meaningful institutional and social change. Mónica holds a lifelong commitment to the critical role of BlPOC youth, working-class young people, young women, and queer and trans youth in transforming social and economic conditions. She honed her vision and practice for nearly a decade as the youth organizer and then Co-Director of the SouthWest Organizing Project, a local grassroots organization in New Mexico. As Co-Director, she focused on building power among people from low-income communities of color through leading multi-issue, multi-generational community organizing and civic engagement campaigns. Today, Mónica uses her grounded experience to bring philanthropic leaders and youth organizers together to ensure young people have the resources and tools they need to fight for a more just and democratic society. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Climate Equity Policy Center and is the Board President of the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center. Mónica is a proud mama, New Mexico Chicana, and certified professional coach.

Kel Kroehle (they/them)

Director of Learning & Development

As Learning & Development Director, Kel supports FCYO's resource mobilization, funder organizing, and research and evaluation efforts. Whether in service of FCYO’s field scans, funder advisory, or grantmaking and capacity building programs, Kel is committed to identifying the lessons emerging from our work and weaving together youth organizing’s lineages, practices, and visions for the world. Prior to joining the FCYO team, Kel served for seven years as Director of The Bryson Institute at The Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia. In this role, they coordinated and resourced a youth-driven education and training program, working alongside queer and trans youth to advance anti-oppressive practices and just policies among the region’s youth-serving systems. Their experience also includes facilitating participatory action research projects on trans student equity and youth sociopolitical development. Kel earned their Bachelors degree in Gender Studies and LGBTQ studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before earning their Master of Social Work degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Beyond the workday, Kel can typically be found connecting with loved ones and other rabble-rousers, negotiating with their four-legged muppet-companion, TumTum Geraldine, or prepping for an upcoming crossword competition.

Jennifer Maldonado

Program Manager

Jennifer Maldonado, also known as J-Mo, was raised in El Sereno, Los Angeles (CA). She is the youngest of 4 and shares the same birthday as her grandfather, Malcom X and Yuri Kochiyama- May 19! At an early age, she began organizing with InnerCity Struggle’s youth program called United Students. J-Mo’s first campaign win brought millions of dollars to under-resourced and over-crowded schools in the Eastside and Southside schools. She graduated from UC San Diego with a BA in Ethnic Studies and minor in Education Studies to return to her Eastside communities and work with families for educational justice. She loves to travel- while in college she did a study aboard program in Ireland and was able to visit France, Spain, Portugal, Scotland and Italy. Her favorite movie is Yes Man! with Jim Carrie and the Jurassic Park series.  If she could live in any creative world it would the Matrix to take down the status quo with karate.  

She was first hired as a Fellow through the Funder’s Collaborative on Youth Organizing(FCYO) at InnerCity Struggle, later as a School Site Organizer at Woodrow Wilson High and Lincoln High School and recently as the Community Planning Justice Organizer.  

From school based organizing, city, and county organizing, J-Mo has been able to mentor generations of youth in her community and shift power in tenant and land use policies in the county. She is now joining FCYO as incoming Program Associate.  

Kaleia Martin

Climate Fund Program Manager

Kaleia Martin is the Climate Fund Program Manager at FCYO where her job is to support the development and execution of various projects.. Kaleia started as a youth organizer at Youth Empowered Solutions (YES!) where she supported her young people as they worked to increase access to clean water in schools, helped innovate the Charlotte Public Health department’s tobacco prevention outreach strategy and became sought out leaders for making the connection between racial justice and climate justice in order to create effective policy. She is the former Environmental Justice working group co-chair for the Southeast Climate and Energy Network (SCEN) and a current leadership team member for the NC Climate Justice Collective. Kaleia is looking forward to carrying out her dreams of helping the worlds of climate activism and racial justice collide. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work degree from UNC- Greensboro as well as a Master of Social Work degree.

Kaleia is a free, audacious soul who strives to disrupt everything that hinders human ability to dream radically and live more harmoniously with ourselves, each other and the planet. A true Carolina girl, she grew up outside of Charleston, SC before moving to her home of Charlotte, NC. She enjoys spending time with loved ones, exploring new places, trying out random Pinterest recipes, observing nature from her stand-up paddle board and novel experiences. Additionally, she devotes time to being a filmmaker, creative producer, speaker, facilitator and Founder and Striving Embodier of Disrupt Transform.

