Our Staff

Joanne leads the organization in its various efforts to provide leadership, education and advocacy for Colorado’s philanthropic sector. Before transitioning to her role at Philanthropy Colorado, Joanne spent much of her career in journalism with news agencies, magazines and daily newspapers in Denver, Washington, DC, New York City and Chicago, working to inform the public about a wide range of subjects including Wall Street, Congress, high technology and the social profit sector. Joanne brings other experience to Philanthropy Colorado including several years working for a management consultancy on the Innovation team that planned and hosted CEO summits and educational seminars for diverse groups of executives.

Joanne has been a board member of the Washington-based United Philanthropy Forum, a national network of philanthropy-serving organizations, and the Colorado Society of Association Executives. She also serves on the local advisory board of Colorado Media Project and is the Board Chair of Food and Environment Reporting Network, an independent, non-partisan investigative news organization. She received a Master of Science degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and graduated with a B.A. in both Spanish and History from Wells College, where she now serves on the Board of Trustees.

Sylvia works directly with the team to enhance Philanthropy Colorado's efforts to implement its strategic equity roadmap. The work includes bringing an equity lens to all of its internal operations as well as its external programs and partnerships. In her decade at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Sylvia held various positions related to its health equity, grantmaking and community relations work. She co-led strategy and design of the Community Health Equity Team’s mission, vision and road map. She also led efforts to engage in a thoughtful examination of grantmaking strategies for inequitable practices with the aim of eliminating bias and disparities. She was selected as one of two Colorado representatives to participate in the creation of a national equity and grantmaking toolkit and served as the Colorado representative on the national equity team to provide insight for the development of a common grant application. 
In her time at Kaiser, she took part in Philanthropy Colorado programming and was a member of COFIE. After leaving Kaiser, Sylvia joined Susan B. Komen Colorado to serve as its Director of Mission Strategy. In that newly created role, she led the implementation of a mission pivot for the nonprofit organization and was a highly regarded member of the senior leadership team. 
She has a Master of Science in Health Services Administration and Management from Regis University. She graduated from University of Colorado Boulder with a Bachelors in Sociology and a Minor in African-American Studies. 

Sophie Stewart-Lopes joined our team in September 2021 in a new role managing operations and administration.  She spent the past six years at The Colorado Health Foundation in key executive admin roles and most recently as Associate Communications and Advocacy Officer on the team producing major events including the Health Symposium. She also co-chaired one of our member peer groups. 

Sophie graduated from Regis University with a degree in communications and a concentration in conflict management and leadership and is currently pursuing an applied project management certificate from UC Irvine. Born in France, she has a baccalaureate in economics and social sciences and speaks French as her first language. She will play a critical role in helping us carry out our internal and external equity work, as well as in streamlining and organizing our systems and policies.

Amy leads our Rural Funders Learning Network and focuses on increasing our statewide presence through our programs and some of our peer networks. She has more than 20 years of deep experience working in communities, with government, nonprofits and philanthropy. She joined Philanthropy Colorado from The Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, where she spent five-and-a-half years managing an eight-state funder network, the Intermountain West Funder Network. Her previous experience includes working with the head of school and board of directors at the American School of El Salvador, leading community impact efforts for the State of Colorado and nine counties to advance youth development through the OMNI Institute; and collaborative, community-based strategic planning and visioning initiatives for towns and cities throughout the United States through her work with the community services division of the National Civic League.

Amy was an El Pomar Fellow after being affiliated with the U.S. Peace Corps for four years as a volunteer in Kenya and one year as a trainer in community conservation and education. She received a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree from Colorado College (Major: Biology; Minor: Women's Studies) and a Master's degree with a Nonprofit concentration from University of Colorado Denver's Graduate School of Public Administration.

Eliane supports and manages our programs, services and member engagement. She is currently the staff lead for three of our peer groups: Human Resources/Operations, Executive Admin and the Information Technology Roundtable. She has worked at the Denver Children’s Museum, as a Montessori co-teacher, and as an English teacher in Hanoi, Vietnam. She has also been a pastry chef. She is bilingual (English/Spanish) and has an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree in Biology, Chemistry and English from Texas Tech University.

Here are some of the ways Eliane can help:

• Setting up a member account on the website
• Information about how to renew memberships
• Registering for programs and convenings
• Signing up for member peer groups
• Adding members to email distribution lists for news, programs
• Submitting member news links and resources
• Assistance with job postings