Unbound Philanthropy Adds New Staff
Unbound Philanthropy is a family foundation that funds work to protect the human rights of immigrants and refugees and to support their integration into receiving communities. The foundation has promoted two staff members to directorships while doubling its staff size in recent months.
Ted Wang was promoted to program director for Unbound Philanthropy’s United States Program and Will Somerville was named program director for the foundation’s United Kingdom Program.
Ted Wang joined the Unbound Philanthropy staff in 2011 as senior program officer for the United States Program. He had been a public policy consultant and, prior to that, worked for 14 years in the civil rights community, holding leadership positions at Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. Wang works out of Berkeley, California.
Will Somerville has focused on immigration policy and practice at the international and national levels throughout his career, and also is a senior policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute. His experience includes work as a policy advisor on migration issues in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit and as the policy lead on asylum and immigration at the Commission for Racial Equality. He is the author of the book Immigration under New Labour (Policy Press, 2007) and has written more than 60 articles, chapters and papers. Somerville is based in Bath in the West of England.
Carmen Maria Pérez, Unbound Philanthropy’s office manager since 2010, was promoted to the position of operations and administration officer. She had previously worked as assistant to a senior executive at an international sports marketing agency and as a personal representative for classical musicians.
New to the staff are Celeste Dado, grants manager; Adey Fisseha, program officer; Kate Brick, strategic opportunities analyst; Bernadette Crasto, executive assistant to the executive director; and Jake Lee, program officer.
Celeste Dado has 14 years of international and United States grants-management experience. For the past six years she served as the senior grants manager of the Arcus Foundation and previously as a grants administrator in the Peace and Social Justice Program of the Ford Foundation. She also has lengthy experience in finance and administration with museums, arts organizations, and the New York Public Library.
Adey Fisseha previously worked for ten years at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), most recently serving as a policy attorney and campaign coordinator. She worked on a wide range of federal policy issues at NILC, including, notably, as lead lawyer on a national advocacy campaign to pass the Dream Act. Fisseha was a compelling media spokesperson on the effort and led of a coalition of more than one hundred national faith, education, labor, and immigrant/civil rights groups on the campaign.
Jake Lee previously worked for six years as an attorney at Allen & Overy LLP of London, one of the world’s largest law firms. As manager of pro bono and community affairs for the firm, his work focused on the issues of human rights and equal access to justice. Lee developed strategies and built strategic partnerships for the firm’s social justice work, where he will continue to play a role. He has grantmaking experience with the Allen & Overy charitable foundations and the Baring Foundation and speaks French and Spanish.
Kate Brick previously served for two years as an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. Before that, Brick worked for three years as a program associate for the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is fluent in Spanish and is familiar with United States and European Union immigration and asylum law.
Bernadette Crasto worked for more than a decade with Dr. Olara Otunnu, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and president of the International Peace Institute.
Complete biographies of the entire Unbound Philanthropy staff may be found on the foundation’s website at UnboundPhilanthropy.org.
