Mike Brickner, M.A., Wilmington, Delaware

President

Mike Brickner joined the ACLU of Delaware as its Executive Director in May 2020. Prior to this role, he served as Ohio State Director for All Voting is Local, a campaign that fights to protect and expand the right to vote for every American. He previously served as the Senior Policy Director at the ACLU of Ohio. During his 14-year tenure at the ACLU, Brickner has worked on a variety of critical civil liberties movements. These include conceiving campaigns to expand and protect the right to vote, ensuring LGBTQ people are free from discrimination, and promoting reforms to Ohio’s criminal justice system. These campaigns resulted in systemic reforms to enact online voter registration; ensure voters have access to evening and weekend early in-person voting opportunities; expand access to the ballot for people in the criminal justice system; combat contemporary debtors’ prisons; end burdensome pay-to-stay jail fees, fight the use of prisons for profit; and promote legislation that would prohibit discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Brickner earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Hiram College and a master’s degree from Cleveland State University’s Diversity Management Program.

Emily Lundgard, Cleveland, Ohio

Secretary

Emily Lundgard is the Vice President of Elevate Greater Akron, a regional economic development initiative. Emily’s passion for civic service and deep sense of community is at work every day in her role convening and supporting the leaders of Elevate as they advance a shared vision and set of priorities to bring prosperity to Greater Akron. With nearly two decades in public policy, strategic communications, and coalition building,

Emily served as a Legislative Service Commission Fellow in the Ohio Senate and Legislative Liaison at the Ohio Department of Development. Emily was Cuyahoga County’s first-ever Special Assistant for Regional Collaboration and then Director of Communications for two Cuyahoga County Executives. Most recently, Emily worked as Senior Program Director for Enterprise Community Partners, a national housing and community development intermediary, and as Director of Strategy for the George Gund Foundation. Emily is proudly Ohio born and raised. She is originally from Dayton, received both her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from the Ohio University, and now lives in Northeast Ohio. Outside of work, Emily serves on the Boards of Ohio City Incorporated, Environmental Health Watch, and Brush Foundation as well as coaches youth soccer.

Alison Looman, JD, New York, NY

Treasurer

Alison Looman serves Senior Investment Counsel for the Ford Foundation. She is responsible for all legal aspects of the foundation’s endowment and investment activity, as well as its impact investing work, in particular, its $1 billion mission-related investment endowment.

Prior to joining the foundation in 2019, Alison was an asset management associate at Sidley Austin LLP and then a director and senior legal counsel at Cambridge Associates, where she provided advice to endowment, foundation, pension plan, and high net worth discretionary accounts investing in private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, impact investments, and separately managed accounts.

Alison volunteers as a French language translator with Respond Crisis Translation, which provides interpretation and translation services for migrants, refugees, and others, in asylum petitions, court cases, and otherwise. She received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Sarah R. Kelley, M.S., Washington, DC

Sarah Kelley has over 15 years of experience working at the intersection of philanthropy, sustainability, and equity. She is the founder and Principal of Common Threads Consulting, working with philanthropic clients to provide strategy development, landscape analysis, and research, impact assessment, and facilitation. She also currently serves as Consultant and Project Director to Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) for a Special Project on integrated funding and impact investment strategies in sustainable fiber and textiles.

Previously, Sarah served for 10 years as Senior Program Officer at Island Foundation, where she directed the Environment portfolio and managed $1.2 million in annual grants. She also developed and implemented a program on equity, inclusion, and environmental justice for the foundation, including an innovative cohort-based model for grantee equity training. Prior to joining the foundation, Sarah was Executive Director of a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and expanding sustainable farming and access to local food.

Sarah is a Board member of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund, where she serves as Treasurer and has helped support the development of an innovative participatory grantmaking process. She was also selected as a 2018-19 RSF Social Finance Integrated Capital Fellow, focusing on integrating investment and grantmaking strategies to drive change. She holds an M.S. in Plant and Soil Sciences from the University of Massachusetts and a B.A. in History from Yale.

