SDSN Youth’s Fundraising team is key to ensuring the future sustainability and growth of SDSN Youth.
Jeff Prost-Greene has 10 years of experience founding and working with social enterprises and industry at the intersection of sustainable and community development, food systems, and impact investment, both in the US and South Africa. His work has focused on integrating social innovation into public policy decision-making and building a more resilient social enterprise industry by developing innovative fund structures to launch and scale solutions to build a more resilient social enterprise sector and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This work shapes his fundamental belief that the public and private sectors can and should be a vehicle for addressing systemic and deeply rooted social, environmental and economic issues. His dedication and leadership in the social impact sector has been recognized by Forbes 30 under 30, the Halcyon Incubator, Unreasonable Institute, Global Good Fund, and New Leaders Council. Jeff currently serves as the Fundraising and Growth project lead SDSN Youth. Here, he leads strategic planning and implementation, working towards scaling SDSN Youth’s organizational development and impact. He is responsible for overseeing SDSN Youth's seed grant fund, a new initiative to award young leaders with seed grants to scale their entrepreneurial and educational initiatives that are accelerating solutions towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Chelsea serves as a Partner at NOVA Impact and as the President of her family foundation, the Keep Families Giving Foundation. Chelsea has led and worked in multiple fundraising and investment initiatives: a global Giving Tuesday campaign with 1 Million next gen acts of generosity; raising over $800,000; and raising 21 million dollars raised for more than 750 nonprofit organizations. Chelsea is passionate about inspiring next gen movement leaders. In building a successful career in philanthropy and deploying capital for good, Chelsea enjoys enabling next gens seek more thoughtfully investments in impact.
Abrar Shahriyar Mridha is a transformation driven project management professional and data science enthusiast operating at the intersection between the private and development sector with 7 years of distinguished track record in facilitating organizations to generate new ideas, commercialize innovation and narrate them into stories for systematic impact. Currently pursuing the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification, Abrar specializes in designing and implementing private sector-focused interventions, building strategic partnerships, raising impact investment funds, empowering youths & incubating new business. At Oxfam Bangladesh, he focuses on developing entrepreneurs and SMEs through impact investment and various development sector projects for social and sustainable impact. He is a keen human-centred design practitioner, exploring new approaches to tackle challenges, designing solutions based on learning from experiments, developing positive relationships and assessing pathways to scale multiple projects. Furthermore, Abrar is a Talent in the Future Leaders InnovAsian Programme (FLIP) at Code for Asia in Singapore, where the major focus is to build local communities through learning and technology and facilitate digital solutions through startups in Asia. He currently serves as the Fundraising and Growth Project Officer at SDSN Youth. His work is to ensure future sustainability and growth of SDSN Youth through seeking funding opportunities, implementing fundraising strategy, building collaborative partnerships, aligning SDSN Youth programs and networks to generate practical solutions for sustainable development through implementation of SDGs at local, national, and global scales. Abrar has received recognition and certifications in private sectors, the international development community, social enterprise and impact investment network around the globe.
Eric is an enthusiastic activist, development practitioner with a focus on social impact. He has a modest track record in project management, sustainable development, youth engagement and a special interest in new funding mechanisms to support countries mobilize and allocate resources needed to attain the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to joining SDSN Youth as the Project Officer with the Growth and Fundraising team, He served as the Senior Advisor for Africa where he initiated its regional strategy and worked with Network coordinators to transition to the new organizational reforms. He was also selected to be part of the inaugural ‘UNFPA Young Innovators Fellowship Programme’ to work on innovative fundraising strategies and resource mobilization mostly drafting feasibility studies and other knowledge management aspects on blended finance to support the UNFPA Country office in Rwanda to raise non-core funds to run its programs and operations. He enjoys writing in his free time, and is always fascinated by reading autobiographies and New York Times Best Sellers.
Jules Graham is a Project Management Professional (PMP) with years of experience in successfully initiating and executing projects. He is a Community Guided Project Creator on Coursera, where he launched a course titled Project Selection with Google Sheets. Jules is a firm believer in the Kaizen philosophy of continuous learning and improvement. As such, the Sustainable Development Goal which aligns most with his heart is “Quality Education.” A past national swimmer for Trinidad and Tobago, he has travelled to many countries competing and networking with other swimmers and officials from different backgrounds. Although retired from competitive swimming since 2011, he remains active and plans to return to the competition arena for the FINA World Masters Championships in Doha, Qatar 2023. As Lead Research Project Officer with the Global Fundraising & Growth team at SDSN Youth, Jules aims to utilize his experience and knowledge to help the organization achieve all its goals and objectives.
