Craig received his computer science degree with distinction at Harvard, and continued his graduate studies at Stanford. There, he saw a world-changing idea and left academia for the garage that became Google.

Fourteen years later, another world-changing idea propelled him to the Khan Academy, where he is Dean of Infrastructure. He's excited by the potential of Echidna Giving to be world-changing idea number three. Craig chose the name "Echidna Giving" despite the fact it's not, technically, the echidnas doing the giving.

For more information on how we approach philanthropy, please visit The Giving Pledge and Bolder Giving.

Mary earned her degrees – S.B. and M.Eng – at MIT. When not studying computer science, she worked with the Girl Scouts of Flint, where she engineered the perfect toasted marshmallow for the benefit of her campers – perhaps her first fusion of analytical thinking and social change. That combination led her to the on-line community organizing of Big Tent, to a Coro Fellowship in public affairs, and to her philanthropic work with Craig. She’s never met an echidna she didn’t like, or indeed any echidna at all.

For more information on how we approach philanthropy, please visit The Giving Pledge and Bolder Giving.

Kim brings over 25 years of innovation in philanthropy, charitable giving and impact investing to our work. Prior to helping Craig Silverstein launch Echidna Giving in 2011, she served as founding CEO/President of Schwab Charitable a national leading provider of donor-advised fund and charitable trust service for 11 years.

Under her leadership, the organization grew from a start-up to the largest charity in California and one of the top ten in the US, attracting over $5 billion in contributions and facilitating more than $2 billion in grants. Kim also co-founded the rapidly growing impact investing strategy consulting firm Tideline to advise some of the most influential foundations in the United States and leading financial service companies.

Aside from launching and growing social change start-ups in the financial industry, Kim is a sought-after thought leader. She has taught and lectured on impact investing and strategic philanthropy at Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley and has been a guest speaker on governance at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is published and widely quoted, including in The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, CNBC, Investment News, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Chronicle of Philanthropy and Trust and Estates Magazine.

Kim has also brought her expertise to the boards of major non-profit organizations and private companies, including the Board of Directors of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc., Northern California Public Broadcasting, Inc. (KQED television and radio), the Center for Social Sector Leadership at Haas School of Business, and Whittier Trust Investment and Wealth Management.

She received an undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University. She also completed the executive MBA-SEP program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, post-graduate work at the Mass Media Institute at Stanford, as well as coursework in governance at Harvard Business School's Governing for Nonprofit Excellence Program. Despite her fine education, Kim still struggles with spelling “echidna” correctly. She was delighted to discover their babies are called puggles, which she can spell perfectly.

Erin joined Echidna Giving from Room to Read, the widely known and internationally lauded NGO she co-founded to advance literacy and gender equality. During her tenures as COO and CEO, Room to Read helped over 12 million children in 15 countries pursue a quality education. Erin was instrumental in the design and implementation of the organization’s scalable, replicable model. She oversaw global operations including a technical assistance unit called Room to Read Accelerator, fundraising teams in North America, Europe, Australia and the Asia Pacific region, and a worldwide staff of more than 1,500 employees.

Erin captured her experiences and insights as co-author of Scaling Global Change: A Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Surviving the Start-up Phase and Driving Impact. The book is a how-to guide for social entrepreneurs who have a vision to change the world and need a strong organizational foundation to do it, utilizing Room to Read as an organizational case study.

Under her leadership, Room to Read was recognized with multiple prestigious awards, including the U.S. Library of Congress Literacy Award (David M. Rubenstein Prize), the UNESCO 2011 Confucius Prize for Literacy and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In addition, Erin was selected as the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur (2014); recognized as a Global Impact Featured Member for 2017 by the Young Presidents’ Organization; and awarded the Women’s Bond Club Isabel Benham Award (2014). Erin was also named one of Fast Company’s Extraordinary Women (2012) and was a contributor to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Insider Network.

