Jonathan's Bio
For more than 20 years, I have worked to advance educational equity and racial justice as an educator, nonprofit leader, fundraising & communications strategist, writer, curriculum developer, and parent organizer.
I coach mission-driven teams to plan and execute strategic activities to achieve transformative impact. My passion for building and supporting cross-sector partnerships between educators, community members, philanthropic institutions and nonprofits has resulted in groundbreaking initiatives such as #OaklandUndivided that closed the digital divide for 25,000 Oakland families.
I am a highly effective communicator and successfully engage diverse audiences through in-person facilitation, research and writing, visual content, and public speaking. Read and listen to some examples.
I develop and operationalize equity-centered strategic plans, support a culture of continuous learning, and effectively manage projects to achieve measurable results. Keeping equity at the center means I create inclusive and human-centered processes, promoting collaboration and participation from diverse stakeholders. For example, the Community Wellness & Learning Initiative I built at the Oakland Public Education Fund provided intensive academic and holistic support to over 1,000 students struggling with remote learning.
I am passionate about creating opportunities for people and organizations to invest their time, money, and resources that help build power within communities of color. A highly experienced fundraiser, I’ve helped secure more than $70M for educational initiatives in partnership with schools, nonprofits, and philanthropic allies, including a $2.5M Covid Relief Fund for Oakland Students and Schools.
I believe that showing up for racial justice requires deep, sustained, critical engagement with my relationships to race, privilege, and white supremacy. I have co-founded parent groups that advocate for educational equity and racial justice, created tools and led workshops to support white people in becoming more effective anti-racists, and published essays exposing and critiquing whiteness in progressive movements.
And also: father, husband, teacher educator, pasta maker, aspiring rock climber, former hip hop magazine publisher, coffee enthusiast, and proud Oaklander.