Charvie Mishra is an Operations and Supply Chain Manager in the Fashion Retail Industry, she believes that fashion can be a force of social and environmental good. A strong advocate of SDG 12 i.e. responsible production and consumption, circularity and gender equality, she enjoys dabbling in circular business models and supply chain strategies. She is a member of The Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion, where she is currently working with a global team towards building actionable solutions to make fashion sustainable. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Apparel Production at the National Institute of Fashion Technology and is currently pursuing an MBA in Sustainability Management at The Energy and Resources Institute, India. She has had vast experience in entrepreneurship by co-founding the Student Networking Festival, leading a team of 30 students to create and organise networking events pan-India and an NGO named TheGoodTalkFactory, working towards social wellbeing and mental health awareness. She was also a Core Team Member of a start-up fashion brand by the Aditya Birla Group. She has previously worked as an Enumerator at UNESCO Youth as Researcher. Charvie strongly believes in the youth's power to make a change and the SDSN Youth’s vision and mission, she contributes towards them as a Lead Research Project Officer in the Global Growth and Fundraising team. In her free time, she enjoys reading fiction novels, manga, comics, and watching anime
Ja Ryeung Kim is an ambitious and creative environmentalist who strongly believes in the cathartic power of education, ideas, and communication. She is an expert at synthesizing and consolidating these three agents of change to create sustainable, innovative, and equal pathways of solutions. It was in Bangkok, Thailand, where she was raised and first discovered her passion to help those in vulnerable communities affected by the environment. She organized creative fundraising events in her school and local community and created awareness through posts on Facebook and chatrooms in MSN Messenger for events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the 2011 Great Thailand Flood. Ja Ryeung recently concluded her undergraduate studies in International Development during which she won the National Model United Nations, involved herself with the works of several NGOs, and completed the International Environment Expert Training Program hosted by the Korean Ministry of Environment. In her most recent internship at the UNESCO Natural Sciences sector, in Beijing, China, she spearheaded projects in sustainable consumption and production, promoted biodiversity, and prepared for COP 15. As Lead Research Project Officer, besides equipping the organization with her capabilities of research, entrepreneurial ideas, and liaising skills, Ja Ryeung also envisions to be a co-beneficiary of a multidisciplinary, collaborative team that builds each other up in all areas. Currently, in addition to her role at SDSN Youth, she is actively partaking in capacity building and organizing the upcoming COY16 (the UN Climate Change Conference of Youth).
Azeem has always been passionate about development and impact. He has recently completed his undergraduate degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce, India. During his college, he has taken multiple initiatives to solve the pressing problems of the development world. He led a team of 70 to solve the water crises of India. Project Asbah, the project that he led, aimed at solving the issues related to accessibility, availability and affordability of clean drinking water in urban slums and rural households. He and his team worked with 13 communities, across 3 states of India; impacted around 35,000 lives; and empowered 32 women entrepreneurs. The project was applauded by the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Drinking water and sanitation of India. He represented his project on a global stage at World Water Race Impact Competition in California in 2019 - the project won the competition out of 120+ global projects in water and sanitation and was awarded the title of The Best Water Project in the world. Continuing his passion for the development space, he worked with leading consulting firms and the government of India on multiple development projects. Currently, he is working with the Central Square Foundation that works in the education sector. As a Lead Research Project Officer with the Global Fundraising & Growth team, Azeem is looking forward to applying his learnings at a global level and work in collaboration with the brightest minds across the globe.
Ajit Bhatta is a social entrepreneur who co-founded the startup Samsara Creation. He holds an MA in Development Studies from Kathmandu University. He has more than 5 years of experience working in the development sector, mostly on project planning, management and project coordination. His work is mostly inclined towards community-driven projects and activities. He has worked as a Director of Development for 2 years at a US-based non-profit named Reinstalling Hope. He has nearly 2 years of experience in the field of social entrepreneurship where he has focused on Marketing and Development. He currently serves as a Lead Research Project Officer at UN SDSN Youth. He joined UN SDSN Youth in 2018 as an SDG Coordinator. He has been serving in various capacities till date at UN SDSN Youth. Furthermore, he was one of the first recipients of the SDG Students Program Certificate at Vatican City, during the Vatican Youth Symposium in 2019. He has led successful events like Move Humanity, which was the first Move Humanity Event in Nepal and the second in South Asia.
Aforfem Ngozi Afobunor is a result-oriented communications strategist talented at public speaking and presentation development. She holds a Master of Science degree in Marketing from the University of Lagos, Akoka Nigeria. Her experience of haven been raised in a patriarchal society shaped her values, and as a woman who upholds feminist values and holds the social marketing school of thought with the highest regard, she is very impassioned about social inclusion and justice; spending the past 15 years volunteering and collaborating with non-profit organizations in different capacities across the world while also advocating for the rights of women and girls by providing non-profit organizations with communications and solutions that are creating a culture shift. As a result of her impact, she was one of the select few media personalities from Nigeria who was invited to the maiden edition of Merck More than a Mother media merit awards held in Nairobi Kenya in 2018, she was also an accredited media for the Women Deliver Conference 2019, which was held in Vancouver, Canada. As part of her contribution to the ENDSARS Movement, she highlighted the struggle of Nigerian youths when she sat with One TV Africa, Namibia in 2020 to report the experiences faced by its young people. Aforfem is currently resident in Canada and serves as a Lead Research Project Office with the Global Fundraising & Growth team. As a Visionaire, she is dedicated to achieving Goal 5 of the UN sustainable development goals through multi-stakeholder collaborations and the platforms she creates to advance gender equality. She is also an Associate Member of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria, a Merck Foundation Alumni Germany, and a Doctoral Student at the University of Lagos.
Hatice Zehra Doğru is an electric-electronic engineer who encourages women to canalize in STEM and believes that engineers should engage with global challenges in the decision-making process more because of their systemic problem-solving approaches. In light of this perspective, since her university years, she has actively participated in multinational voluntary actions in regards to SDGs and their implementation of local to global practice. As a freshman she founded Village School Project in Kayseri, Turkey to acknowledge village students about the current development in science and technology by delivering them google cardboards and other training resources. Following year she started specially designed Kayseri Electric Electronic Day to bridge relationships between industry, academia, and students to provide a sustainable technology community. Her involvement as university student council president, Robert Bosch SivilLab Refugee's Cultural Integration volunteer, and SDSN Youth SDG Coordinator helped her to become one of the 90 G20 Young Global Changers around the world out of 3500+ applicants. As YGC she participated in global decision making on “G20 Support for SDGs and Development Cooperation” and “Multilateralism and Global Governance” areas to represent youth perspectives in The World Policy Forums. Zehra's technical experiences in multi sectors and social activism help her to have an extended vision for detecting sustainability gaps in technology labor. As Lead Research Project Officer, she aims to channel her technical side to point new SDG-related research opportunities in the academy and industry.