Staff and Grantees from the Country, United States

Helps manage the website.

Solana Larsen is responsible for the creation and maintenance of The New World Foundation website. She is a Danish-Puerto Rican journalist and activist. She was formerly an editor with openDemocracy.net, and is now managing editor of Global Voices Online.

Dr. Colin Greer has been the President of The New World Foundation since 1985. He was a Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY, and has written several books. Colin Greer has participated in and directed several studies of U.S. immigration and urban schooling policy and history (at Columbia University and CUNY), and Chairs numerous organizations. See full biography, here.

Adrianne Shropshire is a Senior Program Officer with the New Majority Fund and other special projects. She comes to New World with nearly two decades of community organizing, alliance-building, political organizing, and public policy campaign experience. Adrianne was a community organizer in South Los Angeles, directed a labor/community/faith-based coalition in New York, and trains undergraduate students preparing for careers in public policy.

Maria Echaveste is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a co-founder of the Nueva Vista Group. She served as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton from 1998-2001, managing domestic policy initiatives on education, civil rights, immigration and bankruptcy reform. From 1993-1997 Echaveste was the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor.

Lisa Abbott is Director of Organizing and Leadership Development of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. She received a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of Maryland in 2001. Lisa Abbott was also a Program Associate at the Grassroots Policy Project in Washington DC from 1999-2000. She serves on the board of the Progressive Technology Project in Minneapolis, and was recently elected to the policy-making board of the local elementary school of her two children.

The New World Foundation supports community activists across America and around the world.

Heeten Kalan is Senior Program Officer for the Environmental Health & Justice Fund at The New World Foundation. He is also the part-time director of groundWork USA, the American office of one of South Africa’s strongest environmental justice organizations.

Jonathan Glionna is a Director and senior fixed income research analyst at Barclays Capital, where he is responsible for analyzing the U.S. banking industry. He also sits on the Board of Directors of Project STEP in Boston, a charitable organization that prepares talented music students of color to enter the profession of classical music.

Vincent Warren is the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He spent seven years as national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he led national constitutional and impact litigation to advance civil rights and civil liberties. In that capacity, he litigated Gratz v. Bollinger, the companion to the landmark case upholding affirmative action in college admissions. Beyond the courtroom, he is a leading African-American voice for affirmative action

Ann Bastian is a Senior Program Officer with responsibility for Communications and Leadership Development. She came to New World in 1984, having worked as a union organizer, labor educator, and movement activist. Ann is also a college history teacher at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and has been a consultant and writer on education policy issues.

Mira Zalewska is Assistant Bookkeeper of The New World Foundation. She also consults non-profit groups on organizing fundraisers. She is a jewelry designer and artist from Poland.

Nubia Scott-Bennett is the assistant to the President at The New World Foundation. A native of New York City, she is a recent graduate of Hampton University with a degree in journalism and communications.

Anna Levine Fink is a Senior Program Officer with responsibility for COIN and The Phoenix Fund for Workers & Communities The New World Foundation. She previously worked as the coordinator of a grassroots human rights advocacy program in Mexico for the Fund for Global Human Rights. She also served as the co-director of Unite for Dignity for Immigrant Workers Rights in Miami, Florida. Anna holds a Masters in Public Affairs from the University of Texas, Austin.

Marisol Ramos is a Program Associate at the New World Foundation. She works primarily with the Phoenix Fund for Workers and Communities, which provides organizational and development support to grantee immigrant rights organizations in the US and Mexico. Marisol is also a co-founder of the New York State Youth Leadership Council and was previously a youth organizer at Esperanza del Barrio both organizations which campaign actively on behalf of the Dream Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

Minnette Coleman is Grants Administrator for The New World Foundation, and manages the partnership between New World and the K.I.D.S. in Distress Situations Foundation. She is an actress, writer and singer raised in Atlanta, GA at the height of the civil rights movement. She has written poems and articles about youth and community service.

Beata Pudelko is the Director for Finance and Administration and Assistant Treasurer at The New World Foundation. She has 16 years experience in non-profit management, finance and accounting. She is Treasurer and Co-Founder of the Children's Smile Foundation. Beata also works with other non-profit organizations advising on finance and management issues. She was born in Poland and has lived in New York since 1980.

Fred Azcarate (Chair) has been a social movement leader for 20 years. For over 12 years he has been the Executive Director of Jobs with Justice, a national coalition campaign for workers' rights, social and economic justice. Jobs with Justice works with coalitions leading the fight on workers' rights, economic and social justice and global justice in more than 40 cities in the United States.

Julie Goodridge is President and founder of NorthStar Asset Management in Boston. She is a financial advisor and a very active member of the Social Investment Forum. She was Assistant Vice-President at Dean Witter Reynolds, and a stockbroker at EF Hutton and Merrill Lynch. Julie was a lead plaintiff in a legal case that won marriage rights for same-sex couples in Massachusetts. She served on the New World Board for 6 years, and was its Treasurer for 5.

Charles S. Hey-Maestre is the Executive Director of Puerto Rico Legal Services Inc, the primary provider of legal representation and counsel for the 48% of Puerto Rico's population who fall below federal poverty levels. Hey-Maestre also sits on the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights.