Vanessa has 20 years of experience working in social justice movements as a union and community organizer, researcher, freelance journalist, and social justice grantmaker. Under her leadership, Groundswell Fund has mobilized more than $20 million to the Reproductive Justice Movement, with 90 percent of its grantees led by women of color. Prior to this, Vanessa supported LGBT rights, economic and environmental justice grantmaking at Tides Foundation; organized homecare workers with SEIU; helped win a landmark living wage law with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE); and conducted research to support the organizing efforts of welfare mothers with the Applied Research Center (now Race Forward). Vanessa currently serves on the Board of Directors of Common Counsel Foundation and on the steering committee for the Health and Environmental Funder’s Network. Vanessa has a B.A. in American Ethnic Studies from Smith College and is a graduate of the Center for Third World Organizing’s Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program.