Grantmaking Principles Advisors

We are deeply grateful to the funders and civil society advisors who have volunteered their time and expertise to guide the development of the Human Rights Grantmaking Principles and support their dissemination.

This project is a collaboration with Ariadne and Gender Funders CoLab.

Bhanumathi Kalluri

Dhaatri
India

Bhanumathi Kalluri is executive director of Dhaatri Trust, a women-led NGO working on the intersections of environment justice and women’s rights in India. She has been involved in several community struggles for the past 30 years, particularly Indigenous People’s struggles for land and forest rights. Her work involves building women’s leadership in environment justice campaigns and amplifying the demands of women who are protecting our natural resources through their traditional knowledge practices. Her work in the region of Asia supports network building of Indigenous and rural women affected by extractives through the regional platform Women in Action on Mining in Asia (WAMA).

Claudia Bollwinkel

Dreilinden
Germany

Claudia believes that how we do something is just as important as what we do. She gained these and other insights in her encounters with queer feminists from different parts of the world. Claudia joined Dreilinden in 2019 as senior program advisor after working on the book “Transformative Philanthropy – Giving with Trust” together with Ise Bosch and Justus Eisfeld. Claudia was previously a member of the board of Prospera – International Network of Women’s Funds. As program manager of filia the German women’s fund, she helped shape the first girls’ advisory board in Germany, a model project for participatory grantmaking that gives young women a voice in decision making. She lives with her partner and two sons in northern Germany.

Kutlwano Magashula

The Other Foundation
Botswana/South Africa

Kutlwano Magashula, pronouns they/them, is the executive officer for program functions at The Other Foundation, a community foundation that advances equality and freedom in southern Africa with a particular focus on sexual orientation and gender identity. They are responsible for conceptualizing, leading, and implementing programs that give expression to the mission and purpose of the foundation across a wide range of content areas, including grantmaking. Kutlwano holds a Masters in Law in Sexual and Reproductive Rights from the University of Pretoria (Centre for Human Rights) and has previously worked as a sexual rights researcher with the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa. Kutlwano is passionate about building diverse and inclusive communities where the people who are directly affected by social injustices are at the forefront of building transformative change.  

Lesley Carson

Wellspring Philanthropic Fund
United States

Lesley Carson directs the International Human Rights Program at Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, where she has worked since 2007. She specializes in work on disability rights, human rights in the global economy, the protection of rights during conflict, and transitional justice. With over 25 years of experience in international public service, Lesley has field experience in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, as well as policy and grantmaking experience in the United States. Prior to Wellspring, she served as founding director of Forefront, an advocacy, training, and protection network of frontline human rights defenders from around the world. She has worked for Amnesty International USA, served on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee with Senator Patrick Leahy, and taught a course on the role of civil society in human rights at New York University. Lesley has a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA from Harvard.  She served on HRFN’s Steering Committee from 2010 – 2017.

Mariana Prandini Assis

Federal University of Goiás 
Margarida Alves Collective
Brazil

Mariana Prandini Assis is an assistant professor of political science at the Federal University of Goiás, in Brazil, and a co-founder of the Margarida Alves Collective for People’s Legal Aid, a group of feminist antiracist lawyers who harness the law to advance movements for social and reproductive justice. She holds an LLB from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and an MPhil and PhD in Politics from the New School for Social Research, in the US. For completing her graduate studies, she received fellowships from the Brazilian Ministry of Education, Fulbright, and the American Association for University Women. An interdisciplinary social scientist working at the intersection of law and politics, Mariana’s research areas include feminist political and legal theory, human rights, social movements, public policy, and informality in economies, institutions, and practices. Prior to joining the Federal University of Goiás, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Schulich Law School at Dalhousie University, in Canada, and a special advisor to the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Past Advisors

We are grateful to the following people who, in addition to our staffs, have contributed in various capacities to the development and promotion of the principles.

• Rahaf Abu Shahin, Gulf Center for Human Rights
• Monica Aleman, Ford Foundation
• Jenna Capeci, Consultant
• Juliette Decoster, Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation
• Tracey Gurd, American Jewish World Service
• Salima Namusobya, Initiative for Social and Economic Rights
• Valeria Scorza, Avina Fundación
• Yervand Shirinyan, Open Society Foundations
• Tulika Srivastava, Women’s Fund Asia
• Kristina Stockwood, Gulf Center for Human Rights
• Olivia Tchamba, TrustAfrica