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Eve Hill is the former Executive Director of the Disability Rights Legal Center, which provides information, education, mediation, and legal representation for people with all types of disabilities. For her inquiry, she consulted with national media and communications experts about how to change the public perception of disability rights, and created a plan for doing [...]
Robert Sainz is the former Assistant General Manager, Operations, for the City of Los Angeles Community Development Department (now the Economic & Workforce Development Department), which managed the City’s Workforce Development System, FamilySource, and economic development programs. His Stanton project explored new models to increase high school dropout recovery by incorporating community and local government [...]
Sister Jennie Lechtenberg is the former Chief Executive Officer of PUENTE Learning Center, a nonsectarian, nonprofit organization offering tuition-free educational programs to students of all ages. For her inquiry, she researched the possibility of implementing adult charter schools in California. “Statistics prove that adult illiteracy and lack of basic education are rampant in the state [...]
Torie Osborn is the former Executive Director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, which partners with Los Angeles grassroots organizations to combat poverty and injustice, and later served as its Senior Advisor to Philanthropic Programs. She has also served as Special Advisor to the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, linking the Mayor’s office to the [...]
Beth Steckler is the former Policy Director of Livable Places, Inc., an organization that promoted a more livable and sustainable Los Angeles through planning and by building urban residences that demonstrated efficient land use, green space, and public transit access. Beth’s project led her to different communities around the nation that have successfully generated public [...]
Norma Mtume is the former Associate Director and Chief Financial Officer of SHIELDS for Families, a South Los Angeles family service agency providing mental health and substance abuse treatment, housing, and vocational and child development services. A co-founder of five nonprofit organizations throughout her career, Norma was concerned about replenishing the graying leadership in the [...]
Gilda Haas is the former Executive Director of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE). Her project goal was to shift the debate around how to address economic inequality, which she accomplished by creating popular education materials that used Web 2.0 tools to explain and engage people in understanding the root economic causes of current [...]
Elwood Hopkins is the former Managing Director of Emerging Markets, Inc., which worked with major industries in Los Angeles to familiarize them with low-income neighborhoods, overcome their avoidance of doing business there, and partner with communities productively. For his inquiry, Elwood used the same approach—which has been successful with mainstream financial services—to try to locate [...]
Cora Mirikitani is the former President and CEO of the Center for Cultural Innovation, a training and financial services incubator serving individual artists. For her project, she investigated new donor development streams that can better support the work of, and increase available resources to, individual artists in Los Angeles. * Cora transitioned out of her [...]
