About Grace
Several aspects of Grace’s career have led to the founding of The Lupine Collaborative and her being uniquely positioned to cultivate this work. Her lived experience as a queer Black woman in these fields has pushed her to question, shift, and reshape the field into a space where she and others are reflected, celebrated, and trusted to lead, dream, and build. Secondly, she has been bolstered by a brilliant community of people who have, and continue to, support her to take risks and challenge her to dream bigger.
Grace is a writer, dreamer, network weaver, and strategist working at the intersection of resource mobilization, climate justice, and Black dignity and imagination. She is grounded and guided by Walida Imarisha’s visionary fiction, Christina Sharpe’s wake work, bell hook’s revolutionary love, and tasha’s reminder to take care. She approaches her work with curiosity, limitlessness, and an unflinching orientation toward abundance and collective liberation.
Previously she co-directed People of the Global Majority in the Outdoors, Nature, and Environment (PGM ONE). In her role, she had the immense privilege of cultivating the largest gathering of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who work in connection to the land. Created in response to that lack of spaces that authentically acknowledged and uplifted Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, PGM ONE became a space where these communities could dream, strategize, and connect. Under her leadership, the organization went from a volunteer organization to a non-profit that employed two co-directors and a leadership circle of 20. She designed and administered the Black Joy Fund, rapidly distributing $30,000 in the summer of 2020, and the Queer and Trans People of Color Fund to increase access to PGM ONE.
As a consultant, Grace has informed and shaped the grantmaking approach, strategies, and practices of various environmental and climate philanthropies and organizations. Most notably, she advised on Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s $1.2 million “Building an Inclusive Conservation Movement” strategy and went on to lead their “Diversifying the Conservation Field” inquiry process to determine the foundation’s role in the conservation field. She advised the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation on their $10 million investment in the development, empowerment, and growth of emerging and active environmental justice leaders from throughout California. Grace led The National Wildlife Federation’s Women in Conservation program through a theory of change, advised on The North Face’s Explorer Fund strategy, and successfully led Patagonia’s search for their environmental Justice Program Officer. Additionally, she has collaborated with the Network for Energy, Water, and Health in Affordable Buildings, Next 100 Coalition, Earth Island Institute, and the Meridian Institute.
In 2021, Grace was awarded an 18-month self-guided fellowship funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Pisces Foundation that allowed her the time, perspective, space, and resources necessary to design the framework for what is now The Lupine Collaborative.
Currently, Grace is a fellow with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors where she acts as a thought partner, catalytic organizer, and writer to further their Shifting Systems Initiatives. She serves on the advisory committee for The Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation and the Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity at the University of California at Berkeley.
In addition to world-building, Grace is delighted by her community, food, writing, books, bicycles, and trying to travel everywhere with one bag.
Learn more about Grace here.