Funder Panel

Cate Sitton is the Grant Manager of the Anderson Foundation’s grants for older adults, adults with disabilities, and food programs. She began working with Carl and Marie Jo in 1994 as a bookkeeper, helping them manage their assets and real estate holdings. Following the Andersons’ passing, she played an instrumental role in establishing the operating systems for the Foundation. Cate takes pride in eliminating barriers between the Foundation and her grant partners, believing that our relationships are true partnerships. “I am incredibly grateful to be partnering with our grantees who are dedicated to making the world a better place for everyone.”

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CJ Grace, CEO brings more than 15 years of experience leading in public education and serving on nonprofit boards. Areas of focus have included strategic planning, fundraising, grant writing, plus fiscal, and change management. Her objectives are to nurture the evolution of the Taos Community Foundation as it connects donors with the causes that they care about while advancing place and trust-based philanthropy to support the well-being of the Taos community. CJ is a long-time resident of Taos with a history of public facing roles and understands the many diverse perspectives and needs across the community.

Loe Marcoline has intentionally sought a diverse career. Her experience spans focus areas including public health, emergency preparedness, human services, and environmental protection. Most recently, she’s worked in the philanthropic sector. The common thread in her varied career is a focus on community. Her experience and passion pair well with Anchorum’s efforts to increase access to care and address social determinants of health in New Mexico. She cites a deep commitment to advancing community-driven strategies as the driving force in her role as director of community impact. Marcoline lives in northern New Mexico with her husband on a small off-grid parcel of land where they operate an organic farm and small batch hot sauce company. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver with an emphasis on health and society.

Mary Nell is the Executive Director of the Brindle Foundation, a small private foundation based in Santa Fe that focuses on prenatal to three within New Mexico. The foundation has two funding streams: one for direct services in seven northern counties and all tribal lands, and one for systems strengthening statewide. The counties in which Brindle funds direct services work are: Colfax, Mora, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Taos. The Early Childhood systems strengthening work is divided into support for four tracks: advocacy and policy; innovation; coordination/organization support; and higher education.

Before taking on this role with the Brindle Foundation, MaryNell served as the Executive Director of the Maternal Health Task Force at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Mary Nell has a special interest in maternal/infant health and work that centers the needs of those prenatal to three.

Her undergraduate work was in anthropology (BA,Yale) and she holds graduate degrees in international education (EdM, Harvard)and public health (MPH, UCLA).

With more than 30 years of experience in international public health, Mary Nell has worked directly for donors such as the Rockefeller Foundation, UNFPA, and the EmPower Foundation—as well as in community-based and nonprofit organizations at both local and global levels such as Jubilee Refugee Camp in Hong Kong, White Mountain Apache Tribal Health Authority in Arizona,Women’s Dignity Project in Tanzania, Planned Parenthood of CT and of the Rocky Mountains, and Engender Health’s New York, Nairobi, Bogota and Delhi offices.

She is originally from South Dakota and loves living in Santa Fe and hiking with her husband, Josiah Child, and their dogs. They have two adult children; their son is currently working in Maine and their daughter in San Francisco.

Mary Nell is very good at driving a tractor and her tango could use some work.

Michelle Gutiérrez is a senior program officer for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, she works in the foundation’s priority place of New Mexico to support thriving children, working families, and equitable communities.

Gutiérrez identifies and cultivates opportunities for effecting positive systemic change within communities and executes programming efforts that are aligned with Kellogg Foundation’s goals. She works closely with colleagues across the organization to ensure integration and coordination of efforts, with a particular focus on health equity.

Gutiérrez is well versed in the field of philanthropy and non-profit leadership, programming and governance. Gutiérrez has experience in local and international non-profit/NGO administration and financial management. She’s managed multi-million dollar budgets working with cross-national stakeholders, serving in communities of color.

Prior to joining the foundation, Gutiérrez was director of strategy and grant making at the Notah Begay III Foundation in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, where she oversaw the overall grant making process, managing national and local grants targeting Native American communities. Prior to her director role, Gutiérrez served as a program officer and led a national grant making portfolio which awarded more than $4.5M in grants to 127 Native-led organizations and Native nations in 15 states focused on Native American children’s health. Additionally, she was a program officer at the Con Alma Health Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the administrator and country director for Volontariato Internazionale Dello Sviluppo in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Gutiérrez has served in a variety of volunteer roles within her local and regional philanthropic sector, including as a Blueprint for Changemakers steering committee member with ChangeLab Solutions and a NM Nonprofit Landscape Study steering committee member with the New Mexico Association of Grant makers. She has also participated in leadership development programs, including the NM Women of Color Leadership Cohort led by the Santa Fe Community Foundation and as a Terrance Keenan Institute fellow with Grant makers in Health.

Gutiérrez holds a bachelor’s degree in government and Italian Language and literature from Smith College of Northampton, Massachusetts and a master’s degree in international cooperation and development from the University of Pavia in Pavia, Italy. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Indigenous Health from the University of North Dakota. She is fluent in Italian and conversational in Spanish.

Tanner Martin made his way to northern New Mexico in 2016 from Atlanta, GA. He earned a Master of Arts in Applied Anthropology from Georgia State University, where Tanner focused on community- engaged research and public health. As the Director of Community Impact for the Taos Community Foundation (TCF), Tanner strives to support Taos and surrounding communities through a trust-based, culturally informed approach to philanthropy. In his spare time, you can find Tanner outdoors enjoying rock climbing, rafting, snowboarding or camping.