Diana Ip
Template:TOCnestleft Diana Ip is the partner of Josh Seidenfeld. Lives in Oakland, California
Education
- Studied at Wesleyan University
- Went to Baltimore City College
Background
In the Sunset Park neighborhood where my family first landed as immigrants, the men worked six to seven days a week as cooks or dishwashers at Chinese restaurants hours away by train, and the women, all seamstresses, worked just as long in sweatshops in Brooklyn and Manhattan. I learned about injustices firsthand, trying to find a doctor for my mom when we were uninsured, trying to shop for a winter coat when we were poor and didn't speak English, trying to communicate to the police when our apartment was burglarized. But I also learned about the beautiful, creative solutions that emerged from communities to overcome hardship and trauma. The women took turns picking up their coworkers' children from school and brought lunch to share with each other almost every day. The men shared their knowledge of train and bus routes so that each had a map imprinted in his mind and no subway detour was going to lead him astray. My hope is to be a part of helping create more positive solutions to overcome and transcend injustice.
Diana Ip has over ten years of communications experience. As former Co-Director of the SPIN Project, Diana advised and trained hundreds of public interest groups across the country on communications and media relation strategies. Her work spanned a broad range of social justice issues – immigrant rights, economic justice, reproductive rights, racial justice, and environmental justice, among others. She has trained workers fighting to make a living wage, community activists organizing their neighbors to exercise their right to vote, state wide coalitions working to advance the health of all Californians, teachers struggling to be heard by the huge bureaucracies they hope to improve, as well as freedom riders of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Rides traveling across the U.S. to spread positive messages about immigrant workers and their families. Prior to the SPIN Project, Diana was an associate at i.e. communications, LLC, where she devised and implemented communications strategies for foundations and public service agencies.
In addition to strategic communications, Diana has extensive experience with program management and philanthropy. She has held leadership positions at Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Changemakers, and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. She was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University, and a MFA from Mills College. She is a mother of two and currently lives in Durham, North Carolina.
RoadMap
Diana Ip is a consultant with RoadMap, a Freedom Road Socialist Organization affiliated consultancy group .[1]