Abriana manages the Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative (ECEFC) at Washington Area Women’s Foundation where she works collaboratively with both the ECEFC and Grantee Partners to increase the quality and capacity of, and access to, early care and education in the Washington region. A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, through her upbringing in marginalized communities and experience in poorly funded schools, she realized her passion for Education Policy and Advocacy. Before joining Washington Area Women’s Foundation, Abriana served Public School Students in North Carolina, New York, and the District of Columbia as a data analyst and strategist. Her work has driven policy and decision-making concerning Special Education Services, ECE Site Openings, and College Readiness Programs for students of color. Abriana affirms that quality, purposeful, and accessible education is a mechanism for liberation that all young people deserve. Abriana is excited to continue her Education Equity work with the Washington Women’s Foundation alongside the ECEFC. Abriana received a B.A. in Communication and M.S in Management from Wake Forest University. In her spare time, she enjoys working in her garden, supporting women as a Birth Doula, and watching Youtube!

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!

Kate Brooke–Davidson serves as the Development Associate at the Women’s Foundation, working to grow the Foundation’s fundraising capacity in order to better serve the DMV. Kate has worked for the past several years in the nonprofit sector here in DC, specifically in the realms of immigrant services and advocacy, transnational community building, and positive youth development. Her work is informed by the practices of asset–based and representativecommunity development, mutuality, and empathy. Kate holds a B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and is a Global Citizen Year alumnus (Ecuador ‘16). She enjoys learning about history, reading novels from around the world, and hanging out with her cat, Jinx.

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.