Before co-founding Room to Read, Erin worked at Goldman Sachs & Co, Unilever and several technology start-ups. She has spent extensive time working and living in Asia, where she saw firsthand the need to enhance educational systems. Erin holds a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in international relations and economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. Throughout her career, Erin brings a deep commitment to data, transparency, scaling impact and operational excellence to everything she does. She is hoping to observe an echidna in the wild, perhaps by joining a 10-echidna love train.

Before joining Echidna as its first full-time employee in 2016, Dana was a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she helped to develop and run a ten-year, $125 million grantmaking initiative to improve the quality of education that children receive in the developing world. While at Hewlett she oversaw grantmaking related to education in India and East Africa. In addition, she led the Foundation's international grantmaking for Open Educational Resources (OER).

Earlier in her career, Dana spent time teaching secondary school students in both Kenya and Zambia. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with an undergraduate degree in Economics and African Studies and earned her master's degree in International Educational Administration and Policy Analysis from the Stanford University School of Education. Her master’s thesis explores the impact of the elimination of primary school fees on enrollment in Kenya. Dana speaks Swahili and French and and is our chief Puggle writer. Her stuffed toy echidna has yet to dig up her office floor, which she appreciates.

Emily Kaiser-Termes is the Grant Services & Operations Director for Echidna Giving, where she is responsible for grants administration and business operations for the organization. Emily joined Echidna Giving in November 2019. Prior to coming on-board, Emily managed a team of grants managers at Silicon Valley Community Foundation that supported a diverse portfolio of funds ranging from scholarships to fiscal sponsorships to advised funds. She transitioned to the field of philanthropy after completing an M.A. in International & Intercultural Communication at American University in Washington, DC. Prior to graduate school, she worked in marketing and advertising in Colorado and received her B.A. from the University of Northern Colorado.

Emily has experience producing events, negotiating agreements, building teams, and developing and refining workflows. She strives to ensure every process is efficient in order to reduce the burden on grantees and on her team. Emily is usually on the hunt for her next meal, much like an Echidna, which eats 40,000 individual ants and termites a day.

Arjun joins Echidna as Program Officer for Early Childhood Development and Education - India and as interim lead for Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages - India. He most recently worked at the Reliance Foundation, where he launched and developed a comprehensive ECD strategy and program focused on play-based learning with Anganwadi centers. His career in education and development began with action research and teaching mathematics in primary school. He worked with the American India Foundation and grassroots NGOs to improve access and learning of children affected by seasonal migration and empower communities' Right to Education. At the Aga Khan Foundation, his work expanded to include Early Childhood Development (ECD) and adolescent girls' empowerment programs, emphasizing responsive caregiving, gender inclusivity, and human-centered design. Like Echidnas, Arjun likes to dig and try to understand different aspects, linkages, and roots of development challenges.

Dennis is a Program Associate at Echidna Giving, where he supports the organization’s grant management, research, communications, and logistics.

Before joining Echidna, Dennis was the Coordinator for Governance and Partnerships at the People's Action for Learning (PAL) Network, where he supported governance activities and drove fundraising efforts by identifying opportunities, crafting proposals, and managing relationships with both potential and existing funders. Additionally, he ensured compliance with safeguarding practices and procedures, implementing necessary safeguards to protect the populations that the network worked with.

Dennis started his professional journey as a secondary school teacher in Kenya before transitioning to roles with Kenya Airways, MTN Côte d'Ivoire, and the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). His diverse professional background has equipped him with key relationship-building and management skills. He holds a bachelor's degree in education and speaks French.

He resonates with the amazing adaptability of echidnas. Much like the echidna, which is able to thrive in varied environments thanks to its low body temperature, Dennis hopes to bring a versatility and resilience to his work at Echidna Giving.

