Aarti Shahani

"What excites me about North Star Fund is the concrete way that this foundation supports grassroots organizations that impact New York's communities and public policies."

Aarti Shahani is an accomplished community organizer with a long history of working on immigration rights. She was the co-founding director of Families for Freedom (FFF) and has remained a board member since 2007. FFF has supported thousands of people facing deportation, trained hundreds of community groups across the country on defending against unjust deportation, and moved members of Congress to introduce federal legislation to keep families together. FFF has been a North Star Fund grantee since 2003.

Before founding FFF, Aarti was an advocate with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and serves on the board of directors for Citizens and Immigrants for Equal Justice. She is also an investigative writer on immigration and policing, and currently teaches at New York University.

Aarti, a native of Flushing, Queens, joined the board of directors in 2008 and serves as the co-chair of the Community Funding Committee. According to Aarti, "Among progressives there is a challenge both of vision and of building institutional power. What excites me about North Star Fund is the concrete way that this foundation is influencing that vision through supporting grassroots organizations that impact New York's communities and public policies."