Our Team

Sadia Hameed

Community Builder. Collaborator. Strategist.

Sadia is Founder and Executive Director of Thought Partnerships and has spent the last twenty years deeply engaged in field-building. Through working strategically with a range of diverse human rights organizations, identifying and inviting new stakeholders into conversations, Sadia serves as a thought partner who seeks to identify and create opportunities, connections, and collaborations that help the global peacebuilding and conflict prevention fields to thrive and grow.

Prior to Thought Partnerships, Sadia served as the Managing Director of The Nexus Fund where she oversaw the organization’s global programmatic teams and interventions. She pioneered grantmaking approaches and technical support programs to seed and support local to global networks and locally led peacebuilding initiatives to help prevent mass atrocities. 

Before joining Nexus, Sadia worked as the Program Officer for Wellspring Philanthropic Fund’s Atrocities Prevention and Response Program. Sadia has also worked as a practitioner to prevent and respond to international conflicts in South Asia, Myanmar, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan and Nigeria through a variety of roles with organizations including Amnesty International, Oxfam America, Center for American Progress and Human Rights First. 

Sadia serves on the Steering Committee for the Peace and Security Funders Group where she is also a member of their Committee on advancing Diversity Equity and Inclusion in philanthropy. Sadia is also a member of a number of expert committees focused on civilian protection, atrocity prevention, movement building and bridge building. She previously served on the Board of Directors for Invisible Children and is a 2021 Rockwood Equity in Philanthropy Fellow.

Sadia earned her MA in International Development in 2003 from American University’s School of International Service, and holds a BA Honors in Political Science and Economic Development as well as a professional certification in International Human Rights Laws and Practice.

Email: sadia@thoughtpartnerships.org

Karin Attia

Idea-Generator. Encourager. Optimist.

As a Program Officer at Thought Partnerships, Karin supports the countering hate and division programming. Her work focuses on amplifying the work of members of the Countering Hate & Division Community of Practice, as well as ensuring continuous opportunities for collaboration and engagement.

She is an experienced peacebuilder, researcher, facilitator, human rights and gender equality advocate with an activist spirit. Her previous experience includes both UN and non-governmental organizations, where she directly engaged in program and curriculum development, in-depth research projects, and the writing and editing of technical thematic areas and reports for diverse audiences. 

Prior to joining Thought Partnerships, she worked as a consultant for a flagship conflict prevention program at UNDP where she developed and launched communication products and led in the organization and conceptualization of workshops and trainings. Since 2016, she has worked with the Peace Project, a nonprofit focused on bringing human rights curriculum to 5th grade classrooms across New York City. She has steered the organization’s curriculum development and successfully deconstructed human rights topics to make them approachable for children and encourages them to harness their potential for activism. 

She has conducted research in Rwanda, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Israel and the West Bank. Karin has been published on OpenDemocracy, Mondoweiss and academic journal, Perspectives on Global Issues. Karin has a M.S in Global Affairs from New York University with a concentration in Peacebuilding and a specialization in Gender, and holds a B.A. in International Relations with a minor in Religion from the University of California, San Diego.

Stephanie Horta

Community Advocate. Up lifter. Creator.

Stephanie is Thought Partnerships’ Program and Community Engagement Coordinator. She supports the design and monitoring of programs and facilitates member engagement through Thought Partnerships’s HUB platform.

Prior to joining Thought Partnerships, Stephanie worked as a benefits advocate, providing virtual grassroots support to New York residents facing humanitarian crises including food insecurity and lack of access to basic needs and housing. Her work included collaborating with community-based organizations, legal service providers, city agencies, and activists to advance public benefits programs in New York City. Over the past five years, Stephanie’s experience has reflected community organizing, legal resource provisions and public engagement. 

Stephanie is a two-time study abroad scholar. She has researched and studied justice systems in both Indonesia and South Africa. In 2017, Stephanie earned her BA in Forensic Psychology from the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 

Crystal Tsoi

Thought Partnerships is a non-profit initiative housed within NEO Philanthropy. Crystal serves as our project liaison and is a Senior Project Manager of Donor Services & Special Projects at NEO.

Prior to joining NEO, Crystal was the program associate at the John A. Hartford Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to improving the care of older adults. In her role, she facilitated the grant making for program staff and grantees and managed the program evaluation process. Before her time in philanthropy, Crystal worked on political campaigns at both the local and national level. During President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, she was a field organizer in Iowa, where she worked extensively with community-based organizations, small business owners, and local youth groups to maximize voter participation and engagement. Crystal holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Public Administration from the NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service.