Allison Gross is a Program Associate for Echidna Giving, where she is responsible for supporting the Program Team with research, grant management, and coordination. Allison joined Echidna Giving in October of 2024. Prior to joining, Allison worked in rural Indonesia through a Fulbright Scholarship, where she taught English, led community engagement initiatives, and developed programming to support English literacy and storytelling. She brings a strong background in research and international education, with a focus on early childhood education in crisis and humanitarian settings.

Allison holds a master's degree in International Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Wesleyan University. Her research has explored trauma-informed pedagogy and community systems surrounding early childhood in California, respectively. Her past work experience includes supporting the production of various educational initiatives at Sesame Street Workshop aimed at supporting displaced children in Syrian, Venezuelan, and Rohingya refugee communities and contributing to research at the Stanford Center for Early Childhood.

Allison is nearsighted like an echidna: She can see her computer screen or a book just fine, but don't ask her to spot anything farther away—unless it's a snack, then her electroreception kicks in!

Dulce Preciado joined Echidna Giving in the fall of 2024 as a Grants Services Associate. In this role, she supports the grants administration process and the grants management system. She also provides technical and compliance support internally and externally.

Before joining Echidna Giving, Dulce worked as a Data and Analytics Assistant at StarVista, a mental health nonprofit in the Bay Area, where she supported staff and program managers with reporting and database administration. She brings to Echidna a background in fundraising, having worked on the Development team at the San Francisco Jazz Organization. While at SFJAZZ, Dulce discovered her passion for database administration and technical support when her flexibility and creativity were put to the test as the pandemic shuttered all music venues. Dulce is excited to support Echidna Giving's mission to advance girls' education, which she finds both fulfilling and empowering.

Dulce is learning to swim as an adult, and she aspires to become a capable swimmer, like an echidna adapting gracefully between land and water.

Beth is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University and the School of Economics of the University of the Philippines. While on staff at the World Bank until late 2014, she was the Bank's senior spokesperson and professional head for global policy and strategic issues related to education development and human development. She continues to do research on topics such as household investments in human capital; the linkages between education, poverty and economic development; returns to human capital; and gender issues in development. Beth is also currently a managing editor of the Journal of Development Effectiveness, a Commissioner of 3ie and board member of a few NGOs. Beth has a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University.

Sonja Giese is a social entrepreneur with a diverse career in development spanning over 30 years. She is founding Executive Director of DataDrive2030, a South African based social enterprise that supports the collection and use of high quality data to drive improved child outcomes in the first 6 years of life. Prior to this, Sonja established and led Innovation Edge, an impact first investor focused on solving early childhood challenges through seed capital and strategic support. Sonja has also held senior leadership positions within the University of Cape Town's Children's Institute, international NGO Absolute Return for Kids and a national ECD donor consortium, Ilifa Labantwana. She has consulted extensively to government, philanthropy and private sector on policy reform and systems change, led large research initiatives and demonstrated her ability to take ideas from source to scale in the various programmes that she has spearheaded. In 2023 Sonja was a recipient of the Khalifa International Award for Early Learning Research for the development of the South African Thrive by Five Index. In addition to her role on the Echidna Giving advisory group, Sonja is a technical advisor to the global Early Childhood Development Action Network and is a founding board member of the community based Bulungula Incubator.

Born in Ghana, Theo Sowa has lived and worked in many countries in Africa, Europe, and North America. She specializes in international development and human rights with particular emphasis on women and children’s rights and protection. Formerly CEO at the African Women's Development Fund, she led the organization through ten years of growth in income, reach and impact. Prior to that she worked with a range of international organizations and agencies and was Senior Programme Advisor on the UN Study on Children and Armed Conflict (the Machel Report). Currently she is Co-Chair of the Equality Fund; and board member of the UBS Optimus Foundation; the Graça Machel Trust; Luminate; and TheirWorld. She sits on the advisory committee of CAPSI (the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Impact), The Stephen Lewis Foundation Africa Advisory group and the Advisory Circle of the Feminist Foreign Policy Initiative and is a Patron of Evidence for Development. Her TEDex talk is available here.

