John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas, Executive Director
Scot Nakagawa, Grants and Program Director
Sarah Studer, Grants Manager
Sean Lynch, Development Associate
Zeke Spier, Office Manager
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John-Paul Chaisson-Cárdenas,
Executive Director
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Scot Nakagawa,
Grants and Program Director
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Scot Nakagawa has three decades of experience as an activist on a broad array of progressive issues. He has served as the Field Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and was a founder and staffperson of the Coalition for Human Dignity, a group dedicated to combatting neo-Nazism, the religious right wing, and other repressive movements in the NW.
Scot joined the Social Justice Fund staff after serving as Associate Director of the Western Prison Project, a regional criminal justice reform advocate, and as an educator and fundraiser for the Highlander Research and Education Center, a progressive Southeast regional organization based in New Market, Tennessee.
Scot's background in philanthropy includes having served as the Executive Director of the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation and on the board of directors of the Funding Exchange.
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Sarah Studer,
Grants Manager
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| Sarah moved to the Pacific Northwest from Colorado to attend the University of Puget Sound.. After graduating with a B.A. in U.S. Politics & Government and African American Studies in 2005, she moved to Seattle and volunteered with the Social Justice Fund as a grantmaking intern. She then joined the staff in 2006 and is now the Grants Manager.
Sarah currently serves on the executive committee of the People of Color in Philanthropy Network (POCPN) and the steering committee for the Seattle chapter of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP).
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Sean Lynch,
Development Associate
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Sean made the switch from the world of classical music administration to the Social Justice Fund in March of 2007. Having worked in the non-profit sector since 2001, he has acquired an extensive knowledge of data base systems, finance and sound administrative procedures. His most recent Development work was at Seattle Symphony where only one other department member had been with the organization longer.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and a minor in Business administration from California State University, Chico, Sean is happy to be back in the Pacific Northwest where he was raised. He is thrilled to be part of the Seattle music scene and is steadfastly dedicated to the advancement of social justice.
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Zeke Spier,
Office Manager |
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Zeke Spier is excited to be back in Seattle working on social justice issues that impact the NW. On the east coast, he attended Brown University and then took a year off to work for R2K Legal, the organization formed to support activists arrested at the Republican National Convention in 2000.
After graduating from Western Washington University in 2005, he took three trips to New Orleans to work with Common Ground Relief to help in the reconstruction and to bring anti-racist trainings and discussions to the thousands of volunteers coming through the city.
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