Meet the Team
Jason Friedman, Co-Founder & CEO
For nearly 30 years, Jason has dedicated his career to increasing access to capital in low-wealth communities. After helping to create a more inclusive economic development strategy for the state of New York, Jason led a Presidential award-winning statewide CDC in Iowa, and later advanced best practices in micro and small business lending as the Director of Training and Education for the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (AEO). He built a consulting division for an inner city CDFI in Baltimore before co-founding F|A in 2007.
Amy Szabo, Chief Client Services Officer
To manage our CDFI Fund Grants and Certification team, we sought a leader with two qualities: (1) experience as a Development Director in building fund development, compliance, and organizational development capacity for a large CDFI; and (2) amassing a stellar track record, authoring over $50M in successful grant proposals - CDFI Fund, SBA, EDA, USDA and HHS. At F|A, Amy has developed proprietary tools to create more competitive applications. Amy was Development Director for Economic and Community Development Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
Melanie D. Friedman, Co-Founder & COO
Melanie embodies the entrepreneurial spirit of F|A, having founded The Iowa Children’s Museum in 1999 from her kitchen table. She later founded F|A, originally focusing on organizational development and fundraising for non-profits and political campaigns. Melanie served as Campaign Manager for former four-term Congressman Dave Loebsack (D-IA), and managed other state and local campaigns. Today, Melanie now oversees our administrative and fiscal operations.
Nadia Doubiany, Client Coordinator
Nadia joined F|A in 2020 to help manage our rapidly growing client base. As Client Coordinator, she works to ensure that clients receive the highest level of service and satisfaction. Nadia coordinates interactions with our clients to assure our client's needs are met, and helps design and implement our systems to improve the client experience. Nadia helps manage our CDFI Certification and Compliance Program. Nadia has experience in domestic violence programs, and has a B.A. from the University of Iowa.
Jessica Sotelo, Senior Associate
Jessica has spent the last 20 years dedicated to developing and leading initiatives for financial well-being in low income communities. As the Founding Director of a community based organization in Idaho, Jessica set an ambitious agenda in support of small business development in Native American and Latino communities. Today, Jessica has amassed an impressive track record in preparing CDFI Fund and OCS CED grants. She is licensed with the National Standards for Excellence in Nonprofits and specializes in coaching Nonprofit EDs and CEOs. Jessica holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Barbara Kueny, Senior Associate
Barbara is a seasoned CDFI Development and Communications professional. In her previous capacity as the Director of Development for Wisconsin Women's Business Initiative Corporation, she raised over $50 million in operations and investments. She excels in relationship building, writing & editing, fundraising and loan fund capitalization, and private funder communications. Barbara has a Masters in Communication from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee; Bachelors in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kavita R. Gobburi, Associate
Kavita is passionate about investing in communities that support diverse populations. She has over 20 years of experience in partnering with community-based organizations, CDFIs, philanthropies, and impact investors to make capital investments, create affordable housing, and revitalize communities Specialties include lending, credit analysis, financial analysis and modeling, underwriting, capital budgeting & planning, grant and loan applications. Kavita previously served as Director, Affordable Housing Program (AHP) Compliance for the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco . She also served as a Senior Loan Loan Officer for the Northern California Community Loan Fund and a Senior Financial Analyst for Bank of America, Capital Markets Group.
Shanta Schachter, Senior Associate
As a co-founder of North 4th LLC, Shanta supports community-driven companies and nonprofits to develop comprehensive strategies to connect with the communities they work in and advance their missions. She spent 11 years in Philadelphia as Deputy Director of New Kensington Community Development Corporation of Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization focused on sustainable development and community building. Her expertise is in fundraising, program development, branding and identity, organizational restructuring, and fiscal management. She holds a MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Geography, Urban Planning and Community Development.
Cristina Valverde, Associate
A long-time F|A Associate, Cristina has a unique set of skills, as a highly-skilled grant writer, and with a background in credit analysis, CDFIs, and international agricultural development. She is the Founder of Green Valley Capital Advisors, an international fundraising and project design consultancy for social enterprises and community financial institutions. Cristina is also the Director of Marketing and Strategy for Invalsa, an international export-import company that purchases directly from small farmers and agricultural cooperatives in Bolivia. Cristina has served as a contracted reviewer for CDFI Fund applications. She is currently the Development Manager for Yamba Malawi in New York City. Cristina has degrees from Harvard University and Tufts University.
Celina Peña, Senior Associate
F|A is proud to partner with Celina, a leading expert in the design, implementation, and scaling of CDFIs. Celina’s experience over two decades includes fundraising, policy and advocacy, strategic and business planning, budgeting, performance management, and community economic development. She started in the CDFI field as the Director of the Women’s Business Center with the City of San Antonio. In her twelve years at LiftFund, Celina served as Chief Growth Officer, Chief Advancement Officer, Chief Program Officer, and Vice-President for Business Support. During the pandemic, Celina drove strategic initiatives across capital management, product development, and production teams that deployed $100M+ in small business grants and $74M in capital to underbanked, majority BIPOC-owned small businesses in just two years. She led a budget of $45 million and raised over $10 million. Celina has a B.A. and M.A. from The University of Texas San Antonio. She is a Lean Six Sigma and a Ph.D. candidate in Community Engagement. She has her own consulting firm in/tend LLC.