Allie is a Senior Grants Services Associate for Echidna Giving. She provides support for the organization's grants administration and grants management system.

Prior to joining Echidna Giving, Allie was an Operations Associate at Open Philanthropy, where she focused on employee engagement, administrative support, and event planning. She comes to Echidna with experience in international education, having been a volunteer for the Peace Corps in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, working to improve literacy standards at a rural primary school. Allie was also a Member Support Specialist for a clean-energy start-up, and she graduated from UC Berkeley where she was active in Model UN, majored in Political Economy, and minored in Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy.

Allie loves Greek mythology, which made her a bit concerned about the “echidna” name at first. She was relieved to learn that Echidna Giving is named after the cute animals, not the terrifying monsters!

Apara is a Program Associate at Echidna Giving, where she is responsible for sourcing new grants, tracking research developments in the girls’ education field, and managing our social media presence. Apara joined Echidna Giving in October 2021 after completing her Master’s Degree in International Education Policy Analysis from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Her MA thesis studied how the Indian government’s increased reliance on private schools to deliver education has naturally led to schools that are segregated by caste.

Apara’s interest in girls’ education is largely motivated by her time as a government school teacher in urban South India, where she lived and learned how disparities in educational opportunities detrimentally hinder children from marginalized backgrounds — especially girls at intersections (lower SES, “low” caste, special needs, etc.). She is also inspired by the wisdom of the women in her family, especially her Amma, who was the first girl in her family to graduate from secondary school and attend college. From her, Apara has learned the power of feminism as a belief and a daily practice.

Apara can identify with echidnas, whose active body temperature is second lowest in the animal kingdom, because she is also always cold. Apara can usually be found wearing a very large coat or sitting under the direct sun, missing her warm home in India.

Sara joins Echidna Giving as Program Officer for Foundational Learning at Primary School Ages - Africa and as interim lead for Adolescent Life Skills - Africa. She comes to Echidna after previous stints in teaching, in academia, as a founder and leader in the not-for-profit sector, and in government. These four phases have shaped her professional identity and given her clarity of focus of the contribution she could make to her world.

Sara started her professional life in Kenya as a secondary school teacher and teachers’ college tutor focusing on language and literature. This budding phase paved the way to 15 years teaching and researching at Kenyatta University, where she pursued research interests in school reform, girls’ education, and education for other disadvantaged children. This second phase cemented her competencies as a researcher and teacher educator.

The third phase of Sara’s career was more outward looking, generating policy-facing evidence. Sara founded Uwezo Kenya, an ambitious, exciting, and pioneering effort that spurred citizens to refocus on education quality using the question “Are Our Children Learning?”. Modeled after Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), Uwezo engaged citizens at the household level to assess and improve learning outcomes using the measure of reading and numeracy. Sara went on to manage Uwezo East Africa which, at its peak, assessed 340,000 children across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. She then started and led the People’s Action for Learning Network, a partnership of 17 organizations working to promote children’s foundational learning across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Together, members have shifted national and international policies with respect to reading and numeracy, developed common assessments, and proven the power of south-south collaboration in developing contextually appropriate and meaningful learning assessments.

In the fourth phase of her career, Sara was a public servant in Kenya’s Ministry of Education, where she served as the Chief Administrative Secretary. This sharpened her perspectives on how civil society could better engage with the government to effect social change.

Sara steps into the next phase of her career with Echidna Giving drawing a lesson from the echidna, who just “does her thing” digging and moving the soil, which results in better soil mixing, greater water penetration, and healthier soil that benefits all.

Meera Pathmarajah joined Echidna Giving as a Program Officer for Adolescent Life Skills - India on the heels of launching Blue Brick School, an ed-tech initiative of Visions Global Empowerment, the non-profit organization she co-founded in 2003. Meera’s journey in international educational development began in Sri Lanka, where she has helped design and launch programs for conflict-affected youth for nearly two decades.

