Who
We Are


Mission

Nonprofits are critical, yet the deck is stacked against them—they’re under-resourced and have inadequate outside support. We use our experience, financial resources and connections to help nonprofits navigate complex challenges. We create new ways for funders to support them. Together with our nonprofit and funder partners, we fight for a healthier and more just society.

History

SeaChange was founded in 2006 as a "nonprofit merchant bank" to help nonprofits facing complex financial and organizational challenges.

After an initial focus on education and youth development (2007-2010), we expanded into grant-making in support of mergers and sustained collaboration (2008-present); impact-first lending (2013-present); and analysis/advice (2015-present).

Since 2008, SeaChange has been involved in close to 570 transactions across mergers/collaborations (371), lending (85), and analysis/advice (~100). In aggregate, we have provided over $66 million of capital to nonprofits sourced from 30 foundations and ~40 high net-worth donors.

SeaChange’s work will continue to evolve in response to the challenges faced by nonprofits, the priorities of philanthropic funders, and the interests of our team.

  • We are guided by the facts.
  • We are professional and level-headed even in challenging and sensitive situations.
  • We are entrepreneurial in seeking new ways to support nonprofits.
  • We are creative in drawing upon the best practices of the nonprofit, for-profit, and public sectors.
  • We value our independence and financial stability.
  • We respect our partners—nonprofit, funder and government—and one another.
  • We strive to do no harm.

Guiding
Principles

Meet
the team


Staff

John MacIntosh

John MacIntosh

Managing Partner

John MacIntosh

John MacIntosh

Managing Partner

John joined SeaChange in 2008 in the hope of putting his transactional skills and finance experience to use for good. Although SeaChange has evolved a great deal over the intervening years, he is as excited as ever by what we do and feels privileged to work with entrepreneurial colleagues and committed funders to help nonprofits — from the largest “battle ships” to the smallest, grass-roots organizations — do their vital work. John came to SeaChange by way of a mid-life Masters in Philosophy and Public Policy at the London School of Economics. Prior to LSE, he was a partner at Warburg Pincus (a global private equity firm) in New York, Tokyo, and London; a software engineer in Tokyo; and a management consultant at Oliver Wyman in New York. In addition to his work at SeaChange, John serves as a trustee of the Putney School, the Brooklyn Heights Association, and the John Jay College Foundation. John grew up in Canada but moved to the United States to attend Princeton where he got an engineering degree and met his wife. They have four grown children and live in Brooklyn where he is the goal-keeper for Heights FC.

Taj Tabassoom

Taj Tabassoom

Partner

Taj Tabassoom

Taj Tabassoom

Partner

Taj leads SeaChange's lending and investment activities, overseeing Contact Fund and The New York Pooled PRI Fund, both of which lend to New York City nonprofits, as well as The New York Impact Opportunities Fund, an impact investment vehicle that makes equity and credit investments. Prior to joining SeaChange, Taj worked in JPMorgan Chase’s credit risk and emerging markets groups. Taj initially gained exposure to nonprofits through consultancy work and volunteer board positions, the most recent with Women’s World Banking, where she advised the organization on the launching of micropension products for low-income women in India. She began her career working at Basel Asset Management, a hedge fund of funds. Taj holds a Master of International Affairs in Economic Development from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Baruch College. She sits on the board of the Vita Life Story Club, a nonprofit that seeks to promote healthy aging and reduce social isolation amongst older adults.

Lindsay Kijewski

Lindsay Kijewski

Senior Vice President

Lindsay Kijewski

Lindsay Kijewski

Senior Vice President

Lindsay leads SeaChange's collaboration-related grantmaking activities. In this capacity, she manages the SeaChange-Lodestar Fund for Nonprofit Collaboration and serves as the Director of the Greater Philadelphia Nonprofit Repositioning Fund. She is also involved with the Transformational Partnerships Fund (for higher education) and the New York Merger and Collaboration Fund. Before joining SeaChange, she served as a Social Impact Fellow with the University of Pennsylvania Center for High Impact Philanthropy and Penn’s M.S. in Nonprofit Leadership program. In her time at Penn, Lindsay focused on strategic planning, design and delivery of leadership development curriculum, and program expansion. Lindsay began her career at the University of Virginia Alumni Association, managing a portfolio of alumni affinity groups and their volunteer boards. Lindsay is an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, where she teaches graduate coursework in nonprofit governance and serves on the School’s Standing Committee on Race and Social Justice. She holds a Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia.

