Robert Espinoza
robert@lgbtfunders.org

Director of Research and Communications

Robert Espinoza joined Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues as the director of research and communications in October 2006. In this capacity, he oversees the design and implementation of the organization’s research and evaluation activities, as well as its strategic communications. He recently authored two historic reports on LGBTI giving in the global South and East and on LGBTQ people of color organizations in the U.S., and is currently overseeing a socioeconomic review of state populations and public policies across New England and the Midwest, as part of FLGI's Common Vision project.

Prior to Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues, he researched and authored policy briefs on prisoner reentry for Family Justice, an organization that partners with governments and community service providers nationwide in helping families break their cycles of involvement in the criminal justice system. His policy briefs covered topics such as mental illness, the juvenile justice system, HIV/AIDS and family mentoring among communities dealing with incarceration. While there, he oversaw the pilot testing of an innovative health care service delivery model that worked with community-based clinics in New York City’s Lower East Side to enhance medical care for clients dealing with the confluence of mental illness, HIV, and the stressors associated with probation and parole supervision.

Until 2003, Robert served as the Director of Communications for the Service Employees International Union Local 105, a Colorado labor union comprised of more than 5,000 health care, airport, and property service employees from the Denver-Boulder area. While at SEIU, he worked extensively on state and federal policy campaigns related to immigration reform, affordable health care, patient safety and safe staffing for nurses.

In 2002, he was appointed by Denver Mayor Wellington Webb to the city’s Public Safety Review Commission, which reviewed complaints against Denver police officers and deputy sheriffs.

Robert was also part of the founding communications department for the Gill Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of LGBT issues and, for four years, served as one of six panel members on the OUT Fund, an activist-advised, national grant making panel of the New York-based Funding Exchange.

In his spare time, he serves on the Queer Youth Fund, a national grantmaking fund based at the Liberty Hill Foundation in Los Angeles.

Robert earned a master’s in public policy from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.