Pronouns: They/Them

Crystal joined Chinook Fund in April 2018 and brings a depth of experience with nonprofit leadership, resource mobilization, and social justice. Crystal believes that changing our relationship to money has the potential to radically shift the way we mobilize resources for movements. They are thrilled to continue Chinook Fund’s legacy of democratic grantmaking through the innovative Giving Project.

Crystal previously worked for the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT), Survivors Organizing for Liberation, a former Chinook Fund grantee, and is proud to have helped kickstart resource mobilization gatherings at the Allied Media Conference. During their tenure at GIFT, Crystal was proud to bring the 2016 Money for Our Movements: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference to Denver. Crystal is board co-chair of Resource Generation, serves on the steering committee for the National Giving Project Network, and participated in the Transformative Leadership for Change fellowship for BIPOC leaders in Colorado.

Crystal was raised in a small, working class town in Oregon by a family of paper mill workers and was the first person in their family to graduate from college. After receiving her B.S. in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Oregon in 2003, Crystal moved to Denver and soon began organizing around issues of gender justice, LGBTQ anti-violence, and racial justice, sparking them to put down roots in this mountain state.  They are continually inspired by adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy, who reminds us that what we pay attention to grows.

Crystal lives with in southwest Denver and spends their spare time learning to garden, building their vinyl collection, sneaker shopping, and camping throughout the West.

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Ginnie joins Chinook as a Giving Project (Spring 2016) alumnus and former grantee. Ginnie along with her brother Barry grew up in Denver as the children of military parents. Their mother, Jacquelyn Molock-Logan, retired from the Air Force, then started a small gift shop in the historic African American Five Points Neighborhood called Neat Stuff, where she led that business for 25 years making it one of the longest consecutive running Black businesses in the neighborhood. The central location and longevity of her mother’s store resulted in Ginnie growing up directly in the heart of a community of activists, religious and cultural leaders, and everyday folk straddling the range of divergent African American experiences. Ginnie thinks of herself as a  product of a communal upbringing and believes deeply in the concept of Ubuntu – a concept in which one’s sense of self is shaped by their relationships with other people. It’s a way of living that begins with the premise that “I am” only because “we are.”  Therefore, Ginnie enters her work and walks in the world as the daughter of her mother, the sister to her brother, and the product of and steward to her community.

Professionally, Ginnie identifies as an educator-practitioner with 14 years of instructional leadership experience at the primary, secondary, organizational, and systems levels. She has served in a variety of positions including high school teacher, school assistant middle school principal, university professor, program designer, academic theorist, and non-profit founder. Her formal academic training is as a Learning Scientist who uses critical race, womanists, and Marxist theories to inform her praxis.  She believes that education is a tool for liberation if used to directly mitigate and ultimately eradicate oppressive systems that disproportionately harm BIPOC and Poor People. A core premise of her professional work is that education must include an immediate and direct impact (as opposed to deferred promise) when it comes to BIPOC and Poor People.  Some of her work is captured in her recently edited volume Black Girl Civics, the non-profit organization she founded in 2014 called Big Hair, Bigger Dreams, and her current passion project The E/P Project.

When Ginnie is not doing educational or community work, she can be found traveling internationally, gardening in her backyard, camping in the Colorado mountains with her partner, and/or dining in Denver with her friends.

Pronouns: He/Him

Barclay works with donor organizers through the Giving Project at Chinook Fund. His work focuses on facilitating groups of dynamic individuals as they deepen their awareness of their identities (emphasizing race and class), engage in political education and democratically distribute funding to community organizations across Colorado. In addition to this work, he serves as a consultant to nonprofit, public and private organizations seeking to improve their performance.

Having developed and led a number of high-performing teams, Barclay helps organizations and groups to identify challenges and opportunities while acknowledging and integrating the unique skills and abilities of all team members/employees/constituents. Group facilitation, community development, capacity building, grantmaking and strategic planning are areas that he specializes in. During his time in the nonprofit and public sectors he has focused on the subject areas of early childhood education, education, youth development, asset building, leadership development and multicultural education. He has worked diligently to ensure that community/resident engagement is built into programmatic efforts. Selected as a Livingston Fellow of the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation in 2007, he researched collaborative leadership approaches seeking to improve both organizational and community results (outcomes).

Barclay is the parent of two phenomenal children and actively volunteers in the community.

