Anand Dholakia, Principal Associate @ Community Science

Anand has expertise in strategy development for organizations and complex initiatives, collective action, capacity building, and developmental evaluation. His work focuses on helping organizations drive community and systems change in the pursuit of equity and justice, in both national and place-based settings. He has experience working with national and local foundations, cross-sector networks, nonprofit service provider, advocacy and intermediary organizations, community-based groups, and government agencies. Anand has worked in the areas of early childhood, health, youth development, K-12 and postsecondary education, economic security, and healthy and fulfilling aging, including working at the intersections of these issues. Anand specializes in developing holistic, adaptive equity strategies by engaging community members and cross-sector stakeholders and by recognizing the daily lived experience and assets of communities, roles of systems and programs, and diversity of stakeholders working across the social change ecosystem. His work has been applied to shift conversations and resources across communities and to help accelerate national equity movements.
 

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About Your Panelists

 
Jillian Rosen, Vice President for Community Investment @Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation

As the Vice President for Community Investment at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (AAACF), Jillian oversees AAACF’s impact investing, grantmaking programs, community initiatives, and strategic partnerships. After earning her BA in anthropology from the University of Maryland, Jillian worked in the nonprofit sector, where she worked on issues she is passionate about social justice, poverty alleviation, and youth engagement in philanthropy. Her initial experience in the nonprofit sector concretized her understanding of systemic injustice. It fueled her desire to return to school at Brandeis University, where she received an MBA and a Masters in Nonprofit Professional Leadership. When her family determined to move to Ann Arbor, AAACF seemed like a perfect fit given Jillian’s understanding of strategy, people, and what makes communities thrive.
 

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Noelle Dorward, Senior Advocacy Program Manager @The Colorado Trust

Noelle directs, designs, and implements advocacy grantmaking strategies and supports the integration of evaluation and learning into all facets of the work. She led the first grantee-driven advocacy strategy at The Trust, focused on building a new field of health equity advocates across the state. Noelle currently leads Building & Bridging Power, a new strategy that will deeply invest in rural and urban grassroots community organizing infrastructure; strengthen policy-making processes to be more informed and driven by community needs and solutions, and build relationships between grassroots and grasstops organizations and communities.
 

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Dr. Rhea Williams-Bishop, Director of Mississippi/New Orleans Programs @W. K. Kellogg Foundation

Rhea Williams-Bishop is director of Mississippi and New Orleans Programming for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she supports the foundation’s efforts to promote thriving children, working families, and equitable communities. 

Williams-Bishop is responsible for leadership and vision in program conceptualization, design, planning, management, coordination, communication, evaluation, policy, and learning of grantmaking in Mississippi and New Orleans. Williams-Bishop supports and facilitates the community change process within the region in alignment with the foundation’s mission and strategic framework, in collaboration and partnership with grantees and other external partners in the region, as well as other WKKF staff.