As the President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Community Foundation (ICF), Marisa leads the continuing evolution of ICF’s model of co-powering and strengthening communities and vulnerable natural habitats.

ICF has a bold history and track record of community impact demonstrated by its commitment to getting funding out the door and into communities. Currently, ICF is tracking 77% of funding that comes into the organization and goes out in grants the same year to local leaders and their teams. ICF works collaboratively through its relationship infrastructure with globally active funders and local program partners.

Marisa has served ICF in many roles. She previously served ICF as the Vice President of Culture and Impact, overseeing a growing portfolio of programs and special initiatives.Prior to that role, she was Senior Program Officer for Environmental Conservation, leading ICF’s Environment portfolio, emphasizing marine and terrestrial conservation in Mexico Baja California peninsula, coastal communities of the Gulf of California and the Caribbean. Marisa first joined ICF in 2015, after 7 years at The San Diego Foundation. There, she worked with regional leaders to advance conservation efforts that ensured community access to clean air, water, and nature, while promoting collaborative action on climate change. Her work at The San Diego Foundation led to the creation of the Parks for Everyone report and the Opening the Outdoors Initiative.

Marisa’s dedication to community action at the local, regional, and national levels is demonstrated by her many leadership roles.She is a co-founder of the San Diego Latina Giving Circle; she serves on the Advisory Board for the Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego and is the incoming Board Chair for the Environment Grantmakers Association. Marisa holds a master’s in Nonprofit Leadership and Management from the University of San Diego and a bachelor’s in Anthropology and Sociology from Mills College. She is a PLACES fellow, a HOPE graduate, and a former board member for the Center for Diversity and the Environment.

Beyond serving as a leader in a nonprofit organization, she is Latina, bilingual and bicultural, bringing first-hand knowledge of the communities, initiatives, and programs ICF supports. ICF is an organization guided by purpose – to strengthen humanity with community. Marisa’s leadership of ICF sets an ambitious agenda that will advance the organization’s vision of communities as self-sustaining ecosystems of change in the border region, Mexico, Latin America and beyond.