Who we are

Mosaic is by and for the field — the people and organizations who devote significant efforts in pursuit of environmental protection and healthy & just communities. We are guided by the expertise of a diverse and powerful Leadership Council, as well as by the rich learnings we gain from our grantees and other field leaders through our open RFPs. This is all enhanced by contributions from some of the country's preeminent movement thought leaders and supported by a constellation of funders that share our commitment to durable, collective impact.

OUR TEAM

Mosaic, a fiscally sponsored project of Tides Center, 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
PUSH Buffalo
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
Interfaith Power & Light
Rev. Susan Hendershot is the president of Interfaith Power & Light, an organization with a mission to inspire and mobilize people of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on climate change. Rev. Hendershot’s other experience includes serving as a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the Steering Committee of the National Environmental Network (U.S.), and on the Board of The Center for Spirituality in Nature.

 

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

Eva Hernandez
Executive Director
As Mosaic's Executive Director, Eva Hernandez oversees the organization as a whole - managing implementation of the participatory grantmaking strategy of our field-led Leadership Council. Eva has spent two decades in various roles across the environmental, climate and progressive movements, most recently as the Managing Director of the Sierra Club.
Mary Vradelis
Interim Deputy Director
Mary Vradelis is Mosaic's Interim Deputy Director, supporting the team's work in operations and finance, programmatic work, and community engagement; as well as supporting the field-led Leadership Council’s participatory governance. As a Transition Consultant/Interim Executive, she has successfully guided leadership transitions for 20 organizations, including Resources Legacy Fund, the Water Foundation, and Pesticide Action Network.
Moriah Jacobs
Program Manager
Moriah Jacobs is Mosaic's Program Manager, supporting the programmatic work of the project and overseeing Mosaic's operations.
Lucas Donavan-Lafuente
Fellow
Lucas Donavan-Lafuente is Mosaic's Fellow.

Funding partners

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 affect the kind of durable, transformational environmental progress our world needs right now. We stand ready to 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 together.

For more information, please contact Eva Hernandez.

Our values

JUST, INCLUSIVE & EQUITABLE

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

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 commitment to equity

Mosaic is dedicated to contributing to building a more connected, effective, inclusive, and just environmental movement. We direct significant resources to BIPOC, low-income, women, LGBTQ+, environmental justice, rural, immigrant, and other socially & economically disadvantaged movement members. We build and support connections, collaborations, and shared resources across the full breadth of the environmental field in all its richness and diversity. This includes supporting and building bridges between organizations and approaches that reflect the political, geographic, economic, social, sectoral, and issue area diversity of the environmental movement.

This is not just the right thing to do — it's critical to bolstering a winning, equitable environmental movement with the scale and alignment needed to prevail on the issues that matter most.

For more on Mosaic's grantmaking values, please see here.

Mosaic is fiscally sponsored by Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your gift may be tax deductible pursuant to §170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code. Please visit www.tides.org/state-nonprofit-disclosures/ for additional information.