Tiffany Sandholm is the Grants Manager. Sandholm brings over 15 years of development experience in education, animal welfare, and conservation, through which she developed a strong record of securing funding and building lasting partnerships. Most recently, she served as Foundations & Grants Manager at the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. As a UCLA English graduate and former Daily Bruin writer, Tiffany is excited to support truth-based journalism at Report for America and Report for the World.
April Pendergraft is Report for America's Local Sustainability Trainer. She has managed nonprofit and public media fundraising for over 18 years. Pendergraft brings past experience in membership, major gifts, planned gifts and pledge drives for NPR and PBS stations. Most recently, she's worked to develop membership-supported models for podcasting. She's eager to use her knowledge to develop tools and training to help newsrooms thrive. She's also a musician, artist, and proud mom of two.
Sam Harris is the Local News Sustainability Data Analyst for Report for America, after seven years at PBS Reno, most recently as their Director of Membership. She is a passionate fundraising professional with a drive for data-driven response, collaboration, and empowering others. Outside of her professional life, Sam is a nerd: mainly for rock collecting, reading, crafting, and tabletop RPGS.
Sakhi Vyas is based in Kalamazoo, Michigan and has spent the last 8 years overseeing community sponsorships, estate and major gifts, and innovative fundraising at WMUK-FM Public Radio. She also worked in corporate and nonprofit communications. She holds a Masters in Marketing Communications from the Instituto de Empresa (IE Business School) in Madrid, Spain and a B.A. in International Studies from Kalamazoo College. Sakhi is passionate about the power of the human voice - whether it's to tell stories and document the human experience, or as the medium for providing critical information across communities. She and her partner have two young children, and she loves to spoil her family with homemade cakes baked with inventive flavors and decorations.
Rebecca Forman is Chief Development Officer for The GroundTruth Project. She most recently served as head of development and donor relations at The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, prior to which she held leadership roles with United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey and with the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation. She holds an MBA from Fox School of Business at Temple University and a BA from Pennsylvania State University. Rebecca lives in Wynnewood, PA with her family and their pup, Quincy.
Priska Neely is a journalist, leader and mentor based in Birmingham, Alabama. Before joining Report for America, she was the founding managing editor of the Gulf States Newsroom, building a team of reporters and editors who work with public radio stations in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. She started her career in public radio as an intern at NPR and worked her way up to temp and producer, in D.C. and eventually Los Angeles.
Her time as a reporter for KPCC/LAist, sparked a passion for local news and she learned many lessons that she's excited to share with the RFA Corps. She was also a reporter and producer at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Outside of work, she loves to tend to her houseplants and her cat and she once wrote a love song about condiments.
Milan Polk is Report for America's Data & Information Associate. Previously, Polk wrote and edited for various publications including Men’s Health, The Chicago Tribune, and Vulture.
Maddie is the Manager for Local News Sustainability at Report for America. She came to Report for America from The Public's Radio, Rhode Island's NPR member station, where she was the Director of Individual Giving. At TPR, she oversaw the station's membership program, other fundraising initiatives, and assisted her colleagues in the newsroom with marketing and outreach efforts.
Before she started working in local journalism, Maddie worked in local history. She was the Director of Advancement at the Stonington Historical Society and oversaw all fundraising and marketing initiatives for the Society. She has also worked in fundraising at the John Carter Brown Library, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Clackamas County Historical Society.
Maddie has a bachelor's degree in public history from Portland State University and a master's degree in public humanities from Brown University.
Originally from Oregon, Maddie now calls Rhode Island home and lives in Providence with her husband and polydactyl cat. Beyond local news, Maddie is interested in urban gardening, local coffee, and film photography. She will always have a seltzer recommendation and never misses an episode of The NPR Politics Podcast.