Alejandra Ruiz knows the power of youth organizing. A native of Colombia, she migrated to the United States at the age of 7 and grew up in Queens, NY. She became an immigrant rights advocate when she first shared her story as an undocumented high school student and was later instrumental in the fight to win Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). As Executive Director of the Youth Engagement Fund (YEF), Alejandra directs money and resources to youth-led organizations一building the voice and voting power of youth of color in the South and Southwest. Alejandra’s leadership aims to advance efforts that shift white supremacist philanthropic practices towards models of giving and operations that center the care and voice of communities of color. She also coaches youth and young adults on fundraising and career development.
Before joining YEF, Alejandra was the Director of Donor Organizing and Advising at the Movement Voter Project and Development Director at United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led network. She has worked as an education organizer at Make the Road New York, served with AmeriCorps VISTA, is a Philanthropy Forward and Coro Fellows alum, and was a 2022 Rockwood National Leading from the Inside Out Yearlong Fellow. Alejandra sits on the boards of State Voices and Funders’ Committee on Civic Participation, where she serves as Board Secretary.
As the Executive Director, Alejandra is responsible for the overall management of the Youth Engagement Fund. Her main areas of work include fundraising, governance, relationship building, management of Guiding Circle (donor committee), staff management & leadership support, consultant supervision, and direct working relationship with NEO Philanthropy staff, YEF’s fiscal sponsor, to ensure good standing on the areas of human resources, budget, and finances.
Alejandra holds a B.S. in Urban and Regional Studies, a B.A. in Spanish Studies, and concentrations in Inequality Studies, Latino Studies, and Latin American Studies from Cornell University.
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Karla Vazquez is the Director of People & Organizational Growth at the Youth Engagement Fund. She focuses on systems-building, creating infrastructure, and attracting new resources for long-term sustainability at YEF and YEF’s youth of color-led grantees. She spearheads efforts to grow staff, build a nurturing culture, uplift youth of color, and make their vision for a more just, vibrant democracy a reality.
As YEF’s former Donor Organizing Officer, Karla was previously in charge of YEF’s development strategy and relationships with philanthropic partners, expanding the organization’s annual grantmaking portfolio to $3M a year. Before that, Karla spent a decade as a fundraiser, resource mobilizer, and national organizer for the immigrant rights movement. She served as the Senior Manager of Institutional Giving for the United We Dream Network, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led organization. She also was part of the first Resource Leaders Fellowship at the Rockwood Leadership Institute.
Originally from Mexico City, Karla lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her partner, children, and two beautiful dogs. She has worked for the Tennessee Immigrant Rights Coalition and started her youth organizing and activism with JUMP (Jovenes Unidos por Un Mejor Presente), the first organization for immigrant youth in Tennessee. As a first-generation student, she also founded the STUDY Foundation (Scholars in Tennessee Uplifting the Dreams of Youth) in 2010, a program to help first-generation students access higher education with funds for scholarships given to first-generation students in Tennessee. Karla graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Management with an International Business Concentration from Lipscomb University in the fall of 2012.
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Liz Dupee is a movement builder, lawyer, and writer with a decade’s experience in policy advocacy and organizational development. As the Youth Engagement Fund’s Impact & Learning Analyst, Liz works to uncover best practices and trends in youth civic engagement – and leads research to increase investment in youth of color-led organizations in the South and Southwest.
Before joining YEF, Liz was the Director of Research and Strategy at Win|Win Network in Seattle, WA, where she founded the Washington Democracy Hub, supporting the development of long-term intersectional movement strategy. Through her work at the Democracy Hub and Win|Win, Liz served as policy lead on the Washington Voting Justice Coalition and supported the implementation of the Seattle Democracy Voucher program as part of the Honest Elections Seattle coalition and the city-level implementation task force. Before working in democracy reform and civic engagement, Liz served as Executive Director of the Tenants Union of Washington State. She has also organized and raised funds for sustainable design, food access, agricultural reform, and economic justice.
Liz has degrees in Human Resources Management from Joliet Junior College and African-American Studies from Western Illinois University. She earned her J.D. from Seattle University School of Law. In 2017, she was a Rockwood Leadership Institute Strengthening Democracy Fellow in 2017. She currently sits on the State Innovation Exchange Board of Directors. Liz now lives outside of Detroit with her family.
