Jesa Townsend

Founder and CEO of Fund and Found; need an entire team behind you? Click

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Jesa Townsend is, at her core, a servant leader. A respected senior executive in fund development and community relations, she brings more than a decade of consulting experience at the intersection of philanthropy, education, and the arts. She is a celebrated artist, a formidable researcher, and a 2023 Success Magazine “50 Women of Influence” nominee [Trailblazers Issue, 2023], as well as a finalist for the L.A. Works Civic Leadership & Impact Award. Her journey is a testament to what happens when passion meets purpose—when creativity is paired with strategy, and when community is at the center of every solution. Read a recent publication on Jesa: Leading Without a Safety Net.

Over the years, Jesa has worked alongside some of the the highest-level of government officials and most impactful institutions and organizations in the nonprofit sector— like Goodwill SF Bay, Aspire Public Schools, Emile Chol Atelier, Meals on Wheels, The National Charity League, Skydance Animation, Whittier College, the Orange County School of the Arts, and more. She’s raised millions in public and private funding and managed substantial teams of seasoned grant writers. She’s built bridges between communities and institutions. And she’s helped shape programs that honor both lived experience and long-term outcomes.

Her teaching background spans from undergraduate lecture halls to two K–12 school systems and one vocational institution- third grade onwards. But Jesa’s calling extends beyond instruction. After completing her graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University—where she earned two academic fellowships and graduated with distinction—she began partnering with cities to design public art that gave voice to issues too often left in silence. That early work laid the foundation for what would become a deeply civic and creative consulting practice—holding executive leadership positions in succession.

In 2012, her ability to paint both beauty and justice onto the same canvas or city wall was formally recognized when she received a 2012 Heroes & Hearts award from the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation. Since then, she has collaborated with more than 30 cause-based organizations and installed public and private commissions in cities such as Tempe, Jasper, Iowa City, Salem, Manhattan, Santa Ana, Henderson, Phoenix, Wilmington, and Los Angeles. Her solo exhibitions and talks have graced venues like The Conrad Chicago and The Grand Wilmington Opera House. She has worked alongside the Arizona Science Center, Anaheim Garden Walk (Disney way), Life is Beautiful, St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, Manor Hospice, and the National Charity League (multiple chapters)—always with a focus on using art as a conduit for collective change.

Jesa is a systems thinker. Her expertise in philanthropic strategy, donor relations, and social policy has helped organizations navigate challenges both internal and systemic. She serves as a foundation board member for Aspire Public Schools—a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Deputy Director & founder of Netflix Reed Hastings affiliation— she is also a founding board member of Nevada State University’s Arts & Culture Advisory Council (11+ years). Lastly, Jesa is a certified facilitator with the National Center to Reframe Aging in Washington, D.C., and a proud advocate for the Epilepsy Foundation.

Academically, Jesa continues to lead by learning. In addition to her Master’s from Johns Hopkins, she studied at Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence, began graduate work at the University of Edinburgh, and is currently completing her second Master’s—this one in Clinical Psychology at Pepperdine University, where she was awarded a Graduate Scholarship upon admission.

Whether she's advising on a national funding strategy, designing a mural that tells a community’s story, or standing at a podium next to policymakers and fellow change agents, Jesa brings to the table what every great leader must: clarity of purpose, humility in process, and an unwavering belief in the power of people. Her recent lightning talk at Johns Hopkins University’s Earth Day 50 celebration—click, focused on the arts as a tool for crossing ideological divides—offered just that: hope, creativity, and intellectual courage.

And at the end of the day, Jesa is still a farm girl at heart. She’s traveled to 39 countries. She adores her family, who hold a deeply anchored civil rights legacy, and her animals. She laughs easily, listens intently, and leads with both grit and grace. Through it all, Jesa Townsend remains committed to one simple idea, as demonstrated by her founding Fund and Found, LLC, that every community deserves dignity, and that begins with equitable access to opportunity, resources, and voice.

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www.JesaTownsend.com