Hello, I’m Eva Kolodner.

I bring a range of skills and passions to the arena of making social change—chief among them intent listening, curiosity, and a belief that unlocking resources can bring about joy, connection, and lasting impact.

As a life-long advocate and activist, I am deeply inspired by and connected with intersectional feminist, queer, antiracist, and international human rights movements.

My coming out journey as well as my growing consciousness of gender and racial inequity as a young adult put me on a course to identify the issues that would center my purpose. I found my early calling on the front lines of movements for reproductive health and LGBT rights; in anti-racist consciousness raising groups and actions against police violence against Black people; and in HIV/AIDS activism, doing needle exchange in New York and as a volunteer with a sex-worker-led feminist organization in Thailand.

I was drawn to the world of independent film by the creative power of the New Queer Cinema movement. Working my way up to becoming a producer of successful feature films, most notably the Academy-Award winning Boys Don’t Cry, I saw how I could channel my communication and project management abilities into telling stories that could change culture. Founding my own production company, working with amazing talent and making films with great collaborators like Margaret Cho and John Krasinski was exhilarating. But when my partner and I adopted our first child, I realized I needed more of a reason to leave home each day—and that building a better world for the next generation was part of my purpose. For me, that meant going deeper and more directly into social justice work.

Since 2009, I have raised tens of millions of dollars as a major and principal gifts fundraiser for international humanitarian and grass-roots human rights work, at the International Rescue Committee, Global Fund for Women and American Jewish World Service, as well as through 6 years of Board service at the Reproductive Health Access Project. I have used my skills of empathetic listening and deep curiosity to connect generous philanthropists to locally-led social justice organizations that are bringing about the transformation our world needs.

I was sparked by COVID, the increasingly troubling slide toward authoritarianism around the world, and a feeling of rediscovering my own passion for purpose to put my effort into the world across a wider range of endeavors. Whether supporting individuals and families with philanthropic goals in their giving strategies; helping mission-driven organizations to be more effective communicators and fundraisers; or tapping my curiosity and extensive connections in movements to provide curated learning journey experiences for philanthropists, all of my work points in the direction of moving philanthropy toward the vision of a more equitable world.