By Cathy Lawhon for The Anteater magazine

Orange County reaps profits from a rich vein of UC Irvine alumnae who informally call themselves Sisters in Good and aim to make the world a better place – especially in the nonprofit arena. They are CEOs of organizations that serve the hungry, the homeless and the enslaved. Some moved to nonprofit C-suites from the private sector. Others dove into public service immediately after graduation. Jennifer Friend, CEO of Project Hope Alliance, has some thoughts about the common denominators: “UCI attracts a lot of first-generation college students. We work hard to get through and want to be part of changing the world.”

“UCI is also still young enough that an air of possibility and invention lives here,” she adds. The availability of multidisciplinary studies allows students to explore humanities, political science, public health, business and law – all of which pertain to nonprofit work. Friend finds “something meaningful, fun and invigorating” in her nucleus of female CEOs, who bonded over the years through their nonprofit work and shared UC Irvine connection. “We show up for each other, whether it’s to cheer when someone is recognized for her work or to talk through the challenges of being a working mom,” she says. “This is heavy, hard work, so sometimes it’s nice to just have a glass of wine and crack up together.”

The School of Social Sciences launched a mentorship program in 2023 to strengthen that cadre of female executives. A project of the Women of the Dean’s Leadership Society, LeadHER engages 20 students each year in a 10-week course aimed at fostering success and professional support systems. Amanda Fowler ’99, who majored in social sciences with an emphasis in economics, helped launch the program and says it has enriched the lives of students and mentors alike.

“It’s a way for successful women to give back with time and energy and lift up female students, who could benefit most from mentorship but are least likely to seek it out,” says Fowler, vice president of global corporate giving for Edwards Lifesciences and executive director of the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation. “We help them cultivate soft skills in a highly academic environment.”

In addition to meeting with corporate executives, business owners and community leaders – many of whom are UC Irvine alumni – students tour local businesses and read up on women in the workplace, leadership abilities, communication and identifying one’s strengths.

Fowler expects the cohort to create a path for more women in positions of leadership.

“We need to follow them over time and see how they change things,” she says. “When you get three women on a board of directors, for example, then you feel ‘I’ve got my crew.’ There should never be a time when women feel they can’t speak up.” On the following pages, we introduce four of the Sisters in Good.

Claudia Bonilla Keller ’87, CEO, Second Harvest Food Bank

Some 2,400 flight miles separate the fashion runways in New York from the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station runways in Irvine. Claudia Bonilla Keller, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank in Irvine, took about 30 years to cover the distance. Her career path wound from working runway shows behind the scenes for Calvin Klein and St. John Knits to feeding Orange County’s food-insecure population at a staging area that once housed military airships. And she’s learned something at every stop.

“At St. John Knits, they trusted me with a lot of responsibility very quickly,” says Bonilla Keller, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at UC Irvine in 1987. “I traveled around the world on photo shoots. I also learned a lot about philanthropy from Mrs. [Marie St. John] Gray. She had me create guidelines for giving money to children’s charities. I realized that’s what I wanted to do.”

After 18 years in fashion, Bonilla Keller served as executive director of the American Heart Association in Los Angeles. In 2012, she joined the LA Promise Fund, where she helped prepare students for successful futures. Her affiliation with Second Harvest began as chief missions officer in January 2020.

“COVID-19 hit weeks later,” she says. “Food banking was tested – more need and no food, no volunteers. But we learned what we were capable of.”

Second Harvest’s first COVID-era food distribution event from the Honda Center parking lot drew thousands of cars and caused a massive traffic jam.

By the end of the COVID lockdown, the Second Harvest team had streamlined the process from three hours to 25 minutes.

By December 2021, when the CEO job position opened up, Bonilla Keller had earned the position.

Today, she and her 100-person workforce serve an average of 400,000 people monthly. Nearly 250 community partners supply about 350 Orange County distribution locations, including houses of worship, schools, senior centers, shelters, soup kitchens, transitional housing and the food bank warehouse.

Bonilla Keller’s proudest accomplishment is starting to change how success is discussed and quantified.

“The measurement has been solely in pounds of food distributed,” she says. “Now we’re also thinking in terms of how many people we help lift up. We try to lift the stigma so people who have lost a job or spouse or experienced domestic violence can choose culturally appropriate, nutritious food and go home and cook a meal. It’s now ‘people’ in addition to ‘pounds.’ ”

The need in Orange County is growing faster than in California as a whole, largely due to high housing costs. Still, Bonilla Keller hopes for a brighter future.

“I would love nothing better,” she says, “than to put myself out of business.”

Jennifer Friend ’95 CEO, Project Hope Alliance

Jennifer Friend found her calling through the strength of family and faith that sustained her when she and her parents and three brothers lived in a 214-square-foot Orange County motel room. Keeping a roof over their heads proved difficult given her father’s unpredictable income as a technology entrepreneur and her mother’s preschool teacher wages.

“We had time periods where we were a stable middle-class family,” Friend recalls. “We were always close, with a strong sense of faith and a belief that life wasn’t always going to be as it was in that moment.”

That faith empowered Friend, she says, fueling her academic success and admittance to UC Irvine, from which she graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in criminology, law and society. She has since led the Alumni Association and served six years as a voting trustee on the UC Irvine Foundation; she’s currently on the foundation’s executive committee.

Friend earned a law degree from Whittier College and made partner in a large firm before changing gears in 2013 to become the first CEO of Project Hope Alliance in Costa Mesa. The nonprofit – with a $3.4 million budget funded by private philanthropy, grants, and a number of school districts and cities –serves those with stories like her own, offering basic necessities and educational and social-emotional support.

