BIOgraphy

Photo Credit: Anita Nowacka

Vanessa Priya Daniel has worked in social justice movements for 25 years as a labor and community organizer, writer, researcher, and funder. The heart of her work is connecting people and resources to achieve vibrant grassroots power and realize a multiracial, feminist democracy. 

She is the founder of Groundswell Fund (a 501c3), and Groundswell Action Fund (a 501c4), two leading funders of organizations led by women of color, and transgender people. Under her leadership, Groundswell moved over $100M to the field, centering intersectional grassroots organizing led by women of color and using a breakthrough philanthropic model that featured supermajorities of women of color movement leaders and former grassroots organizers on its staff and boards of directors. During her tenure, more than 40 foundations and over 2,000 individual donors relied on Groundswell to help them move resources to 200+ organizations at the grassroots.  Groundswell received the National Committee of Responsible Philanthropy’s “Impact Award” for smashing issue silos. 

Vanessa was featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy as one of 15 “Influencers” who are changing the non-profit world and named by Inside Philanthropy as one of their “Top 100 Most Powerful Players in Philanthropy”. She is the recipient of the 2022 Smith Medal from her alma mater Smith College, the 2017 National Network of Abortion Funds’ Abortion Action Vanguard Award, and the 2012 Gerbode Foundation Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among other publications and her first book, Unrig the Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone About Winning. is being published by Random House in 2025. 

Vanessa has organized homecare workers with SEIU; helped win a landmark living wage law with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy; and conducted research to support the organizing efforts of welfare mothers with the Applied Research Center (now Race Forward). Currently, through her firm, Vanessa Daniel Consulting, LLC, she offers strategic advising and coaching support to donors, foundations, grassroots organizations and organizational leaders. She serves on the boards of directors of the National LGBTQ Task Force and Common Counsel Foundation, and on the Advisory Board/Brain Trust of the Kataly Foundation’s Environmental Justice Resource Collective, and the Democracy Frontline Fund. She is currently a fellow with the Decolonizing Wealth Project. Vanessa and her co-parent Tricia, are mothers to two daughters, ages five and thirteen.