Our Advisors

Mona Chun

Mona Chun has over twenty years of experience in leadership positions in human rights, network-and field-building and civic engagement. Most recently, Mona served as Executive Director of the Human Rights Funders Network (HRFN), a global network of funders committed to advancing human rights through effective philanthropy. She also served as HRFN’s Deputy Director, providing key leadership for the organization and its groundbreaking initiative to track global human rights grantmaking.  Mona was also the founding Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable Human Rights Action, providing capacity-building training to human rights groups and activists around the world and worked at the Coro New York Leadership Center, developing an engaged community of civic leaders in New York City. Mona has been committed to building the field of human rights throughout her career, from setting up an Anglophone Amnesty International chapter in Paris to helping to establish the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in the Cote D’Ivoire. Mona has served on Peak Grantmaking’s Trust-Based Philanthropy Working Group, the Board of Directors of the New York Chinese Cultural Center and the Advisory Board of Adilisha, a human rights capacity-building organization in Southern Africa. She lives in New York and enjoys cooking up and seeking out new foods at home and abroad with her partner and two daughters. 

Shukria Dellawar

Shukria Dellawar is a peace and security expert, human rights advocate and gender specialist. She has worked in various capacities to maintain focus on peace-building efforts. She is currently serving as the Policy Director for Afghanistan Peace Campaign, and the Legislative Representative for the Prevention of Violent Conflict at the Friends Committee for National Legislation (FCNL). At FCNL, she leads the Prevention and Protection Working Group, a coalition of human rights, religious, humanitarian, anti-genocide, and peace organizations. PPWG is dedicated to improving U.S. government policies and civilian capacities to prevent violent conflict, avert mass atrocities, and protect civilians threated by such crisis. Prior to her work with FCNL, Ms. Dellawar served as a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and led the Afghanistan Study Group in 2012. She has led several fact-finding missions to Afghanistan since 2009. Shukria has worked in the defense sector as a political analyst and cultural advisor and testified before Congress as a subject matter expert in several briefings over the last decade. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from George Mason University’s School of Conflict Analysis & Resolution. Ms. Dellawar has contributed op-eds to U.S. newspapers covering topics of peace and security and women’s empowerment. She is fluent in English, Dari, Pashto and Urdu/Hindi.

Nancy Payne 

Nancy Payne is a communication executive, consultant and mentor who currently supports early-to-mid stage entrepreneurs and organizations to develop as leaders and communicate more effectively about the work they do. 

Previously, she was chief operating officer of PeaceTech Lab where she oversaw the Lab's daily operations and played a significant role in helping to establish the Lab in using media, technology and data innovations for peacebuilding. She has expertise integrating digital media strategies into outreach and behavior change campaigns, managing international programs and strategic communications. 

Nancy was also managing director for communications at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (formerly OPIC), which that mobilizes private capital to tackle development challenges in emerging markets and post-conflict countries. 

As a senior partner and senior vice president at FleishmanHillard International, Nancy served as general manager at FH-Hong Kong and co-led the firm’s largest digital communication team in Washington, DC. Earlier, she managed technology client activities for international communications agencies now in the Weber Shandwick network. She has advised numerous government, corporate and nonprofit organizations on strategies for corporate communication, reputation management and web-based outreach programs. 

Nancy started her career in broadcast news as a reporter and photographer. She holds a M.A. from American University’s School of International Service, and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Nebraska. She has also taught at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University.

Maegan Scott

Maegan Scott, founder and principal at Wayfinding Partners, is an organizational change and transformation consultant and racial equity specialist. She brings more than a decade of experience in philanthropy and nonprofit management, along with 15 years of experience in the field of equity, inclusion, and diversity. From 2008-2017,  Maegan served in many capacities at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s capacity-building portfolio and served as a resource to the leaders and staff of numerous nonprofit organizations in the Washington, DC region. During her tenure at Meyer, she also supported the development and implementation of the foundation’s racial equity stance and several leadership development programs. 

Maegan launched Wayfinding Partners—a strategy consultancy for social change organizations—in full earnest in 2017. As an organization development practitioner, her consulting areas include strategy development, organizational culture and design, and leadership coaching. At the core of Maegan’s work is a deep commitment to racial justice and racial equity. This is the lens and underlying goal for all of Wayfinding Partners’ work. In addition to her consulting practice, Maegan is adjunct faculty for the Master of Science in Organization Development program at the Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University. She also serves on the boards of Free Minds Book Club and Safe Shores - The DC Children’s Advocacy Center.

Maegan has a bachelor’s degree in international studies from American University, an executive certificate in nonprofit management from Georgetown University, and a master’s degree in organization development from the Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University. Maegan is a proud resident of the District of Columbia, where she lives with her husband and HRH Pearl the Cat.