Vice President of Programs, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)
Akilah Massey is Vice President of Programs at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), and an experienced program designer with almost two decades of experience creating educational programs for grantmakers. At GEO, she leads the development and design of programming that supports grantmakers in equity-driven transformation and change. Through conferences, cohorts, peer learning, and communities of practice, her work explores the personal, organizational, and systemic factors that influence and advance change.
Before joining GEO, she supported small-staffed grantmakers at Exponent Philanthropy. While there, she led the development and delivery of the CONNECT Conference, a philanthropy conference devoted to highlighting the connections that sustain philanthropic work. She also led Exponent Philanthropy’s technology content area, writing articles, blog posts and building programs on technology resources for grantmaking organizations. She further collaborated with grantmakers, colleague organizations, and nonprofit organizations to craft seminars, workshops, and online programming on a variety of philanthropy-related topics with the intent of improving the effectiveness of small-staffed grantmakers.
Her professional and volunteer experience includes work with cultural organizations, human services providers, and professional associations. Throughout her work, Akilah emphasizes curiosity, possibilities for collective advancement, and an analysis of the intersections between racialized and gendered oppression, justice, and power-building.