WHO WE ARE

Mosaic is a national funder and field catalyst that boosts the collective power of climate, conservation, and environmental health and justice movements in the United States to achieve durable, population-scale wins. A participatory grantmaker governed by a Leadership Council of grassroots, nonprofit, and philanthropy movement leaders, Mosaic supports the connectivity and shared tools — also known as movement infrastructure — advocates and activists need to build and exercise power across demographics, geographies, and issue silos.

Our History

Mosaic was created in response to a collective recognition that, although the U.S. environmental movement has achieved historic victories, the pace and scale of the challenges we face demand even more of all of us. More than 100 NGO, philanthropy, and academic leaders from diverse organizations across the country participated in an 18-month design process that launched Mosaic in 2020 with seed funding from the Hewlett, Packard, Walton Family, and Pisces Foundations. These leaders unanimously confirmed that stronger movement infrastructure is indispensable to enable the environmental movement to take advantage of its strengths — like size — and diminish its weaknesses — like unproductive competition and inequitable access to funding.

Mosaic-History

Our Team

Mosaic is led by a diverse constellation of environmental and justice leaders and supported by a small staff.

Leadership Council

Angela Mahecha Adrar
Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School
Angela Mahecha Adrar is the Program Director of the Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship. She has committed her life to advancing the role of the grassroots sector and provides agile leadership and structure to address and adapt to the changing and complex priorities of local communities while influencing national and international agendas.
David Beckman
Pisces Foundation
David Beckman is President of the Pisces Foundation and its founding staff member. He leads the Foundation's efforts to support innovators working to ensure people and nature thrive. Since 2017, he also has worked with partners to create Mosaic. Previously, David led the Water Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

 

Jacqueline Patterson
The Chisholm Legacy Project
Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder & Executive Director of The Chisholm Legacy Project. Since 2007, Patterson has served as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United. She has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate and activist working on gender justice, HIV&AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice.

 

Kate Sinding Daly
Conservation Law Foundation
Kate Sinding Daly is the Executive Director of NorthLight Foundation. Prior to her current role, she was senior advisor to the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a senior attorney and deputy director of NRDC's New York program, and was a partner in the specialty environmental law firm of Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C.

 

Mily Treviño-Sauceda
Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, Inc.
Mily Treviño-Sauceda is the Executive Director & Co-Founder of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, Inc., the first national farmworker women's organization in the U. S. created by current and former farmworker women, along with women who hail from farmworker families.

 

Rahwa Ghirmatzion
Just Solutions Collective
Rahwa Ghirmatzion is the Executive Director of PUSH, a community organization that works at the grassroots to create and implement a comprehensive revitalization plan for Buffalo's West Side, with more than $60 million invested in affordable housing rehabilitation, solar installation, green jobs training, weatherization and green infrastructure.

 

Rashad Morris
Philanthropic Advisors
Rashad Morris is a Program Officer with the Bullitt Foundation where he manages the Foundation's Energy, Climate, and Materials and Deep Green Buildings programs.

 

Rev. Susan Hendershot
Self-Help Climate Capital
Rev. Susan Hendershot is the Director of Climate Community Engagement for Self-Help Climate Capital, a part of the Center for Community Self-Help. Rev. Hendershot currently serves on the Board of The Center for Spirituality in Nature and as a member of the Interfaith Women Council of the UN Environment Program's Faith for Earth Initiative. She previously served as a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

 

Tonya Bonitatibus
Savannah Riverkeeper
Tonya Bonitatibus is the Riverkeeper and Executive Director of Savannah Riverkeeper, watching over the health and vibrancy of the Savannah River. She has served in that role for over 13 years, helping successfully guide the organization through threats to water quality, including the recent fight against the Palmetto Pipeline.

 

Alumni

Abigail Dillen
Earthjustice
Abigail Dillen is the President of Earthjustice, leading the organization's staff, board and supporters to advance the mission of using the courts to protect our environment and people's health.

 

Collin O'Mara
National Wildlife Federation
Collin O'Mara is the President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, America's largest wildlife conservation organization with more than six million members and 52 state and territorial affiliates.

 

Dr. Andrea Yodsampa
DEPLOY/US
Dr. Andrea Yodsampa is CEO of DEPLOY/US, a convener, re-grantor, and accelerator of climate leadership across the political spectrum. DEPLOY/US works to accelerate the right-of-center climate leadership essential for ambitious, durable US-led decarbonization. She brings to DEPLOY/US a commitment to depolarizing and accelerating climate action, as well as expertise in NGO coordination and philanthropy.

