Chika Onwuvuche manages the Young Women’s Initiative, which engages young women and gender-expansive youth of color as change agents through the Rock Star Fund and regional advocacy efforts. Additionally, she coordinates the safety and violence prevention portfolio, which directly supports Grantee Partners, providing culturally-specific resources for survivors in the region. Before her role at The Women’s Foundation, Chika coordinated youth-led initiatives to empower youth through a systems-change and racial equity analysis of agencies, policies, and institutions meant to serve its community. In the past, her role as a social worker has helped her assist, learn from and work alongside youth who have emancipated from the child welfare system and navigated the higher education and immigration systems. Her personal philosophy on the necessity of engaging those most affected as decision-makers for policies and practices drives her passion for the change that needs to happen to invest in women, girls, and gender-expansive folks of color. Chika has an undergraduate degree in political science and social work from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. In her free time, she is an avid walker, loves to read, and frequently jams to hits from around the globe.

Crystal Rucker currently serves as the Director of Development for Washington Area Women’s Foundation, providing leadership of the Foundation’s fundraising strategies and operations. Crystal began her career over 20 years ago working with an investment banking firm, where she realized that she wanted to find a way to align those client relationships with the opportunity to make a broader social impact in her community. Her expertise in the philanthropic development space has intersected fundraising, donor cultivation, community engagement, strategic partnerships, grantmaking, marketing, communications, and program management. As a native Washingtonian, Crystal’s personal commitment to serving and impacting the lives of children and youth influenced her desire to connect financial wealth with organizations where she has worked to help provide equitable opportunities for children and youth, especially those in under-resourced communities in the Washington, D.C. region. Crystal serves on the Board of Directors of Access Youth, Inc., on the Leadership Advisory Committee of the Shaping Futures Foundation, and in 2017, she was recognized as the first-ever Volunteer of the Year by the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project for her devotion and service to unhoused children. Crystal holds a Bachelor of Arts in Legal Communications from Howard University and an executive certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy. In her spare time, she enjoys tending to her houseplants, writing, traveling, baking, and hosting dinner parties for her friends.

Donna joined the Foundation team in 2008 to provide executive administrative support to the President and CEO and Board of Directors. In addition, Donna provides operations management including office and technology management and finance and development support. Donna’s first “real job” as a Girl Scout camp counselor set the tone for a career in the nonprofit arena, working in such varied positions as a child-care worker at a residential treatment center for children, a bus driver for slightly less troubled children, a general manager for a puppet company, and an administrator for a pet-therapy organization.  She spent 15 years working for In Trust, Inc., an organization that works with trustees and key administrators to improve the governance of graduate theological schools in the U.S. and Canada. While there, she provided the administrative support that saw the organization grow from a project of the Lilly Endowment into a 501(c)3 membership organization with multi-faceted educational programs and a broad funding base. In her spare time, Donna is working to re-landscape her suburban corner lot into a native habitat to attract and sustain native flora and fauna (including bunnies, butterflies, and bees, while hoping Bambi stays in the woods). That is when she’s not tending to her (non-native) vegetable garden!

Faith Garnett leads two key initiatives at the Washington Area Women’s Foundation that advance economic security and opportunity for women, families, and communities: the Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative (ECEFC) and the HERizon Fund. Through ECEFC, she convenes funders and grantee partners to expand the quality, capacity, and accessibility of early childhood systems across the Washington region. Through the HERizon Fund, she helps administer scholarship and wraparound support for students pursuing post-secondary degrees and professional certifications in Early Childhood Education and Maternal Health. Prior to joining the Foundation, Faith was a strategist and researcher at Community Science. There, she guided philanthropic, nonprofit, and public-sector organizations in leveraging data, community knowledge, and stakeholder insights to design and evaluate high-impact programs and systems-change efforts, including multi-million-dollar initiatives. Throughout her career, Faith has focused on fostering collaboration between institutions and the communities they serve to build equitable opportunities for children and families. She brings dedicated expertise to supporting early childhood education initiatives, with particular attention to uplifting the workforce that makes quality care and learning possible. Faith holds a Master of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University, a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Mary Baldwin University, and an Advanced Mediation Certificate from Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. Outside of work, Faith writes on Substack about philanthropy, leadership, and social change. She also enjoys exploring museums and galleries and taking long walks around the Washington region.

