Advisory Board Treasurer / Independent Consultant

Ethan Frey, Independent Consultant (Treasurer)
Ethan Frey got his start in political and labor organizing before working at the Ford Foundation for ten years on its state and local racial and economic justice grant-making program. He concluded his tenure at the Foundation in March 2023. Now, he is focused on leveraging new federal investments to drive power-shifting policy campaigns in Florida and the Gulf South region. He is a Senior Consultant with Organizing Resilience and a Visiting Fellow at the Florida Policy Institute. 

As a Ford Foundation program officer, Ethan designed and led a unique cross-departmental funding approach that combined unrestricted five-year funding with dedicated resources for collective action campaigns in states across the country. This included support for boosting social investment (Invest in Our New York and Fund Excluded Workers campaigns) and restoring rights to immigrants, returning citizens, and low-income communities (driver’s licenses for all and rights restoration campaigns). Ethan oversaw $45.6 million in grant-making in 2022, the last full year he served as Program Officer.

Previously, Ethan worked in Pennsylvania and Ohio on the 2008 and 2012 campaigns to elect President Obama. He also worked to unionize low-wage workers in Miami, Florida, as an organizer for the international trade union Unite Here, which represents food service, hotel, and gaming employees. His first job in New York before joining the Ford Foundation was with Project Renewal, Inc., a nonprofit social service provider, where he worked to protect public benefits for low-income New Yorkers as a non-attorney civil legal advocate.  

Ethan is originally from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, in 2010. He serves on the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund and Color of Change PAC Boards. He and his partner, James, are foster parents. They live in Gainesville, Florida.