Founder/CEO
Marta Forero Wayne, Ph.D., Founder, and CEO of the Hawai’i Philanthropy Forum.
Dr. Marta Forero Wayne has over 25 years of experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating programs for underserved populations.
Her evaluations for The David and Lucile Packard Foundation include grants to the University of California, Los Angeles, to provide low-cost and greater financial access and services to the unbanked population of California, with an emphasis on gender gaps in financial inclusion for women.
Marta worked with La Fundación Por El País Que Queremos, in the area of sustainable urban mobility, bicycle network planning, civil outreach, and participation.
She has also evaluated grants to Hispanics in Philanthropy (“Building Transnational Bridges: Remittances, Diaspora, and Economic Opportunity in Mexico”).
Marta has collaborated with The Energy Foundation – China Policy Advisory Committee and assisted in developing evaluation strategies for their environmental programs in China.
Marta has also worked as Lead Evaluator for Federal Grants at the University of California, Irvine, and was the lead researcher for early literacy enrichment programs for underserved migrant families in California.
Her work in the World Bank included developing programs to improve the indigenous population’s health through access to reproductive health services and maternal/child health education in Guatemala.
For the Inter-American Development Bank, she developed an online system to monitor the progress of their productive initiatives in Latin America using qualitative and quantitative indicators to track project goals, activities, production, income, access to microcredit. Developed environmental indicators to track deforestation, groundwater overexploitation, soil degradation (erosion, salinization), desertification, and disposal of hazardous waste.
She has also conducted program evaluations in Africa. Her work in Kenya and Tanzania focused on policy efforts to address educational and gender inequalities.
She is the Founder and CEO of the Hawai‘i Philanthropy Forum, a small, local, women-led organization in Honolulu focused on finding solutions to issues related to climate change.
Marta received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in International Development, Cooperation, and Policy Analysis.
She also received her Master’s degree from Stanford, in Policy Analysis, Organization, and Leadership.
She received her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, with majors in Political Science and International Relations.
Recipient of the Fellowship Award from McREL (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) Aurora, Colorado, for applying social capital theories to the evaluation of educational, health, and economic development programs for vulnerable populations.
Recipient of the Leadership Award for experienced science evaluators from the Evaluation Institute at Howard University, Washington D.C., for innovative application of cultural and contextual factors in evaluation models for underserved populations.
Dr. Forero Wayne was a co-founder and former CEO of Hispanic-Net Southern California. Hispanic-Net is an organization where Hispanic entrepreneurs, executives, innovators, and investors come together to create market-leading companies.
As a former systems engineer at Octel Communications Corp, Lucent Technologies, and GetMedia, she recognizes the need for increased access and opportunities for women in the fields of science, math, technology, engineering, and the need for gender-sensitive responses to the effects of climate change.
Marta lives in Honolulu where she enjoys kayak paddling and hiking.
Advisory
Ellen LaPointe
President and CEO of Northern California Grantmakers, a nonprofit organization that leverages the power of association and community to catalyze the impact of philanthropy in Northern California. Ellen has held executive and senior management and consulting positions in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors throughout her career. She was V.P. of Strategic Partnerships at HopeLab, a health and technology private operating foundation founded by Board chair Pam Omidyar. She has also served as E.D. of a national AIDS organization and practiced law at a large
firm.
Elliott Donnelley II
Founder of the White Sand Investor Group, LP and of KD Venture Partners, LLC. Elliott is a member of the board of trustees of LGT Venture Philanthropy Foundation and LGT Impact Ventures, Vice Chairman of the board of The Philanthropy Workshop, a member of the Board of Synergos, the World Affairs Council of Northern California and of Stanford’s Global Project Center. He is a key advisor to the China Global Philanthropy Institute and the China Philanthropy Forum and is a member of the Global Philanthropist Circle.
Cole Wilbur
Past President and Trustee of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, past interim president and CEO of the California Wellness Foundation, past Executive Director and CEO of the Sierra Club Foundation, distinguished Grantmaker Award recipient from the Council on Foundations, past interim president and CEO of the Council on Foundations, boardmember of the Colorado College, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and Philanthropic Ventures Foundation
A.R. Siders
Assistant professor in the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration and the Department of Geography and a Core Faculty Member of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. Siders' research focuses on climate change adaptation governance, decision-making, and evaluation. Her recent projects have focused on managed retreat as an adaptation strategy and the social justice implications of coastal adaptation. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Siders combines approaches from hazards geography, law, digital humanities, and computational social science. She collaborates with consulting companies and non-profit organizations to integrate climate change adaptation into disaster risk reduction and resilience building. Her work spans several geographic regions, including infrastructure development in the Arctic, coastal defense in the United States, and urban resilience in Africa, Europe, and South-East Asia.
Siders previously served as a Presidential Management Fellow with the U.S. Navy, an associate director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, and an environmental fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment. She is a research fellow with the Earth Systems Governance Program, Florida Earth Foundation, Global Center for Climate Resilience, Climigration Network, Ocean Visions, and Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is originally from Duluth, Minnesota, and misses the cold.
Daniel (Dan) Burger
Dan is a founder and chair of the Charleston Resilience Network (CRN). CRN is a collaboration of public, private, and nonprofit organizations seeking to enhance the capacity of individuals, communities, businesses, and institutions within the Charleston, South Carolina region to survive, adapt, and grow despite episodic natural disasters and chronic climate hazards and disruptions. Inspired by opportunities to connect social and technical science with public policy, Dan is committed to developing solutions to complex resource management and inter-governmental planning challenges. Since 2004, Dan has served in senior leadership positions for the South Carolina coastal zone management program. Dan serves on numerous academic and policy advisory boards and was nominated to the National Academy of Sciences Resilient America Roundtable in 2018. Dan is also a member of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals and the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association. Before his work in South Carolina, Dan worked to advance environmental public policy and build the capacity of nonprofit organizations in Maryland. He is an honors graduate of McDaniel College and holds a Master of Public Administration in urban public affairs from the College of Charleston.
SAMUEL (SAM) JOHN LEMMO
Administrator, Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL), Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR)
Sam has a long and exciting record of public service with a strong focus on coastal conservation and climate change adaptation. He graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies. Sam has a master’s degree in Urban and Reginal Planning from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He spent two years in the Philippines with the U.S. Peace Corps where he provided training and agroforestry supplies to rural villages to promote agricultural diversity and environmental sustainability.
Sam’s accomplishments in the Hawaiian Islands include establishing and administering the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL) within the Department of Land and Natural Resources (2002-present). Sam’s passion is to protect our State’s conservation lands and resources, including our beautiful beaches, from inappropriate development, and from the ravages of sea-level rise.
His main contribution to conservation was the establishment of the Coastal Lands Program (CLP) within the OCCL and development of the Hawai’i Coastal Erosion Management Plan (COEMAP). Through COEMAP, he spearheaded statewide policies/practices and tools to conserve beaches and manage coastal erosion crises in all corners of the State. Sam is consistently fighting for legislation to strengthen State policies and regulations to reduce our vulnerability to sea level rise while protecting our beaches and public access to our beaches.
Sam’s current work is to help Hawai’i navigate the complexities of climate change adaptation. One of his major accomplishment in this area was the completion of the Hawai’i Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report-December 2017. This report is the most widely circulated reference guide on sea level vulnerability and adaptation in the State. Sam is currently working on the implementation of the report’s recommendations via a Hawai’i Climate Ready Program (HI-CRI). HI-CRI will enable us to identify vulnerable public infrastructure and at-risk communities and empower us to support appropriate climate change adaptation actions where they are most needed.
Sam believes we are here to make a difference.