As COO, Sarah oversees CANVAS’s organizational strategy, grantmaking, national partnerships, and leadership development initiatives for the Jewish arts and culture field, as well as all operations and finances, organizational growth, staff teams, and resources powering CANVAS systems, people, and culture.

Before joining CANVAS, Sarah served artists and organizations nationwide as a program officer at the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, in curatorial roles at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and The Jewish Museum, and on the DC Steering Committee of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy.

As a practicing visual artist, cultural strategist, and philanthropy professional, Sarah is an advocate for the power of the arts to foster community, nurture a culture of care, and envision more vibrant futures for all. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and daughters.

Jennifer Kessler oversees and executes all grantmaking and programming for CANVAS. She is a distinguished leader in the arts and music education sectors, committed to fostering a diverse arts ecosystem. She joins CANVAS after serving as Executive Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), where she promoted Afrodiasporic composers, launched a groundbreaking childcare fund for musicians, secured ICE’s largest grant from the Mellon Foundation, and expanded its international presence through collaborations with Carnegie Hall, Columbia University, the New York Philharmonic, and presenters across Europe.

Jennifer has designed and produced over 400 arts and education programs, collaborating with hundreds of artists. At Willie Mae Rock Camp, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Carnegie Hall, she pioneered initiatives like an intensive youth orchestra and professional training workshops with Yo-Yo Ma and the late Zakir Hussain. She has also led key projects for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and designed 50+ professional development programs, including the Essentials of Orchestra Management seminar for the League of American Orchestras.

As an advisory council member at CANVAS, who oversaw the League of American Orchestra’s Getty Education and Community Investment Grants and advised other philanthropic initiatives, Jennifer advocates for accessible philanthropy, with her research on arts funding funding recently published in I Care If You Listen. She teaches arts leadership strategies at the New School’s College of Performing Arts and holds degrees from Northwestern University and Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule, along with a nonprofit management certificate from the New England Conservatory. A former French horn player with the Berlin Philharmonic and Israeli Opera Orchestra, Jennifer now performs as Gina Fur, her electropop alter ego. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Merav David oversees operations at CANVAS, keeping the organization’s grantmaking, financial systems, and daily logistics running smoothly. She’s worked in Jewish nonprofits across New York for nearly a decade, with experience spanning program coordination, systems administration, development support, and backend ops.

Before joining CANVAS, she was Program Assistant at Jewish Funders Network, supporting events and member engagement. At Young Judaea Global, she managed onboarding, development operations, and internal systems as Office and Systems Administrator. Earlier on, she worked at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, curating books and Judaica and supervising visitor services at the Pickman Museum Shop, where she saw how Jewish art, literature, and ritual could offer comfort and celebration in a space shaped by remembrance.

Merav holds a BFA in Judaic Studies and Interdisciplinary Art from the University of Hartford, with a minor in Art History. Her undergraduate work included archaeological field studies in Israel and Lithuania with the late Dr. Richard Freund, focusing on both biblical and Holocaust-era sites.

She’s also a potter, abstract painter, and cat mom of two. You can find her cooking her savta’s Iraqi recipes, exploring her local farmers market, or running along Hudson River Park.

Tracey Alperstein serves as the primary liaison to the CANVAS Board, Executive Committee, and members of CANVAS Collaborative Fund, overseeing funding partner  relationships, grantseeking, and donor database management. Tracey is a nonprofit leader passionate about equitable access to arts and culture. She is experienced in project and program management, arts education, fund development, and as a grant maker in the arts, culture, and human services fields. 

Before joining CANVAS, Tracey served as a program officer at the National Endowment for the Arts where she provided guidance and technical assistance to applicants in preparing grant applications and managing grant awards. She also served as a nonprofit grants support specialist for Loudoun County Government where she coordinated and drafted federal and state grant proposals, managed grants that the County subgranted to local nonprofits, and designed grants trainings.

Previous to her tenure as a government funder, Tracey served as Deputy Director at the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative working to ensure the organization’s programs operated in a mission-driven, equitable manner across DC public and charter schools and contributed to grant seeking, management, and reporting. Tracey holds degrees from Shenandoah University in Music Production and Recording Technology and a Masters of Science in Arts Management. She is a former oboe player, mom, yogi, and aspiring Taekwondo blackbelt.

Tzivia collaborates with the CANVAS team and coordinates support with the Jewish Funders Network (JFN). In her role at JFN, Tzivia serves as the Senior Director of Philanthropic Engagement and JFN West, where she creates opportunities for network members to connect, engage, strengthen, and leverage their philanthropic work. Tzivia is also the Executive Director of the Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund and the U.S. Program Director of the Social Venture Fund for Jewish-Arab Equality and Shared Society in Israel.

