Staff

Marissa joined GCIR in November 2020, bringing more than 15 years of senior leadership experience at social justice and philanthropic institutions. As President, Marissa leads the organization’s efforts to galvanize philanthropy to build a society in which everyone thrives, no matter where they were born. Previously, she was a program officer at the Ford Foundation, where she managed a $225 million portfolio as part of the Building Institutions and Networks (BUILD) initiative, Ford’s flagship program designed to strengthen organizations and networks core to the global social justice infrastructure. Before joining Ford in 2017, Marissa led the Blue Shield of California Foundation’s programmatic, policy, and grantmaking efforts to address, prevent, and ultimately end domestic violence and promote health equity throughout the state. Prior to that, she was senior project director at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, where she designed and led comprehensive, multiyear leadership initiatives that developed network capacity, facilitated movement-level work, and centered communities of color. Earlier in her career, Marissa served as program director of the National Employment Lawyers Association and, before that, as an employment attorney at two national law firms.

Marissa has deep experience in organizational and movement capacity building. She frequently speaks on and writes about issues related to transformative philanthropic practice, social justice movement leadership development, and organizational and network strengthening in the United States and around the world. As a certified coach, she has a keen understanding of what is needed to lead and manage thriving, adaptive, and impactful teams, organizations, and networks.

Marissa currently serves on the boards of Change Elemental and Sadie Nash Leadership Project and previously served on the boards of numerous other organizations, including Oakland Kids First, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, Social Policy Research Associates, and the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area. She holds a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law, is a member of the California State Bar, and has a B.A. in English literature with a concentration in women’s studies from Swarthmore College. Based in Brooklyn with her family since 2017, Marissa is always from the Town (Oakland).

Processes membership applications and renewals, and oversees the digital systems that support our work

Caleb Beaudoin (he/him/his) has been with GCIR since 2014. He is a certified Salesforce Administrator and, in January 2019, joined the United Philanthropy Forum’s Advisory Group, which provides guidance and support for the database-website platform used by GCIR and others in the Forum’s network.

Caleb is also a full-time student at Santa Rosa Junior College and will soon transfer to Sonoma State University to study sociology. Prior to joining GCIR, he worked for an online retailer, performing order fulfillment and data management. A native of Sonoma County, Caleb enjoys cooking, hiking, and attending events in his community.

Leads our national programs, including overseeing our Delivering on the Dream initiative

Kevin Douglas (he/him/his) joined GCIR in 2019 and has more than 13 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. He most recently worked as the Co-Director of Policy and Advocacy for United Neighborhood Houses of New York, a network of New York City’s settlement houses and community centers. While there, he led advocacy campaigns that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in community services by city and state governments. His areas of focus included immigrant opportunity, youth education and skill building, nonprofit contracting, older adult programs, and community services at large. As a consultant, he developed and led what is believed to be the first training in Saudi Arabia for the philanthropic and nonprofit community on effective advocacy techniques.

Kevin was named one of New York Nonprofit Media’s 40 under 40 and a Next Generation Leader by the Human Services Council. He co-founded the giving circle 100 New Yorkers Who Care, and has served on several boards, including the New York Immigration Coalition. Kevin earned an MSW from the University of Pennsylvania and a BSW from Eastern Connecticut State University. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two cats, and can often be found in the outdoors running or cycling. 

Manages our development operations, develops information resources, and supports our external communications

Sara Feldman (she/her/hers) joined GCIR in 2020 after spending over 15 years advancing human rights in the non-profit sector and has advocated on behalf of immigrants and refugees as a communicator, project manager, policy advocate, and researcher. Prior to joining GCIR, Sara served as the Ready California Project Director at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, where she led a collaborative campaign to expand the reach of legal services to immigrants in California. Previously, Sara led communications efforts at Legal Aid at Work, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of low-wage workers. At the Human Rights Center at U.C. Berkeley, Sara conducted research in Colombia to assess the public sector and civil society response to gender-based violence in the context of displacement. As a Policy Advisor in Washington, D.C., Sara analyzed issues affecting migrating populations and developed policy recommendations to influence decision-making by Congress, administrative agencies, and international institutions. Sara has published research reports, journal articles, white papers, media statements, and issue briefs. Sara holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Oregon, and a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where she interned in a refugee camp in Mozambique to document the impact of income generation projects on refugee integration. Sara served as a board member for Refugee and Immigrant Services and is a fellow with the Transatlantic Forum on Integration and Migration. In her spare time, Sara enjoys exploring the Bay Area and beyond, spending time in nature, and curling up with a good book.

Manages our internal operations, financial systems, and human resources

Harmony Hayes (she/her/hers) has been with GCIR since 2014 and has over 17 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Prior to joining the GCIR team more than five years ago, she worked at The San Francisco Foundation as coordinator for the Koshland Program where she collaborated with resident leaders in low-income neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area on community development projects.

Harmony earned an M.A. in Economic Development from The University of San Francisco. During that time, she managed a research project with support from USAID to examine the impact of social networks on access to micro-credit in the western highlands of Guatemala. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, antique shopping, and spending time with her family, especially with her two young sons.