From 2005 to 2009, Meera worked on girls’ education and literacy programs for the non-profit Room to Read, where she gained extensive fieldwork experience across seven Asian countries. She also developed insights into policy-practice dilemmas that she later examined while writing her doctoral dissertation on learner-centered pedagogy in South India.

Meera has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of San Francisco and UCLA. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and South Asia Studies from the University of California, Berkeley; an Ed.M. in International Education from Harvard University; and an Ed.D. in International Education Policy from Teachers College, Columbia University.

In our interconnected world, Meera is not surprised that echidnas, having defeated possibilities of extinction in Australia, are now championing girls’ education globally. Perhaps their motto coincides with a certain anthem: ‘Who runs the world?’ Girls.

Katrina is the Operations Coordinator for Echidna Giving. In this role, she provides essential administrative and operational support across the organization including executive support for leadership. She is focused on enhancing efficiency and ensuring that the organization runs smoothly and effectively.

Katrina joined Echidna in July 2023. She is a seasoned professional with a decade of diverse experience spanning administration, operations, projects, and events. In prior roles, she took on key project leadership positions, overseeing major office projects and spearheading improvements in data management, processes, and workflows. She was the co-chair of Volkswagen's Innovation and Engineering Center California (IECC) Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

As a proud first-generation American, Katrina has paved her own way as the inaugural college graduate in her family with a B.S. in Business Administration - Management from San Francisco State University. Afterward, she founded and managed a family tax business dedicated to assisting and educating immigrant families on enhancing their financial well-being. Fluent in Tagalog, she maintains a deep connection to her heritage.

Katrina sees a bit of herself in Echidnas, known for their striking distinctive spines— much like she is often recognized for her vibrant hairstyles. Inspired by the blonde-highlighted echidnas of southeast Queensland, she's toying with the idea of a fresh hair transformation.

Melizsa Mugyenyi joins Echidna Giving as a Program Officer for Early Childhood Development and Education in Africa. She has gained diverse experience in nonprofit leadership and philanthropy. Specifically, she has designed, managed, or unlocked significant resources for high-impact international development initiatives.

Melizsa's Africa-rooted experience includes early childhood development, education, youth development, and girls' adolescent empowerment. She has contributed to advancing efforts in these sectors as turnaround CEO of the Graça Machel Trust, Country Representative, East Africa at IREX, Head of Partnerships, East Africa at the Aga Khan Foundation, and Program Officer East Africa at the ELMA Philanthropies Services, where she focused on child-centered grantmaking.

Melizsa holds a B.A. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Sheffield and an M.A. in Law, Globalization, and Development from the University of London (School of Oriental and African Studies). She is the Board Chair of the African Visionary Fund.

For Melizsa, Echidnas are a reminder to embrace your weirdness. Sure, they've got spurs on their feet, no teeth, and spines that can move independently... But they are also one of the oldest species alive and renowned ecosystem engineers. Weird and extraordinary, all at once.

Ben Piper is the Director of the Global Education Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Based in the foundation’s Ethiopia office, Benjamin Piper supports grantees that work to improve foundational literacy and numeracy in low- and middle-income countries

Before joining the foundation, Benjamin was the senior director for Africa education for RTI International, where he provided support to large-scale education projects across sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Earlier, he was the chief of party for the Kenyan national literacy program Tusome, a set of randomized controlled trials in Kenya called PRIMR, and Kenya’s National Tablets Programme. He was the principal investigator for Learning at Scale, a multi-country study of highly effective large-scale education programs and for an external evaluation of programs aimed at increasing playful pedagogy at large scale funded by the Lego Foundation. He was also the principal investigator for Science of Teaching, an effort funded by the Gates Foundation to increase knowledge about the technical details of how to improve pedagogy at large scale.

Benjamin has a doctorate in international education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and master’s degrees in international education policy and school leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Furman University, respectively. He has lived in East Africa since 2007 and currently resides in Addis Ababa.