Allison Erdneka Budschalow (she/her)

Allison has spent over two decades working in the nonprofit sector, based in Philadelphia from which she hails. For the past 10 years, she has been the development director for community based nonprofit organizations, effectively increasing revenue with particular emphasis on diversifying funding streams and securing grassroots fundraising efforts with individual donors of all sizes.

Previous to her resource generation and mobilization work, she worked with the American Friends Service Committee bringing social justice programming to life around the U.S. and globally by organizing with and supporting movements of movements for dignity, justice, and human rights for all.

Allison has served on the Boards of Directors for a number of Philadelphia-based organizations, including Women in Transition and the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP). She is currently an associate with Dragonfly Partners.

Allison received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology/Anthropology from Earlham College and her Master of Arts in Sustainable Businesses and Communities from Goddard College. She is passionate about the power and support that grassroots fundraising can provide to build, sustain, and win campaigns for our communities to thrive and create the better world in which we want to live. As a member of the Kalmyk Mongol diaspora, she is excitedly investigating the intersections of food, gentrification, race, class, and story-telling.

Brittany Campese (she/her)

For more than 15 years, I have been utilizing my community-based experiences and educational background in gender studies and nonprofit management to provide holistic support to change-makers and artists working in the public sector. As a white, cis-het woman who was raised in rural Western New York, I consider myself both an ally and an accomplice in the struggles for racial justice. I use my facilitation and organizational superpowers to push for social justice, helping to build skills and secure resources with individuals and communities who are making powerful changes in the world.

I am the Founder & Principal of Vision Driven Consulting, a consultancy that supports the visionary work of artists, community groups, and not-for-profit organizations by providing consulting, facilitation, and training services. VDC’s methods are rooted in trans-inclusive feminist and anti-oppressive frameworks, and seeks out the voices, opinions, and ideas of people at all levels of power, starting conversations from points of strengths and assets to create sustainable, healthy, and inclusive changes.

Sara Zia Ebrahimi (she/her)

Sara Zia Ebrahimi learned to talk in Iran and press the record button in the United States. Her professional and creative practice has focused on questioning power structures and how to shift the narratives that enable them to perpetuate. For over 20 years she has worked as a resource mobilizer, connecting artists and community organizers to the resources they need to move their work forward. She does this through fundraising, building administrative and operations processes, and weaving strong webs of relationships between individuals and organizations for the collective thriving of historically marginalized communities. She currently works as the Deputy Director at BlackStar. Her previous positions have included working as the Program Director at the Leeway Foundation, a Community Engagement Coordinator for Independent Television Service’s (ITVS) Community Cinema program and as the Development and Communications Director at Bread & Roses Community Fund. She has worked as a producer on several short films and webseries, written and directed her own short films, and served on dozens of review panels for arts funders and festivals. She holds an MFA in Film & Media Arts and BA in Film & Media Studies both from Temple University. She credits her accomplishments to the larger community of friends, chosen family, coworkers and social change movements that have guided her thinking and actions and is honored to join a strong legacy of cultural workers in the Philadelphia area by leading BlackStar’s fundraising and planning. When not working, she can be found in the kitchen cooking too much food, reading and watching science fiction stories, or battling monsters with her partner and a young warrior princess.

Veronica Garcia (she/her)

I was born in Los Angeles and raised on the U.S./Mexico border in El Paso, Texas. I am a queer, gender nonconforming, Latinx, woman. I've dedicated almost 25 years of my life to serving social justice groups organizing around a wide array of intersectional issues. I was first introduced to fundraising as a movement building strategy by the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT) more than 15 years ago. Since then I've supported hundreds of communities in deepening their grassroots fundraising capacity. I'm currently focused on startup organizing for the Wealth Reclamation Academy of Practitioners (WRAP) to transform how social justice organizers think about and practice movement resourcing in the U.S.

 Taij Kumarie Moteelall (she/her)

Born in Guyana and raised largely in the Bronx, New York, I am a principal at Media Sutra, a socially regenerative business led by People of Color providing creative, strategic and transformational services. We are building a solidarity economy that works for all by merging transformative storytelling and resource mobilization to foster community well-being and wealth-building. We are artists, storytellers, facilitators, coaches, healers, resource mobilizers, and strategists. We have raised millions of dollars, launched high-impact organizations and campaigns, created award-winning films, supported organizations and networks to be sustainable, facilitated transformative leadership and organizational development, and coached leaders to be game-changers.

My facilitation and coaching supports creative entrepreneurs of color to be FABulous (Fearless. Abundant. Bold). I am also the founder of Standing in Our Power, a network of women of color and gender-resistant people of color. I’ve written poetry, produced multi-disciplinary theatre performances, performed nationally and internationally, and am now writing my first novel. Finally, I’m a mother of three beautiful beings.