Kara Young Ponder is the Vice President of Knowledge, Impact, and Strategy for the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN). She leads learning, research, and evaluation for NCN to ensure nonprofits have the information they need to serve their communities.
Prior to joining NCN, Kara was the Director of Community Engagement and Racial Justice for the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) at the University of California San Francisco where she led community partnerships, research on race and discrimination, and the internal learning and professional development program for BHHI staff. Before joining BHHI, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at The Ohio State University where she taught courses on food systems, inequality in the United States, and qualitative research methods. She holds master's and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Brown University.