Team

Allen Gunn is Executive Director of Aspiration (www.aspirationtech.org) in San Francisco, USA, and works to help NGOs, activists, foundations and technologists make more effective and sustainable digital strategies in support of social change.

Gunner has worked in numerous technology environments from NGO to Silicon Valley start-up to college faculty to large corporation, serving in senior management, engineering, teaching and volunteer roles. He is an experienced strategist, mentor and facilitator with a passion for designing collaborative open learning processes, and he believes in melding hard work with serious fun.

In his role at Aspiration, he connects nonprofit organizations, free and open source projects, philanthropic funders and activists with strategic frameworks, technology solutions, digital practices and data skills that help them more fully realize their missions.

The common thread that connects all facets of Gunner's work is a focus on open approaches to capacity building and knowledge sharing in social change efforts. Aspiration prioritizes work that supports and contributes to open communities of practice who create technology and content that benefit nonprofit and foundation efforts. The organization has designed and facilitated almost 700 extremely open learning and knowledge sharing events, in over 50 countries across the globe, predicated on a philosophy of active participation that puts each participant “in control of their own destiny”, in contrast to approaches that place audiences in passive listening roles. Aspiration publishes all licensed work products, including software tools, books, papers and training materials, under open licenses; for published documents and media, the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike, and for software the GNU General Public License whenever possible.

Gunner is an active facilitator, contributor, advisor, and/or partner in a number of organizations and projects, including Digital Freedom Fund, European Digital Rights (EDRi), SustainOSS, FOSS Responders, Gathering for Open Science Hardware, OpenReferral, OpenStreetMap US, OpenStreetMap Foundation, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Tor Project, Tails, Jolocom, Greenpeace USA, Rainforest Action Network, Simply Secure, and Mozilla.

He is a board member of Global Exchange, Peer 2 Peer University, The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA), and Forward Change, and serves on the Project Leadership Committee for the Reproducible Builds Project, and also serves in formal advisory roles with The Everett Program, Houdini Project, The Center for Tech Cultivation, SAFETAG, Electronic Frontier Foundation Security Education Companion, CorpWatch, LocalizED, and United for Iran. He is a former board member of The Ruckus Society, Idealware and US Treks/Internet Treks.

Gunner is also a guest lecturer and former faculty member in Computer Science at Foothill College in California, and served on the Computer Science faculty at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia early in his career. Prior to his role at Aspiration, he served as Chief Tech Organizer for The Ruckus Society, and prior to that he was co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Pensare, an eLearning dotgone. He has served as senior software engineer at firms including Novell, NetManage, and a number of startups, and has shepherded large software projects through all stages of development, from inception, design, engineering, and testing to deployment, support and marketing, in environments ranging from start-up to large corporation to nonprofit.

Julianne manages Aspiration's financial operations, funds under fiscal management, and fiscal sponsorship program. She brings over a decade of experience strengthening organizational operations, building capacity, and deepening programmatic impact with nonprofits, NGOs, and activists.

Julianne holds degrees in Cultural Anthropology and History of Art and Visual Culture from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is actively engaged with Bay Area artists and activists, using her skill set to advocate for performing arts spaces, youth arts education, and cultural diplomacy. She leverages this background in community engagement and activism to support Aspiration’s mission to empower organizers and their movements.

Julianne was introduced to fiscal sponsorship though her role as Interim Managing Director of the Red Poppy Art House, an organization under fiscal sponsorship. Through this experience, she became an advocate for fiscal sponsorship models as a way for nonprofits to gain the essential support needed to scale impact and strengthen social change efforts. Through her role with Aspiration, Julianne is committed to providing Aspiration’s clients with values-driven supports rooted in accessibility and equity.

As Senior Finance Manager, Syndia manages Aspiration’s financial activities. Over the course of her accounting career, Syndia has helped manage over a quarter of a billion dollars in assets. Her industry experiences include nonprofits, public accounting, environmental consulting, local government, product retail, and banking. Syndia leads with quality, integrity, and reliability.

