Vini Bhansali, Annabel Snidow, and Gabrielle Zhuang-Estrin
GSF Welcomes Three New Board Members
General Service Foundation is thrilled to announce the addition of three new members to our board: Vini Bhansali, Annabel Snidow, and Gabrielle Zhuang-Estrin. These three individuals bring a range of invaluable experience and incredible passion for the work it takes to achieve a more just world. We are honored to welcome each of these new members to GSF, and we’re excited to work alongside them in our collective mission to advance racial, gender and economic justice.
Read more about our new board members:
Rajasvini Bhansali | Executive Director, Solidaire Network
Rajasvini Bhansali has been the Executive Director of the Solidaire Network since November 2018. She previously served as Executive Director of Thousand Currents, where she helped launch a climate justice fund and an impact investment fund and led efforts to expand partnerships with grassroots groups and movements led by women, youth, and Indigenous peoples in the Global South.Vini’s wide-ranging career devoted to social, ecological, and economic justice has included leading a national social enterprise focused on youth development; managing a public telecommunications infrastructure fund addressing digital divide issues in Texas; and working as a researcher, planner, policy analyst and strategy consultant for large public sector entities. She also spent two years working alongside community leaders as a capacity builder for youth polytechnics in rural Kenya, an experience she credits as motivating her to work to transform U.S. based philanthropy.
Born and raised in India, Vini earned a Master’s in Public Affairs with a focus on technology and telecommunications policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor′s in Astrophysics and Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences from UC Berkeley.
In 2015, Vini was honored with a Leaders in Action award by Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) and was a Social Entrepreneurship (SEERS) fellow at Stanford University in 2016.
Vini has been involved in community organizing and volunteer board roles for the last two decades including serving on the boards of Greenpeace USA, Justice Funders Network, Agroecology Fund, and Rockwood Leadership Institute. Currently, she serves on the boards of Tides Advocacy, the Swift Foundation, and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. She guest lectures in the Master’s of Leadership of Sustainability Program at the University of Vermont and also works as a popular educator, executive coach, and leadership trainer.
A lifelong learner, Vini is currently attempting to improve her Spanish language skills and training to be a certified Iyengar yoga teacher. When not involved with learning or organizing, she can be found nesting with her family in Richmond, CA.
Annabel Snidow | Family Board Member
Annabel Snidow is graduating from Northeastern University later this year with her degree in Political Science in Women’s Studies. She will continue at NEU and receive her MS in Security and Resilience Studies and with an interest in how philanthropy or social justice initiatives can affect a region’s/company’s/etc security and culture. She has completed two co-ops, one at a public health nonprofit and the other at a medical technology company, and eventually she hopes to have a career that is impactful, innovative, and inspiring.
Gabrielle Zhuang-Estrin | Family Board Member
Gabrielle Zhuang-Estrin, LCSW, MA is a .5 generation Chinese-American Clinical Social Worker in Los Angeles. She has a private practice, Koretherapy, and has served diverse and vulnerable communities who have faced many complex challenges since 2007. Gabrielle holds a passionate interest in the wellness and healing implications of intergenerational trauma and the intersection of racial trauma, somatics and social justice. Presently, her practice comprises mainly of the AAPI community who are grappling with racial identity, the immigrant experience as well as this cultural moment.
During her career she has worked with survivors of human trafficking, older adults with chronic mental illness, children and families experiencing homelessness and Veterans.
She has previously served as clinical supervisor at The Relational Center, a community based mental health non-profit. She is a certified community mindfulness facilitator and a certified sensorimotor psychotherapy practitioner. She currently serves on the boards of The Relational Center and of the John Lloyd Foundation, an organization that funds criminal justice reform.
Gabrielle has a Masters in Social Work from UCLA and a Masters in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Community Liberation and Ecopsychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Gabrielle grew up in the Midwest and has lived in the Los Angeles area for the last 14 years. Gabrielle is a joyful wife and mother to a toddler, outside of work she loves spending time in nature and eating delicious Asian food.