Who We Are

Why do you do what you do?

My journey line of service originates with being the only daughter of an Ecuadorian immigrant who believes in and is living, the American dream. In my experiences as a child visiting my family in Ecuador, I was saddened by the poverty and lack of opportunity. I committed to living in Latin America later in life, leading me to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala. Again, I was struck by how the lack of transparent systems and policies to support economic mobility resulted in a low standard of living for most. My pursuit of a career in service to communities is rooted in my appreciation of what the US has to offer its citizens but also my discontent with how a person’s race, ethnicity, zip code, and economic status can play such a determining role in their life outcomes.

What drew you to SFF and PBF?

My interest is to take another path on my service journey toward building new systems, implementing better policies, and harnessing this region’s economic power to ensure stable and dignified housing for all and an equitable distribution of resources and power to community wherein all people can thrive.

How would you describe your role?

I am part of a regional movement of multisector partners mobilizing to harness the values of equity, racial and social justice and the immense resources of communities, industry, and philanthropy to solve the housing crisis.

Are you involved in any volunteer activities?

I’m an active volunteer for my alma mater, Occidental College, as both a volunteer for the college’s Admissions Office and a member of the Board of Governors.

Why do you do what you do?

I am a first generation San Franciscan, and a descendant of immigrant parents who fled their war-torn native land, El Salvador. A passion for community service and organizing was a gift passed on to me by a remarkable, warrior woman, my mother, who lost everything due to tyranny and violence. Since the age of 16, I have been fighting oppression and working at the forefront of intersectionality. Throughout my career, I’ve focused on access to education, housing, and opportunities. As a rare San Francisco native, I’m working passionately toward a day when this city will welcome back the children that it’s displaced.

How would you describe your role?

I provide critical support for the Partnership for the Bay’s Future.

Are you involved in any volunteer activities?

I’m currently on the board of a local, semi-pro, supporter-owned soccer team, the San Francisco City Football Club.

Why do you do what you do?

I’m the proud daughter of immigrants: my mom is from the Philippines and my dad is from Turkey. Growing up in the Bay Area with my family, I saw firsthand how where we live and who we are affects our access to opportunity. And because I call this amazing region home, it’s a personal as well as professional priority to work toward a Bay Area where everyone can thrive.

How would you describe your role?

I lead the Policy Fund of the Partnership for the Bay’s Future, where we’re addressing the interconnected challenges of housing, transportation, and economic opportunity in the Bay Area. Every day in the Bay Area, rising income inequality means that people have to choose between housing and other basic necessities. But it doesn’t have to be this way — we can build a Bay Area of shared prosperity with the right mix of investment, collaboration, and policy change. I work with our partners across the region to make this vision a reality.

Are you involved in any volunteer activities?

I currently serve on the board of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and recently served on the founding boards of the Hive Fund and the Collective Future Fund. I also volunteer as a movement attorney, whether it’s showing up at SFO to help those affected by the Muslim travel ban or providing pro bono representation for people seeking asylum in the US.

Asha Rao has recently joined BALISC as Director of Investments. She has several years of working in the CDFI industry as an investment manager with Wells Fargo previously, lending to and investing in CDFIs nationwide. Prior to WF Asha worked at Standard and Poor’s in New York and at the Nasscom Foundation in New Delhi, India. She graduated with a BA from Emory University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

We are pleased to announce Cindy Wu, a recognized leader and problem solver in the field with a deep commitment to community engagement and advancing equity and inclusion, as the new executive director of Bay Area LISC. Cindy brings 15 years of community leadership, affordable housing knowledge and public policy experience to LISC Bay Area at this critical moment. She is also not a stranger to LISC, having been one of the inaugural Rubinger Fellows!

Cindy was most recently the Deputy Director for Chinatown Community Development Center, a place-based nonprofit developer in San Francisco’s Chinatown. In this role she oversaw affordable housing development, property management, human resources and internal administration and operations. She guided the organization through rapid growth from 1,700 to 3,000 units of housing over five years. Prior to this, Cindy led Chinatown CDC’s Community Planning Team from 2007-2015, empowering residents to advocate for their neighborhood and attracting more than $45 million in neighborhood capital improvements.

Cindy is equal parts grassroots activist and pragmatic problem-solver. The common thread, though all her years of work has been a deep commitment to community engagement and decision-making by Chinatown’s residents to determine their own fate for their neighborhood.

