Staff and Board

Esther Nieves has worked with grassroots, statewide, and national organizations.  Her career experience includes leadership positions in city government (Chicago), not-for-profit/non-governmental, and philanthropy.  In these roles, she has supported communities' engagement and leadership participation in efforts that improve their quality of life, advance inclusion, and bring about social, political, and economic equity.   She presently serves as the field practicum director in the Social Work Department at St. Augustine College at Lewis University. 

She works with students completing their BSW program and their field hours.  Her experience includes serving as director of WK Kellogg Foundation’s leadership fellowship program (Community Leadership Network) and as program officer for the community and civic engagement portfolio; national director of American Friends Service Committee's Project Voice/Human Migration and Mobility Initiative (Philadelphia); executive director of Erie Neighborhood House (Chicago) and, program officer at the Field Foundation of Illinois.  She has also served in municipal government, appointed by Chicago’s Mayor Washington to serve as the second executive director of the Mayor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs.  

Her civic participation includes service on several philanthropic and nonprofit boards. These have included Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (Chicago Chapter), the Funding Exchange, Wieboldt Foundation, Crossroads Fund, Funders Committee on Civic Participation, Chapin Hall (Chicago), and others. She is a trustee of the Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation, serves as a member (Commissioner) of the City of Chicago's Commission on Human Relations, and co-chairs the Mayor’s Equity Advisory Council. Esther’s current work builds on her community work and career experience.

She has worked on projects and campaigns focused on various issues, including unaccompanied migrant children, affordable housing and balanced community development, indigenous women and leadership development, capacity-building, community mobilizing, and civic engagement strategies.  She has a profound interest in community-building efforts that link people to each other and their shared aspirations for social, systemic, and structural change and economic equity. Esther is fully bilingual (English/Spanish) and has developed workshops and training components to support nonprofit organizations in their civic development, volunteer engagement, and planning strategies. 

She enjoys deepening her knowledge of people, histories, and traditions and participating in efforts that support individual and community leadership, social, economic, and political equity, and processes for shared success and ally-building.  Esther has received several awards for her commitment to social change and community transformation, including a WK Kellogg Foundation National Leadership Fellowship, the Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Fellowship for Activists, and several alumnae recognition awards from the University of Chicago. She holds a B.A. from Loyola University Chicago (Mundelein College), an M.A. from the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration, and an M.S. from New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service.