Facilitators
Tamara Lucas Copeland retired after twelve years as president of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG). In that role, she was the organization’s major thought leader, helping to envision and implement work to meet the needs of the philanthropic sector and of the region. She was the visionary behind WRAG’s nationally-acclaimed work on racial equity entitled Putting Racism on the Table. She came to WRAG with extensive experience in nonprofit management, policy and children’s issues having led Voices for America’s Children, the National Health & Education Consortium, and the Infant Mortality Initiative of Southern Governors’ Association and the Southern Legislative Conference as well as having been Congressman Bobby Scott’s (D-VA) Legislative Director.
In 2017, Tamara was appointed as the Visiting Nielsen Fellow at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy to explore the role of philanthropy in addressing racial equity in the DC region. She currently serves as Chair of the Weissberg Foundation. In 2018, her memoir, Daughters of the Dream: Eight Girls from Richmond who grew up in the Civil Rights Era was published.
Amy Owen has spent the majority of her professional career in nonprofit management with interim teaching as an adjunct professor at Shepherd University, WV. For more than 10 years, she managed and directed fundraising programs for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy based in Harpers Ferry, WV. She served as a circuit rider to some 25 West Virginia community foundations providing support for their emerging policy and fundraising efforts with the West Virginia Community Foundations Consortium.
Between May 2012-2023, she served as lead executive of the Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties that also launched its Racial Equity Framework programming in 2020. From 2018 to 2022, she served on the Board of Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers and benefitted from its Putting Racism on the Table programming. She continues to serve on the DEIA Committee of her local Chamber of Commerce.