Dana launched Confluence Philanthropy in August of 2009 as a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, after serving as the Executive Director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA). While at EGA, Dana provided networking services to over 250 grantmaking organizations from across North America and Europe in 15 strategic funding areas. As a Director, Dana worked with the Rockefeller Family Fund and led a then 20-year-old EGA into an independent 501c3 organization. From 2009 to 2011, Dana served as the Program Director and Board Advisor at The Swift Foundation while launching Confluence. Swift makes grants internationally in the environment, indigenous and rural communities, and climate change initiatives. Swift is also deeply committed to mission-related investing.
Before philanthropy, Dana founded Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), which brought free urban environmental education projects to more than 10,000 public school students, while employing hundreds of at-risk youth as community advocates. She acted as a lead organizer in the closure of San Francisco’s infamous Hunters Point Power Plant, envisioning and raising funds to supplant it with the region’s first off-the-grid educational Eco Center. She was the recipient of several environmental awards for community organizing early in her career, including the EPA’s National Environmental Justice Award in 2010. By today, Dana has curated hundreds of large multi-day conferences and regional convenings influencing the flow of billions of dollars in grant and investment funding toward the environment and social equity. She is widely respected as one of the early pioneers in the impact investing industry and a fierce advocate for the protection of vulnerable populations and places.
Beyond this, Dana has lived and worked among tribal people for much of her life. At 20, she lived at the village level among the Samburu (Maasai) for eight years. Twenty-four years later, she undertook the Samburu’s traditional rites, becoming one of the few Westerners ever initiated and a daughter of the L’Lorokgushu clan. Dana currently lives in Fahnestock State Park in the Hudson Valley but her heart is on the Savannah.