Minji Kim

Minji Kim

Vice President

Minji Kim

Minji Kim

Vice President

Minji supports SeaChange's lending and grantmaking activities. Prior to joining SeaChange, Minji worked in the M&A group at SMBC Nikko Securities America. She began her career as a Development Associate at Association to Benefit Children, a New York City-based nonprofit that provides early childhood education, family preservation services, and mental health care services to underserved children and families. In Korea, where she was born and raised, Minji led a national student-run volunteer organization called 2for1 that supports North Korean defectors in South Korea and China. Minji holds a BA in Sociology from Princeton University and an MPA with a concentration in Social Impact, Innovation & Investment from NYU Wagner. She is proud to be part of the 10th cohort of the Samsung Scholarship and is a former fellow of Princeton Project 55 and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

Steph Gilmour

Steph Gilmour

Associate

Steph Gilmour

Steph Gilmour

Associate

Steph is an Associate working on SeaChange’s grantmaking activities. Prior to joining SeaChange, she worked at Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence for 13 years. During her tenure there, she supported mentoring programs in Southeastern PA and Southern New Jersey. Steph focused on partnership development between schools, universities and corporations and led the team supporting the youth and volunteers involved in the programs. Steph holds a BS in Spanish with a focus on International Business and Civic and Community Engagement from Penn State University and an MPA from Villanova University. While at Villanova, Steph served as a tuition scholar assisting with research focused on the impact of COVID-19 on Nonprofit Human Capital Management. Steph has a passion for seeing the nonprofit sector thrive.

Ananya Poddar

Ananya Poddar

Associate

Ananya Poddar

Ananya Poddar

Associate

Ananya is an Associate working across SeaChange’s lending, grantmaking, and advisory activities. Prior to joining SeaChange, Ananya worked in the Strategy & Management and Executive Transition services at Support Center, a nonprofit capacity building organization based in New York City. Her work there was focused on project management and client relations for consulting projects, professional development programs, and government-funded cohort programs. Ananya holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Brown University and a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management from Columbia University. Born and raised in India, Ananya is passionate about caring for abandoned animals, environmental protection, and gender equity.

Sophia Radis

Sophia Radis

Analyst

Sophia Radis

Sophia Radis

Analyst

Sophia supports SeaChange's lending and investment activities. Prior to joining SeaChange, Sophia held various roles in sustainable finance, including as an intern at asset-management firm Ethic, and as an analyst at the LSE Green Finance Society. Sophia also has numerous experiences in the nonprofit sector, formerly being the co-president of a volunteer tutoring organization called Entrada, as well as working in business development at a social impact tech company called GyvLink. Sophia has a background in economic research and politics. She holds a BS from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Economics with Mathematical Emphasis, as well as a certificate in Studio Art.

Alex Volpicello

Alex Volpicello

Director of Operations

Alex Volpicello

Alex Volpicello

Director of Operations

Alex is SeaChange’s Director of Operations, overseeing the organization’s policies and processes for governance, strategy, administration, logistics, communications, and technology. Alex also serves as the Secretary of SeaChange's Board of Directors. Prior to joining SeaChange, Alex worked as a litigation paralegal and pro bono legal specialist at Proskauer Rose LLP, a private law firm based in New York City, where he focused on directly representing and facilitating access to justice for low-income individuals, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations. Alex holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History from Brown University, where his studies focused on American racial dynamics. Alex is a lifelong New Yorker with immense passions for mental health & wellness, disability justice, and gender equity.

Annabel Barreiro

Annabel Barreiro

Director of Finance

Annabel Barreiro

Annabel Barreiro

Director of Finance

Annabel is an accounting advisor from Kiwi Partners serving as SeaChange’s external Director of Finance. Annabel has over 18 years of experience working in the nonprofit sector. Prior to Kiwi Partners, Annabel was the Director of Finance at Aguila, a $35M+ organization that partners with the City of New York to provide housing and support services. She developed, implemented, and ensured compliance with internal financial and accounting policies and procedures. Annabel oversaw bank account reconciliations, maintained the general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and prepared annual budgets per program in consultation with the CEO & CFO. Previous roles included Alliance Home Services, a home healthcare services agency, where Annabel supervised the Fiscal Department and Accounts payable/receivable, and all billing matters. Annabel has federal funding experience managing DYCD contract funding. She is especially knowledgeable around NYC contracts and the essentials of nonprofit financial management such as pay and benefits, allocations, etc. She has an instinct for the financial performances of each program or group of programs, and this makes Annabel a very reliable financial navigator and valuable counsel to the Executive Director and Board. Annabel is fluent in Fund-EZ, MAS90, Financial Edge, Intacct, Paypro, QBO and Bill.com. She is a dedicated accounting professional and enthusiastic about her work within the nonprofit sector. She is a highly motivated, proactive, and well-organized accountant. At the same time, she is a curious and constant learner, always pushing herself to new heights. Annabel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Mercy College and an MBA in General Management from the Metropolitan College of New York. She is fluent in Spanish and English.

