Borealis Philanthropy is resourcing the world we know is possible.
About Us
Borealis is a social justice philanthropic intermediary working to resource grassroots movements for transformative change. We build bridges between funders and the frontlines of movements working to make a future that serves all of us.
Founded in 2015, Borealis’ work has always been about advancing justice—and at its core, that means building a truly inclusive, multiracial democracy. We believe that to achieve a resilient democracy, we must invest deeply in five essential pillars: intersectional justice, narrative change, community safety and justice, economic justice and inclusion, and movement infrastructure—and the visions of our communities.
Our Mission
Borealis works with funders to funnel resources to the people building powerful, thriving communities. We invest in leaders, organizations, and movements using diverse, community-rooted and leading-edge strategies to pursue long-term transformational change.
What We Do
Borealis utilizes the expertise and leadership of our movement-rooted staff to identify and resource community leaders and organizations working to dismantle oppressive systems and build an inclusive multiracial democracy.
We connect funders to people and organizations that share their visions. We partner with philanthropy to conceive, develop, and implement grantmaking initiatives that resource the frontlines of intersectional grassroots movements for justice.
We create opportunities for donors to both resource and learn from organizers on the ground.
We remove barriers to funding for grassroots organizations, which have been historically under-resourced.
Simply put, we dream big, we take bold risks, and we fund work rooted in liberation and justice for all people.
Our Vision
We envision a world where:
- We reckon with this country’s long history of racial injustice built on anti-Black racism, Native American genocide, exploitation of Black and Brown labor, and work to repair harm with all communities that have been impacted.
- Communities are connected and interdependent, and people share responsibility for one another.
- We have the collective power to have agency over our lives.
- Our political, social, civil, and economic systems and institutions are representative of, and responsive to, all communities.
- Everyone leads joyful, vibrant, and free lives.
Our Values
Alchemy + healing
We regenerate. We metabolize hurt and harm, as we disrupt and withdraw from ableism and lack. We conceive spaciousness and brandish grace, humanity, and joy to seed new worlds.
Atrevida + audacious
We marry conviction and belief to cultivate inner courage and brave hearts, to be the Atrevida. We defy the status quo and contribute to a more just world for all.
Accountability + integrity
We work to align our actions and values. We engender trust and reciprocity. We may not always get it right, but we learn, evolve, and remain accountable to individual and communal relationships.
Ubuntu + interconnectedness
We exist in thriving living connection. We practice solidarity and mutuality with, within, and across expansive communities.
Our Senior Leadership Team
Our Board of Directors
Senior Advisor and Director – Impact Driven Philanthropy, Raikes Foundation
Stephanie Fuerstner Gillis is Senior Advisor and Director of the Raikes Foundation’s impact-driven philanthropy initiative, where she leads a portfolio of work focused on resourcing movements by supporting donors to give in ways that center equity, effectiveness, and systems change. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2017, Stephanie served as a managing director at Arabella Advisors, where she led its practice supporting family and individual donors.
Stephanie served for 11 years as the COO and Senior Consultant at Blueprint Research + Design, Inc., supporting philanthropy clients on strategy and evaluation and worked for over 10 years in the nonprofit sector, including in positions with the Youth Leadership Institute (a Bay Area youth development organization), the Boys & Girls Clubs of Monterey County, and the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies. She has served on the boards of a number of organizations, including Giving Compass, College Kids, and Food Runners, and has held various school leadership positions.
When she is not at work, Stephanie enjoys spending time with her family; since her sons have flown, she currently spends more time traveling, and going on adventures with her husband and dog, Maisie.
Founder and Executive Director, Disabled Journalists Association
Cara Reedy is the Founder and Executive Director of Disabled Journalists Association. She spent ten years of her career at CNN producing documentaries as well as writing for various verticals including Eatocracy and CNN Business. In 2019, she produced Dwarfism and Me for The Guardian, which was an exploration of the treatment of Dwarfs in American society. She has spent the last four years studying disability and its coverage in the media. As part of her work, she trains newsrooms to tell more robust and investigative stories about disability. In addition to her work in the journalism industry, she also works in narrative change in the film and tv industry and is a member of the TV Academy Diversity Committee. Her latest short documentary about the life of Brad Lomax, Black Panther and Disability Rights activist is featured on PBS.com.
Manager of Resource Strategy, Movement for Black Lives
charles is a Chicago based multi-disciplinary artist, activist and Black liberationist. He is currently the Deputy Director of Fund Strategy for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). Charles has worked in communities across the United States and globally with poor, working class, disabled, young, LGBT, currently/formerly active drug users and formerly homeless folks. He has worked in all realms of the social justice arena doing everything from direct service provision, lobbying, development, communications and direct action. charles uses that background to inform both his artistic and movement work with a particular lens on Black, Queer, Feminist perspectives that naturally create space for growth rooted in true freedom.
Chief Fiduciary Officer and Managing Director, Investment Management & Trust, Fifth Third Bank
Mary Ellen Reilly is a dynamic leader with extensive experience in strategic program development, change management, risk management, and fiduciary governance. She currently serves as Chief Fiduciary Officer and Managing Director, Investment Management & Trust at Fifth Third Bank, overseeing $70 billion in assets under management. In this role, she directs thought leadership, trading, investment portfolio management, client servicing, and fiduciary administration for over 12,000 clients and 350 employees.
