Meet our Founder & CEO

After stewarding more than $28 million in public and private funding—including landmark federal initiatives such as the Affordable Connectivity Program—Jesa Townsend came to understand something simple, yet essential: fundraising is not about transactions. It is about trust. It is about building bridges between vision and reality, ensuring that resources flow where they are needed most, and inviting communities to come together in ways that are deeper, more meaningful, and lasting.

She founded Fund & Found, LLC out of that conviction. As Jesa puts it: “I started Fund & Found because I believe in walking alongside mission-driven leaders—not to take the spotlight, but to help them carry it further. Over the years, I’ve been humbled by the movements I’ve had the honor to serve—movements rooted in justice, compassion, and resilience. My job has never been to stand above that work. It’s been to shine a light on it, to strengthen it, and to help build the pipelines that turn bold visions into lasting change. Because too often, the most transformative ideas are born in communities with the fewest resources. And that’s a reality I refuse to accept. It’s a reality I feel called to help change.”

Throughout her career, Jesa has worked to bring people together—building coalitions across sectors, cultivating transformative capital, and co-creating programs that honor both lived experience and long-term systems change. Her partnerships and Sr. Director of Development roles held have spanned organizations such as Goodwill SF Bay to the Orange County School of the Arts and Emile Cohl Atelier, from Whittier College to Meals on Wheels, and from working with members of the National Association of Social Workers to Johns Hopkins University researchers. She currently serves on the boards of Nevada State University’s Arts and Culture Council and Aspire Public Schools, a Deputy Director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Netflix Co-Founder, Reed Hastings’ initiative. She is a government-certified facilitator with the National Center to Reframe Aging. In her free time, she is a teacher with an LA-based nonprofit, City Hearts, where she teaches visual arts twice a week to elementary kiddos and volunteers with various hospice organizations. Jesa is deeply connected to the National Charity League and is an advocate for the Epilepsy Foundation.

Her journey has been both global and deeply personal. Jesa has studied at Columbia College Chicago, the University of Edinburgh, and Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence, Italy, before earning her Master’s degree with distinction from Johns Hopkins University, where she was awarded two academic fellowships. She is now pursuing a second Master’s in Clinical Psychology at Pepperdine University, where she was awarded an incredible Graduate Scholarship upon admission, deepening her understanding of human behavior, organizational leadership, and social impact.

That commitment to equity is also part of Jesa’s family story. Her lineage ties her to one of the most profound women leaders of the American civil rights movement—a reminder that leadership is not about personal gain, but about advancing justice, amplifying unheard voices, and stewarding resources in service of the common good; a Success Magazine Woman of Influence [trailblazers nominee] and L.A. Works Civic Leadership 2023 Award Nominee.

She has shared podiums with Senators, participated in focus groups with presidential candidates, presented at the National Academy of Sciences, given presentations at AGLSP conferences, the Pop Culture Association, and local venues, unafraid to give voice to social policies: click

Leave this world better than you found it; Jesa is still a practicing artist. She has worked with St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, The Wilmington Opera House, Life is Beautiful, The Arizona Science Center, and many, many more in the early days of her career. Her artwork has touched more than 28 cities; check out her mural on Disney Way, yet Jesa still carries the humility of her farm upbringing, the joy of travel, and the grounding presence of time spent around animals. Because for her, leadership is never about standing apart. It is about standing with. And it is about believing, with heart and conviction, that change is always possible when people choose to build it together.

Read a recent article on her leadership style here: click