Leadership
At NEO Philanthropy, our leadership reflects our belief that lasting change is a collective effort.
We foster a workplace rooted in inclusion and collaboration, where every voice matters and every team member is empowered to grow and lead. Guided by our mission to nurture strong movements and communities, we cultivate a culture of transparency, dignity, and purpose. Our team is not just doing meaningful work; they are part of a movement.
I want NEO to continue to fully embrace our mission to be an intermediary that is committed to the advancement of social justice and human rights. We help funders find their way into issues, make smart grant decisions and become better partners, and we ensure that our grantees and fiscally sponsored projects have the resources and support they need to do their work and grow stronger and more effective.
With a 25-year record of service and leadership in social justice philanthropy, Michele commands an unparalleled expertise in developing philanthropic opportunities that help donors fulfill their highest ambitions and grantees receive the resources they need to create real change.
During the past 20 years, she has led NEO Philanthropy through a period of dramatic growth in its program offerings and reach, all while staying true to its values of dignity, justice, equality, innovation, accountability and excellence.
From 2016 to 2019 alone, NEO increased revenue from $38M to $107M; fiscal sponsorship partners from 16 to 56; and donor services and special projects from 3 to 37 as Michele led efforts to expand NEO’s programmatic and donor-related offerings.
Through Michele’s guidance, NEO has embraced and redefined the role of a philanthropic intermediary. Her vision for NEO is that it be a forward-looking incubator for leadership and social movements and a problem solver for multi-faceted and sometimes controversial projects. Today NEO is a nimble and responsive philanthropic change agent, able to meet the multifaceted needs of the organizations and projects under NEO’s wing, all while working in an ever-evolving and frequently threatening political landscape that demands new solutions to complex challenges.
Michele has prioritized capacity building for grantees; invested in intersectional work and alliance building; educated funders about the importance of multi-year as well as rapid response support; and created a unique philanthropic space where donors can find their way into a variety of issues through numerous platforms, including collaborative funds, fiscal sponsorships, and donor advised funds.
Prior to joining NEO Philanthropy, Michele served as Director of the Norman Foundation, from 1993 to 1999, and has served as Chair of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation.
She is sought out as a consultant by national funders and has overseen program evaluations on behalf of the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Open Society Institute. Prior to entering the philanthropic sector, Michele worked in city and national government. From 1990 to 1993, she was Deputy Director of Health and Human Services in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations under Mayor David Dinkins.
Michele served in the U.S. Congress from 1984 to 1988 as Director of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues.
Michele began her career as a legal services lawyer in Houston, specializing in immigration and welfare law. She holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of Florida.
Erin Ballard brings with her extensive management, finance and operational experience including serving as the financial and operations officer for more than 40 grants at NYU, leading human resources functions and providing supervision, mentoring, support and management for employees, faculty and staff.
As Division Administrator at NYU School of Medicine, Erin was responsible for all fiscal and administrative operations, and developed and implemented long-term strategic plans for growth and stability. Erin also served as Director of Operations for the Bellevue/ NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Prior to joining NYU, Erin worked for the Fund for the City of New York as the Director of Incubator Management. During her tenure, she served as the primary financial and operations manager for more than 20 organizations, provided budget development and management and developed internal systems and processes to improve efficiencies.
I’ve made social justice my lifetime commitment and joining NEO is a continuation of that commitment. I’m honored to bring my expertise to this organization and contribute to the powerful mission.
Su Lim brings extensive experience and knowledge in non-profit finance. She was the Chief Financial Officer at Planned Parenthood Great Plains (PPGP), a non-profit health care provider that delivers health services, education, training and advocacy with twelve health centers. During her tenure, she was responsible for the organization’s fiscal, budgeting, auditing, cash flow management, investment management and financial reporting functions. She also oversaw the organization’s broad operational functions including accounting, finance, business analytics, medical billing and information technology.
Prior to PPGP, she was the Vice President of Finance at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR). She led all aspects of financial management for the Center, a non-profit global human rights organization that uses the law to advance reproductive freedom. It has five branch offices in the United States and worldwide. She also worked at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) as the Financial Reporting Manager and Budget Analyst.
Su Lim holds a master’s degree from New York University. As an undergraduate she studied classical music at Seoul National University.
Margarita (Magui) Rubalcava is a Latina leader and philanthropic executive with an extensive track record of, and commitment to, changing philanthropy’s relationship with marginalized and underserved communities. She was the founder and president of Borealis Philanthropy, a people of color-led $30 million/year philanthropic intermediary supporting critical movements of our time – the Movement for Black Lives, transgender and LGBTQ rights, immigration, criminal justice, policing reform, and racial equity. Over the last three decades, Magui has worked with over 150 local, national, and transnational funders and raised more than $160 million for grantmaking initiatives supporting movement building, policy advocacy, litigation, capacity building, and direct services. She was recognized by the Council on Foundations as a co-recipient of the Robert Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking in 2003 for her work in launching the Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities through Hispanics in Philanthropy. She also led the Four Freedoms Fund, a national driver of immigration reform funding, and has worked for the Otto Bremer Foundation. Magui began her career in philanthropy at the General Mills Foundation.