Previously, she held leadership roles at M&T Bank/Wilmington Trust, including Director of Compliance Risk Management and Chief Compliance Officer, responsible for compliance activities covering approximately $100 billion in assets.
She holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from The Canisius College of Buffalo, New York, and serves on several boards, including ArtWorks Cincinnati and the Ohio Valley Foundation.
Director, California Transcends
Ebony Ava Harper, born in Maryland to Jamaican parents, is a Black trans woman and dedicated activist. Her career includes impactful roles at Project Angel Food, Children of the Night, and the Gender Health Center, focusing on intersectional justice for marginalized communities. After her work at The California Endowment, she founded and became the Director of California TRANScends, promoting transgender health and wellness statewide. Harper’s achievements include the 2019 Stonewall Four Freedoms Award, hosting the State Capitol Tree Lighting ceremony, and serving as the Grand Marshal of Sacramento’s Pride Parade. Featured in media outlets and a contributor to Forbes, she also serves on the boards of the Transgender Law Center, California Museum, and Borealis. Additionally, she is the co-chair of the Lieutenant Governor of California’s Trans Advisory Council.
Vice President of Public Affairs, The California Wellness Foundation
Alex M. Johnson is the interim vice president of programs and public affairs at The California Wellness Foundation, a role he assumed in June 2025. Alex returned to Cal Wellness in January 2024 after serving as vice president at Bryson Gillette, a strategic communications and public affairs firm where he led efforts to support clients working to create change across multiple sectors, including education, government, philanthropy, and nonprofits. Before his time at Bryson Gillette, Alex previously held senior grantmaking positions at Cal Wellness for nearly five years.
In his role as vice president of public affairs, Alex oversees the department’s government relations, community engagement and strategic communications. Before joining Cal Wellness in June 2018, he was managing director for Californians for Safety and Justice in Los Angeles. While at CSJ, Alex led efforts calling for an end to over-incarceration and a renewed focus on safety priorities rooted in prevention and health. Prior to his role at CSJ, he was executive director of Children’s Defense Fund-California, where he led statewide advocacy, policy, program and organizing efforts to ensure access to quality affordable health coverage and care for children and low-income families, reform the juvenile justice system, promote educational equity, end child poverty, and improve outcomes for children of color. Alex previously led education, youth development, and public safety efforts for a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He began his career in New York City advocating for domestic violence victims as an assistant district attorney in Bronx County and previously clerked at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
Alex serves on the boards of Southern California Grantmakers, Urban Peace Institute, Trust for Public Land, and the UCLA Luskin School Board of Advisors. He previously served on the Los Angeles County Board of Education and Los Angeles City Ethics Commission. A graduate of Morehouse College and American University, Washington College of Law, Alex’s writings have appeared in Huffington Post, The Guardian, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, California Health Report, and Sacramento Bee.
Principal, IAM Associates
Inca Mohamed is an internationally recognized facilitator with many years of experience managing and working with nonprofit organizations addressing youth development, sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice, gender equity, and, racial equity. Inca has helped hundreds of organizations create effective and powerful management teams and strategies for change. Her approach to consulting is rooted in her experience as a Caribbean immigrant from a multi-ethnic family, “I had to develop border crossing” skills to survive & thrive, and I know the power of cross-cultural learning. My experience taught me to listen deeply, honor what is distinct about each environment, and, when appropriate, translate experiences from one place to another”. Inca’s racial equity work is informed by the understanding that an organization’s willingness & commitment to consistently and systematically address issues of equity, diversity & inclusion are fundamental to its health and capacity for sustained impact.
Frequently Asked Questions
Philanthropic intermediaries provide strategic capacity and expert guidance to individual donors as well as foundations. Often, as in the case with Borealis, they connect donors with limited access to lesser-known organizations, enabling funders the opportunity to support in places and ways they may not be able to do on their own. Intermediaries may support nonprofits in building their organizational capacity as they are more flexible with their grantmaking, making grants of all sizes or to emerging groups and movements. Read more about how giving through Borealis Philanthropy helps the philanthropic sector bolster the movement ecosystem.
Donor collaboratives offer funders an opportunity to work together on central issues and combine their resources, energy, attention, and expertise to exponentially increase the impact of their work together. Borealis’ donor collaboratives facilitate coordination of strategies across a field of interest and provide grantmaking services as well as a coordinated approach to funder learning and joint grantmaking.
We assist grantmakers at all stages, from conceptualizing a grantmaking program, identifying grantees, and making grants, to providing ongoing support for grantee learning and progress. We take responsibility for the funds that have been entrusted to us and have strong systems in place—in governance, accounting, and legal review—to ensure they are used effectively. We also seek to share our knowledge and experience with the broader field of philanthropy and to advocate for the effective use of intermediaries.
We focus on moving resources in ways that are nimble and flexible, and that provide organizations with the support they need to succeed. This includes but is not limited to philanthropic strategies such as rapid response, general support, grantee-driven capacity-building, and leadership development.