Team
Alice Y. Hom, Executive Director
Alice Y. Hom (she/they) is a community builder invested in bridging diverse and overlapping communities for social change. She most recently served as the Director of Equity and Social Justice at Northern California Grantmakers, where she focused on operationalizing racial equity with an intersectional lens that brought multiple issues, communities, and sectors together to build on the common good. Before joining NCG, they held an OSF Soros Equality Fellowship in a program aimed to support leaders to become long term innovators for racial justice. Alice held various positions at Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, including the Philanthropic Advocacy Manager for the National Gender and Equity Campaign and the Queer Justice Fund Director where she focused on leadership development and capacity building for AAPI community organizations.
Alice serves on the board of the American LGBTQ+ Museum and on the Advisory Council for the Conscious Style Guide, a resource on inclusive, respectful and empowering language on ability/disability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. She is a co-founder of Beyond Two Cents: LGBTQ AAPI Giving Circle. Her previous board service includes: Borealis Philanthropy, California Humanities, Los Angeles City Commission on the Status of Women, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, Visual Communications, Great Leap, and APAIT Health Center.
Alice holds a Ph.D. in History from Claremont Graduate University, a M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA, and B.A. from Yale University. They are a co-editor of two anthologies, Q & A: Voices from Queer Asian North America and Q & A: Queer in Asian America and have published articles in various journals and anthologies.
Tenaja Jordan, Research & Communications Director
Tenaja Jordan is a career nonprofit professional with over 10 years of experience in program and organizational development. She brings to the work an intersectional perspective informed by her lived experience as a black queer woman who navigated systems of support as a runaway youth. She has spoken and written about her experiences in such venues as New York magazine, Colorlines magazine, Blavity, and Huffington Post. In 2017 Tenaja was awarded one of 6 Voqal Fellowships for early-stage social entrepreneurs and founded her firm, My Seed of Change LLC, to provide organizational development consulting to small, community-led nonprofits working in the social justice space.
She most recently served as Social Sector Outreach Manager at Foundation Center, where she managed the national webinar training program in addition to providing training to nonprofit professionals in the areas of fundraising and sustainability. Prior to that, she worked at several other NY nonprofits. Tenaja served on the Board of Directors of the Hetrick Martin Institute: New York from 2009-2014, is a founding board member of the Hetrick Martin Institute: New Jersey, and currently chairs the Advisory Board of the Peter Cicchino Youth Project. She holds an Interdisciplinary Studies BA from CUNY York College and earned her Master of Public Administration degree (MPA) from the CUNY Baruch College School of Public Affairs’ Executive Program.
Biz Ghormley, Operations & Convening Director
Biz Ghormley (she/they) is dedicated to justice and transformation. At CHANGE Philanthropy, she anchors the biannual Unity Summit, operations for CHANGE as an organization, and the coalition-wide Operations Working Group—a community of practice for HR, Finance and Admin leaders from all CHANGE partner organizations. Before CHANGE, Biz led work weaving story, data and design to build community and systems for a variety of social change and social support organizations like Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP), Digital Democracy, Alliance for Positive Change, the Refresh Radio Show and EAT / Stockholm Food Forum. Biz began her career with a decade of frontline justice work as a bilingual investigator for legal organizations including Bronx Defenders, Innocence Project, the Center for Constitutional Rights and with various federal and state level criminal defense teams and remains dedicated to abolition through community work as a co-leader of SURJ B’ham in Birmingham, AL.
In both career and life, Biz is committed to embodied practices, intersectionality, and right relationship. As a white person, they strive to dismantle white supremacy, and address and repair its harm. Biz is a devoted student of group dynamics and organizational development, emergent strategy, praxis of liberation, coaching practices, and facilitation. They strive to co-create and hold spaces that allow groups to be more than the sum of their parts. They are humbled by gardening, and love fractals, cooking and books.
Kanan Gole, Communications Specialist
Kanan arrives at CHANGE with six years of international nonprofit experience. This is her first endeavor into the national philanthropy and social justice spaces – she chose to make this perspective shift because she believes justice, solidarity, and peace must begin at home. Only then can they beautifully spread out into the world.
After graduating from Drexel University in Philadelphia, where she studied International Area Studies and Creative Writing, Kanan began her career working with a small nonprofit in Haiti as a teacher and marketing and communications associate. From there, she went to India, where she contributed to the work of four organizations in the field of education, gender equity, and public health. In these three years, she was involved in all aspects of day-to-day nonprofit management, including program delivery, qualitative research, campaign management, written and visual content creation, teacher training, community outreach, and program reporting for monitoring and evaluation teams.
When Kanan returned to the United States, she joined the communications team at the American India Foundation in New York City. There, she realized a professional passion for storytelling for change, through written, visual, and audio mediums.
When not at her desk, Kanan is reading or writing, studying photography, taking a walk through the park in her neighborhood, or cooking something new.
Former Staff
Carly Hare, National Director/Coalition Catalyst
Carly Hare (Pawnee/Yankton) strives to live a commitment to advancing equity and community engagement through her professional and personal life. Carly served as the Coalition Catalyst/National Director of CHANGE Philanthropy. Carly lead Native Americans in Philanthropy as its Executive Director from 2010-2015 after five years of membership, and serving on the NAP Board of Directors. Carly held the position of the Director of Development for the Native American Rights Fund from 2009-2010. She served as Director of Programs for The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County for five years.
Carly is currently the Board of Trustees Chair of the Common Counsel Foundation and Treasurer of the Highlander Research and Education Center Board of Directors. Carly has served on planning committees and presented at over 30 conferences at the intersection of equity and philanthropy. She is a proud daughter, sister, auntie, ally, friend and equity advocate. Carly’s Pawnee name is <i kita u hoo <i ]a hiks which translates into kind leader of men.
Lyle Matthew Kan
Lyle Matthew Kan works to advance racial, economic, and gender justice in philanthropy as both a Senior Fellow at CHANGE Philanthropy and the Interim Vice President of Programs at Asian American/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP). His reports and infographics on the scale and character of LGBTQ grantmaking have been cited by numerous academic journals, think tanks, non- governmental organizations, government agencies, newspapers, blogs, and other media.
Between 2013 and 2020, Lyle worked at Funders for LGBTQ Issues. As the Vice President of Research and Communications, he led the organization’s analysis of trends, gaps, and opportunities related to LGBTQ grantmaking, oversaw its communications and public policy work, and managed strategic partnerships. Prior to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Lyle led development and communications efforts at Stonewall Community Foundation. Before that, Lyle worked at the Foreign Policy Association and in the private sector specializing in business development and branding.
Lyle is a trustee of the forthcoming American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City and an advisory council member for The City University of New York (CUNY) LBGTQI Student Leadership Program. He previously served on the board of directors for I’m from Driftwood, an online LGBTQ story archive, and sat on the grants review committee for the Queer Youth Fund at Liberty Hill Foundation, which invested approximately $5 million in work that empowered LGBTQ youth. He has also served on several committees for CHANGE Philanthropy and United Philanthropy Forum.
Lyle holds a B.A. in individualized study from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and an M.Sc. in political sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. When not traveling for business or pleasure, he calls New York City’s East Village home.
Catalytic Partners
Behind every organization are partners that work hand-in-hand with our team in delivering the messages and programming we need to make the impact we seek. Our catalytic partners include:
