Who We Are

Rivkah Beth Medow

Director

Rivkah is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker who has produced and directed documentary, broadcast, commercial, and non-profit productions for the past 15 years. Her projects have been seen by millions on Netflix, PBS, Food Network, BBC, and in film festivals worldwide. Following a long-standing interest in social and environmental justice, Rivkah co-produced two series of transformative documentaries for The Pachamama Alliance and Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. In response to the discrepancy of access to media production tools in Oakland schools, Rivkah co-created a media literacy and production program for at-risk youth in the Oakland Unified School District. The program was youth driven and students collaboratively created short films that had festival and community screenings.

She joined the Foundation’s board in 2011 and since that time, has been a part of its incredible growth and the development of several major grantmaking strategies. Her efforts include helping to create the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, a nonprofit that connects resources in the community to the real estate needs of arts and cultural organizations.

Prior to her filmmaking career, she worked primarily as a sculptor, teaching at the University of Vermont and creating a permanent public art installation commissioned by the city of Burlington, VT. Rivkah holds a BA in English Literature from Indiana University and an MFA in Film/Video and Performance from the California College of the Arts.

Moy Eng

Director

Moy Eng’s career encompasses four decades of experience as a grantmaker, consultant and senior nonprofit executive. She is known for her visionary ability to identify and support progressive ideas to advance social change. Her work has impacted areas as diverse as arts and culture, renewable energy, lesbian and gay rights, immigrant rights, and international human rights. Moy joined the Rainin Foundation Board in 2021.

From 2014-2023, Moy led Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST), a nonprofit social enterprise that uses an innovative real estate strategy to help communities create permanent, affordable spaces for arts and culture organizations. CAST was seeded in 2013 with a $5 million, five-year grant from the Rainin Foundation, and has received continued funding since. CAST’s groundbreaking financing and partnership model has inspired similar efforts in London, Vancouver, Seattle, Sydney, Austin and Denver, among other places.

Moy’s background in philanthropy began at the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation where her support of research, advocacy and impact litigation helped shape policies on immigration reform, LGBT rights and renewable energy. In the 2000s, she directed the arts program at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she commissioned landmark research, invested in public funding for arts education, and funded affordable performing arts spaces.

Moy has been honored for her work by the World Affairs Council, the California Arts Council and the San Francisco Unified School District. She is also a practicing artist—a poet, vocalist and composer. In 2019, she released The Blue Hour, a debut album in collaboration with Grammy-nominated composer and co-producer Wayne Wallace.

Moy received her BA in Theater Arts at Rutgers University and MA in Arts Administration at New York University.

Dash Patterson

Director

Dashiell (Dash) Patterson is the grandson of Kenneth Rainin. He was appointed to the Board in 2021, signaling the integration of another generation of the Rainin family into the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.

After a brief internship with the Foundation in 2016, Dash took on a larger role as a junior board member until 2021. In this role he grew his understanding of philanthropy, gained a greater sense of the Bay Area’s unique arts and culture ecosystem, and built on his own K-12 experience to understand high-quality early education in Oakland. Like his mother, Jen Rainin, grandfather and uncle, Dash also suffers from Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). His personal experience with IBD is an important connection to the Foundation’s Health grantmaking. He shared his story with researchers at our 2021 Innovations Symposium.

Dash holds a BA in Global Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara. He currently works as an assistant in the Television department of a Los Angeles based talent agency. Gaining an in-depth understanding of the film and TV world, Dash plans to continue to progress within the agency on the path to becoming a Talent Agent. Within philanthropy, Dash is passionate about confronting climate change and understanding how he as well as the Foundation can leverage resources to make a meaningful impact on the current challenges facing California.

Jennifer Rainin, PhD

Chief Executive Officer

Jen Rainin launched the Kenneth Rainin Foundation in 2008, and has served as CEO since that time. She previously worked as a teacher and literacy specialist, earning her doctorate in education from the University of Illinois, Chicago along the way.

Under Jen’s leadership, the Foundation has adopted a targeted approach to grantmaking, developing several major initiatives in the Arts, Education and Health program areas. In the Arts, she established the SFFILM Rainin Filmmaking Grants, a successful partnership that has become the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US. She also helped create the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, a groundbreaking real estate holding company, which has gained international recognition for its approach to mitigating the displacement of arts and cultural organizations throughout the Bay Area. In Education, Jen has focused the Foundation’s work on early childhood education in Oakland, supporting literacy development for children from birth through third grade, and professional development for teachers and coaches working with these students. Jen‘s efforts in Health led to grantmaking programs to support high risk, high reward ideas that advance Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) research and the launch of the Rainin Foundation’s Innovations Symposium, an annual event that brings together international and US researchers from disparate disciplines to inspire novel ideas and collaborations that benefit IBD research.

Jen founded Frankly Speaking Films with Rivkah Beth Medow in 2020 to produce media that centers strong LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people to address the deep need for representation of queer women’s stories. Her credits include AHEAD OF THE CURVE (2020, Netflix); the Oscar® shortlisted HOLDING MOSES (2022, The New Yorker); HUMMINGBIRDS (2023, POV); QUEER FUTURES (2024, The Criterion Collection); and OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage (2024, festivals). She also Executive Produced JEANNETTE (festivals), a feature documentary about a survivor of the Pulse nightclub massacre; STAGE LEFT (2011), a documentary about the history of theater in the Bay Area; TWO SPIRITS (2009), a documentary about gender identity in Native American cultures which aired on Independent Lens; and HOMEROOM (2021), a documentary about Oakland’s education system.

Jen’s deep commitment to philanthropy was instilled early on by her father, Kenneth Rainin. With her wife, Jen co-founded The Curve Foundation, the only national nonprofit dedicated to championing lesbian, queer women, transgender and nonbinary stories and culture. Curve supports journalism, produces Lesbian Visibility Week and hosts intergenerational conversations on gender, queerness, race, ability and activism. Jen continues to be involved in supporting numerous community-based organizations, including the Center for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease at the University of California, San Francisco, which she established with her father. Her philanthropic efforts have garnered several awards, including 2015 Outstanding Foundation from the Golden Gate Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Inside Philanthropy’s 2014 IPPY award, and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America’s 2013 Champion of Hope.

Jen actively engages with grantees and experts in the Foundation’s program areas, bringing people together to inspire collaborations and listening to ideas outside of philanthropy’s traditional circles. As a filmmaker and philanthropist, Jen builds community and hope, eliminates shame and inspires others through storytelling.

William Rogers

Director

William is an accomplished cross-sector leader with a long record of advancing innovation, institutional transformation and positive social impact across the public, nonprofit and private sectors. He addresses complex challenges through strategic leadership and the cultivation of trusted, collaborative relationships with a broad range of stakeholders.

William joined the board of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation in 2017 and also serves on the boards of Tipping Point Community, KQED and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

He spent a decade as President and CEO of Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay, where he led the revitalization of a century-old social enterprise through mission expansion, organizational modernization and business development. He currently serves as Senior Business Advisor to Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, providing strategic and operational counsel.

Earlier in his career, William served as Deputy City Manager for the City of Berkeley, where he led major cross-departmental initiatives spanning public health, education and citywide policy, advanced significant regional infrastructure projects and led efforts to address opportunity gaps in Berkeley public schools. In 2022, he was awarded the prestigious Peter Haas Award for Excellence in Public Service by the University of California, Berkeley.

William holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MA from the University of San Francisco.