Helena is a seasoned, collaborative, social change leader with years of experience and impact in nonprofit management, philanthropy, and policy advocacy. She is a bridge builder, at home in both the worlds of philanthropy & grassroots advocacy.
She has spent half of her professional life in leadership roles within philanthropy (Open Society Foundation, JEHT, Art for Justice Fund/Ford) and served on three philanthropic boards: Northwest Health Foundation, a leading health and social justice state-based foundation in Oregon, the Proteus Fund, a national democracy and human rights funding intermediary, and, most recently, the Ohio Transformation Fund, a funding vehicle dedicated to ending mass incarceration in Ohio.
The other half of her career was working directly at the state level to build what in the mid-2000s was still early “civic engagement infrastructure,” where she helped found and direct Oregon’s first, nonpartisan civic engagement table, Oregon Voice in 2009, and later raised resources for National State Voices and its network of state-based civic engagement organizations.
Helena is experienced in working with a wide range of donors (individuals and institutions) and advocates (national and local) to leverage resources, advance public policy, and fund movement building.
She lives in NYC with her husband, Robe, (grown daughter Lu is just across the East River) and their pup, Obie.