Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation is excited to welcome Cathy Garcia as our new Director, Program Initiatives and Learning, and Sam Teigen as Controller. Both Cathy and Sam join our organization with decades of experience across the social sector, and with a deep commitment to advancing our vision of a more just and equitable New Jersey.
Cathy comes to the Dodge Foundation after spending the last twelve years in the nonprofit and philanthropic field, leading community-focused initiatives and mobilizing resources for nonprofits across the country. She has worked to develop, lead, and launch initiatives to build towards justice and equity. In her role as Director, Program Initiatives and Learning, Cathy will lead a portfolio of strategy work, adding new capacity to our team and overseeing work around learning and impact, grantee capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and other strategic initiatives.
Prior to joining the Dodge Foundation, she was Director of Funder Community and Learning at Resilia where she led and scaled a national learning network of grant-makers leveraging technology to practice more responsive grantmaking. She’s held program leadership positions at Robin Hood overseeing community-led economic mobility projects in Baltimore, Northeast Pennsylvania, and Cook County, Illinois, helped shepherd $30 million for inclusive and equitable economic growth at the Prudential Foundation, and supported grantmaking in over 100 countries at Citi Foundation. Cathy started her career organizing communities on environmental justice issues with New York Public Interest Research Group and CUNY’s Center for Sustainable Energy.
Sam brings more than 25 years of nonprofit experience to his role as Controller of the Dodge Foundation. In this role, Sam works across the organization to research and implement financial policies, procedures, and infrastructure in support of our priorities.
Sam has served a variety of nonprofit organizations whose missions have focused on bioethics, the arts, and legal services. Prior to joining the Dodge Foundation, Sam spent 22 years at the Greenwall Foundation in a variety of roles including finance, grants administration, and general operations.
“Cathy and Sam are incredibly experienced professionals who will bring their deep knowledge and new insights to our organization as we work towards a just and equitable New Jersey,” says Tanuja Dehne, the Dodge Foundation’s President and CEO.
Cathy and Sam join the Dodge Foundation at a key moment for the organization. Over the last year, we implemented new program priorities focused on racial justice and we launched our first-ever Open Call for racial justice organizations. As we continue to evolve and live into our vision, we are excited to have new team members to focus on both supporting and building the capacity of our nonprofit partners, while also ensuring the Foundation is learning and growing in our own operations and work.