Meet our board member Nisha Baliga!
*What makes you feel connected to NNP’s mission?
I grew up in India and then my family immigrated to New York right when I finished high school. I went to college in Ohio and a lot of my friends were international students who couldn't go home for Thanksgiving. They were really far from their families, so some of my friends would come home with me for the holidays. I just kept thinking: we spoke English when we arrived and it was still so hard to set up in a new country, and just thinking about the families New Neighbors serves and the trauma they’ve experienced and the reasons they come here. I felt very motivated to be involved in something that supported new immigrants, because I had that experience firsthand.
*What made you want to join the NNP board?
I actually didn't think of joining the board. I just wanted to help. My sister was a local volunteer partner family, but my kids were a little bit out of the age-range for the clothing partnership. I just really loved the organization, so I started by doing some of the one-offs, like the Ramadan care package, and I got involved in planning the first summer welcome party, and all the people were so nice. The transformational moment for me was when I went to the actual party. New Neighbors families came from really far away—from Newark and the Bronx—to a remote part of Brooklyn just to be part of that summer party. So I just was like, “this is such a beautiful thing,” and I wanted to be part of it.
*What’s your favorite aspect of our summer welcome party?
I love that it brings families from so many different countries together, and the kids have a blast. Also, I love food, and the food at the party is so good and prepared with such love.
*What do you do for work?
I’m the head of strategy at MoCaFi, which stands for Mobility Capital Finance. The mission is to provide financial services and products that help close the racial wealth gap. We have products that help get assistance to people, whether it's a one-time emergency or something like guaranteed basic income. So it's really to serve people that are often left out of the financial system.
*What have you most enjoyed about serving on the NNP board?
It’s been really interesting on a strategic level to be part of the conversations about how we evolve this model for greatest impact and stay true to our mission. It's interesting to think about how you can help an organization make good strategic decisions around growth, expansion, fiscal responsibility, and taking care of their staff—to support an organization not just in a tactical way at events, but helping create the structures and systems for a new organization to be sustainable and thrive.
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Nisha is a lifelong city dweller, passionate about making cities more equitable. She has two decades of experience leading complex, innovative, large-scale urban planning and change management projects that advance equitable communities in the US and beyond.