Lakshmi Sridaran serves as Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s inaugural Chief of Staff, providing operational oversight, steering strategic initiatives, and facilitating internal collaboration. From 2019 to 2024, Lakshmi served as Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), a D.C.-based national policy and advocacy organization. During her tenure, she sharpened the organization’s programmatic focus to marginalized South Asian American populations and aligned internal operations and organizational culture with anti-racist and anti-caste principles. From 2014-2019, she was SAALT’s Director of National Policy and Advocacy, where she developed and executed SAALT’s legislative agenda and programming, which focused on immigration, racial profiling, and hate violence. Before joining SAALT, Lakshmi served as Policy Director for The Praxis Project, a national movement support intermediary investing in policy advocacy and local organizing to achieve health justice in communities of color. Lakshmi’s nonprofit leadership is grounded in her experiences organizing in the South. Before moving to the D.C. area nearly 15 years ago, Lakshmi lived in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina where she worked on improving federal contracting opportunities for Black and women-owned businesses; instituting participatory budgeting to expose inequitable distribution of federal recovery dollars; and preserving public schools and infrastructure from rapid privatization. In her early organizing days, she helped ensure land retention for Black farmers in her home state of Georgia and conducted voter outreach in Haitian and LatinX communities in Miami leading up to the 2004 presidential election. Since 2009, Lakshmi has proudly served on the Board of the Southern Initiative of the Algebra Project, originally founded in Mississippi in the 1980’s to use mathematics as an organizing tool to ensure quality education for every child. Lakshmi holds a master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in ethnic studies from The University of California, Berkeley. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling with her husband and two young children, spending quality time with friends, taking walks in Rock Creek Park, exploring somatics practices, and trying new recipes.

Talisa White serves as the Director of Communications for Washington Area Women’s Foundation, where she leads the organization’s strategic communications, brand management, and public awareness efforts. Talisa brings over a decade of experience in marketing and communications across the nonprofit sector, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and private industry. Her professional journey began with a deep curiosity about how storytelling, strategy, and design could drive meaningful change. Over the years, she has developed and executed national public awareness campaigns, led high-performing teams, and launched award-winning digital initiatives—all rooted in a belief that communications can spark action and amplify impact. A proud graduate of Howard University, Talisa holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Business Administration. She is widely recognized for her calm leadership, creative insight, and ability to build trust and inspire collaboration across teams and communities. A passionate advocate for equity and opportunity, Talisa is especially committed to elevating the voices and experiences of women and girls of color. When she’s not crafting compelling narratives or championing mission-driven work, Talisa enjoys time with her daughter, weekend getaways, naps, and a good spa day.

Dr. Tamara Wilds Lawson is the President and CEO of the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, a community-supported foundation that invests in the power of women and girls of color in the Washington, D.C., region. Since joining the Foundation in 2023, Tamara has played a pivotal role in guiding its strategic direction and leveraging her expertise to further the organization’s mission and deepen its impact. Under her leadership, The Women’s Foundation successfully commemorated 25 years of serving women and girls at its first public event since 2019 and released the groundbreaking report, “Thrive as They Lead: Advancing the Infrastructure to Support Black Women Leaders in the D.C. Metro Area Non-Profit Sector,” signaling the beginning of a long-term effort to enhance support and resources for Black women and gender-expansive leaders. Prior to her appointment at The Women’s Foundation, Tamara served as the Movement, Issue, and Charitable Organizations (MICO) Director at ActBlue—an organization that raises funding and awareness for progressive political causes and campaigns—and led a 20-person team that supports nonprofits raising funds on the platform. Her work with ActBlue was particularly rewarding, given the decade she spent in nonprofit leadership as Chief Community Impact and Inclusion Officer for Washington Nationals Philanthropies and Director of the Posse Foundation’s Washington, DC office. Early in her career, Tamara developed a diverse professional portfolio in higher education while earning her doctorate and also gained valuable national political organizing experience as Director of African American Outreach for the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 election cycle. Tamara received her B.A. from Occidental College and Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a member of Leadership Greater Washington, and in 2019, Washington Business Journal selected her as one of its Women Who Mean Business. She is also honored to serve on the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) Executive Committee. A proud native Washingtonian, Tamara lives with her family in Southeast D.C.