Pronouns: She/Her

Judith (she/her) joins the Chinook Fund team as the new Grants Manager, where she will support applicants and grantees in our funding process as well as increase capacity to build and promote resources for grantee partners. Judith participated with Chinook Fund in 2010 on the Grant Making Committee, experiencing firsthand the transformative power of community-led grantmaking, and working as a community organizer with groups funded by Chinook Fund. Judith was an essential part of launching the Another World is Possible Fund, serving as a key member of that grantmaking collective. Her leadership as a community organizer includes being a part of the legacy of Women of Color that spearheaded the win for a comprehensive paid family and medical leave program in Colorado.

Judith is the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents and roots her work in her family’s and community’s struggle for justice. For the past decade, she has served on the front lines as a community organizer in the Denver Metro Area, the larger Colorado community as well as on the national front. She led and engaged in campaigns to stop the deportation of a community leader as well as direct actions to recuperate stolen wages for workers and address our racist and unequal tax systems that benefit corporations and the wealthy.

Judith is excited to continue to support the social justice ecosystem in the state via the efforts of the Chinook Fund. She is passionate about bringing an anti-oppression and intersectional frame into her work, recognizing that all of our struggles are intimately connected and our liberation is bound to each other.

In her free time, Judith enjoys spending time with her loved ones, caring for her niblings, attending arts/cultural events, and experiencing the outdoor beauty of Colorado.

Pronouns: She/Her

Trena’s journey to joining Chinook Fund as the Finance & Operations Manager began in Omaha, NE where she grew up in a middle-class family as the youngest of 5 and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants & Kansas farmers. She followed some of her siblings to Colorado in 1985, which became her heart home at first visit.

After working in the banking industry for several years, Trena’s soul needed recharging and she returned to school, graduating from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a B.A. in Spanish. She then began her 20+ year career in the nonprofit/philanthropic sector, working with both local and international organizations, during which she has developed a range of skills in finance, human resources, administration, and operations.

Trena is a member of Denver Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ) and has been active in supporting her communities for many years. However, her participation in the Spring 2021 Giving Project helped her to better understand her responsibility and role in helping to bring about systemic change. She is excited to have the opportunity to apply her skills in support of Colorado’s grassroots organizers and Chinook Fund’s democratic grantmaking model.

Trena lives in North Denver with her partner, Don, and their ever-entertaining cat, Juniper. She feels lost without a book to read, treasures time with friends & family, and enjoys making her grandma’s mole every Christmas.

Pronouns: She/Her

Mac Liman was born and raised in Colorado. She is passionate about organizing people around privileged identities — especially people who, like her, have race and class privilege — and she is honored to have been able to do this work with beautiful cross-class, multiracial community at Resource Generation since 2005 and the Chinook Fund since 2007. Mac served on the board of the Chinook Fund 2014-2020.

In addition to training, facilitating, and moving her people towards collective action for social justice, Mac teaches bicycle mechanics at Bikes Together and lives with many of her favorite people in a shared community home in Denver called Sleeptight. She likes being a good neighbor, asking questions, and telling stories that expose the myth of the US meritocracy.

Pronouns; He/Him

Zawdie “Zii” joins the Chinook Fund team as a Caucus Facilitator for the Spring 2022 Giving Project and is an alumnus of the Fall 2021 Grant Making Committee (GMC) made up of Giving Project alumni and GMC participants from years past. Zii has been a part of the Chinook Fund community since the 1990s and served as a board member for over a decade, including a term as the Board Chair.

Zii went off to college in Atlanta, attending Morehouse College, and came to Denver by way of grad school at the University of Denver for International Studies. Following his studies, Zii worked in the U.S. Congress for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation as well as for the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire in West Africa. He also worked with the U.S. Department of the Interior in Lakewood, CO, then taught Political Science and Africana Studies full-time at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. He recently retired from nearly two decades of service as an Academic Advisor at the University of Denver where he was an essential guidepost for hundreds of students.

Pronouns: Wiƞyan/She/Her

Donna is Sicangu and Diné/Indigenous and uses Wiƞyan/she/her pronouns. She serves as Co-chair of the Denver American Indian Commission. Donna is a mother of five children and a native of Denver. She works as a legal professional for a law firm in downtown Denver. She stays active in the Native community by volunteering and participating in several community organizations. Donna is a public speaker and has been presenting historical information about Lakota people to schools and organizations for over 40 years. Education is not only a passion but a purpose for Donna. Her commitment to education is evident by her service on several committees for one of the Metro Denver school districts. Donna is an alumna of the Spring 2020 Giving Project.