 

Dr. Cecilia Martinez
Bezos Earth Fund
Dr. Cecilia Martinez is the Chief of Environmental and Climate Justice at the Bezos Earth Fund. Cecilia joined the Earth Fund after serving as the Senior Director for Environmental Justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the Biden Administration. In this role, she helped to establish a whole of government approach to equitable climate and environmental policy.

 

Gabrielle Strong
NDN Collective
Gaby Strong, citizen of Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, is the Director of Grantmaking for NDN Collective, a national Indigenous-led community development organization, where she oversees grantmaking strategy. Gaby has nearly forty years of experience in philanthropic, non-profit and tribal arenas.

 

Melissa Lin Perrella
Natural Resources Defense Council
Melissa Lin Perrella is the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Senior Director of the Environmental Justice, Healthy People & Thriving Communities program where she represents communities that have been hardest hit by freight-related air pollution.

 

Michael Brune
Sierra Club
Michael Brune was the Sierra Club’s Executive Director 2010-2021. Under Brune’s leadership, the Sierra Club has grown to more than 3.8 million supporters and is at the forefront of the drive to move to 100% clean, renewable energy, while also protecting America’s remaining wild places. Brune is a nationally recognized writer, speaker, and commentator on energy and environmental issues.

 

Miya Yoshitani
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Miya Yoshitani is the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). A movement leader in many key local, state, and national alliances, APEN is helping to shift the center of gravity of what is possible when the health and economic well being of working families, immigrant and communities of color are put at the center of solutions to the economic and climate crises.

 

Staff

Maya Berkowitz 
Development Director
Maya Berkowitz (she/her) is a resource mobilizer and philanthropic leader with over a decade of experience supporting movement ecosystems grounded in systems change work. As the Development Director Maya stewards Mosaic’s strategic partnerships with donors and philanthropists to amplify our collective impact to resource the capacity of our environmental movement grantee partners and the field as a whole.
Leigh Hiura
Operations Manager
Leigh Hiura (she/her) is a masterful operations professional with over ten years of experience making nonprofits run smoothly. As Mosaic’s Operations Manager, Leigh supports and streamlines Mosaic’s IT systems and back-end processes to ensure our team can stay laser focused on strengthening environmental movement infrastructure.
Moriah Jacobs 
Program Manager
Moriah Jacobs (she/her) is a curious and passionate advocate at the intersection of public health and environment. As Program Manager, Moriah manages day-to-day operations for Mosaic’s grantmaking program, cultivates relationships with grantees and other partners across the field, and gathers and analyses data about field needs.
Julian Foley 
Dir of Comms and Strategic Projects
Julian Foley (she/her) is a strategic communications and nonprofit leader with 20 years of experience helping organizations move hearts, minds, and money in service of environmental and economic justice. As Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives Julian leads Mosaic’s strategic communications and related efforts aimed at catalyzing a more aligned and interconnected environmental movement.
Eva Hernandez 
Executive Director
Eva Hernandez (she/her) is a visionary nonprofit leader and movement strategist with over 20 years of experience serving the US environmental movement as an organizer, strategist, and leader at organizations like Sierra Club, MoveOn, and Dogwood Alliance. As Executive Director, Eva leads Mosaic’s overarching work to boost the collective power of climate, conservation, and environmental health and justice movements in the United States to achieve durable, population-scale wins.

Our Values

JUST, INCLUSIVE & EQUITABLE

Center equity and transparency, engaging people and organizations of all sizes and types, not just funders or large organizations.

Learn more about our commitment to equity.

CO-CREATIVE

Seek and incorporate broad input into initiative design and governance, sharing power and agency.

COMPLEMENTARY

Reinforce and complement field-wide capacity, focusing on amplifying the work of others.

ADAPTIVE

Continuously experiment, iterate, and adapt based on feedback and experiences, both successes and failures.

TRANSFORMATIVE

Pledge to boldness in unlocking systems-level opportunities.

Our Funders

Mosaic’s work is supported by a community of systems-focused funders who understand that we need to build power at an unprecedented scale if we are to effect the kind of durable, transformational environmental progress our world needs right now. We welcome additional funding partners to this community of purpose. Together, we can support a movement that is better connected, aligned, and collaborative, enabling us to win the biggest victories.

Learn more about our funders and funding partnerships.