Board

Mark Reed

Board Chair

Mark Reed

Board Chair

Mark Reed is founder and manager of Contact Fund, a private investment fund focused on high-impact community development in New York City. Founded in 2005 and working on behalf of over 50 investors, the fund makes short and medium term loans of $100,000 to $600,000 in housing, food, social services, charter schools, micro-finance, and financial services and credit unions.

Mark is a former Vice President of Portfolio Management at Bank of New York, where he concentrated on North American corporate credit risk management. While at the bank, he co-managed a $500 million bond portfolio and a $300 million credit derivative portfolio. Mark was also a Principal at Alembic Community Development, a mission-driven real estate developer operating in New York City and New Orleans.

Since 1997, Mark has served on the Board of Directors of Simpson Investment Company and its sister company, Green Diamond Resource Company. Green Diamond is a fourth generation family-owned forest products company selling FSC-certified wood products in Washington and California. Early in his career, Mark managed an after-school program for public housing residents in San Francisco’s Mission District and managed a youth community center. He holds a BA in Anthropology from Stanford University and an MBA in Finance from the Stern School of Business at NYU. He lives with his wife and three children in Manhattan.

Margaret Crotty

Board Member

Margaret Crotty

Board Member

Margaret Crotty is President and CEO of JSI, a global non-profit that manages large-scale public health, education, supply chain, and health system strengthening projects in over 40 countries, and consults on health equity programs in the U.S. Previously, Crotty served as CEO of the Partnership with Children, a New York City-based provider of community health services and school-based mental health programs. Earlier in her career, Crotty launched and led Save the Children’s flagship $2 billion initiative to reduce global child and maternal mortality; served as CEO of AFS-USA Intercultural Programs; and held roles at EF Education and McKinsey & Company in Jakarta, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Paris. She serves on the boards of several health and education organizations and is currently the Chair of the Board for Northwell Health and a trustee of several other education and public health organizations. Crotty holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPH from Columbia University, and a BA from Princeton University.

W. Bowman Cutter

Board Member / Treasurer

W. Bowman Cutter

Board Member / Treasurer

W. Bowman Cutter is Senior Fellow and Director of the Economic Policy Initiative at the Roosevelt Institute. He was a managing director of Warburg Pincus between 1996 and 2009, where he served both as the firm’s economist and as a leader in its international business, with particular reference to Asia. Mr. Cutter has served during two Democratic presidencies: at the National Economic Council, from 1992-1996, during the Clinton Presidency – as director of the National Economic Council and Deputy Assistant to the President; and at the Office of Management and Budget from 1976-1981, during the Carter Presidency, as Executive Director for Budget. Mr. Cutter also served as leader of the OMB transition team after the election of President Obama.

From 1981-1993, he was vice chairman and managing partner at Coopers & Lybrand, the global accounting and consulting firm that subsequently merged with Price Waterhouse, where he managed a major consulting practice and was also responsible for overall strategy.

Mr. Cutter is the current-past Chairman of the Board of CARE, the global development organization; a member of the executive committee and immediate past co-chairman of the Committee for Economic Development; and a member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Cutter holds degrees from Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

Valerie Gay

Board Member

Valerie Gay

Board Member

Val is a “Generalist” with “Specialist” tendencies. Over the years she has used her creativity to become a leader in several industries, including banking, academia, the arts, and nonprofits.

Val is a mission-driven leader and is very interested in making the world a better place and is guided by her personal Purpose Statement: “to use my gifts and talents to encourage, inspire and empower others to seek and find their own life’s potential so that we each can make the world a better place.”

A serial entrepreneur since 2006, Val exercises her Purpose creatively through all of her "work.” Val is also a Principal at Spector | Gay Consulting and Deputy Director of Audience Engagement & Chief Experience Officer at the Barnes Foundation.

Georgia Levenson Keohane

Board Member

Georgia Levenson Keohane

Board Member

Georgia Levenson Keohane is the CEO of the Soros Economic Development Fund, the economic development and impact investing arm of the Open Society Foundations. She has more than twenty years of leadership experience in the private and nonprofit sectors at the intersection of the capital markets, innovative philanthropy, responsible business and investing, and public policy.