Pronouns: She/Her

Davian is a mobilizer of resources and social justice practitioner with experience in the nonprofit, public, and philanthropic sectors. She has mobilized millions of dollars to support social justice efforts by using an equity and social justice lens and authored an article about funder collaboratives. She is also an alum of The Funders’ Network PLACES fellowship. For her education, she went to the University of Denver for undergrad and graduate school and holds a Master of Social Work.

In her consulting practice, she offers visioning on resource mobilizing, racial equity learning, and facilitation and coaching on transformative leadership and healing. She is leader with Standing in Our Power and a certified trainer in the “Breakdown to Breakthrough” model for personal and organizational transformation co-created by Taij Moteelall of Standing in Our Power. The Breakdown to Breakthrough model is built on the notion that we must breakdown and release what is not working and no longer serving us to live into a breakthrough vision. It recognizes that both internalized and systemic oppression are significant barriers to building power and creating lasting change and that we need to create intentional spaces and processes to release the ways we’ve internalized oppression and our attachment to oppressive systems.

She joined the Chinook Fund community in 2006 through the grantmaking committee and transitioned into a co-chair role for the committee as well as joined the board of directors. In 2019, she re-joined the board of directors and is excited to make some money and resources move for the Chinook Fund.

A quote that Davian uses often in her work in life in general is “Lift as you climb!”

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs

Anna joined the Chinook community as part of the Spring 2019 Giving Project. Their background is in art history, curation, video programming, and production. They currently work as an artist and filmmaker. They are also a practicing artist interested in exploring themes of time and loss. Other organizing work includes Resource Generation and Corporate Accountability. They were raised in Massachusetts and relocated to Denver in 2014 after spending most of their life on the east coast. They received a BA in Art History from Swarthmore College and an MA in Public Humanities from Brown University. They love Murder, She Wrote, and Kate Bush.

Pronouns: She/Her

Angela Daniels was part of the Spring 2019 cohort of The Giving Project where she fell in love with Chinook Fund and learned she could do that scary thing called “fundraising”. She became a member of the board in October of 2019. She has a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Arizona and an M.A. in Emergent Digital Practices from the University of Denver.

Angela runs the Product team at a tech company in Denver. Inspired by the work she was doing with The Giving Project, Angela co-founded Women of Color in Tech – a community by and for women of color working in the tech industry to network and grow professionally.

Angela’s favorite book of all time is An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. It is a science fiction book that explores the intersections of racism, classism, and the oppression of binary social constructs. She is also inspired by The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor, which lays the foundation for radical self-love as a way to produce systemic change. Angela hopes she can take the lessons learned from both of these incredible works to honor and support the people in Colorado who are using grassroots community organizing to create real change.

Pronouns: She/Her

Angela has worked in the nonprofit sector her entire career, starting as an AmeriCorps member right out of college. She has worked as Colorado Nonprofit Development Center’s Vice President since 2013.  Prior to her current position, she was the executive director of Denver Regional Mobility and Access Council (DRMAC). Angela volunteers with Bessie’s Hope and with the Whittier Neighborhood Association, where she resides. She has served on several boards of directors and committees, including the event planning committee with Chinook Fund. Angela participated in Chinook Fund’s Giving Project in 2017 and joined the board in 2019. Angela has a master’s in Public Administration with an emphasis in Nonprofit Management. Away from work, Angela enjoys gardening, hiking, traveling, and craft beer.

Pronouns: He/Him

VJ is an alumnus of Chinook Fund’s 2017 Fall Giving Project. His extensive background in community organizations includes supporting civic leadership programs for rising professionals and college students with the  Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation, where he also helped develop and lead the organization’s strategy around diversity, equity, and inclusion.  VJ is a former El Pomar Foundation Fellow, supporting grantmaking and community outreach programs. He currently serves as the Program Manager for Moonshot edVentures and on the Board of Directors for the Civic Canopy. He also supports many organizations in Denver through facilitation and strategic planning, including as a facilitator with the Giving Project. VJ holds a Bachelors of Arts in Africana Studies from Davidson College with a minor in Anthropology. He is a 2018 graduate of the Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado Connect Leadership program and a participant in 2020 Colorado Civic DNA.

Shannon Francis is a Hopi and Dineh from the Southwest homelands of Arizona and New Mexico. She is Towering House clan born for Red Running into the Water clan. Her Hopi clans are Massau’, Bear Sand, and Snake Clan. Shannon comes from twelve generations of earth caretakers, ethnobotanists, and seed keepers. A certified Permaculture Design Instructor, Shannon weaves TEK Traditional Ecological Knowledge with innovative science. She loves to educate on caretaking of land, water, and soil resources; preserving Native heirloom GMO-free seeds, zero-waste philosophy, and how to live more harmoniously with nature.

