Impact Fund Staff Profiles

Lindsay Nako - Executive Director

Lindsay represents individuals and classes of people who have experienced workplace discrimination, unlawful denial of public benefits, and other civil rights violations. She currently serves as class counsel in U.S. ex rel. Terry v. Wasatch Advantage Group, LLC, representing housing voucher recipients at specific properties in California and the West Coast.  Before becoming Executive Director in 2024, Lindsay served as the Impact Fund’s Director of Litigation and Training for eight years.

Lindsay is a frequent speaker on issues related to class actions, implicit bias, and legal writing and other practical litigation skills.  She is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley and Berkeley Law.  Before joining the Impact Fund, Lindsay was a shareholder at a private plaintiff-side law firm in Oakland. She also has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Berkeley Law and currently serves as a mediator with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Program for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Teddy Basham-Witherington - Deputy Director

Teddy joined the Impact Fund team in October 2014, with an extensive background in non-profit management and marketing - most recently as Chief Marketing Officer at Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. He served as the Executive Director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (2007–2012), as Executive Director of San Francisco LGBT Pride (1997–2006), and as the Festival Producer of the London LGBT Pride Festival (1992-1997).

He has served on the board of a number of non-profit organizations, including the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau (2000-2003).

He started his professional life as a paralegal at the law firms of Taylor Wessing (1980-1989) and Hamlins (1989-1992) in London, England, specializing in trusts and charities. While at Taylor Wessing he earned the firm a Legal 500 recommendation for Court of Protection work. 

Teddy’s culinary skills are renowned and he was the food writer at San Francisco Bay Times (2005-2012).

Camella (Camie) Bontaites - Grant Writer

Camie is a writer and editor, contracting with organizations that work toward a more inclusive, equitable, collaborative future. She was the Grants Manager and Creative Content Producer at Chabot Space & Science Center, Oakland, CA, where she led an academic research center, created content for major exhibitions, piloted an artist in residence program, and even voiced the role of the Moon in a planetarium show. She has a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science, which informs the multimedia lectures and projects she develops to engage communities in exploring belief systems and perspectives. She lives in Berkeley, surrounded by 2 children, a dog, a cat, 5 chickens, and thousands of bees. 

Anna Chau - Paralegal

Anna is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley where she studied political science and public policy. Anna became heavily involved in Asian American community organizing as a programming intern at the Asian Pacific American Student Development center and as fellowship chair for the Asian Pacific American Pre-Law Association. Anna is also an assistant program coordinator at the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Neighborhood Courts program, a community driven, restorative justice diversion program for first time offenders. Anna is passionate about restorative justice and understanding the impacts of law on society. She enjoys bouldering and cooking in her free time. 

Amy Daniewicz - Grant Program Director

Amy has dedicated her career to supporting nonprofits working to better their communities, through direct practice and philanthropy. While at the Impact Fund, Amy has helped to expand the portfolio of recoverable grants supporting impact litigation and to launch the Just Earth program for environmental justice.

Before joining the Impact Fund, Amy managed the grant portfolio supporting the Austin community at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. Prior to that, Amy worked as a communications director and social worker at several nonprofit organizations, including CASA, Communities in Schools, Planned Parenthood, and a program for Latina girls who would be the first in their families to attend college.

Amy received a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree in English from Trinity University. Amy has a wide variety of interests and has experience as an entrepreneur, blogger, writer, and editor. She received a coding education through a Grow with Google Challenge Scholarship and is currently studying the interdisciplinary field of wellness.

Meredith Dixon - Law Fellow

Meredith graduated from Berkeley Law in 2022, where she pursued a wide range of public interest work in healthcare, disability rights, and employment law. While at Berkeley, Meredith participated in the East Bay Community Law Center Health and Welfare Clinic and the Workers’ Rights Disability Law Clinic. She also served as Co-Editor in Chief of the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law and has externed in the chambers of the Honorable Jon S. Tigar and the Honorable Joseph C. Spero in the Northern District of California. During her 2L summer, she worked as a law clerk/intern at Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow. Meredith graduated from Furman University in 2018 with degrees in Music and Poverty Studies and worked as a music teacher prior to law school.

John Henry Frankel - Legal Communications Technologist

John Henry is the communications lead for the Notice Project initiative. Prior to joining the Impact Fund, John Henry worked in PR and content, writing Forbes articles, Wikipedia pages, LinkedIn blog posts, and technical press releases across multiple tech verticals as well as the music industry. 

John Henry has two history degrees, and his historical area of focus is the intersection of colonialism, gender, and the media in the 20th and 21st centuries. In his free time, he enjoys watching Nicolas Cage movies.

Eliza Gordon - Development & Executive Assistant

Eliza has a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health and a minor in Global Poverty and Practice from the University of California, Berkeley. In the past, she has done internships with the International Rescue Committee and Child Family Health International and was most recently the Assistant Manager at Timeless Coffee Roasters. In her free time, she enjoys camping, hiking, getting coffee, or relaxing at home with her cat.

Josh Kay - Grant Program Assistant

Josh joined the Impact Fund after receiving his degrees in Rhetoric and Society & the Environment from UC Berkeley in 2023.  While studying, he worked for The Green Initiative Fund, a student fee fund dedicated to improving the sustainability of the campus community.  He wrote an honors thesis focusing on legal- and extralegal dispossessions of indigenous communities of California during the transition from Mexican to American colonization, and spent many hours in the Bancroft Archives doing so.  Josh is particularly interested in the application of law to sustainable natural resource use, and the intersection of civil rights and environmental responsibilities. 

