We are thrilled that Raquel Donoso has joined Yellow Chair Foundation as Senior Program Officer for Equity in Education. Founded 18 years ago, Yellow Chair Foundation is a Palo Alto-based family foundation. The Foundation funds more than 50 local, national and global organizations working on advancing educational equity, with an emphasis on college access and success for low-income students, and support of public school teachers and school leaders as they build their practice and improve the learning environments for students who are most in need. Other focus areas include promoting civil liberties, civil rights and racial justice, advancing climate change solutions, supporting investigative public interest journalism focused on catalyzing change; focusing on maternal health in the US and elevating global women’s organizations working to build movements at the grassroots level to effect systemic change.
Raquel’s is a visionary, community leader that is passionate about creating a world that supports and empowers children, youth, and families to achieve their dreams. Her professional career has focused on increasing opportunities for first-generation and low-income students. Over time, she has successfully raised nearly $20M to improve education, health, and economic outcomes for low income communities. Raquel has a deep passion and commitment to educational equity, particularly on increasing college access. In her leadership roles, she has been successful in setting a vision and translating these ideas into tangible, flourishing results. Most recently, Raquel directed a $30M collective impact initiative, Mission Promise Neighborhood, a Pre-K-14 cradle-to-college-to-career pipeline for youth and their families in San Francisco’s Mission District. Prior to that, Raquel was the Chief Executive Officer of the Latino Community Foundation where she transformed a philanthropic organization into a leading national Latino identity fund. During her seven-year tenure, they granted over $3M through the Children and Youth Initiative to address parent education engagement, early childhood learning, and access to technology for California students. In her “spare time,” Raquel is finishing her Doctorate in Education at University of California, Davis.
Angie Chen Angie joined The Libra Foundation, as Senior Program Officer. She is an entrepreneurial and strategic leader in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors with broad experience designing and managing grantmaking initiatives to leverage philanthropic resources for social impact, facilitating cross-sector multi-stakeholder collaborations to set shared vision and achieve goals, building effective relationships across nonprofit, foundation and government leaders and managing all programmic objectives of an organization. Educated at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley, Angie’s deep experience includes roles at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and Stephen Bechtel Fund, Pisces Foundation and most recently as Director at the Blue Sky Funders Forum.
Ashley joined The Libra Foundation as Knowledge and Grants Manager. Ashley has a mix of nonprofit and corporate experience and brings a core set of skills in knowledge management and grant making from her roles at KIVA.org and Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund where she was most recently, the Director of Grantee Impact and Strategic Initiatives. Ashley also brings operational, marketing and general management experience from her roles at companies like Minted.com and Sun Products. Educated at Spellman College and Harvard Business School, she brings an analytical mindset and strategic thinking to this role. Ashley enjoys being part of a small dynamic team and wearing many hats.