Lydia Hopewell

Development manager

Lydia Hopewell (she/they) is the Development Manager for VOTE and Voters Organized to Educate. A New Orleans transplant herself, she moved to the Crescent City in part to reconnect with her mother’s heritage. She got her BS in Public Health at Spring Hill College and then began working with youth experiencing homelessness in Portland, OR where she witnessed firsthand the oppressive force of juvenile incarceration. She returned to New Orleans permanently in 2019 and spent over a year in the local nonprofit sector before joining the team in 2021.

At VOTE and Voters Organized, they builds financial power in the movement by managing all aspects of the fundraising process. They cultivate relationships with individual donors and grant funders who propel the organizations’ work forward through their support. Acknowledging fundraising’s roots in whiteness, Lydia is passionate about dismantling harmful and racist philanthropic practices and is involved in the Community Centric Fundraising movement. Outside of the office, Lydia is an activist and ally to social and ecological justice movements alongside their wife, and could also be found cooking, outside on a walk, or with their 3 cats: Ellen, Maya, and Louisa.