Shannon is the Executive Director for Spirit of the Sun, Inc. in Denver. Spirit of the Sun received the 2020 Human Rights Award from Youth Celebrate Diversity. Shannon co-created and led an Indigenous Permaculture Community Garden Project with the Four Winds American Indian Council. Shannon has received the Justin B. Willie humanitarian award (2014) on the Navajo Nation as well as the Cesar E. Chavez female leadership award (2015) for her work with Indigenous gardening, food justice, and community-building projects. Shannon co-created the Indigenous agricultural project at Woodbine Ecology Center in Sedalia, CO. She taught Indigenous gardening workshops for Native communities at the Denver Indian Center. She has presented at the Front Range Bioneers, the Star School, Indigenous Farming Conference White Earth, MN, The Denver Green Festivals, Dartmouth College, Haskell Indian Nations College, Fort Lewis College AISES Conference, and the Teaching Outside the Box Environmental Education Conference.

Shannon has six wonderful children and three amazing grandchildren that are her inspiration to make this a better world for all future generations to come.

Pronouns: She/Her

Born and raised in Atlanta, GA, Selamawit is a cyclical strategist, equity-centered designer, and a community member. She believes that many different relationships are required to move closer to transformation and that understanding and interrogating our relationships to money, politics, and each other are critical for social justice. She is currently the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Impact at RESCHOOL, an initiative of the Donnell Kay Foundation. Selamawit’s involvement with the Chinook Fund began with being a member of the Fall 2019 cohort of the Giving Project. Selamawit’s embodiment of self and collective freedom extends into many shapeshifting curiosities that appeal to her senses which include but are not limited to experimenting with fragrances, indulging in recipes, and dazzling in the stillness of the Colorado outdoors.

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Candace is a Denver-based organizer with over a decade of experience in a multitude of movement settings. She has organized with Food and Water Watch, was the Organizing Director for Colorado Jobs with Justice, and has been a member of the National Jobs with Justice Leadership Development and Organizing Training program for the last six years. Most recently Candace worked as the Denver Metro Area Community Partner for The Colorado Trust.

Candace currently serves as a board co-chair for Colorado Jobs with Justice and on the Advisory Committee for 9to5 Colorado. She is also on the Governing Council for The Transformative Leadership for Change.

Pronouns: He/Him

Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, Matt’s experience growing up as a mixed-race Asian-American in the intermountain west informed his world views and motivations to advocate for positive social change and racial equity. Matt holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Pomona College in California, and is currently the Executive Director of “Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center,” a grassroots nonprofit in Durango, CO. He has previously worked in English-Spanish interpretation and translation in the U.S. and South America, English as a second language (ESL) instruction in Europe, outdoor guiding in Central America, and international money transfer technology. Matt is also an avid musician, enjoys learning new recipes to cook, and loves spending time with family and friends.

Pronouns: He/Him

Erik is a non-profit leader with expertise in grant administration, capacity building, and strategic planning. A connector, Erik has focused his professional career on advocating for causes and serving communities in the areas of child abuse prevention, HIV/AIDS, cancer awareness and research, public health, and grassroots advocacy. He has served as a bilingual case manager, community organizer, and fundraiser for a number of organizations. Currently, Erik is an Associate Program Officer at the Colorado Health Foundation where he oversees grant administration in the areas of Access to Care and Behavioral Health. Originally from Colorado, Erik is also a dedicated volunteer for the Chinook Fund and an avid traveler and concert goer with his partner, Laura, and pup, Winston!

Pronouns: They/Them/Elle

Originally from Mexico City, Mexico, Pamela grew up in the suburbs outside of Dallas, Texas. Pamela became heavily involved in the movement after being detained and placed in deportation proceedings in March 2010. Upon their release from the Don Hutto Detention Center, Pamela co-founded and led a Texas University hunger strike that launched at the national level for passage of the DREAM Act. Pamela is a graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio, and holds a B.A. in Political Science. Post-graduation, they completed an internship with the Mexican American League Defense and Educational Fund and began working with the labor movement in Albuquerque as member coordinator with Working America and as mobilization coordinator with the Dallas AFL-CIO CLC. After serving as Executive Director of Texas Jobs with Justice, Pamela moved to Denver to serve as Deputy Director of United for a New Economy and currently serves as ED for Colorado Jobs with Justice (COJWJ).