Rapheal Randall

Director of Special Projects

Rapheal Randall is a trained designer, urban planner, and political worker who specializes in strategy and organizational development. While with Michael Graves Design Group in Princeton, NJ, he co-designed products, as an urban planner and designer in Philadelphia, PA, he drafted community revitalization plans for nonprofits and neighborhood groups throughout the tri-state area. During this period, Rapheal participated in local anti-displacement fights and minimum wage campaigns, utilizing his skills as a community planner in these organizing efforts. These experiences led him to Youth United for Change (YUC) in 2014, where he spent seven years as Executive Director rebuilding the organization through a dialectical process rooted in rigorous experimentation. The lessons his team learned through this approach are captured in two self-published books -- Y’all Tryna Win or Nah?! and Doin’ The Work. Rapheal received his Bachelor of Science in Design from The Ohio State University and a Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

Troy Price

Operations Associate

Troy joins FCYO as Operations Associate, where he supports grant and financial management for the organization overall as well as meeting and event logistics for YO-CARE and TAP specifically. He has explored a range of roles prior to joining the FCYO team–with stops in international immigration law, trade show exhibits, and one night as a cocktail server. His most formative experience came while supporting nonprofit membership at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, where he authored a blog series featuring original interviews with movement organizations across the country highlighting ways in which the philanthropic ecosystem can be a stronger partner in organizing and advocacy work. Born in the DMV with no plans to ever leave, Troy holds a Bachelor’s degree in government and politics (with a minor in astronomy) from the University of Maryland and a Master’s degree in public administration from American University with a focus on nonprofit management. Outside of work he can be found playing board games with friends, obsessing over his plants, and learning to do a handstand

Tatianna Santos

Donor Engagement Manager

Tatianna Santos, known as Tati, was raised in Paraná, Brasil. At the age of seven she moved to the United States and has since lived in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. Growing up as an undocumented immigrant she began her work in activism at an early age, supporting work in Newark, New Jersey combatting the attacks of ICE and barriers to citizenship in her community.

During her time at Lehigh University, she began exploring activism in the LGBTQ movement all the while coming into her own identity as a queer woman. Previously she has worked with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, and the Gill Foundation, a leading LGBTQ funder.

As FCYO's Donor Engagement Manager, Tati will support efforts in building out a new individual donor network and increasing resources for the field of youth organizing. Outside of working hours you can find Tati watching the sunset with her cat (Bandit), browsing the internet for artwork, growing her earring collection, and kitchen dance parties to Marc Anthony's "Vivir Mi Vida". 

Jen Stevens

Operations and Finance Manager

While organizing with CYAP, Jen became involved with the Girls Rock Camp Alliance (GRCA) - an international membership network of youth-centered arts and social justice organizations. The GRCA provides resources and space for community building to over 100 members worldwide in order to build a strong movement for collective liberation. Jen has been involved with the GRCA movement since 2014, most recently serving on the member-elected Board of Directors for the last 5 years. As a Board member, Jen helps organize an annual convening of over 200 program organizers and volunteers and focuses most of her time on member connectivity and engagement.

When not working at FCYO or organizing with the GRCA, Jen can be found reading about astrology (they’re an Aquarius sun, Capricorn rising, and Gemini moon), creating to-do lists in Google Drive, playing sports, or taking photographs of cats. They love to travel and sing karaoke - their go to song is I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys.

Jen joins FCYO as the Operations and Admin Associate after nearly a decade of working in higher education administration. She is excited to help support the operational and logistical side of FCYO’s work.

Helena Wong

Associate Director

Helena joins FCYO as its Special Projects Director where they are excited to develop and test out new initiatives. Prior to FCYO, Helena's experience spans over two decades playing different roles in social justice organizations around the US: director of Seeding Change, Feminisms and Gender Justice Organizer at Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and coordinator of It Takes Roots, organizer and executive director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities in NYC where she organized in low-income Asian immigrant and refugee communities around gentrification, community development/land use, and police violence. Helena has also led delegations to China, meeting with organizers and advocates around land rights, migrant workers, environmental protection, queer visibility and sex work.  She is based in NYC and one day hopes to cultivate a green thumb.

Christopher June Zizzamia

Program Director

Christopher June is an experienced organizer, trainer, and strategist who believes that building the multi-racial working class’s power is the key to transforming the world towards justice. They bring to FCYO a deep history of building Black and Brown-led community organizing groups, centering the development of those with the most to gain from society’s transformation; youth, LGBTQ folks, gender-oppressed folks, working class folks, and immigrants. They come to the FCYO team after a decade spanning different parts of the movement eco-system, from educational justice in a base-building organization to statewide community-labor coalition work.

Before organizing Christopher June could be found on roofs and in basements all over Connecticut where they spent years as a construction worker. And before that they could be found nose buried in a comic book or making an elaborate  play-city with garage finds. All of – the commitment to their people, the construction, the reading, the imagination – grounded in one desire: to close the gap between what is and what can be.