Anna Kohn

Background

About Anna Kohn

Anna is an accomplished nonprofit strategist with proficiency around training programs for incarcerated and returning citizens. Anna has over 25 years of fundraising, grant writing, project management and community organizing experience. A graduate of CUNY Baruch’s National Urban Fellows program, Anna received her MPA in 2011 with a concentration in performance measurement and management of prisoner reentry initiatives. She previously worked for Lighthouse of Oakland County in Pontiac; RecoveryPark in Detroit; the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue (Detroit's last freestanding synagogue); Defy Ventures in New York City; the Office of the County Manager in Fulton County, GA; the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries; the Office of Governor Granholm; and spent eight years as an organizer and field coordinator for the Levin family, The 12th District Democratic Party, and the Michigan Coordinated Campaign. Anna graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA where she received her BA in the self-designed field of Detroitology, studying the effects of mayoral politics on Detroit’s economic and racial disparities. Through her work in Detroit, Atlanta and New York City, she has raised over $5MM in grant funds for startup projects and new program initiatives benefiting local governments and nonprofits. Anna began her activism early, having worked with underprivileged populations beginning at age nine when she started her own nonprofit for Detroit’s homeless. Anna became an adjunct faculty member through Jackson College, teaching Entrepreneurship courses in the Michigan Department of Corrections from 2012 to 2016. Anna is the President of Safe and Just Michigan (formerly the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending); the Chair of the Michigan Community Corrections Advisory Board; Alumni Trustee on The Roeper School’s Board of Trustees, and a member of Detroit's Returning Citizen’s Task Force. Currently, Anna serves as the Reentry and Parole Team Lead directing efforts for the State Appellate Defender Office's Project Reentry. SADO’s Project Reentry delivers pre and post-release reentry assistance. SADO launched Project Reentry (PR) in 2016 in response to the unique and immediate needs of Michigan’s juvenile lifers. The PR team works in coordination with SADO attorneys and staff to achieve positive outcomes for clients.