Ellen Sprenger

Co-Executive Director

Ellen founded Spring in 2004 and is committed to making space for more complexity and humanity in collaborations for social and climate justice. She is a believer, especially in human potential and our collective ability to address the problems of our time. Her areas of expertise include multi-actor conference facilitation, future-scenario development, financial innovation and health for justice organizations globally, and executive coaching.

Previously she held several management positions at Oxfam-Novib and was the Executive Director of Mama Cash, a feminist foundation based in Amsterdam. Ellen holds a master's degree in Development Studies, an MBA from Erasmus University, and is an Integral Master Coach™ and Certified Integral Facilitator™.

Currently based in Toronto, Ellen is from the Netherlands and Canada and has lived in Tanzania, South Africa, and the United States. She is a curious and creative optimist, an espresso enthusiast, and zen practitioner.

Maria Alejandra Escalante

Facilitator

Maria Alejandra works at the intersection of ecologies, economies, and collective imagination. With over 15 years of experience, she has defined her focus through a commitment to collective transformation, climate justice organizing, and the design of initiatives that challenge systemic inequities. Propelled by a political ecology reading of our surroundings, Maria is seeking opportunities to practice the collective governance of financial and ecological resources.

Her professional trajectory reflects a deep alignment with grassroots leadership, having learned movement-organizing skills through global coalitions such as the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice. Maria Alejandra co-led youth collaboratives, including Earth in Brackets and TierrActiva Colombia, bridging the gap between international policy and community-based action.

Over the past six years, she has pushed the philanthropic landscape as a participatory grantmaker at Collective Abundance and FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund, as an advisor to the Global Greengrants Fund Next Generation Climate Board, and as the Board co-chair of the Climate Justice Resilience Fund. Most recently, as Chief Co-creator of the Funder Learning and Action Co-laboratory, she orchestrated the design of a donor collaborative experiment aimed at directing flexible, strategic resources to feminist ecological and climate movements across the Global South. This practical experience is underpinned by a Research Master’s in Rural and Territorial Development from FLACSO Ecuador, a Bachelor's in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic in Maine, and a Next Economy MBA from LIFT Economy.

At Spring, she brings an impetus to transition away from philanthropic financial dependence to models of financial resilience and community-owned assets, working closely with the FIRE team on the programmatic and pedagogical evolution of its program.

Based between the Colombian mountains and the German forests, Maria Alejandra brings a cross-regional and cross-sectoral perspective shaped by her time living in Costa Rica, the USA, Ecuador, and Mexico. Bilingual in Spanish and English, she is committed to upping her German. She finds grounding and inspiration on her family’s fruit farm outside of Bogotá, where she explores the potential for community-led energy production and creates spaces of refuge for her community. Whether developing visionary organizational models or stewarding the land, her work remains anchored in the principles of reciprocity, relentless imagining of alternative post-extractivist futures, and the reclamation of the commons. Maria can always be found dancing salsa.

Lucía Carrasco Scherer

Lead, Financial Innovation and Resilience (FIRE) Program

Lucía is a Mexican independent consultant and human rights practitioner with 15 years of experience with a focus on gender, philanthropy, research, project management, stakeholder coordination, and resource mobilization. In recent years, she has worked with corporate foundations to inform their philanthropic strategies in East and Southeast Asia.

Currently, Lucía is the treasurer on the board of FERN, an organization working to achieve environmental and social justice with a focus on forests and forest peoples’ rights in the policies and practices of the European Union. She was the Director of Programs at the Prospera – International Network of Women’s Funds, supporting the growth of dozens of women’s funds worldwide, and has also served on the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG) Advisory Committee for Advancing Human Rights: Knowledge Tools for Funders initiative.

Lucia holds a master’s degree in International Law and Gender from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona speaks Spanish, French, and English, and is a seriously dedicated Korean learner for life. She’s based between North America, Central Europe, and East Asia. You can usually find her on the potter’s wheel, collecting textiles from all over the world and seeking warmer climates.

Amany Alhadka

Facilitator

Amany Alhadka has over 20 years of experience working in the areas of operations, finance, and organization management. Throughout her career, she supported many organizations and field operations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She specializes in building and strengthening the operational capacity of start-ups and organizations that are growing and scaling.

Before joining Prospera – International Network of Women’s Funds as Senior Advisor Operations Excellence, she was the Vice President for Business Transformation of the Equality Fund and the Vice President for Finance and Operations of the MATCH International Women’s Fund, both in Canada. She also worked at CARE International in Egypt, the USA, and Canada, and MEK Foundation in Egypt.

Amany holds a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting and a Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Accounting and Auditing from Cairo University. She obtained her Public Accountant Certification from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and has certificates in the training of trainers and meeting facilitation. She is based in Ottawa, Canada.

Archana Deshpande

Co-Executive Director

Archana is a creative rights advocate, strategist, communicator, and singer with over 15 years of experience supporting a wide range of human rights and social justice initiatives. At Spring, she leads the design and implementation of virtual and in-person financial resilience, facilitation, and leadership development programs. In recent years, she has overseen the successful delivery of capacity-strengthening programs for hundreds of rights and justice leaders, organizations, and networks globally.

Previously, Archana led the creation and expansion of OpenGlobalRights — a multilingual, global forum that explores human rights policies and strategies as well as managed and conducted research on human rights organizations and public perceptions of human rights in India, Mexico, and Morocco. She has co-authored various publications on the resource mobilization challenges and opportunities for human rights groups in the Global South and is passionate about finding innovative ways to sustain and expand social and climate justice initiatives.

Archana holds a master's degree in International Affairs and is an accredited Integral Master Coach™. She is based in Toronto, Canada, and speaks English, Spanish, French, and Gujarat. She gets her creative juices flowing through dancing with her daughter, painting, and singing.