Syndia is an alumna of Florida State University. Her educational background includes International Affairs, Political Science, and Economics. She is passionate about social improvements such as human rights, resource management, and technology efficiency.

Audrey supports Aspiration with day-to-day financial operation management. She has a long and vibrant history with Bay Area nonprofits and has seen a lot of action on the finance front in both the for profit and nonprofit sectors. Audrey has served as a former board member and acting fiscal manager for Fabulosa Fest, and has also served as the former full charge bookkeeper for El Rio and Inkworks Press. Her foray into the nonprofit world began in the early 2000s as the Communications and Development Director for The Ruckus Society.

Her commitment to equity, empathy, and elation are evident in her current work with students, educators and artists both locally and internationally. Her interests in art and freedom stem from her personal experiences and pervade her perspectives in the constructed world order.

Geoffrey served as the Vice President of Development at Consumer Reports (CR), where he developed strategy, built partnerships, and secured resources to protect consumers’ interests in the marketplace. He was a pivotal force in the creation and launch of the Digital Standard, an open and collaborative effort to create a digital privacy and security standard to help guide the future design of consumer software, digital platforms and services, and internet-connected products. He was also instrumental in the creation of CR’s new model for distributed consumer power, engagement, and participation, which underpins the design of its membership program.

Prior to joining CR, Geoffrey served as Vice President, Engagement, for the Mozilla Foundation, where he lead the design and development of Mozilla’s strategic development (fundraising and investment) program, as well as its policy and advocacy program. In this role, he established partnerships with premier philanthropic institutions and was a driving force in the StopWatching.Us campaign and the 2015 Net Neutrality grassroots advocacy victory.

Geoffrey has also served as:

• Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Goderich Aircraft Inc., where he secured the funding to launch Canada’s first Boeing Completion Centre;
• Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for the Information Technology Association of Canada, where he founded TechSoup Canada, the largest distributor of donated software to Canadian charities and non-profits;
• CEO of Veil Entertainment, where he oversaw the launch of an online game development studio; and
• Chief of Staff of the United Nations World Summit of Young Entrepreneurs, where he spearheaded the operation of 4 events in 4 countries.

A design junkie, MacDougall divides his time between Manhattan and Roxbury, NY where he and his family are restoring a 19th century farmhouse.

Raegan is Director of Policy Leadership at Aspiration, where she is incubating a program with the intention to elevate, partner with, and support emerging leaders from under-represented communities and backgrounds into the European (digital) policy space.

Raegan is a seasoned digital policy practitioner and strategist, with over a decade of experience as a policy advocate, campaigner, manager, director, strategic advisor, and mentor. Over these years, Raegan has been deeply engaged in the European policy space, on issues from data protection and online tracking, to platform responsibility, disinformation, net neutrality, copyright reform, and competition.

As Director of Public Policy at Mozilla, Raegan led a globally distributed team to change laws, practices, and policies of governments and companies to align with principles of an open, secure, and safe internet. She meaningfully and strategically engaged with partners in the technology industry, funding community, civil society, and the open source software movement through coalition building, deep partnerships, and cooperation.

Raegan currently advises on a range of projects and organisations to advance human rights and social justice, including the Decolonising the Digital Rights Field Project, the TU Delft AI Lab on the future of work, and the World Ethical Data Foundation, and is currently serving her second term on the Board of European Digital Rights (EDRi).

Raegan has also served as:

• AccessNow’s first EU policy manager, where she established and led the Brussels office for nearly 5 years.
• A member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Disinformation.
• A mentor for emerging privacy leaders through the Women @ Privacy Program.
• Board member of the Digital Freedom Fund from 2017-2022, where she served as the organisation’s first Chair.

Raegan did her Master’s in Global Studies at the Universities of Vienna and Leipzig. She lives in Brussels, and in her free time you can find her gardening, spending time with her daughter, or riding her electric bike.