Supports our internal operations, including finance, development, and general administration

Melisa Montoya (she/her/hers) joined GCIR in 2020, bringing over 15 years of experience in supply chain/project management. Before joining GCIR she worked for Clif Bar where she managed the relationships with their East Coast distribution teams. Prior to that, her experiences ranged between non-profit program management (Bay Area Bike to Work Day) and organic produce distribution.

Melisa is a Southern California native who loves being outside. When she’s not knee-deep in home improvement projects or cooking yummy meals, you can find her spending quality time with her wife and two scruffy mutts.

Provides programmatic support, with an emphasis on the California Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII)

Melissa Nop (she/her/hers) has been with GCIR since 2017. She previously served as an administrative and marketing assistant for WorldClinic, a telemedicine company, and held positions at two award-winning Sonoma wineries. She has served on the board of Summer Search, a national youth development organization, for nearly two years, and formerly served as a fundraising co-chair.

Melissa earned a B.S. in Public Health, with a minor in International Studies, from Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire. As an undergraduate, she was chosen as a Benjamin E. Gilman Scholar to do health advocacy in Thailand. As a daughter of Cambodian refugees, she has always been passionate about addressing the challenges that immigrants and refugees face. While not working, she enjoys traveling, sampling the newest restaurants, wine tasting, and spending time with her loved ones.

Daranee was GCIR’s founding president and served in that role for more than two decades before announcing last year that she would step down at the end of 2020. As senior advisor, she now works closely with her successor, new GCIR president Marissa Tirona, to ensure a smooth transition and successful handoff. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Daranee has played a variety of leadership roles to advance justice and equity for marginalized communities. As president of GCIR, she drove GCIR’s growth into a national organization that catalyzed and leveraged hundreds of millions in philanthropic funding to protect the rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers—and cultivate their inclusion and contributions to our society.

Daranee's tenure as president was marked by a long list of accomplishments. She grew the organization from a few members and one part-time staff member to more than 130 members, a staff of 12, and an annual budget of $2.5 million. In the mid-2000s, she led the creation of GCIR’s groundbreaking Immigrant Integration Toolkit, which ultimately leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding over a decade. Daranee guided the launch of GCIR’s two major funder collaboratives, the California Immigrant Integration Initiative and Delivering on the Dream, which have become models for collaborative grantmaking. In her own backyard, she co-founded the UndocuFund for Fire Relief in Sonoma County, which raised over $7 million to help 4,000-plus undocumented immigrants and their families get back on their feet after the 2017 California fires. Under Daranee’s leadership, GCIR was named the Funders’ Affinity Group of the Year in 2017 by Inside Philanthropy for its key role in organizing funder pushback to anti-immigrant policies.

Prior to joining GCIR, Daranee served as interim executive director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and was a program officer at the Field Foundation of Illinois, Inc. and the Sophia Fund, one of the first women’s funds in the United States. She was also a consultant to foundations and nonprofits, helping them strengthen their grantmaking, programming, and communications. Earlier in her career, she worked with Southeast Asian refugee women, counseled abused and neglected children and their families, and mentored inner-city youth.

Daranee currently serves on the boards of directors of United Philanthropy Forum and Northern California Grantmakers. She has authored and co-authored numerous research reports on a range of immigration issues, as well as opinion pieces on the role of philanthropy in advancing the rights and inclusion of immigrants. She earned an M.A. in social policy from the University of Chicago and is a recipient of the 2014 Professional Development Fellowship from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation. When not immersed in immigration and philanthropy, she enjoys the great outdoors and traveling the world with her family.

Oversees our program work and shapes our programmatic strategy

Aryah Somers Landsberger (she/her/hers) has more than 18 years of experience with immigrant and refugee issues. She has been with GCIR since 2016. She previously served as director of advocacy at KIND, championing administrative and legislative protections for unaccompanied children. She was a co-author of UNHCR’s Children on the Run report on the root causes of migration of unaccompanied children from Central America and Mexico to the United States. As a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala, she researched safe repatriation and reintegration of children removed from the United States to Guatemala. Aryah has also represented hundreds of children in immigration removal proceedings as a children’s attorney in New York at The Door and in Arizona at the Florence Project. Internationally, she worked in Egypt and Ecuador, advocating for refugee children. She has published law journal articles, practice advisories, white papers, statements, and talking points.

Aryah earned a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University. She has served on the board of Houses on the Moon Theater Company for four years. Aryah loves spending time with her family, outdoor walks, and trying out all kinds of amazing cuisine.

Leads our development operations and guides our institutional messaging

Dianna Truong (she/her/hers) has been with GCIR since 2016. Prior to joining GCIR, she served as a business development communications strategist at Palantir Technologies, where she wrote proposals concerning a wide range of public interest issues, from global health to humanitarian crisis response. She previously worked as an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, one of the top law firms in the country, where she was actively involved in pro bono work. Most notably, she obtained legal permanent resident status for a domestic violence victim under the Violence Against Women Act, and advanced constitutional challenges in defense of clients facing deportation. Dianna also served on the board of directors of the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area and the OneJustice Advisory Board.

Dianna earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Political Science and English from the University of Southern California. In law school, she represented low-income clients as a student attorney with the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center and the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. As an undergraduate, she interned with the American Civil Liberties Union and co-founded the organization’s USC chapter. Dianna is a Bay Area native, a proud daughter of Vietnamese-Chinese immigrants, a book lover, and an avid foodie.