Staff and Board

Staff

Elsa Batres-Boni

Project Manager

Elsa was born and raised in Mexico City, where she studied social anthropology at the Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia. Her training as a community organizer and educator began while working with a popular education-focused organization in various rural indigenous communities in Mexico. In the past 10 years Elsa has worked professionally and volunteered for different social and environmental justice organizations locally and internationally such as BUSCA, AC and Oxfam in Mexico, the Monteverde Institute in Costa Rica, and EarthCorps, Casa Latina, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, YouthCare and Global Visionaries in Seattle, WA. Most recently, she has been organizing immigrant communities with OneAmerica. Elsa believes the only way to social change is committing through community empowerment.

Kylie Gursky

Project Manager

Kylie grew up in Polson, Montana. She and her family moved to Washington state when she was in high school, but Big Sky Country will always be a home to her. Kylie spent two years as an AmeriCorps volunteer and several years working in youth philanthropy. She's developed a passion for democratic philanthropy and youth development through these experiences. She came to work at Social Justice Fund after participating in the first ever Next Generation Giving Project and is grateful for the work of the committed, progressive individuals and organizations she met through the NGGP. Kylie is excited to continue to work with donor activists throughout the region.

Mijo Lee

Program Director

Mijo Lee was born in Missoula, Montana, grew up in Bothell, Washington, attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, and has lived almost the rest of her life in Seattle, where she intends to stay.  Except for four years in New York, where she graduated from New York University School of Law, she is a lifetime Northwesterner.  Mijo has been an activist and organizer in a variety of movements in the Seattle area, including domestic violence advocacy, fair trade, and police accountability movements. Mijo co-founded Sahngnoksoo, the only politically progressive Korean-American organization in the Northwest, and most recently worked as a public defender on statewide appeals. She has benefited a great deal from SJF's work over the years and is thrilled for this opportunity to give back.


Estevan Muñoz-Howard

Development Director

Estevan has long been a fervid advocate for community empowerment--a characteristic he attributes to his study of Political Theory at the University of Puget Sound. It was though his studies that he discovered his passion for building social capital, and he soon realized his professional calling lay in the nonprofit sector. Estevan spent a few years exploring the world before returning to Seattle to establish roots in the nonprofit community. Most recently, Estevan served as Executive Director of the Youth Media Institute, a nonprofit organization that uses media to foster critical thinking and civic engagement among young people in Southwest Seattle. He now serves on the Seattle Arts Commission and continues to find new opportunities for engagement whenever he can find the time. After spending several years on the move, Estevan is happy to be settled in South Seattle with his beautiful wife, Elisha, and their son, Aurelio.

Lynne Nguyen

Office Administrator

Originally hailing from California, Lynne has called Seattle home for the past three years. In her recent former life, she was a community organizer, working on issues around the country including labor, transnational migration issues, and health care reform. Lynne is also part of the founding Steering Committee of the Asian Pacific Islander Freedom School, an anti-oppression training and education program for API youth in the Northwest. She is excited to engage in the social justice movement as part of the Social Justice Fund team.

Zeke Spier

Executive Director

Zeke has been working at Social Justice Fund for five years.  Over that time, he has engaged hundreds of people as donors and helped to move millions of dollars to grassroots organizing in the Northwest.  Zeke has experience both as a manager in the corporate sector and as a community organizer, working on issues from the just reconstruction of New Orleans to criminal justice issues in Philadelphia.  He is currently sits on the national Board of Advisors of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and is a member of the leadership team of the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites.  Zeke was born in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys reminiscing about his cross-country bicycle trip on his 6-mile ride to work.

Karen Toering

Project Manager

Karen is a grassroots organizer, cultural worker and consultant for non-profit arts and social justice organizations. Her work includes base-building and collaboration on media justice and media policy initiatives through her work on the ground and on the boards of national media advocacy organizations including the Media and Democracy Coalition and the Alliance for Community Media in Washington, DC along with Reclaim the Media, in Seattle, WA. She also serves as Program Consultant for Seattle’s Langston Hughes African American Film Festival and is the founder of the Gary International Black Film Festival in her hometown of Gary, IN. Her professional background includes start up, management and development of community-based media centers in Indiana, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Washington. Karen is the proud mother of two amazing young activists, Hannah and Nicholas.

Board

Dana Arviso, Co-Chair
Eli Hastings, Co-Chair
Esther Handy, Secretary
Rich Stolz, Treasurer
George Cheung, Board Member
Sashya Clark, Board Member
Dina M. Flores-Brewer, Board Member
Jessan Hutchison-Quillian, Board Member
Abel Valladares, Board Member
Emma Moreno, Board Member