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 student and was later instrumental in the fight to win DACA. As Executive Director of the Youth Engagement Fund, Alejandra directs money and resources to youth-led organizations – building the voice and voting power of youth of color in the South and Southwest. She works to expose philanthropic practices that reinforce white supremacy and create new models of giving that center the care and leadership of communities of color. She also coaches young people on fundraising and career development.
Before joining YEF, Alejandra was the Director of Donor Organizing 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, and is a Philanthropy Forward and Coro Fellows alum. She holds a B.S. in Urban & Regional Studies, a B.A. in Spanish Studies and concentrations in Inequality Studies, Latino Studies, and Latin American Studies from Cornell University. She currently sits on the Boards of State Voices and the Funders’ Committee of Civic Participation and is on One Democracy’s Democracy & Besting Committee. She is also a 2022 Rockwood Fellow.
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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 at 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 grantmaking 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, one-year-old baby, 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 leader, lawyer, and policy advocate with a decade’s experience in policy analysis and community organizing. 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.
Liz comes to this work as a daughter of a Nigerian immigrant and is informed by her childhood experiences with poverty and discrimination. Before joining YEF, Liz was the Director of Research & Strategy at Win|Win Network in Seattle, WA, where she founded the Washington Democracy Hub, leading movement strategy. Liz has also organized for housing justice, sustainable design, food access, agricultural reform, and economic justice. She 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 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, and advances programming that builds movement partners’ capacity, and develops state infrastructure centered on Black, Indigenous and people of color 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 8 years’ experience working 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 B.S. in Urban & Regional Studies at Cornell University, with minors in Asian American Studies and East Asian Studies. She currently lives in New York City and is a 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 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 travelled to districts with low Census completion percentages in California. Samantha is Latinx, and was born and raised in Los Angeles, were she currently lives with her family and two cats.