When Rona Fernandez decided to go from bystander to racial justice activist, she jumped in with two feet and never looked back. Her first action was an all-day sit-in at the Chancellor Chang Lin-Tien’s office at UC Berkeley in 1993, to protest the defunding of the Ethnic Studies program. A writer, she was also an editor at the Filipino-American student literary journal maganda.

After college she co-founded the School of Unity and Liberation, a political education program for organizers. She worked as an action organizer and field organizer with Californians for Justice, where she learned the ropes of electoral work and the importance of grassroots organizing and fundraising to build power and make lasting change. At CFJ, she fundraised door-to-door, organized house parties and later became the organization’s development director.

On these different stops of her journey, Rona found that fundraising allowed her to marry organizing with her love of writing. But fundraising did not become her true calling until she attended the trainings of the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training in 2005, and was fortunate to find mentors in Kim Klein and Stephanie Roth. Rona joined the Klein & Roth Consulting family in 2009, and is proud to be part of this unique and powerful team.