A heartfelt thanks

On October 31st, the Woods Fund team will say goodbye to our dear friend and team member, Alejandra Ibañez.

Alejandra has been a part of our team for the past six years. Alejandra’s wealth of lived and professional experience provided her incredible insight into the challenges and opportunities facing the community organizations within the foundation’s community organizing and immigrant and workers’ rights grantee portfolio. She was incredibly dedicated to the grantee partners in her portfolio by tirelessly identifying resources and opportunities for their growth within the philanthropic sector. Her experience as a nonprofit leader along with her experience developing organizational capacity programs in the philanthropic sector informed her leadership and facilitation of the foundation’s Capacity Building Initiative for emerging community organizations and the Cultivate: Women of Color leadership program that centers emerging women of color leaders, as well as additional capacity initiatives meeting the needs of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) led organizations throughout her tenure at the foundation.

Alejandra was always dedicated to bringing her learning and insights to the field of philanthropy. As a member of numerous funder collaboratives and affinity groups, she leveraged her insights on national, state, and regional immigrant and workers’ rights policies and practices that could impact the local philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. Her insights on national trends and practices, along with her commitment to advocacy on behalf of communities most impacted by structural racism led to numerous philanthropic advocacy efforts including the facilitation of Chicago philanthropic advocacy effort against the Trump administration’s public charge overhaul deterring immigrants from receiving safety-net aid like food stamps, health insurance, or housing assistance. As we all know, her dedication to the community organizing and advocacy sector has been tremendous. 

Thank you, Alejandra, for all that you have done for the Woods Fund, for our grantee partners, for philanthropy, and for the city of Chicago. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.