Ashley LaFranchi - Development Manager

Ashley began her career in non-profit development with a focus on social and environmental sustainability after attending the University of Nevada, Reno where she double majored in the areas of biology and natural resources (B.S., 2017). Prior to joining the Impact Fund in 2019, Ashley worked in a similar capacity at academic institutions and as a grant writer for non-profit organizations. Ashley’s favorite activities include exploring nature and spending time with her dogs.  

Alex Lara - Product Manager

Alex leads the development of Impact Fund's first access-to-justice product. He has experience developing robust product strategies, leading teams, and supporting complex business-to-business sales engagements. Dedicated to social impact, he also serves on the Board of Directors for the Foothill-De Anza Foundation. Prior to his role at Impact Fund, Alex served as a Product Marketing Manager at View, Inc., and honed his analytical skills as an Analyst at Colliers International. Alex earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Jocelyn Larkin - Of Counsel

Ms. Larkin joined the Impact Fund in 2000 and served as its Executive Director from 2010 until February 2024.  She is now Of Counsel to the organization with a focus on the Notice Project initiative.   

Ms. Larkin's practice has focused on complex employment discrimination and class action practice on behalf of plaintiffs. Ms. Larkin has served as class counsel in many major class actions, including Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., Parra v. Bashas’ Inc, Williams v. City of Antioch, and Stender v. Lucky Stores.  Ms. Larkin first developed the Impact Fund’s Class Action Training Institute and its annual Class Action Conference.  

Ms. Larkin has been a frequent speaker and author on issues concerning class actions, employment law, ethics, and civil rights.  Ms. Larkin is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and the UCLA School of Law.  

Sanjana Manjeshwar - Grant Program Associate

Sanjana graduated from UC Berkeley in 2023 with a double major in Legal Studies and Sociology. She was an intern at the Impact Fund during her senior year of college, and is excited to be back as a full-time staff member. At Berkeley, Sanjana was a research assistant at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, the Othering & Belonging Institute, and Berkeley Law’s Civil Justice Research Initiative.

Sanjana is especially interested in workers’ rights and access to justice, and her senior honors thesis examined how workers understand forced arbitration agreements and class action waivers in employment contracts. She also formerly interned at the Oakland Mayor’s Office, volunteered with the California Domestic Workers Coalition, and was an editor at the Berkeley Political Review. In her free time, she enjoys reading fiction and hiking through the hills of Berkeley.

Erin Nunn - HR/Finance Manager

Erin Nunn has worked 25 years in non-profit administration.  She received her BA in Dance from Long Beach State and shortly after moved back to the Bay Area to build a life and career where dance and the performing arts were flourishing. She began as the office manager for Nancy Quinn and Associates, an arts administration and fundraising office where she supported grant submissions creating and editing project budgets as well as maintaining the books for the office.  While performing with several dance artist, she subsequently worked as the bookkeeper and later as the Finance Director for the San Francisco Dance Center, home of Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet. That position led way to her developing a small business working to establish, clean and/or maintain financial records for non-profits and other small business entities.  The list includes social justice groups fighting for workers’ rights, environmental protections, and reproductive rights as well as other dance companies, performance venues, a landscape architecture firm contracting with several bay area cities, a soil remediation contractor with offices in both Oakland and Santa Ana, a speech and behavior therapy organization contracting with school districts throughout California and sole proprietors who offered legal, psychotherapy, and photography services.  Erin is honored to serve as a staff member at the Impact Fund and in her spare time enjoys finding new and exciting ways to get in some physical movement, cooking, camping and generally spending time outdoors.

Fawn Rajbhandari-Korr - Training Director and Senior Counsel

Fawn litigates impact cases across multiple practice areas to address systemic problems facing marginalized communities.  She is also an experienced trial attorney with expertise in domestic violence and family law.  She centers anti-racist and feminist lawyering in all her work.

Fawn currently serves as counsel in Farrell v. Department of Defense (N.D. Cal.), Erdmann-Browning v. Vilsack (N.D. Cal.), and U.S. ex rel. Terry v. Wasatch Advantage Group, LLC (E.D. Cal.).  Fawn also leads the Impact Fund’s attorney training program, including the organization’s annual Class Action Conference, Summer Online Training Series, and three-day Class Action Training Institute.

Before joining Impact Fund, Fawn worked in Bay Area Legal Aid’s impact litigation unit as senior litigation counsel and in its domestic violence unit as a trial attorney.  Fawn was responsible for overseeing BayLegal’s attorneys’ fees practice and the supervision of staff attorneys working on impact cases.  Fawn was a community organizer prior to law school where she worked to advance women’s rights in occupied territories.

Fawn is licensed in Hawaiʻi and California.

Lori Rifkin - Litigation Director

Lori Rifkin leads the Impact Fund’s litigation practice. Lori has two decades of experience litigating impact civil rights cases as an attorney in the public and private sectors.  She has led complex class action and individual lawsuits to success through all phases of pre-trial, trial, and appellate work.  

Prior to joining the Impact Fund as Litigation Director in 2024, Lori ran Rifkin Law Office, a civil rights practice based in Oakland, California.  She is a former partner of the civil rights law firm Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP and also worked as a Senior Trial Attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).  Lori also advised the DOJ as part of the Civil Rights Division’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex (LGBTI) Workgroup.

Lauren Thomsen - HR/Finance Associate

Lauren has 25 years of accounting experience in various roles and industries. She has completed coursework in Accounting, Economics, Business, and Computer Science. Her career includes working as a Bookkeeper for a Bay Area Trial Consulting Firm, where her interest in the legal field started. Now, she directs her skills and experience to non-profit organizations whose work she is passionate about. For fun, Lauren enjoys British detective shows, action movies, documentaries, swimming, reading, and going out to brunch. She has a grown daughter and a senior dog that she adores spending time with.