Grace comes to the ACLU-NC with a decade of philanthropic and nonprofit experience. Most recently, she served as the Director of Family and Individual Advising at Arabella Advisors. In this role, she partnered with donors across the country to help them develop and implement trust-based grant-making strategies, define clear visions, articulate values to drive their giving, and make a meaningful impact grounded in community. Through this work, Grace advised across a diverse range of issue areas, including reproductive justice, poverty alleviation, and racial equity.
Previously, Grace led national fundraising efforts and partnership development at UpTogether (formerly Family Independence Initiative), a community-centric nonprofit focused on social and economic mobility through a cash transfer intervention. Before her tenure at UpTogether, Grace served as the founding development hire at the Richmond Promise, a grassroots college access and success nonprofit, where she developed its initial fundraising strategy. She began her career at GreenLight Fund, a venture philanthropy firm focused on promoting the growth of high-impact nonprofits to address communities’ urgent and unmet needs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.