Staff & Board
Staff
Elspeth Gilmore, Co-Director
elspeth@resourcegeneration.org | 646 461 6278
Elspeth Gilmore is co-director of Resource Generation (RG). She has been involved with RG since 2005, and on staff since 2007. She has coordinated, developed curriculum for and trained RG’s national programs, most recently serving as RG's Program Director. Elspeth is a founding member of Gulf South Allied Funders, a donor circle that partnered with the Twenty-First Century Foundation to support equitable rebuilding in the Gulf South. Elspeth supports grassroots organizations to explore creative approaches to fundraising, and is working on redistributing her inheritance to people and organizations working for justice. She is also an artist and loves to be outside on a bike. Elspeth lives in New York City and is a graduate of Earlham College.
Michael Gast, Co-Director
mike@resourcegeneration.org | 646 461 6269
Michael Gast is co-director of Resource Generation (RG). Mike has been involved with Resource Generation since 2002, when he attended his very first RG program, the Making Money Make Change Retreat. Over his many years with RG, Mike has become an experienced social change philanthropist, donor organizer and fundraiser. He co-coordinated the Movement Generation Support Committee, a donor circle supporting young progressive leaders in the Bay Area, and has led multiple young donor delegations to events such as the U.S. Social Forum and multiple Council on Foundations conferences. Over the last ten years, Mike has organized hundreds of young people with wealth and young family foundation trustees to move from isolation to action, in support of movements for social change. He is a talented facilitator and educator with years of experience leading programs, workshops and trainings on topics from environmental justice to creating a giving plan. Mike lives in Seattle, plays rugby with the Seattle Quake, and is a graduate of Vassar College.
Jessie Spector, Program Director
Jessie@resourcegeneration.org | 646 461 3043
Jessie Spector has been working at Resource Generation since she graduated from Wesleyan University in 2008. Over the past few years, Jessie has played a variety of roles at RG, from office management to helping coordinate the 2010 Creating Change Through Family Philanthropy retreat. Jessie also organized over thirty RG members to participate in the RG delegation to the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, MI. Jessie is a member of the Criminal Justice Initiative, a circle of donors and activists that collectively fund the transformation of the criminal justice system in the U.S., and is an active donor to a variety of organizations and communities working for justice. Jessie is constantly inspired by the power of organizing her own community to leverage wealth and privilege. You can often find Jessie buried in a New York Times crossword puzzle, taking long bike rides in Massachusetts, perusing the farmer’s market, or trying to stay awake late enough to go out dancing.
Contact me about national programming work, and local chapter organizing in the Eastern U.S.
Nicole Lewis, National Organizer
nicole@resourcegeneration.org | 646 461 6271
Nicole Lewis is a community builder, organizer and strategic thinker. As national organizer for Resource Generation she is responsible for providing young people with wealth in west-coast chapter cities across the country with the skills, tools, strategy, and vision to build community and leverage privilege. She has been involved in social change work since high school, where she attended and facilitated student retreats, which challenged students to have tough conversations about identity, privilege and oppression. A strong believer in the power of transformative dialogue, Nicole attended the University of Michigan and quickly became involved in the University’s Intergroup Dialogue Program—the first collegiate level peer-led dialogue program. Her current work at RG is rooted in the art of effective dialogue. As part of RG she is ever-excited to continue expanding and strengthening the many ways in which young people with wealth can organize in support of social change. Nicole holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan in English and Women's Studies.
Contact me about organizing people of color with wealth, starting an affinity based praxis group, or In Our Image, a book for young people of color with wealth who believe in social change.
Nitika Raj, National Organizer
nitika@resourcegeneration.org | 646.461.6231
Nitika Raj first got involved with Resource Generation in Seattle, Washington as part of a cross-class giving circle, a partnership between Social Justice Fund Northwest and RG. Collectively, a cohort of 18 members donated $90,000 and raised an additional $50,000, which was granted to 12 grassroots social change organizations. Nitika went on to join her first praxis group, and eventually the Seattle chapter's leadership team to focus on mobilizing young people of color with wealth. She joined staff in January 2012, and is excited to work at the intersection of racial oppression and class privilege to move communities of color towards wholeness. Her "giving" (returning of wealth) supports the transformation and independence of women and LGBTQ communities of color, embodied healing practices and ending violence. Nitika is deeply spiritual, wildly hopeful, and a writer and dancer. Her family lives in Kuwait, England, India, and the U.S. and they are often perplexed but mostly very proud of her.
Contact me about organizing people of color with wealth, starting an affinty based praxis group, In Our Image (an upcoming book for young people of color with wealth who believe in social change), or about potential partnerships for moving resources.