Rachel Hyman, Senior Associate
Rachel is F|A’s ‘in-house’ expert in affordable housing finance, bringing her considerable experience in organizational and leadership development, operations, and finance. Prior to founding RHYMAN CONSULTING, Rachel was the COO for Habitat for Humanity NYC, and was a senior lender for ten years at Chase, Citi, and Bank of America. Her leadership on affordable housing projects, both preservation and new construction, has resulted in over $3 billion in financing and the production of 8,000 units of housing. Rachel is highly regarded for expertise in providing technical assistance, underwriting, grant-writing and project management support. She has also created and led training in affordable housing development. Ms. Hyman holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Cornell University and a BA degree from Binghamton University.
Peggy Sand, Senior Associate
Peggy has over 20 years of affordable housing lending and policy experience with nonprofits, local governments and foundations. As the owner of Creative Consultants, Peggy specializes in helping nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, and local governments adapt to changes in staffing patterns, funding streams, and market conditions. With the consulting firm Raffa, she developed a specialization in nonprofit sustainability/transition planning and executive search assignments. Peggy also has experience in pro-active foreclosure prevention and mitigation strategy.
Catherine Brennan, Senior Associate
A long-time F|A Associates, Catherine is a seasoned development professional, providing programmatic consulting, federal project management, and economic evaluation to CDC and CDFS. As owner of Catherine Brennan Consulting, she provides nonprofit development consulting with a specialization in large-scale federal proposal writing and program design. Catherine has led the development of hundreds of successful funding proposals, resulting in more than $26 million in funding. Prior to starting her own firm, she led the fund development efforts at the Economic and Community Development Institute, a CDFI in Columbus, Ohio.
Bethany Goldzer, Associate
Bethany is a results-driven and entrepreneurial nonprofit executive with experience in site operations, program design, fundraising, staff coaching, performance management, financial counseling, and economic and workforce development. She recently served as the Director of Site Growth for Thrive Scholars, which helps high-achieving, low-income underrepresented students get into and graduate from top colleges equipped to achieve their full career potential. Bethany also served as the Director of Development & Partnerships for the Bronx Charter School for Children, where she expanded the donor base by 23% in just one year. She has a BA in History from the University of Chicago, a Masters of Science in Education from Pace University and the New School/Masters of Science in Nonprofit Management.
Jayne Giles Crosby, Senior Associate
Jayne has over 30 years experience in banking and small business lending. She is a former CEO of Mainstream Finance, a CDFI focused on providing small business loans and residential mortgage services to underserved markets in Maine In 2016, Jayne was recognized by the U.S .Small Business Administration as the 2016 Financial Services Champion for Maine and New England. Through her firm Giles Consulting, and as an F|A Associate, Jayne helps CDFIs and economic development organizations develop strategies to increase performance, effectiveness and impact.
Anne Chaney, Senior Associate
Anne is one of the premier Development professionals in the industry. As the Principal of Impetus Consulting, Inc., Anne provides strategic guidance, financial structuring and grant/loan application preparation to CDFIs and other nonprofits nationally. She has a 90%+ success rate in funding application approvals, having raised more than $56 million in government grants since 2013, as well as $100 million in New Markets Tax Credit allocation authority. Anne previously served as Director of Program Development for Community Ventures, a statewide CDFI in Kentucky, with capitalization of multiple lines of business sourced from SBA, HUD, USDA, and CDFI.
Rachael Dubin, Senior Associate
Rachel joins F|A with over 20 years of broad-based experience in community development finance for community-based lenders and state government. As the SVP of Lending and Chief Credit Officer at Community Capital New York, Inc., Rachel organized an unprecedented partnership with numerous county governments to deploy over $20 million to small businesses during the pandemic. As Senior Director at Empire State Development, Rachel designed and managed innovative capital access programs for New York’s small businesses unable to secure financing from traditional sources. She served as NY’s chief compliance officer for the state’s $90 MM SSBCI program, and managed an $8 million access to capital program that leveraged more than $25 million of small business lending in LMI communities. Rachel as an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis.
Joanna Winchester, Friedman Associate
Joanna is the co-founder of North 4th, LLC a consulting firm for community-driven organizations, nonprofits, and social impact companies. Services of the firm include grant writing, strategy development, project management, stakeholder engagement, and organizational strategy. Prior to founding North 4th, LLC, Joanna was the Director of Strategic Initiatives and the Director of Economic Development for the New Kensington Community Development Corporation in Philadelphia, leading the organization to new levels of growth and program diversification. She has a Master's in City Planning at the University of Pennsylvania.
Stuart Schneider, Senior Associate
Stuart is a leading fund development professional, having written, successful proposals that secured more than $100 million in awarded grants or contracts. His content expertise includes affordable homeownership, cooperative-ownership, and workforce and economic development. As the Chief Revenue Officer for Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City, Inc., he raised an average of $2 million annually, with outstanding results in securing funding from major financial institutions. Stuart holds a BA from Rutgers College in Economics and Urban Studies.