SFF welcomes Kavitha Sreeharsha as new Program Officer for Healthy People & Places
Sobrato Philanthropies is pleased to announce Kavitha Sreeharsha as the Sobrato Family Foundation’s Program Officer for Healthy People & Places. Ms. Sreeharsha will continue SFF’s decade-long program of unrestricted cash support for hundreds of our region’s critical health and human service nonprofits, but she is also charged with further developing the program through strategic and responsive investments—carrying out Sobrato Philanthropies’ intention to promote economic opportunity for all Silicon Valley residents.
Ms. Sreeharsha has spent the past fifteen years—nearly all in the non-profit sector—as an attorney working in community services, policy and advocacy, training and technical assistance, organizational management, and corporate social responsibility. She has worked on behalf of low-income communities and working immigrant women and families throughout her career, developing community programs, coordinating coalitions and managing grants and organizational finances.
She most recently co-founded Global Freedom Center, a nonprofit social enterprise that provides training to an expanded set of stakeholders to increase human trafficking identification and prevention. From this work, Ms. Sreeharsha brings valuable skills in program design and implementation, communication strategy, and impact analysis. She is widely recognized as a national expert on the subjects of human trafficking and violence against immigrant women, and serves as adjunct faculty at Santa Clara University, teaching a course on Violence Against Women.
“We are at a crossroads in Silicon Valley, where there is an unprecedented growth in our economic and opportunity gap, manifested in a rapidly decreasing middle class,” said Ms. Sreeharsha, “I am honored to help the Sobrato Family Foundation invest in the most strategic solutions to lift our most disenfranchised communities out of poverty.”
Rick Williams, CEO of the Sobrato Family Foundation, said, “Ms. Sreeharsha brings a deep understanding of how to engage communities to confront some of our toughest social challenges. This addition to our team provides us with another person who combines first-hand experience in running a social enterprise with a passion for achieving the impact so desperately needed in the Valley.” He added, “A big part of her work will be convening and collaborating with multi-stakeholder groups to identify and cultivate cross-system investments that will effect real change. We are thrilled she’s on board.”
Ms. Sreeharsha is a longtime community leader and has served on several different Boards of Directors and continues to volunteer her time to assist low-income communities. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, Ms. Sreeharsha received her B.A. in Environmental Science and Development Studies from U.C. Berkeley and her J.D. from U.C. Hastings College of the Law.
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