Pia Infante 
Senior Fellow, Trust-Based Philanthropy Project 

Pia believes we have the collective imagination and power to redesign philanthropy to center the people we serve. Philippine-born, California-grown, and queer, oldest daughter in an immigrant family, Pia navigates difference to broker connection. Pia brings her chops as a former high school teacher, organizational development consultant, and nonprofit manager to her work. Pia is a nationally recognized advocate for trust-based philanthropy and radically embodied leadership. She is a member of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project steering committee, serves as board chair for MediaJustice.org and is a board member of Vera List Center, New School University. She holds a M.A. in Education from the New School for Social Research, and a B.A. in Rhetoric from The University of California at Berkeley. Pia is a proud long-time resident of Oakland, CA.  Follow her @PiaVision.

Kaci Y. Patterson, MBA

Founder & Chief Architect, Social Good Solutions
Founder & Chief Architect, Black Equity Collective

Social Good Solutions (SGS) is a Black woman owned and operated consulting firm. Using a racial justice lens, we work with philanthropic institutions, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and institutions of higher education to design, operationalize and manage strategic initiatives from concept to implementation.

Q&A Facilitator

Deepika Andavarapu, AICP, PhD  
Philanos Board Member
Impact 100 Cincinnati

“Trust Based Philanthropy is about partnership. As a funder, I want to partner with the nonprofit on the ground and provide them the support they need, to fight the complex issues they are dealing with on a daily basis.”

Deepika is the founder and CEO of DEEP Consultants. Dr. Andavarapu, who uses she/her pronouns, is an urban planning scholar, community researcher, and evaluator working with government, nonprofits, and other philanthropic organizations. Dr. Andavarapu was the first DEI committee chair for Impact 100 Cincinnati. In that role, she led the development of Impact 100s DEI strategic plan. Under her leadership, the organization's diversity more than doubled in two years; today, the organization is working towards incorporating an equity lens into its grant-making process. In 2020, the 400+ members voted DEI as the top priority for the organization.

Awards Celebration

We give awards because it’s fun to celebrate the impact of our philanthropy and the women in our network who we know and respect and inspire us.  We also give them because it’s a meaningful way to elevate the voices, stories, and important work being done in the field by these women and their affiliates on behalf of us all, and in support of the growing collective giving movement.

Spotlight Awards

Our opportunity to highlight how Philanos affiliates are strengthening the collective giving movement through grantmaking. The Spotlight Awards celebrate women-powered philanthropic efforts, highlighting grants that demonstrate the multiplier effect of impact investing in community nonprofits. These awards recognize grants that have done one or more of these: transformed the grantee, transformed the affiliate itself, and/or transformed the community. Today we admire and celebrate these impactful grants that represent a slice of the grantmaking being done throughout the country. Three recipients were selected from the 15 nominations received this year,  Each awardee or affiliate, will receive $500 to be used to support the affiliate or it can be passed through to the grantee. Additionally, the affiliates honored will receive national exposure on all Philanos communication platforms. See our 2022 recipients below and past recipients here. 

Watch our Spotlight Awards celebration for the details on each affiliate's grantee. 

"Philanos affiliates reach deep into their respective communities to address national pressing issues with local solutions. Our 2022 Spotlight nominations by Philanos affiliates throughout the country each highlighted the pressing needs of foster youth, families, and single parents to have a safe place to live and to build economic security.” Ellan Bernstein, Philanos 2022 Spotlight Chair and Board Secretary, Member, Impact 100 Philadelphia.

The Willoughby Award

The Willoughby Award reflects Colleen Willoughby’s life-long commitment to women’s civic and philanthropic leadership. Our award is designed to recognize a woman who uses her leadership to challenge the status quo in her community, as Colleen did in 1995, when she created a new model of philanthropy – collective giving grantmaking. One of the inequities at that time meant women had yet to realize their full potential as community leaders, despite having new economic power as earners. Twenty-seven years later, we are grateful so many women step up as change makers in philanthropy, this time to address the racial, education and economic systemic inequities of our time. View our three finalists.

Colleen's virtual award presentation:

"It’s my great personal pleasure to present this award to Katherine Fulton of Impact 100 Sonoma.

While Katherine, your selection was made by the committee and is a pleasant surprise to me, I must add that we met in the early days of my work at Washington Women’s Foundation. It is an honor to acknowledge your work with this award because your leadership has been an inspiration to me for more than 20 years.   I’m holding up her book “Looking Out For the Future” so you can see the dog-eared corners of the pages and all my underlining. It’s a treasured volume in my library and Laura tells me she has a copy which I gave her in 2008. I hope all of you listening now find as much inspiration in your work and actions as I do.  

Congratulations to you, Katherine!" 

Watch our Willoughby Award Celebration!

Articles:

Philanthropist Katherine Fulton Honored With National Award Sonoma Index-Tribune, November 2, 2022.

Sonoma Valley Women Honored with National Philanthropy Award Santa Rosa Democrat, November 2, 2022.

Sonoma Valley Philanthropist Wins National Award Sonoma Sun, October 26, 2022.