Full-time case managers are embedded into partner schools and devise special education plans, address discipline issues, and ensure that students have what they need to thrive academically and participate in activities such as sports or the marching band. Staff also provide transportation to school or therapy seven days a week. Case management with youth continues through college to age 24. The need is great, Friend says, if sometimes unseen.

“The Orange County Department of Education identified 26,000 children experiencing homelessness in O.C. schools last year,” she says. “Similar to my family, many families try not to let people know. They sleep in cars, get ready for school in bathrooms, because they fear stigma and social services.”

Friend and her team of what she calls “exceptionally gifted people” have helped facilitate a 94 percent high school graduation rate, which is 30 percentage points above the national average for unhoused students. Funding such upstream preventive solutions is preferable, she says, to trying to mitigate impacts downstream: “If we can get these children to high school graduation, it’s 400 percent less likely that they’ll experience homelessness as adults.”

Political uncertainties around public and social services funding will require thoughtful navigation going forward, Friend says. She’s proud of a recent $2.1 million CalOptima grant, awarded based on her vision of what’s possible for Orange County and its children.

“These kids are amazing, creative, resilient,” Friend says. “Why wouldn’t you invest in them?”

Madelynn Hirneise ’10, CEO, Families Forward

Madelynn Hirneise has always embraced change. She arrived at UC Irvine as a biological sciences major, set on becoming a veterinarian. But the commercial aspects of veterinary practice and rough sledding through a required organic chemistry class prompted a switch.

“I thought I’d help people instead, maybe end up at the United Nations,” says Hirneise, who received a bachelor’s degree in international relations in 2010.

The animals’ loss has been humans’ gain. After a postgraduate stint with the Peace Corps, Hirneise returned to Orange County in 2012 as a housing resource specialist with Irvine-based Families Forward. In 2019, her experience and dedication earned her the CEO position. Five months later, COVID-19 provided another opportunity to embrace change.

“We had to break and rebuild,” Hirneise says. “We reduced barriers, changed screening criteria and geographic restrictions to expand services. We continue to poke holes and create positive chaos.”

The nonprofit’s annual budget of about $10 million, funded by grants and donations, helps families with children achieve economic independence and housing stability. The most recent data, from 2023, shows that Hirneise and her team of 50 employees and 2,000 volunteers found homes for 724 families that year. Ninety-three percent of those households remained stable after one year.

Hirneise’s biggest challenge is the lack of housing inventory at all income levels.

“I would love to see intentional flow where we move people into affordable housing and then, as their economic situation improves, they move up and on so units can be made available to families who need them most,” she says.

Instead, she adds, tenants are often stuck because options at the next level are scarce.

“In 2017, the national average length of tenancy in affordable housing was seven years,” Hirneise explains. “Now it’s 10.”

A strategic plan to bring that average down to three years – and to prevent homelessness altogether – is in the works.

“Our goal is to pull from the strengths of the families to help them attain economic mobility, whether it’s through education or work experience,” she says. “Homelessness is cyclical; children who grow up experiencing the trauma of homelessness tend to be at higher risk of being unhoused as adults. We want to break that cycle.”

If resolve can make it so, there’s a good chance that Hirneise will succeed.

“In my senior year at UCI, I lost 100 pounds in 11 months and ultimately ran a marathon,” she says.

“I’m determined, and I understand that when our community succeeds, we all succeed.”

Kelsey Morgan ’10, Ph.D. ’24, CEO, EverFree

When survivors exit human trafficking, the last thing they need is a well-meaning program manager dictating what’s best for them.

Kelsey Morgan, a double UC Irvine alum who received a bachelor’s in international studies in 2010 and a doctorate in social ecology in 2024, understood the need for client input. So she designed Freedom Lifemap, an innovative tool that empowers survivors to define their own path to recovery. Created through a partnership with the UC Irvine Blum Center, it also ensures that the anti-trafficking global movement better understands how to prevent and address human trafficking. Organizations worldwide have begun to use the tool.

“There is a lack of data around what works for survivors,” says Morgan, CEO of EverFree, which is headquartered in Irvine and has sites in Uganda and the Philippines. “The job isn’t done when they exit exploitation. Their vulnerabilities are economic, educational and health-related.”

Her work to end human trafficking and serve survivors began more than 15 years ago. Then, in 2010, she founded Willow International. In 2021, it merged with 10 Thousand Windows to create the global nonprofit EverFree.

With a $4.5 million budget from grants, private philanthropy and corporate sponsors, it serves the wide-ranging needs of those coerced into unethical labor in factories, farms and private households; those subjected to sexual exploitation; and those impacted by forced marriage. A recent International Labor Organization report estimated that 50 million people worldwide are trapped in modern slavery. Eliminating forced labor by 2030 would require about $212 billion globally, according to the ILO. Therein lies Morgan’s biggest roadblock: mustering public will to acknowledge the problem and fund solutions.

“We’re facing the greatest human rights issue of our time,” she says. “Child abuse is rampant, and online sex exploitation is a growing issue we can actually solve. It’s not like a natural disaster we can’t control. But it’s a dark topic, so it’s easier to pretend it’s not real.”

Still, her team persists, and their efforts fill Morgan with pride and gratitude.

“When people visit our sites, they are overwhelmed by the professionalism, dedication and passion of the staff,” she says. “This work is challenging; they see the darkest parts of humanity every day. They are absolute heroes.”

Morgan is also grateful to mentors who directed her to UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology when she was searching for data-driven fixes for modern slavery. “The school was a perfect fit,” she says. “It’s all about science in action, developing practical solutions on the ground so that tools are usable. Our big vision is that better care, data, cooperation and collaboration can create a world where everyone is free.”