Donata Secondo is the Chief of Staff in the Office of the President at Democracy Fund, an independent foundation working to ensure that our political system is able to withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. In this role, Donata supports the leadership of the Fund’s President and Managing Directors by developing and executing on new strategic initiatives, coordinating cross-programmatic collaboration, and by managing engagement with the Fund’s Board of Directors and other ongoing projects for the Office of the President.
Donata joined Democracy Fund in 2015 and served for three years on Democracy Fund’s Strategy Impact and Learning team. As Manager of Learning and Strategy, she supported the organization in developing rigorous systems-aware strategies and in fostering an active learning culture for the organization, its grantees, and the broader field. Donata previously worked at the Participatory Budgeting Project, a Democracy Fund grantee, where she managed the launch of the largest participatory budgeting initiative in the United States in New York City. Each year, PBNYC engages thousands of New York City residents in directly allocating more than $35 million of the city’s budget. Her research and experience working on PB led to several publications, including in the Journal of Public Deliberation.
Donata holds a Masters of Science in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and BA in International Development from Brown University.