Previously, she served as President of the Navab Capital Partners (NCP) Foundation and head of the firm's Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practice, and before that Executive Director of the Pershing Square Foundation. A former McKinsey consultant, Keohane has advised CEOs, boards, management teams, and institutional, corporate, and philanthropic investors on strategy, operations, ESG, sustainable and impact investing, and inclusive growth.

She is also an adjunct professor of social enterprise at Columbia Business School, where she hosts the Capital for Good podcast. Keohane speaks and writes regularly on social and economic policy, philanthropy, stakeholder capitalism, and the role of business in society, and is the author of two award winning books, Capital and the Common Good: How Innovative Finance is Tackling the World's Most Urgent Problems (2016) and Social Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century: Innovation Across the Nonprofit, Private and Public Sectors (2013). Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Time, and the Harvard Business Review, among other publications.

Keohane serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards, and holds a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MSc from London School of Economics, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.

Frank Liu

Board Member

Frank Liu

Board Member

Frank is an award-winning strategic creative thinker with over 35 years of experience in branding, advertising, and nonprofits. He is the founder of Brand Justice, a brand identity consultancy that builds diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) into the foundations of brands.

He has worked at agencies and firms such as Waring & LaRosa, Grey, Gotham, Deutsch, JWT, and Siegelvision. Some of the clients he has worked with are Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Chase, American Express, Microsoft, Sony Ericksson, Hennessy, AT&T, Microsoft, Air France, Liz Claiborne, and Maybelline. Frank's passion for purpose-driven work led him to the Robin Hood Foundation. As the Chief Creative Officer at Siegelvision, he worked with numerous organizations fighting for social and equity justice.

Frank was born in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. when he was 11 years old. While learning to speak English, he used drawings to communicate with other children at school. That experience taught him the power of visual communication and it became his passion. The skills he acquired to reconcile his own multi-layered identity gave him a passion for the brand identity business. He studied art and business at Cornell University, and advertising at School of Visual Arts. He has exhibited paintings in galleries and museums around the world.

As the founder of the Dinner Guys Giving Circle, Frank and his friends fund under-resourced Asian American and Pacific Islanders LGBTQ+ organizations. He was named by AAPIP (Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy) as one of the top 25 Leaders in Action. He served on the board of the Stonewall Community Foundation. Frank is currently the chair of the Governance Committee on the SeaChange Capital Partners board.

Paulette LoMonaco

Board Member

Paulette LoMonaco

Board Member

For the past 39 years, Sr. Paulette served as the Executive Director of Good Shepherd Services until her retirement in December 2019. Paulette began her work at Good Shepherd as the program director of one of the residential programs for adolescent girls and subsequently was the first director and developer of the Human Services Workshops, a professional development program. Under Paulette’s leadership, Good Shepherd evolved from a small provider of out-of-home care into one of NYC’s largest, most respected multi-service agencies with an annual budget of $100 million. During her tenure, she fostered the development of many innovative model programs which have been replicated across the city and nation, including the agency’s transfer high school, LifeLink, a college prep and retention program and supportive housing programs, as well as its Program Evaluation and Planning department.

Sr. Paulette holds a Master’s in Family and Community Relations from Columbia University’s Teachers College and has received numerous awards, including the Robin Hood Hero Award (2003), the Lewis Hine Award (2008), and City & State’s 50 Over 50 Lifetime Achievement Award (2017). She was also selected by City & State as one of New York’s 50 Over 50 (2016), Power 100 (2017), and Nonprofit Power 50 (2018). Sr. Paulette holds honorary doctorates from St. Francis College and Fordham University. Along with SeaChange, she currently serves on the boards of SCO Family of Services, the Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation, the Good Shepherd International Foundation, Collier Youth Services, and Brooklyn Jesuit Prep.

John MacIntosh

Board Member

John MacIntosh

Board Member

John spends much of his time exploring new ways that SeaChange might help nonprofits facing complex challenges. Prior to joining SeaChange in 2008, John was a partner at Warburg Pincus in that global private equity firm’s New York, Tokyo, and London offices. At Warburg Pincus, he was responsible for overseeing the firm’s expansion into several new international markets and industry segments, designed the firm’s investment performance and measurement system, was co-head of professional development, and served as a director of 16 portfolio companies. John remains involved with Warburg Pincus as a limited partner. Earlier in his career John worked as a software engineer in Tokyo and a management consultant at Oliver Wyman.

