Samantha joined Morino Ventures in May 2021 as a Community Facilitator with the Leap Ambassadors support team. Formerly, Samantha worked for grantmaking institutions including, most recently, the Mars Wrigley Foundation, where she oversaw the grants management operations and created the grantee reporting process. At United Way of Greater St. Louis, she designed a racial equity framework for the community investment model and coached volunteers in determining the grant awards to nonprofit organizations.

Prior to grantmaking, Samantha was a planner at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, where she developed local land use policy recommendations for municipalities throughout the Chicago region and implemented inclusive outreach strategies for planning projects. She was also a planner with the Village of Wheeling, a northwest suburb of Chicago. Samantha is a member of the Chicago African Americans in Philanthropy, American Planning Association, and American Institute of Certified Planners. She has also worked for community-based organizations providing services to homeless women and children and managed an HIV-awareness campaign involving businesses on the South Side of Chicago.

Samantha holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Illinois Wesleyan University and earned a Master’s degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University.