Oona Chatterjee

"The seeds that North Star Fund plants are instrumental to movement building in our city. New York would be a different place without North Star Fund."

Oona Chatterjee, North Star Fund Board Chair, has extensive experience in grassroots community organizing and advocacy, movement building, organizational management and fundraising. Oona is a co-founder and co-director of Make the Road New York, an organization that promotes economic justice, equity and opportunity for all low-income and immigrant New Yorkers.

Oona began her relationship with North Star Fund as a grantee during the early days of Make the Road New York. She joined the Community Funding Committee in 2002 and has been a board member since 2005.

As a student, Oona was an activist and journalist. She graduated from NYU Law School and Yale University. In 2003, she received the Reebok Human Rights Award, and in 2004 she was named in the New York Daily News as one of 100 Women Who Shape Our City.

Oona, the child of immigrant parents from India, was inspired to become an activist by stories of her grandparents, who were involved in the struggle for independence in India. Her work has been guided by a strong belief in the importance of community-led movements for social change. "We are each other's power. People have the ability to make change within themselves."

As a grantee and board member Oona has witnessed how support from North Star Fund has been critical to the growth of grassroots organizations. "The seeds that North Star Fund plants are instrumental to movement building in our city. New York would be a different place without North Star Fund."