Magui’s passion and interests have been shaped by her experience emigrating to the US as a child and growing up as one of 10 children in the Mexican immigrant community of East LA. Coming from a large family of mixed-immigration status, Magui is now working on a book, “10 Different Truths” chronicling the varying experiences of the siblings in her family.
Rini Chakraborty is the Vice President of NEO Philanthropy’s Four Freedoms Fund (FFF) and has been an integral part of the FFF team for nearly a decade, serving as a Senior Program Officer and most recently Senior Director of Programs. Since she joined FFF in 2012, Rini launched and spearheaded a national grantmaking initiative focused on dramatically reducing enforcement, detention, deportation and the criminalization of immigrants. She also developed and led newer funding strategies, including the Texas Fund and Ending Child Detention & Family Separation initiative.
Rini’s career spans more than two decades fighting for and advancing the rights of immigrants, communities of color, and low-wage workers striving to achieve justice. After passage of the 1996 immigration and welfare laws, she led a statewide immigrant rights collaborative in California, where she spearheaded successful legislative campaigns that restored health and welfare programs for immigrants, won in-state tuition for undocumented students, and helped propel the Golden State to be a national leader on immigrant justice. She also served as Senior Policy Analyst with the ACLU of Southern California, where she challenged post-9/11 policies and attacks against MASA (Muslim/Arab/South Asian) communities; and Executive Director of Sweatshop Watch, where she helped establish a consortium of national “sweat-free” cities and states. Prior to joining FFF, Rini was Amnesty International USA’s Western Regional Director, where she led campaigns on death penalty abolition, migrant rights, criminal justice reforms, and international human rights.
Joining NEO allows me to continue working within a discipline I’m most passionate about, providing human resources support and best practice, while helping so many more people through our core programs and sponsorship with our partner organizations.
Shelby Geter is a seasoned Human Resources (HR) leader who has served in senior level HR roles at several organizations with a close mission alignment to NEO, including organizations that serve an intermediary function. Prior to joining NEO, she served as the Director of Talent and Human Resources at IDEO.org, where she aligned the talent function (recruitment, on/offboarding, learning and development, training, performance management, and employee relations) with HR operations (compensation, compliance, benefits, and systems), implementing new systems and incorporating best practices for a seamless, best-in-class employment experience. Other past experiences include work at the Guttmacher Institute, the Fund for Public Health in New York, the Foundation Center and the Fund for the City of New York. In her prior director roles, Shelby has managed significant organizational growth, overseen the expansion of HR departments, systems and services, and participated as a senior leader in organizational Diversity/Equity/Inclusivity (DEI) processes. Shelby holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing (magna cum laude), a Master of Science in Human Resource Management (with distinction), both from Long Island University Brooklyn Campus; a Professional Human Resource Management Certificate from St. Joseph’s College; a Diversity and Inclusion certification from Cornell University; a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification from the HR Certification Institute; and a SHRM Certified Professional certification from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).
If we want our progressive movements to win on issues, then we need to build people-centric infrastructure and systems that scale to meet the moment and fuel social change!
A veteran of the NEO staff, Laura Henderson’s current role allows her to provide support across NEO’s infrastructure and program teams. She works to optimize NEO’s systems and processes for the work of progressive movement leaders and donors, and she partners closely with senior leadership to build a collaborative culture across the institution.
Laura started at NEO as a Portfolio Manager on the Fiscal Sponsorship team and grew to leadership as Co-Director of the department. In her tenure on the fiscal sponsorship team, Laura gained expertise in management and compliance related to advocacy, multi-entity organizational structures, human resources, and financials.
Prior to NEO, Laura worked in community-based organizations in Nashville and New York City, gaining experience as a jack of all trades in nonprofit management. She holds an M.Ed. Community Development & Action from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University and a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from The King’s College NYC.
The Project Partnerships program is the perfect way for me to marry my organizational and operational proclivities with my passion for social justice and activism. Ensuring programmers on the front lines have operationally sound infrastructure to build movements and inspire social change is the reason why I work for NEO.