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Renata Teodoro is the Program Officer at Youth Engagement Fund. She comes with a wealth of experience in advocacy, organizing, and fundraising. At YEF, Renata builds relationships and partnerships with movement partner grantees, supports the development of YEF’s giving strategy, advances programming that builds movement partners’ capacity, and develops state infrastructure centered on Black, Indigenous, and people of color’s leadership.
Renata’s journey into social justice began in 2007 after her home was raided by Immigration Customs Enforcement; her older brother was detained and the rest of her family was forced to sell their home and return to Brazil. Soon after, she joined the Student Immigrant Movement in Massachusetts. As a student leader, Renata helped fundraise for and build a campaign to hold the governor accountable for his promise on in-state tuition for undocumented students. In 2009, when the organization was at risk of closing, Renata spearheaded fundraising, hired staff, coordinated leadership, and worked to turn the organization into a stable youth-led group with full-time staff and chapters across the state.
Renata was an integral part of Operation Butterfly in the summer of 2013 as one of the three young people reunited with her mother at the US-Mexico border to shine a light on the horrors of family separation; Operation Butterfly was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine as well as on TV stations like CNN. Renata also served as the Student Advocacy Coordinator at the University of Massachusetts, where she played a lead role in creating scholarships and other resources for undocumented students and supervised student-run cultural centers.
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Cat Jung supports the day-to-day organizational operations – including human resources, information technology, and communications – at the Youth Engagement Fund. She also directly supports YEF’s executive director, assisting with project management, planning, and scheduling.
Cat brings nine years of experience in development and operations, database administration, stewardship, and special events to the team. She started her career at The New York Botanical Garden before transitioning to philanthropy at the Korean American Community Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s database and assisted with board relations, operations, finance, and communications. Cat holds a B.A. in Art History and a B.S. in Urban & Regional Studies at Cornell University, with minors in Asian American and East Asian Studies. She currently lives in New York City and recently was a cohort member of Nonprofit Tech Readiness for Civic Engagement and Social Justice through NTEN and the Ford Foundation.
Samantha Velasquez brings 6 years of administrative experience to the Youth Engagement Fund’s team. As Administrative Associate, she supports YEF’s daily operations, project management, internal and external communications, planning, and scheduling. She works closely with YEF’s Program Officer to effectively and efficiently move funding to YEF’s 50+ movement partners each grant cycle.
Samantha has worked in diverse settings, from small to large offices specializing in real estate, law, and lending. During the pandemic, Samantha worked to ensure the safe delivery of the 2020 election votes and canvassed for the 2020 Census to try to ensure community representation despite the uncertainty created by COVID-19. She was one of the top enumerators in her area and traveled to districts with low Census completion percentages in California. Samantha is Latinx and was born and raised in Los Angeles, where she currently lives with her family and two cats.
Leslie Potts (pronouns she/they) is a social scientist specializing in youth engagement and data administration. They support YEF’s Impact & Learning Department in uncovering best practices and trends for youth engagement. Leslie comes to YEF with 6 years of experience in the youth engagement sphere, including her past experience at URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, Young People For, and the Washington Census Alliance. They have served as a Data Manager for the State of Washington, worked with the Win|Win Network, and provided data support to Our Oregon. As a member of the 2018-2019 Seattle Black-Led Organizing Giving Project, Leslie helped raise close to $300,000 for Black-led, Black liberation-focused groups in the Pacific Northwest.
Leslie holds a Master’s in public administration from the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, focusing on Nonprofit Management. She received a Bachelor’s in Political Science and Ethnic Studies from Bowling Green State University. Leslie currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
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Andriana Adamou is the Donor Organizing Officer at the Youth Engagement Fund where she is responsible for building and sustaining YEF’s relationship with funders. She focuses on both institutional and individual giving, nurturing, and cultivating new supporters. She is a first-generation American, born to immigrant Cypriot parents. Andriana started her career in government relations as an Advisor at the Permanent Mission of Cyprus to the United Nations. She later moved into fundraising and development work as an Individual Giving Associate at NY Common Pantry where she built an individual giving and family foundation strategy. There, she managed a portfolio of over 100 donors.
Andriana graduated from Leiden University with a Master’s degree in International Relations and specialization in International Studies and received her Bachelor’s in Political Science with a minor in European Studies from Rutgers University. She now lives on Long Island, New York.
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