Melanie Allen

Melanie (she/her) is motivated by the dire need to have a more equitable world, and channels this motivation through supporting efforts that rebuild institutions and create new means for marginalized communities to have access to finance, power, and decision making.

Melanie recently joined as a community board of trustee for the foundation. She currently works as the Program Director of Black Farmer Fund–a community governed investment fund that will direct non-extractive capital and financial education resources to Black farmers, land stewards and food business entrepreneurs in New York. She previously worked with Decolonizing Wealth Project where she managed grantmaking for a Native American COVID-19 Community Response Fund, and Liberated Capital–a fund for BIPOC led organizations doing racial justice and movement building work. Melanie has worked on the intersection of climate change, agriculture and human rights with organizations like Conservation International (CI), Amnesty International, and Les Jardins Chez Marlene. Her work with the Dedicated Grant Mechanism at CI concentrated on supporting indigenous peoples and local communities to gain direct access to climate finance and actively participate in the international climate policy realm. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Benin 2018-2019 studying how local farming communities were adapting to climate change and using migration as a means to seek more secure livelihoods.

She studied Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Delaware and completed her Masters in Sustainable International Development at Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Melanie is a 2015 Robert & Patricia Switzer Fellow, 2018 Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace and sits on the Advisory Board for the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at UC Santa Cruz.