John did a mid-life masters in philosophy at the London School of Economics. At the same time, and in conjunction with Lord Richard Layard of the Centre for Economic Performance (at the London School of Economics) and Dr Martin E.P. Seligman of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, he coordinated a three-year program in resilience-building and depression prevention for more than 3,000 children across 25 middle schools in the United Kingdom.

John has a BSE from Princeton University and a MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics. In conjunction with his role at SeaChange, he serves as an observer on a number of nonprofit boards (or finance committees), is a trustee of John Jay Foundation, and is an equity investment advisor to MicroVest Capital Management. John lives in Brooklyn with his wife and four daughters.

Aaron Siegel

Board Member

Aaron Siegel

Board Member

Aaron is a managing director at Goldman Sachs in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group of the Investment Banking Division, where he leads the Entertainment Investment Banking team. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2003 as an analyst and was named managing director in 2015. Aaron serves on the Board of Directors of the Arthur Miller Foundation, a nonprofit that provides access to theater education in public schools and aims to increase the number of students that receive a theater education as an integral part of their academic curriculum. Aaron earned an A.B. in Computer Science from Harvard University in 2003.

Lorie Slutsky

Board Member

Lorie Slutsky

Board Member

Lorie A. Slutsky was the third president of The New York Community Trust from 1990 to 2022. She was responsible for managing The Trust’s nearly 2,500 charitable funds, overseeing an operation that distributed about $225 million in grants from an endowment approaching $3 billion. Ms. Slutsky began her career at The Trust in 1977 and was named executive vice president in 1987. Ms. Slutsky received her BA from Colgate University, where she served for nine years as a trustee and chairman of the budget committee, and her MA from The New School, where she was a trustee for six years. She is a former board chairman of the Council on Foundations and BoardSource, treasurer of the Independent Sector, and vice chairman of The Foundation Center. She is a former director of AllianceBernstein Holding, an investment management firm, and AXA Financial, Inc., an insurance company. Ms. Slutsky co-chaired the Independent Sector’s Panel on the Nonprofit Sector. She has served on the boards of United Way of New York City, Hispanics in Philanthropy, the Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, the DeWitt Wallace Fund for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Charles T. Harris III

Founder Emeritus

Charles T. Harris III

Founder Emeritus

Chuck was the co-founder of SeaChange, the first Executive Partner (2007-2011), and a member of the Board (2007-2016). Chuck’s energy, passion, and values have had a profound effect on SeaChange. Although Chuck stepped down from the Board in 2016, he remains actively connected with SeaChange in formal and informal ways.

Chuck serves as a Special Advisor to Blue Meridian Partners, providing strategic input to the Investor Relations team and overall operations, fundraising, and governance. Outside of this role, Chuck continues to explore ways to be most effective in the philanthropic sector. Before transitioning to Advisor in February 2021, Chuck served as Blue Meridian’s Chief Development Officer, and prior to that as Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer. Having helped to launch Blue Meridian from its inception, he provided the leadership necessary to build the initial partnership structure and steward Blue Meridian’s relationships with philanthropists. He spearheaded continuous fundraising, allowing Blue Meridian to become an independent 501c3 in 2018 and raise over $2B in investable capital by 2020. He helped hone a pooled funding method that pulls insight and tactics from the best models in both the private and public sectors. Chuck’s work and advisement was key in establishing Blue Meridian’s capital aggregation and investing approach, pioneering a new, sustainable model of philanthropic giving.

Prior to joining Blue Meridian, he served as Portfolio Manager and Director of Capital Aggregation for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF), where he managed relationships with various grantees and oversaw the Foundation’s capital aggregation activities. Previously, Chuck co-founded and served for five years as Executive Partner of SeaChange. Chuck also spent 23 years in the banking business before retiring in 2002 from his position as a Partner and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, where he served as co-head of the East Coast High Technology Group in the firm’s Investment Banking Division and as co-head of Corporate Finance in the Americas.

Chuck has served extensively on the boards of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations as well as privately held and publicly traded for-profit corporations. Additionally, he has spoken broadly on the role of capital formation in advancing social change. Chuck is a graduate of Harvard College and holds a master’s degree in finance from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Making
an impact


We are privileged to engage with nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, pursuing a diverse range of missions, and facing a myriad of complex challenges. We ask questions, challenge assumptions, and analyze data to support nonprofits in making informed, mission-driven decisions.

We constantly ask ourselves: Did we help our nonprofit partners address their specific challenges? What could we have done better? Are we are using our team and the philanthropic resources entrusted to us in the most effective way?

see our impact

What
we do


SeaChange provides grants, loans, analysis and advice to help nonprofits work through complex financial and organizational challenges.

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