Tzivia is a lawyer who has spent most of her career in the Jewish non-profit world. Her extensive experience includes five years as the founding executive director of Jewish World Watch, an innovative non-profit working to combat genocide and mass atrocities through targeted community engagement and has worked in philanthropy for almost 15 years.

Tzivia’s engagement with Jewish arts and culture came when she worked with DreamWorks’s founder, Jeffrey Katzenberg, as the Community Liaison on DreamWorks Animation’s first film, The Prince of Egypt.

Eric Phelps oversees Development strategy for CANVAS. A Massachusetts native, Eric has been a full-time nonprofit consultant for more than a decade. He has worked with more than 175 organizations throughout the U.S. on strategic planning, capital campaign design and implementation, executive coaching, board development, and other projects. Prior to consulting, Eric served as Vice President of Development for VentureWell, a national nonprofit supporting university investors and innovators in commercializing their technologies. During his five-year tenure, he worked with the senior team to secure more than $50 million in new funding. 

Eric was also Director of the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy (now JCamp180), a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. This program provided funding and leadership development services to more than 90 overnight and day camps throughout North America. Eric has also served as Executive Director of the New Art Center (Newton, MA), Executive Director of VSA Arts of Georgia (Atlanta), and Development Director of IMAGE Film & Video Center (Atlanta). 

Eric has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, and a Certificate in American Sign Language Interpreting from Georgia State University. Eric is an award-winning singer/songwriter and performs his original music with his band Let It Rain throughout the country. 

Regan advises CANVAS Leadership, and also designed and runs the Executive Mentor component of CANVAS’s Leadership Development programming. She is a big picture–focused, passionate, and accomplished thought partner; designer of operations and systems; and Executive Coach.

Regan works with nonprofit leaders and their Boards on organizational and management strategy; capacity-building through clear communication and goal-setting; and has run many successful Executive Searches. She has more than 10 years of experience serving on and leading nonprofit Boards, most recently as the first-ever New York Board Chair of Girls Leadership. As a two-term Board member of The New York Women’s Foundation, Regan sat on the Grants Allocation Committee for 4 years. As Director of Individual Giving for Student Leadership Network, Regan was a strategic builder of major donor relationships, and secured six-figure, multi-year gift commitments.

Regan spent 25 years as a leader in magazine publishing, with 10 years as Executive Managing Editor of Condé Nast’s W Magazine, where she managed dozens of staffers; set and implemented strategy and budgets; and was responsible for all editorial operations. She has held the Managing Editor title at Lucky; Harper’s Bazaar; SPIN; Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress, and other well known magazines. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

Lou Cove is the Founder and President of CANVAS, a collaborative fund dedicated to supporting the 21st century Jewish cultural renaissance. Lou has spent his career at the intersection of contemporary culture and Jewish life. He has served as both a trustee and a senior advisor to the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and helped co-create the PJ Alliance — a cohort of supporters dedicated to PJ Library’s national and global growth. Lou is also the author of Man of the Year (Flatiron Books), an Amazon 2017 memoir of the year, a People Magazine pick of the week (“Hilarious and poignant”) and a Booklist Starred Selection (“The kind of book readers fall in love with”).

Lou is the former executive director of Reboot — a think tank and incubator for modern Jewish culture — where he oversaw the development of numerous Jewish cultural projects, including Sukkah City, 10Q, and the National Day of Unplugging. Lou was also vice president of the National Yiddish Book Center where he helped build an endowment, a new building, and a sustainable platform devoted to reclaiming a lost literary canon.

Tom is a strategic planning and executive-level financial and operating veteran with experience in media, arts, and education, as well as network and membership community-building. Tom has served in controller, CFO and treasurer roles in eight different organizations and has held P&L responsibility in various settings for over 25 years. He now works at Davis Financial Group as CFO and consults on financial planning for organizations, and serves as Finance Committee Chair for the Jewish Community of Amherst. He is also Trustee and administrator of two Special Needs Trust funds.

Early in his career, Tom headed strategic planning for National Geographic Television, before establishing and running Discovery Channel Enterprises where he was named one of “50 Top Creatives to Watch” by Variety magazine. He later served as CEO for Artist Network Ventures. Tom then developed expertise in professional education and held COO/senior strategic or P&L roles in Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association, and Certified Financial Planning (CFP) Board of Standards. 

Tom has special expertise in innovation as a corporate head of new venture creation/operation (Discovery Channel, VeriSign, Artist Network Ventures), start-up entrepreneur (4x COO and 2x CEO), and enabler (VentureWell/National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance, UMass Isenberg School, Harvard Business School). Tom was born in Istanbul, raised in Amherst, MA, and graduated from Hamilton College.