Abby Newcomer
Associate Managing Director
Abby Newcomer is an associate managing director, where she works on equity-focused strategy, grantmaking, and donor collaboration projects with institutional, corporate, and family clients. In her time at Arabella, Abby has helped more than 50 clients design and launch strategies and new initiatives and run grantmaking programs on a range of issues, with a particular focus on education.
Abby leads Arabella’s collaboration and network-development services, has helped launch multiple large-scale early childhood education funding efforts, and has supported several grant makers to assess how they can more effectively fund college access and success and career-readiness efforts nationwide. In supporting collaboration, she considers participants’ values, goals, and preferences for engagement, and seeks to find common ground between donors’ interests and the needs of communities.
Recent examples of her work include directing an early care and education initiative that focused on transforming the early care and education workforce by increasing compensation and transforming educator preparation. She also led a major education funder’s annual grants program to enhance teachers’ leadership skills and expand teachers’ voices in policy and professional development. Abby is currently overseeing an initiative to develop a global network of organizations that focus on enhancing digital resilience among social justice organizations in the Global South.
Abby brings over 15 years of experience in the nonprofit and public sectors. Prior to joining Arabella, Abby worked at CLASP where she managed an initiative to connect non-traditional students to resources that would allow them to finance their education. She also advised institutional foundations and policymakers on human services and education policy and program development. She also conducted research and participated in advocacy efforts to improve economic conditions for families and workers, and guided policy efforts to improve coordination among public income and work supports programs.
Abby holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Bates College, an MPP from the University of Michigan, and a graduate certificate in women in politics from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She volunteers as a tax preparer in the Boston area, where she lives with her husband and young son.