Justina Acevedo-Cross

Justina Acevedo-Cross, MPP, is a program director at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the principal staff on the implementation of the Promising Minds Initiative and other efforts related to early learning and early childhood mental health across the state. Justina specializes in policy and systems change, and network design and implementation. She has more than 15 years of nonprofit, foundation, board, and cross‐sector experience to draw from for projects. Prior to joining the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, Justina was a Program Officer for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and was instrumental in the strategy design and implementation for early learning and expanded learning initiatives. She worked to increase meaningful training and professional development opportunities for teachers who work with children ages 0–5. Justina spearheaded stronger communications efforts around all the Children, Families, and Communities work for the Packard Foundation, and co‐led internal trainings on evaluation and learning at the Foundation. Prior to joining the Packard Foundation, Justina worked in the nonprofit sector as a strategic communications professional for small and mid‐size organizations, most recently at Women’s Initiative for Self Employment. She has served as a policy consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and CFED. Justina has experience serving on nonprofit boards and government commissions; she currently is an appointed member of Hawaii State’s Early Learning Board. She has a MPP from UC Berkeley and a BA from Scripps College. She is originally from Kailua, Hawai‘i.