Cindy has also been a vital member of the San Francisco Planning Commission, including a term serving as its president, working to develop strategies that protect neighborhood businesses and streamline affordable housing construction. She holds a Masters in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley. Outside of work, Cindy enjoys exploring Oakland with her husband and two-year old child.

Elizabeth is so excited to join the Bay Area LISC team and brings over 15 years of experience in community development and city and transportation planning, plus a deep love of collaboration and tackling inequity in the systems that shape the built environment. Most recently, Elizabeth served as Director for the Great Communities Collaborative at the San Francisco Foundation, leading strategy, learning and partnership development for the collaborative and overseeing grantmaking and fundraising for the annual $1.5M budget. She brought together funders, advocates, organizers, and public sector partners to identify, implement, and leverage policy and financing solutions to move the region towards a more equitable and sustainable Bay Area.

Previously, Elizabeth worked for a national non-profit where she co-authored several publications and developed tools, research, and strategies to advance equitable transit-oriented development in regions across the country, including the Bay Area, Denver, Los Angeles and Twin Cities. Elizabeth started her career in proximity to LISC, while working at a small CDC on the southwest side of Chicago that was the lead partner in implementing a community-led vision for the neighborhood with support from the Chicago LISC office. She graduated with a BA from the University of Chicago and a Master of City Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.

Elizabeth lives in Oakland where she’s always seeking out the ocean and shady redwood groves, delighting in tasty vegan restaurants, and crafting all of the things while chilling with her pet rabbit, Tommaso.

Why do you do what you do?
Over the last twenty years I’ve lived in the Bay Area, I have watched my home region become more and more exclusionary as people are being pushed from the homes, neighborhoods and cities they’ve spent their entire lives in. And at my previous job, I developed a desire to create a more meaningful social impact while creating communication campaigns for a program that partnered with food banks, organized drives for getting essentials to people experiencing homelessness, and led urban gardening in underserved communities. Working on these campaigns at the same time as I watched homeless encampments pop up at an alarming rate led me to understand that I needed to dedicate my career to helping find solutions for the housing crisis in the Bay Area.

How would you describe your role?
I support the Partnership for the Bay’s Future, a collaborative effort to ensure that Bay Area families of all races and backgrounds have access to quality, affordable homes by addressing policy change while investing in affordable housing. I help tell the story of our programs and successes while creating a connection to the people whose lives are directly impacted by our work. It is through these stories that we hope to inspire others to invest in preserving the diversity of our communities.

We are very excited to announce that Sally Smyth has joined the Bay Area office as a Community Development underwriter. As a Community Development underwriter, Sally is responsible for structuring, underwriting, and closing loans as well as providing technical assistance to borrowers. Sally believes deeply in LISC’s mission to work with residents and partners to forge resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity. Her background in systems change, nonprofit organizational effectiveness, and public policy shape her approach to lending as one critical tool to advance this mission.

Prior to joining LISC, Sally was a Senior Loan Officer with Community Vision Capital & Consulting (formerly NCCLF), where she underwrote deals in Northern California ranging from large NMTC allocations for community facilities to small, working capital loans for fishermen and famers. Sally also helped to lead an ongoing process to review and revise Community Vision’s lending products, policies, and processes to more directly address racial and economic equity.

Sally’s additional professional experience includes four years with the Center for Effective Philanthropy providing rigorous, comparative stakeholder feedback to grantmaking foundations and two years as a Presidential Management Fellow with the US Department of Agriculture and the National Economic Council. In addition, Sally helped to found and structure two nonprofits focused on policy and systems change: The Berkeley Food Institute at UC Berkeley and Opportunity@Work based in Washington, DC. Sally’s academic training includes a BA at Wesleyan University and a Master of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

Ella Zimbalist is excited to join the Partnership for the Bay’s Future and San Francisco Foundation as an Associate Initiative Officer, where she will leverage her previous experience managing economic mobility programs at United South End Settlements in Boston to advance the Foundation’s mission of promoting equitable access to opportunity. Growing up in Northampton, MA, Ella was inspired by her family’s commitment to social justice, which led her to engage with local non-profits and pursue a degree in Political Science and Latin American Studies at Tulane University. During her time at Tulane, she served as a Community Engagement Advocate and interned in the MA State House with the office of Senator Jo Comerford. When she’s not working, Ella enjoys exploring the Bay Area’s hiking trails, practicing yoga, dancing ballet, and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.