Ratna Gill

Ratna Gill

As a former Coordinator for Collective Impact, Ratna provided support to The Integration Initiative, helping to capture and share knowledge with both the organization and the field.

Ratna came to Living Cities in June 2016 as Coordinator for Collective Impact. Prior to joining Living Cities, Ratna attended Harvard University where she studied Economics and Latin, and served as the Chief of Staff of Sense & Sustainability, a blog and podcast run by students devoted to making cutting-edge research in sustainable development more accessible to the public.

Before S&S, Ratna worked on promoting sustainable small business among minority- and women-owned businesses at the Business Outreach Center Network in Brooklyn. She has also worked for the Environmental Defense Fund in Boston, The Nature Conservancy in Bogotá, and the urban development think tank Centro Mario Molina in Mexico City.

With a deep interest in issues affecting children and youth, Ratna took a gap year before college during which she interned with Sasha Bruce Youthwork in Southeast Washington, D.C., taught Latin at her high school in Virginia, and worked to expand Gyaan Ghar, a learning center she established in 2008 to provide supplementary education to low-income students in Ludhiana, India.

Ratna is now a Senior Associate at Aangan India, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that even the most vulnerable child is safe, supported, in school and assured of a life free from trafficking, child labor, and abuse.

Ratna Gill

Contributing Articles

Operationalizing Racial Equity & Inclusion: Centering Arts, Culture, and Healing

This series highlights the twelve themes we uncovered in our scan of practices being used by organizations to operationalize racial equity. We recently released a report titled “What Does it Take to Embed a Racial Equity & Inclusion Lens?” that captures themes from internal interviews, a field scan, and learnings from our grantmaking and investments in cities across the country. …

What We’re Learning About Entrepreneurship as a Job Creation Strategy

We looked at hundreds of initiatives focused on accelerating entrepreneurship and small business growth, and these are the common themes that emerged. Living Cities is committed to improving the economic well-being of low-income people. Given all of the momentum around leveraging the potential of new and small firms as job creators, we set out to learn more intentionally about the barriers …

Interviewing Candidates for Social Sector Jobs: Four Tips for Interviewers

Embodying your company’s culture is crucial for recruiting. These four tips are designed to help interviewers in the social sector attract young talent.

What Nonprofits Need to Learn About Interviewing Candidates

When social sector organizations aren’t intentional about their interview process, they fail to leverage their greatest recruitment asset: their mission. Ratna Gill and Megan McGlinchey joined the Living Cities staff in June 2016 as recent college graduates. In this mini-series, they reflect on their experience entering the workforce, with a focus on the aspects of Living Cities’ organizational culture that are crucial for …

Searching for Jobs in the Social Sector: Six Tips for Students

Knowing where to start when looking for an entry-level job in the social sector can be tough. Keeping these six simple considerations in mind can help ease stress and aid in the job search process. Ratna Gill and Megan McGlinchey joined the Living Cities staff in June 2016 as recent college graduates. In this mini-series, they reflect on their experience entering the workforce, …

Form, Storm, Norm, Perform: How to Consider the Stage of Your Cross-Sector Partnership in a New Year

We examine trends at different stages of cross-sector partnership development, and what they might mean for your work.

Four Trends to Consider as Cross-Sector Partnerships Begin a New Year

Four useful trends emerged from our Cross-Sector Partnership Assessment tool results, based on our analysis of over 750 responses from partnerships in the field.

New Fund Creates a Path for Employment Opportunity in New Orleans

The BuildNOLA Mobilization Fund will allow small businesses to grow their capacity and benefit from the numerous projects happening around New Orleans, ultimately helping to place more African-American men into living-wage jobs. New Orleans is a city of opportunity—but one of barriers as well. More than ten years after Hurricane Katrina decimated many parts of the city, with traditionally poor …

Contributing Resources

Hiring in the Social Sector: Tips for Job Seekers and Organizations

The series focuses on aspects of organizational culture that are crucial for attracting, hiring, and retaining young talent. Nonprofits, NGOs, philanthropic organizations and social enterprises share a desire to change lives for the better. But it’s all too easy to forget that that work can—and should—begin within our own walls, with our own organizational culture and practices around hiring and …

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