Michele Lord
Executive Director
As executive director of PIP since 1999, Michele has led the organization through dramatic growth in its program offerings. She has helped create and manage PIP’s six signature collaborative and partner funds that together have raised more than $50 million in new money and engaged more than 100 national, state and local foundations, family foundations and individual donors. Working with the PIP staff, Michele has helped increase the number and scope of PIP’s fiscal sponsorships and developed innovative capacity-building programs. She is also director of the Ottinger Foundation, a small New York-based family foundation that supports work in the areas of economic justice, civic participation and environmental justice.
Prior to joining PIP, Michele served as director of the Norman Foundation from 1993 to 1999 and as chair of the Funders’ Committee on Civic Participation. She has also overseen program evaluations on behalf of the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and the Open Society Institute. Before shifting to the philanthropic sector 15 years ago Michele worked in city and national government. From 1990 to 1993 she was deputy director in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations under David Dinkins, where she oversaw the city’s health and human services agencies. She served in the U.S. Congress from 1984 to 1988 as director of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues, managing a policy agenda for the Women Members of Congress. A graduate of Brown University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree, and the University of Florida College of Law, Michele began her career as a legal services lawyer in Houston specializing in immigration and welfare law.
Berta Colón
Deputy Director
With 13 years working in the philanthropic sector, Berta’s experience and expertise is primarily in building and managing funding collaboratives. In 2002 Berta joined PIP as the program officer for the Racial Justice Collaborative, which was the organization’s first collaborative fund, and also managed the Fulfilling the Dream Fund. At the national Ms. Foundation for Women from 1997 to 2002 she was program officer for the Women’s Economic Development Collaborative Fund and also managed the foundation’s Economic Justice Portfolio, Rapid Response Policy grants and the Institute for Women’s Economic EmPOWERment. Prior to her work at the Ms. Foundation, Berta served as a program associate for the Norman Foundation and at several nonprofit organizations focusing primarily on women’s issues and childcare. She holds an undergraduate degree from Barnard College and a master’s in public administration from Columbia University.
Robert Bray
Director, Communications
Robert’s career spans more than two decades in the field of strategic communications and social justice. As director of PIP’s Four Freedoms Fund Strategic Communications Initiative, Robert helps create and fund strategies designed to shape the immigration debate locally and nationally. Prior to joining PIP he was director of communications for the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund in San Francisco. In 1997 Robert founded the SPIN Project, a media training, coaching and strategizing nonprofit for social change organizations. In the late 80’s and 90’s he played a central role in increasing the media visibility of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, serving as the first director of communications for the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and later as director of communications for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Robert is the author of several publications on communications including “SPIN Works” and “Winning Wages: A Guide to Living Wage Communications Campaigns.” Prior to his social justice career he was a public relations executive for the IBM Corporation. Robert is a graduate in journalism and public relations from the University of Florida.
Maritza Guzmán
Director, Fiscal Sponsorship and Project Management
Maritza has more than 20 years of experience in the nonprofit and public sector and a track record of designing strategic responses to unmet community needs. She brings more than 12 years of experience in providing technical assistance to nonprofits to improve outcomes and enhance programmatic and organizational capacity. Maritza spent nine years working in philanthropy, where she oversaw the design and implementation of several initiatives addressing unequal access in areas such as community and economic development, education, youth services and housing. At the Wallace Funds she managed a $20 million grantmaking portfolio focused on education and youth development. Maritza earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s in public administration from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.
Julie K. Kohler
Director, Education and Civic Engagement
Julie brings more than 10 years of experience in philanthropy and higher education to her work at PIP. Prior to joining PIP, Julie directed the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s National Venture Fund. At Knight she worked on immigrant civic participation, the voting system and community revitalization, and helped launch early childhood, youth-development and education-related programs. Julie served on the Planning Committee for the Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees’ (GCIR) 2006 National Convening and as a board member of the National Council on Family Relations from 2004 to 2006. She also worked for the University of Maryland’s Department of Family Studies as a teacher and researcher. She holds a master’s and doctorate degrees in family social science from the University of Minnesota. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Family Relations and other publications.
Selvin Osbourne
Chief Financial Officer
Selvin brings to the job of CFO more than 20 years of experience in providing financial and fiscal oversight to public sector organizations. Prior to joining PIP he was director of finance/controller at Progress of the Peoples Management Corporation, an affiliate of the Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens. He was also the chief financial officer for the Coalition for the Homeless and Director of Finance for the Women’s Prison Association. Selvin worked for more than a decade as director for financial affairs for Weston United Community Renewal, Inc. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in public administration.
Magui Rubalcava Shulman
Director, Immigration
Prior to joining PIP, Magui worked in organizational development with foundations and nonprofits as principal of NVision Consulting. She also served as program director for Hispanics in Philanthropy, where she managed the Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities. She has worked with the New York Community Trust, Otto Bremer Foundation and the General Mills Foundation doing program work and communications. Magui worked on an evaluation of the Grants for Schools program of the Mongolian Foundation for Open Society Institute and helped create the publication “Snapshots of Philanthropy” for the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (NYRAG). A first-generation Mexican-American, she holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego. She has also studied at Keski-Suomen Opisto in Finland. In 2003, she was honored as a co-recipient of the Council on Foundations’ Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking.
Sue Simon
Director, U.S. Human Rights
Sue comes to the U.S. Human Rights Fund with 25 years of experience in public health and social justice fields. From 1999 to 2007 she worked at the Open Society Institute. She was the founding director of OSI’s Sexual Health and Rights Project which supports advocacy, capacity building and service delivery related to HIV/AIDS for sex workers and LGBT communities in Southeast Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Her domestic work includes the Ombudsman’s Office of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Planned Parenthood of New York City and serving as board chair of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center. Most recently, Sue consulted for Wellspring Advisors and the Arcus Foundation. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.
