Jessica Robinson Love

Jessica Robinson Love is a managing director in Arabella’s San Francisco office, where she partners with foundations, corporations, families, and individuals to advance social change. Jessica helps donors, investors, and social entrepreneurs turn their philanthropic visions into reality by designing and implementing innovative donor collaboratives, campaigns, and grant-making initiatives. At Arabella, she has overseen the launch of a $50 million grant-making initiative to transform international seafood markets; helped to rapidly scale a campaign to eliminate barriers to women obtaining contraception; and developed a strategy for a national parent education initiative to advance student success.

Jessica brings nearly two decades of experience with the practice of fiscal sponsorship, as well as deep expertise in organizational development and capacity building. Previously, as a strategic philanthropy advisor and social impact consultant, Jessica helped individual philanthropists design and launch new foundations, supported established foundations in implementing capacity-building programs for grantees, and advised social-sector leaders on organizational strategy.

As a social entrepreneur, Jessica was the founding executive and artistic director of CounterPulse. Over 14 years, she led the organization through a merger, relocation, and 10-fold expansion, establishing it as a national model in the field of arts for social justice. She designed and led a statewide initiative to build equity in the performing arts, and helped launch a major public-private partnership to preserve cultural spaces. Earlier in her career, Jessica was an adjunct faculty member at the New College of California, where she designed and taught undergraduate courses on arts, nonprofit management, and social justice. She served on the board of the grant-making organization Alternate ROOTS, and on numerous selection panels for private and public grant makers, both in California and nationally.

Jessica was selected by National Arts Strategies as one of the nation’s top 50 arts CEOs, tasked with re-imagining how cultural institutions contribute to society. She was the inaugural recipient of the Bay Area Dancers’ Choice Award for her leadership of the dance community, and she has received additional awards from Dance/USA and the Bill T. Shannon Leadership Institute. Jessica holds a BA in the humanities from the New College of California and a certificate in nonprofit leadership from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.