Our People & Partners

Meet Our Team

Who are we? We are working professionals, academics, scholars, citizens of the world and, above all, humanitarians. Our team is a dedicated group of young professionals who believe in doing their part to create a more just, honest, open, and socially equitable city to call home.

Board of Directors
Staff

Jade GraDdy

Board of directors member,
Campbell & company

A Washington State-native, Jade studied Linguistics and Human Rights at the University of Washington. While there, she was deeply involved in the leadership of the Dream Project, a student-led organization providing college readiness mentorship to low-income and first-generation high school students of all backgrounds in the Greater Seattle area.

Her prior study of the Arabic language allowed her to conduct research on indigenous language rights in Morocco, engage in a community development and education internship with refugee youth in the West Bank of Palestine, and receive a Fulbright grant to teach English and develop community projects in Amman, Jordan. Following her time abroad, Jade spent a year in Washington, DC managing a portfolio of Middle East study abroad programs at AMIDEAST.

Currently, Jade is an Associate Consultant at Campbell & Company, a nonprofit consulting firm headquartered in Chicago.

Nhu Phan

Board of directors member,
world vision USA

Nhu Phan is currently a project manager at World Vision US, working to provide access to clean water to children and communities worldwide.

She is passionate about serving others, especially vulnerable groups like refugees and immigrants, as an immigrant herself and granddaughter to refugees of the Vietnam War.

Nhu graduated from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. She went on to completed her graduate education at Sciences Po in Paris, France where she earned a Master’s in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action. Additionally, she was a Fulbright Scholar in South Korea.

Emily Feldman

Board of Directors Member,
Oxford University

Emily Feldman is currently studying for a Master of Philosophy in International Relations at the University of Oxford. She spent this past summer living in Amman, Jordan and working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). With the UNDP, she worked on the crisis response team analyzing political, development, and socio-economic trends in the Arab states as well as designing packages for strategic partners to better anchor volunteer infrastructure in response to development challenges in the region.

Prior to Oxford, Emily worked in Washington, DC at a non-profit organization seeking to strengthen mutual understanding and cooperation between the Americas and the MENA region. She also has experience working in conflict resolution and in public affairs and diplomacy at the US Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs and at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2015, Emily graduated from Emory University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and a minor in Arabic.

Maggie Slavin

Board of Directors Member,
NYC Department of Education

Maggie Slavin is a public school educator at Brooklyn Preparatory High School in Brooklyn, New York where she teaches 9th and 10th grade science.
Maggie started her career in education as a New York City Teaching Fellow in 2013, where she focused on serving working families in the South Bronx and serving the growing Yemeni refugee population in the neighborhood. Following her graduation from the Teaching Fellows program, Maggie completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Amman, Jordan, where she researched refugee education with a focus on trauma and its effects on refugee children in urban America. Following Fulbright, Maggie obtained her second Master's in International Education Development with a special focus on the economics of education and higher education at University College London, graduating Magna Cum Laude. .

Katie Sonnefeldt

Board of directors member,
intouch solutions

Born and raised in the Windy City, Katie recently returned to Chicago after serving for three and a half years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the West African Nation of Togo. As an extension agent for the Community Health and Malaria Prevention program, she developed a malaria prevention curriculum and organized events to promote women’s and girls’ empowerment. Afterwards, Katie chose to extend her service to work with Catholic Relief Services in Lomé, Togo where she provided program quality support for a variety of projects within the Togo country office and acted as the lead proposal developer for a six- month, youth social cohesion and peace building project which was awarded by the U.S. Embassy in Togo’s Sector of Public Affairs.

In 2014 Katie graduated from the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, Life Sciences Communication and a certificate in Public Health.

Connor Mautner

Connor Mautner is the Founder and current Services Director for the Chicago Refugee Coalition (CRC). A Floridian, Mautner graduated cum laude from Rollins College with a B.A. in International Affairs.

During his time at Rollins, Mautner completed a fellowship with the Arab American Community Centers of Central Florida where he orchestrated mutual aid initiatives with a primary emphasis on food security, domestic violence prevention, and financial literacy.

Mautner served as a staffer in the United States Senate for three years while congruently earning his Master's Degree in Public Policy from Northwestern University. As a graduate student, Mautner's primary research emphasis focused on the political economies of failed/fragile states with a regional emphasis on Turkey, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

Mautner founded CRC in June 2018. He can be reached directly at cmautner@chicagorefugee.org

Founder & services director,
Chicago Refugee Coalition

To Our community partners, Thank you!

Our mission of providing support to refugees, empowering communities, and supporting developing economies is something that we can not do alone. We believe that it takes a coalition style effort to achieve these aims and we are sincerely grateful to our community partners and donors who make this vision a reality. We can't do this alone. Thank you for your support of our work!

For more information about how to support the Chicago Refugee Coalition, please contact us at: info@chicagorefugee.org.

A public Trust

We believe in total transparency in all of our operations. After all, the work we do depends on the public trust of our supporters and those to whom we serve. Every quarter, our organization uploads financial statements showing cash balances, expenditures, and any outstanding obligations. Files are organized from oldest to newest with the most recent document first in line.

Additionally, our organization has listed our 501(c)(3) IRS designation letter for your review. As always, if you have any questions, please contact us at: info@chicagorefugee.org.