Board Chairperson
Dr. Gail P. Myers, cultural anthropologist, earned her Doctorate in Anthropology from The Ohio State University, Masters in Applied Anthropology from Georgia State University and Bachelors in English from Florida State University. Dr. Myers is the founder of Farms to Grow, Inc. in Oakland, CA. She works with organizations locally, nationally, and internationally to improve the lives and future for socially disadvantaged and sustainable small farmers.
Board Treasurer
Fania E. Davis is a leading national voice on restorative justice. She is an author, educator, restorative justice practitioner and a long-time social justice activist and civil rights trial attorney with a PhD in Indigenous Knowledge. Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the social ferment of the civil rights era, the murder of two close childhood friends in the 1963 Sunday School bombing crystallized within Fania a passionate commitment to social transformation. For the next decades, she was active in the Civil Rights, Black liberation, women's, prisoners', peace, anti-racial violence and anti-apartheid movements. Studying with indigenous healers, particularly in Africa, catalyzed Fania’s search for a healing justice, ultimately leading her to bring restorative justice to Oakland, California. Founding Director of Restorative Justice of Oakland Youth (RJOY), her numerous honors include the Ubuntu award for service to humanity, the Dennis Maloney Award for excellence in Youth Restorative Justice, World Trust's Healing Justice award, the Tikkun (Repair the World) award, the Ella Baker Jo Baker Award, the Bioneers’ Changemaker Award, the LaFarge Social Justice Award, and the Ebony POWER 100 award. The Los Angeles Times named her a New Civil Rights Leader of the 21st Century.
Fania's latest publication is The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: Black Lives, Healing and U.S. Social Transformation.
Board Secretary
Don Shaffer served as President & CEO of RSF Social Finance in San Francisco for 10 years (2007-2017). During his tenure, over $300 million of senior loans and subordinated debt was deployed to 200+ social enterprises which catalyzed more than $4 billion in co-investment. Don managed a $8 million+ annual operating budget, 40+ staff, and trusted relationships with 1,600+ investor clients. During his time with RSF, Don and his team doubled the number of investors, total assets, and loan portfolio, creating one of the most significant impact-investor networks in the U.S.
In 2016, Don co-created the RSF Integrated Capital Institute to train the next generation of impact investors/financial advisors; 45+ leaders have participated and have committed an additional $550 million to social justice/racial equity impact investments in the first three years.
In 2013, Don co-created the Community Foundation Leaders Circle (with BALLE); 70+ CEOs of community foundations representing over $8 billion in Donor Advised Fund assets have been trained in impact investing/integrated capital. He co-managed PlayBIG for nine years (2009-2017) – peer-learning/impact investment training for over 200 ultra-high-net-worth individuals representing over $15 billion, including some of the most prominent families in the U.S. who are now leading the impact investing movement.
Under his direction, RSF was among the first sponsors of B Lab, SoCap, Toniic, the Global Impact Investing Network, Confluence Philanthropy, and many other organizations that have helped lead the early phases of the impact investing movement. Don served as a B Lab board member for 6 years, participating on the first Standards Advisory Council that developed the B Corp Impact Assessment; he also co-led a team that successfully passed pioneering ‘benefit corporation’ legislation in the State of California in 2011.
Don has a B.A. from Cornell University and served on board of advisors for Entrepreneurship-at-Cornell for five years as an alumnus.
Board Member
Jay Coen Gilbert is cofounder of B Lab, the nonprofit behind the global B Corporation movement. Its vision is to change the operating system, culture, and practice of business so that all companies compete to be best for the world, and as a result we all enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. Along with his B Lab cofounders, Jay is the recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the McNulty Prize at the Aspen Institute, where he is as a Henry Crown Fellow. To build the broad coalition necessary for economic system change, Jay serves as executive co-chair of Imperative 21, a business-led cross-sector coalition that believes the imperative of the 21st century is to redesign our economic system so its purpose is to create value for all stakeholders. Founding coalition partners include: B Lab, The B Team, CECP (Chief Executive for Corporate Purpose), The Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, Conscious Capitalism, and JUST Capital. In addition to serving on several boards, for more than a decade Jay has co-taught a class about the role of business in society at Westtown School, a 200 year old Quaker school. Prior to co-founding B Lab, despite having no game, Jay co-founded and sold AND 1, a $250M basketball footwear and apparel company. Prior, Jay worked for McKinsey & Co and several organizations in NYC’s public and nonprofit sectors. Jay grew up in New York City and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in East Asian Studies. Between AND 1 and B Lab, Jay enjoyed a sabbatical Down Under and in Monteverde, Costa Rica with his yogini wife Randi and two children, Dex and Ria, now 22 and 20. Jay and Randi live in Berwyn, PA.
Board Member
Natalie Baszile is the author of the novel, Queen Sugar, which is being adapted for a seventh television season by writer/director Ava DuVernay, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey. Queen Sugar was named one of the San Francisco Chronicles’ Best Books of 2014, was long-listed for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Her new non-fiction book, We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land & Legacy, which was selected as an Amazon Editor's "Best Non-Fiction Pick," and a Wall Street Journal "Favorite Book of the Year." We Are Each Other's Harvest is a collection of essays, poems, conversations, portraits, and first-person narratives to tell the story of Black people’s connection to the land from Emancipation to the present. Natalie's non-fiction work has appeared in National Geographic, The Bitter Southerner, O, The Oprah Magazine, and a number of anthologies. She lives in San Francisco.
Board Member
Konda Mason is a social entrepreneur, earth and social justice activist and Mindfulness teacher. She is the founder and President of Jubilee Justice, Inc, a nonprofit working to bring climate resilient farming and economic equity to BIPOC farmers in the rural South in order to restore and accelerate Black land ownership and stewardship and create thriving Black farming communities. Jubilee Justice also convenes deep transformational learning journeys with multi-racial participants exploring conversations at the intersection of Land, Race, Money & Spirit.
Konda is Co-Founder and founding CEO of Impact Hub Oakland (newly renamed Emerge Oakland), a beautiful co-working space that supports socially engaged entrepreneurs and changemakers. She is the Strategic Director of the Runway Project Oakland, a micro-lending fund for African American entrepreneurs, and the co-founder of the annual COCAP (Community Capital) conference in Oakland, with a focus on closing the racial wealth gap, restorative economics and a next economy just transition. Konda also leads Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trainings for organizations and businesses.
Along with her partner, actor Woody Harrleson, Konda opened the first home delivery service of organic food in the Los Angeles area and was responsible for negotiating the first organic food section in a major supermarket in the area. She is one of the co-founders and co-facilitator of The Well-Being In Business Lab - Oakland, a cross-sector initiative guiding prominent business owners, non-profit leaders and government officials to a deeper level of intention within themselves and their businesses.
An earth activist and volunteer for the Pachamama Alliance, Konda leads eco-tourism journeys to the Ecuadorian rainforest in order to wake people up to become active stewards of this vital earth ecosystem that is under threat. Konda teaches meditation and yoga, is a certified Permaculturist, and sits on the Board of Directors of Krista Tippett’s On Being, Lion’s Roar Publications, United Roots, and Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She is also a Trustee at Mills College in Oakland, CA.
Konda’s work is fueled by a passion to tirelessly work to help create a world that is environmentally regenerative, spiritually fulfilling, socially just and economically equitable. As a Buddhist practitioner and teacher, Konda understands all life on Earth as interconnected and longs for the day when humanity wakes up to this truth and builds a world based on interdependence, compassion and belonging...where all life is valued equally.