In her life and work, Emily Gantz McKay has always set out to prove that when community-based nonprofit organizations have the right tools, they can become critical partners in creating just, inclusive and thriving communities and societies. Ten years ago, after a lifetime of helping people and organizations achieve their best, Emily gathered a small group of colleagues and founded Mosaica: The Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism to achieve that vision – with a special commitment to strengthening groups that provide a voice for those who are often overlooked when public policies are established and resources allocated.
In more than 35 years of assisting nonprofit staff, Boards, and volunteers, Emily has worked tirelessly to support ethnic and cultural diversity and the development of multicultural leadership. She has worked with many communities of color and low-income populations, among them Latinos, African Americans, Southeast Asians, Middle Eastern groups, immigrants, refugees, farmworkers, women, and people living with HIV/AIDS.
Emily gained much of her experience with community-based nonprofits during her 16 years on the senior staff of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights organization. She served as NCLR’s Executive Vice President, among other roles. Emily began her career with the Pittsburgh anti-poverty program, and worked in mainstream and minority-owned consulting firms in Pittsburgh and the Washington, DC area.
From its inception, Mosaica has had a special commitment to multicultural work. This priority reflects Ms. McKay’s own background – her father was a Sephardic Jew whose family went to the Ottoman Empire from Spain in 1492 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1903 from Transylvania – and her experience at NCLR. Her mother’s family came to what is now eastern Pennsylvania in 1703, fleeing religious persecution. Emily believes that we must overcome the profound impact of the “accident of birth” on life opportunities. Every child – whether born in a farm labor camp in South Texas, a refugee camp in Chad, a village in Afghanistan, or a mansion in Los Angeles – should have the opportunity to be safe and loved, full access to education, and the chance to develop and use individual talents. This can happen only if people work together across geographic and personal boundaries – whether race, ethnicity, class, gender, nationality, religion, language, or culture.
The name Mosaica (the feminized form of the Spanish word mosaico or mosaic) reflects how Emily has brought together individuals with diverse voices and experiences to create an organization with common values and a shared mission. Mosaica’s Board and staff share a commitment to social justice and a belief that societies that strive for democracy, human rights, individual opportunity, and pluralism must be built and maintained from the bottom up – community by community, group by group. They need the active involvement of nonprofit organizations and a strong independent sector. Emily and Mosaica believe deeply in the essential role of nonprofits in building and safeguarding the civic involvement essential to sustaining democracy, multicultural understanding, civil and human rights, and personal opportunities.
At Mosaica, Emily encourages leaders to lead from their values, and develop organizations that are financially sound, programmatically creative, and accountable first and foremost to the people they serve. To that end, she provides training, facilitation, and individualized assistance to nonprofit groups in program and resource development, strategic planning, restructuring, evaluation, governance, management, advocacy, and coalition building.
Because of the value Emily places on adequate resources for nonprofits, about eight yeas ago Mosaica added a new emphasis to its work: assisting in the development of innovative grantmaking structures and processes, particularly for grantmaker collaboratives and emerging foundations. This work began with facilitating the formation and development meetings of the Latino Funds Collaborative, and has led to work with the Ford Foundation, Meyer Foundation, Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, and others.
Believing that we all have a role to play as citizens of the world, Emily has led Mosaica to work internationally. In fact, the roots of Mosaica were sown when she first took a trip to Israel in 1987 with a group of Latinos, under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee. Since then, Mosaica and Emily have worked to support the development of civil society institutions – especially social change and human rights organizations – in areas of past and current conflict, including Israel, the former Yugoslavia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Emily’s generosity of time and spirit is boundless. It is amazing that she has any spare time, but she always has both time and energy to devote to issues and causes that are important to her. She serves as Secretary/Treasurer of the Fund for the Future of Our Children and is a Board member of the Academy of Hope and the Hispanic Link Foundation. She has served on many other boards, among them the National Hispana Leadership Institute, Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), Refugee Women in Development, Inc. (RefWID), The New Bosnia Fund, and AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. She is a former non-lawyer member of the DC Bar Board of Governors.
Emily has received numerous awards for the time and service that she freely gives, including the President's Award, National Council of La Raza (1989) and the I. Pat Rios Memorial Award, Guadalupe Center (1988). She is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, and Who’s Who of American Women. Most recently, She was recognized by Ayuda – a Washington, DC-based organization that provides legal, domestic violence, and related human services for immigrants – for her years of dedication to that organization and the immigrant community it serves. In thanking her, the award expressed a sentiment common among Mosaica’s client organizations: “Your wisdom and guidance have made us a stronger organization.”
Emily holds a Master’s degree in Communication, Phi Beta Kappa, from Stanford University, with a specialty in Race and Ethnic Relations. She lives in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC with her husband of 39 years, Dr. Jack McKay, a research physicist (he really is a rocket scientist) turned community activist.
Over the course of her career, Emily has assisted a wide range of nonprofit organizations, from large national organizations to newly established educational organizations and coalitions, from national Latino organizations to local community of color service providers and advocacy groups. In fact, it’s a misnomer to call this Emily’s career – we could call it her life and passion. As anyone who has worked with Emily can tell you, the people and organizations she helps are what motivate her. Her husband Jack said it best: “What Emily does, she doesn’t do for a living, but for life.” Emily’s work changes people’s lives, and helps them to build strong, welcoming communities.