Since joining NEO in 2014, Sarah has spearheaded the exponential growth of NEO’s Fiscal Sponsorship program. Most recently, she orchestrated the merge of two NEO departments providing operational infrastructure to create the Project Partnerships program. Under Sarah’s leadership, the Project Partnerships department has transformed from a two person operation serving 17 projects to a fifteen person operation serving 70+ projects annually. She’s grateful to hold relationships with incredible changemakers, some of which started with her at NEO over a decade ago. Internally, Sarah has led three departmental restructures to better serve NEO’s projects’ needs and built and implemented systems and infrastructure to ensure high quality partnership support that could scale as the program grew. Sarah is also proud to have mentored many other NEO staff members who began their NEO journey working with Sarah’s team and were promoted to leadership roles within NEO’s operations.
Sarah’s professional life before NEO focused on juvenile justice. She held roles as an intake specialist and as a program manager for nonprofits providing alternative to incarceration programs for juveniles. She elected not to go to law school, but is pretty sure her professional experience would make her a great candidate to play a lawyer on TV. Sarah also moonlighted in academia, traveling throughout Latin America researching the intersection between national identity building and the preservation of indigenous cultures. Outside of NEO, Sarah is an adventurous traveler, hiker, horseback rider, and live music aficionado. On a sunny day you’ll find her romping around the forest with her dog or lazing on the beach with a good book, and when the weather’s bad she’s guaranteed to be climbing a mountain of reality TV.
I love working to cultivate collaborative learning spaces with partners where narratives around “power-sharing and shifting” in philanthropy can become tactical, actionable, and sustainable.
Monica Parisa Rabii leads strategy and program design across a wide range of social justice c3 and c4 grantmaking funds and philanthropic partnerships aiming to build trust-based philanthropic approaches, with a particular emphasis on opportunities to develop or incorporate participatory governance models. She gets excited about cultivating spaces for learning and collaboration where narratives around “power-sharing and shifting” in philanthropy can become tactical, actionable, and sustainable. She has a background in direct cash assistance and community-led program and research design across various domestic and global contexts within human rights, youth advocacy, migration and emergency response, previously working for INGOs, UN agencies, and public-private partnerships with local civil society. Long before working on the movement resourcing side of philanthropy, Monica Parisa started her career as a musician and youth leader within mutual-aid networks of her local SWANA immigrant and refugee community. As a musician and researcher in diaspora memory studies, she has also worked for and served on advisory councils for numerous arts and culture for social justice institutions, festivals, and organizations in US, Europe, and Southwest Asia and is a lecturer with the Danish Institute for Study Abroad and University of Copenhagen. She is still deeply committed to these roots and currently serves on the board of Tarab NYC, an organizing home and safe space for her local queer SWANA community. She holds an M.Phil in Public History from Trinity College Dublin with a concentration in participatory methodologies. Her most recent publication is in Public History in Global Perspective: Inquiry, Exchange, and Practice (De Gruyter, 2025).
Erica Teasley Linnick is the Vice President and Director of the State Infrastructure Fund. She came to NEO after serving as Acting Director and Senior Program Officer of the Democracy team at the Open Society Foundations where she handled the voting rights and access to justice portfolios.
A civil rights attorney and voting rights advocate, she came to philanthropy most recently as Coordinator of the African American Redistricting Collaborative where she worked to ensure that the African American community fully participated in California’s political process. For over seven years prior, Erica was Western Regional Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund where she conducted civil rights litigation and participated in public education and legislative advocacy efforts. During her tenure as a business litigator in San Francisco, Erica served on the Board of Directors of both the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Northern California ACLU. She also served as Board Chair of the Impact Fund and is a past President of the West Los Angeles Area Planning Commission. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and UC Law San Francisco, Erica worked as a Congressional Legislative Assistant and has state and national campaign and elections experience. She has received numerous honors including Super Lawyers’ Southern California Rising Star, the Minority Bar Coalition of San Francisco Award for Excellence and Service to the Community, and the key to the City of El Paso, Texas. She has been a guest lecturer in the U.S. and abroad, has appeared on Nation Public Radio, and has been quoted in a variety of publications including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and Inside Philanthropy.
Rutledge is the Vice President and General Counsel of NEO Philanthropy. He leads the Legal Department and advises on matters related to board governance, legal compliance and risk mitigation.
Rutledge has more than 20 years of experience serving as a board member, corporate officer or general counsel of nonprofit organizations that help improve conditions in underserved communities and the lives of residents in those communities.
Prior to joining NEO, Rutledge served as NeighborWorks America’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, a national nonprofit that provides technical and financial resources to 240 plus community development non-profits through its six district offices and 300 plus employees.
In addition, Rutledge is a current board member of Integrity Community Solutions and Nova Labs, which are committed to creating affordable housing and vocational opportunities, respectively. He is a past board member of ROC USA, Project Place and FACETS, nonprofits committed to creating affordable home ownership (ROC) or preventing homelessness (Project Place and FACETS).
He has served as a Member of the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Homelessness and Poverty and as Chair of the ABA Business Law Section’s Committee on Community Economic Development.
Rutledge is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School.