Sarah Abbott, National Organizer
sarah@resourcegeneration.org
Sarah Abbott is a national organizer for Resource Generation. Sarah has been involved with RG since 2009, when in her senior year at Wesleyan University she first attended the Making Money Make Change conference. She is a founding member of the Arizona Migrant Justice Giving Collective, a cross-class giving project that supports grassroots migrant justice organizing in Arizona. She has also been an RG chapter leader in Minneapolis. Sarah is passionate about developing the ability of young people with wealth to fully align their skills and resources with the social movements they believe in. As a donor, Sarah is committed to supporting grassroots organizing that builds power in communities most affected by injustice. She is a midwesterner at heart and by choice, raised in small-town Minnesota and currently residing in vibrant Minneapolis. When she's not organizing, you'll find Sarah aerobicizing at her local YWCA or breaking it down on the dance floor.
Contact me if you live in the western half of the U.S., and you want to get involved with Resource Generation.
Richard Graves, Family Philanthropy Organizer
richard@resourcegeneration.org | 202 372 6756
Richard Graves is the Family Philanthropy Organizer at Resource Generation. He has been addressing issues of environmental and social justice for the last eight years, as a climate activist, social entrepreneur, and online journalist. The founder of Fired Up Media, he is the publisher of It’s Getting Hot in Here – dispatches from the youth climate movement. Richard supports the emerging impact investment movement, working with university endowments on divestment and green revolving funds, and as investor and advisor to sustainable startups. He was a Center for Progressive Leadership Executive Fellow and was nominated for a Webby. He also loves to cook food and collect cooking equipment from around the world. Richard was born and lives in Washington, DC and is a graduate of Macalester College.
Contact me about working within family foundations, communicating effectively with institutional investors, impact investing, awesome recipes, or using technology for social change.
Sarah Schwartz Sax, CCTFP Retreat Director
sarahss@resourcegeneration.org |646 461 6095
Sarah has been organizing community-based progressive events, forums and programming for over 4 years. She has worked with the organizing team for RG's Making Money Make Change retreat for the past two years, stepping into the retreat director position in early 2011. She developed a background in event planning and community responses to economic inequality through her work at the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good. Sarah is particularly interested in the joys and challenges that come up in cross-class relationships, and the relationship-based art of social change. Sarah has worked as a social justice practitioner since her youth, involved in work connected to The Names Memorial AIDS Quilt, the deep and loamy world of sustainable and urban agriculture, solidarity with Cuba and Latin America, and reproductive justice. Sarah holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan in Social and Environmental Justice; she is a yoga teacher, a massage therapist, and a collaborator in the field of transformational justice. Sarah lives in Durham, NC.
Contact me about the Creating Change for Family Philanthropy 2012 retreat.
RG Fellows
Ariana Snowdon, Fellow
Ariana is a 2011 Fellow in Seattle. She first became involved with RG after being asked to speak on behalf of her family's foundation at the 2010 MMMC retreat. She has been involved in non-profit work since her early teens, serving as a trustee of the Hill-Snowdon Foundation, a Grantmaking Committe member with the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole, as well as working and interning for multiple other organizations. Ariana is a 2010 graduate of Wesleyan University, where she majored in the Science in Society Program, concentrating in Environmental Science, Sociology, and Public Health. She has spent the past year in Washington, DC and her hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, working for the Enviornmental Health Trust on public awareness campaigns on the health risks of cell phone use. When she's not working, Ariana can usually be found playing in the mountains, often with skis, bikes, or horses in tow.
Ryan Seago, Communications and Design Fellow
Ryan is one of the 2011 Communications and Design Fellows in Seattle. After participating in Social Justice Fund’s Environmental Justice giving project in 2011, he’s excited to continue his involvement in social change organizing by using his background in design to help support RG’s programs and outreach. He has a BA in Architecture from the University of Washington.
Louie Johnson, Communications and Design Fellow
Louie is a 2011 Communications and Design Fellow in Seattle. Louie is a recent graduate from Washington State University with a degree Communication majoring in Advertising and a minor in Fine Arts; he is currently enrolled in classes at the Seattle School of Visual Concepts. An aspiring Art Director in the world of advertising Louie is now practicing as a Graphic Designer. He joins the RG team eager to lend his skills to improving the brand image of RG along with increasing its reach through the country.
National Board of Advisors
- Heather Davis
- Sha Grogan-Brown, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
- Braeden Lentz, Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program
- Mario Lugay, The New American Leaders Project & The Mitchell Kapor Foundation
- Dr. Carmen Rojas, University of California, Berkeley
- Katrina Schaffer (co-chair), Lexington School of the Deaf, and Filmmaker
- Sam Seidel, Educator, Hip-Hop Artist, and Published Author
- Monica Simpson, SisterSong, Independent Artist and Community Organizer
- Burke Stansbury (co-chair), Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
- Irene Villasenor, Project Reach
- Jen Willsea, Interaction Institute for Social Change
- Rebecca Winsor, Inspired Philanthropy Group
