Meet Our Team

Matt Nelson

Matt Nelson

Executive Director of Presente

Matt Nelson is the Colombian-born, Midwestern-raised Executive Director. Before his work at Presente, he was the Organizing Director at Color Of Change. Matt also co-founded several worker-owned cooperatives in multiple Midwestern cities. He is a seasoned campaign strategist who has won dozens of local and national campaigns, and a skilled community organizer who has trained thousands of activists. Matt was featured in the first major book on the Ferguson Uprising, โ€œFerguson is America: Roots of Rebellionโ€ (2015). He contributed to the book, โ€œWelcome to the Revolution: Universalizing Resistance for Social Justice and Democracy in Perilous Timesโ€ (Routledge 2017), co-edited the book: โ€œTurnout! Mobilizing Voters in an Emergencyโ€ (Routledge 2020) EmergencyElection.org, a contributor to the book, โ€œIf We Want to Winโ€ (The New Press 2021), and he is finishing a new book on how Latinx organizing and cultural power is reshaping U.S. politics (Routledge 2024).

Sara Carrasco-Wyant

Sara Carrasco-Wyant

Senior Development Manager

Sara Carrasco-Wyant is a passionate advocate for social change and community empowerment. Based in Boulder, Colorado and with over a decade of experience fundraising and marketing for nonprofits, Sara brings a wealth of expertise to Presente. She has spent her career addressing pressing issues such as animal welfare, social justice, and building stronger communities. Sara has a strong commitment to making a positive impact on the lives of vulnerable populations, creating sustainable solutions, and fostering partnerships. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Sara is deeply engaged in the local community. She volunteers with various organizations that focus on environmental conservation and unhoused populations.

Nancy Treviรฑo

Nancy Treviรฑo

Advisor

Nancy Treviรฑo is a community organizer, trainer, and campaign strategist from Miami, FL. Previously, Nancy worked alongside dozens of grassroots community organizations across the U.S., collaborated with national and international human rights organizations, and continues providing strategic organizing, digital, and communications support to advance social justice movements. She has trained dozens of activists across the country and has won multiple local and national human rights campaigns, and is a contributor to the book, โ€œTurnout! Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency.โ€

Erick Garcia

Erick Garcia

Senior Technologist

Erick Garcia joined Presente a year after he graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelors in Computer Science in 2011. After becoming DACAmented he chose to stay in the online organizing community because he believes that significant change comes from our communities and its potential to overcome adversities. He serves as Presenteโ€™s Senior Technologist and makes sure that Presente has the ability to execute and measure strategic goals set by its leadership. Erick was a 2019 Voqal Foundation fellow. He participated in the New Organizing Institute (2014) digital organizing Bootcamp where his team took first place, as well as the Forward DREAMer Hackathon (2013) where his team took first place in the storytelling category. As the senior technologist, he is helping upgrade digital and translocal organizing infrastructure, aimed at engaging and building leadership and participation of Latinx and immigrant communities.

Favianna Rodriguez

Favianna Rodriguez

Co-Founder, Senior Advisor

Favianna Rodriguez, Senior Advisor, is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural strategist, and organizer based in Oakland, California. Her art and collaborative projects address migration, economic inequality, gender justice, and ecology. Favianna lectures globally on intersection of art, social justice and cultural equity to catalyze social change, and leads art interventions in communities around the country. Rodriguez collaborates deeply with social movement groups around the country to co-create art thatโ€™s resilient, empowering and transformative. She is the Executive Director of CultureStrike, a national arts organization that engages artists, writers and performers in migrant rights. In 2012, she was featured in a documentary series by Pharrell Williams titled โ€œMigration is Beautifulโ€ which addressed how artists responded to failed immigrant policy in the United States. In 2009, she co-founded Presente.org, a national online organizing network dedicated to the political empowerment of Latino communities.
Reetu Mody

Reetu Mody

Advisor

Reetu Mody is an adventure seeker, dancer, writer, and activist. She was a former public defender in Nashville, Tennessee, as a Gideonโ€™s Promise Fellow. She received a Master of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as well as a Juris Doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she was awarded the Francine Diaz Award for Social Justice. Prior to graduate school Reetu was a community educator and organizer for a domestic violence agency, developing a prototype statewide curriculum on violence for California youth. As a community organizer in Richmond, California, Reetu fought alongside predominantly girls and boys of color who were pursued by the criminal justice system. Reetu has advocated, organized, facilitated conversations, and written articles about the intersection of racial, economic, criminal, and immigration rights.

Max Rameau

Max Rameau

Senior Advisor

Max Rameau is a Haitian born Pan-African theorist, campaign strategist, organizer and author.

While a student in the Washington, DC area, Max was introduced to Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist theory. After moving to Miami, Florida in 1991, he began organizing around a broad range of human rights issues impacting low-income Black communities, including Immigrant rights (particularly Haitian immigrants), economic justice, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, particularly for ex-felons and police abuse, among others.