Ellen Liu, M.A., Washington, DC

Description Ellen Liu has over ten years of experience in grantmaking, organizational development, policy advocacy, and capacity building with health and social justice organizations. As the Ms. Foundation’s Director of Women’s Health, Ellen manages grantmaking and programmatic activities in the areas of reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice, and women and HIV/AIDS policy.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ellen was Program Officer for the Open Society Foundation’s Public Health Program, where she worked with health and human rights organizations in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and East and Southern Africa to strengthen national accountability mechanisms and advance policies and protections for people living with HIV/AIDS and TB, people with mental disabilities, ethnic minorities, and people in need of palliative care. While at OSF, Ellen helped launch new initiatives in monitoring health budgets to empower communities to hold governments accountable for their spending and supported activists to use innovative social media tools and strengthen their voices in shaping the policies that most affect them. Prior to OSF, Ellen worked as a consultant for a number of organizations including the UN World Food Program, Mount Sinai Medical Center, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. She currently serves on the steering committee of the Asian Women Giving Circle.here

Nikki Baszynski, Columbus, Ohio

Nikki Baszynski is a principal at The Wren Collective, a strategic advising firm that provides communication, policy, legislative, and campaign support to those working toward social change. Before joining Wren, Nikki served as a managing editor for The Appeal, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to exposing the harms of the U.S. criminal legal system. Prior to The Appeal, she was senior legal counsel at The Justice Collaborative, a national policy and media organization that worked in partnership with organizers, elected officials, academics, and reporters to help local communities understand the policies, practices, and people responsible for mass incarceration. Nikki began her legal career as the Greif Fellow in Juvenile Human Trafficking and then moved to the Ohio Public Defender’s Appeals and Postconviction Department. While at OPD, Nikki founded the office’s Racial Justice Initiative, an agency-based team focused on identifying racially discriminatory practices and collaborating across departments to address them. Her work in the initiative centered around the criminalization of poverty and municipal court reform. Nikki volunteers with the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, where she previously worked as a senior attorney, focusing on post-sentencing matters, including clemency, record sealing, parole, and registration. She is also an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, where she has taught courses on appellate advocacy, the reimagining of public safety, and wrongful convictions. She received her B.A. from Loyola University Chicago, and her J.D. from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

Cosette Strong, Columbus, Ohio

With more than 20 years of experience spanning education, equity-focused leadership development, organizational effectiveness and inclusive workplace strategy, Cosette Strong brings a rich and multifaceted background to her work. She holds an undergraduate degree from Ohio University and certification in Educational Intervention from The Ohio State University. Cosette began her career in public service, working closely with Deaf and Special Needs communities in Central Ohio and later transitioned into instructional and behavioral support roles within K-12 education. Her professional journey has included leadership roles in both the nonprofit and corporate sectors, including her tenure at PwC, where she deepened her expertise in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), executive coaching and strategic consulting. She is also a certified learning architect and executive coach, passionate about building equitable, human-centered organizations.

As the founder and Principal of Strong Consulting Group, Cosette leads a global boutique human capital firm that partners with clients to create inclusive, high-performing teams through strategy and activation, customized learning experiences and leadership coaching. Her work is rooted in deep listening, cultural competence and a belief that engaging storytelling can unlock potential for increased growth and deeper human connection. Cosette is driven by a lifelong commitment to advancing equity and justice, values that align deeply with the mission of the Brush Foundation. Based near Columbus, Ohio, she enjoys the culinary arts, theater, and gathering with her close-knit community of family and friends.

Shaina Muñoz, Cleveland, Ohio

Shaina Muñoz is a passionate social justice advocate and strategic advisor with over fifteen years of experience organizing across funders, community organizations, and activists. As a connector of people and ideas, she specializes in coalition-building, advocacy, and movement strategy to advance equity-centered initiatives that drive systemic change. She holds a Masters in Nonprofit Management and Community Practice Social Work from Case Western Reserve University and a Bachelors in Gender Studies and African-American Studies from Mount Holyoke College.

Most recently, she served as a Strategic Advisor with the State Infrastructure Project at the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, where she collaborated with Ohio-based and national reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations, funders, and other key stakeholders to shift culture and policy around abortion access. She has led multi-million dollar grantmaking efforts, guided strategic visioning, and co-created sustainable movement-building strategies. Beyond her professional role, she is actively engaged in community impact work, co-leading DEIB initiatives, strategic planning, and anti-racist education. Muñoz’s background in intersectional feminist theory, nonprofit management, grassroots organizing, and advocacy fuels her passion for fostering inclusive, liberatory change.

Alé Cárdenas Cerón, Columbus, Ohio