ABOUT US
CRISTINA CALVILLO-RIVERA
Principal & Co-Founder
Cristina has over 10 years of experience in educational programming for non-profits with a specific focus on creating curricula for training programs on issue-based campaigns and leadership development. Her experience began in her home city of El Paso, Texas where she organized and educated the community on LGBTQ issues and assisted youth with organizing Gay-Straight Alliances at their high schools. Cristina continued her work on engaging youth by working with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) of New Mexico where she created youth educational programming on DWI and underage drinking prevention. In Washington DC, she served as Deputy Director of Training and Consumer Education at Young Invincibles and later as the Director of Young Adult Engagement and Advocacy where she helped lead YI’s youth engagement strategy, developed curricula and facilitated trainings and community workshops across the country and trained young adults on economic policy impacting millennials. Cristina served as the Training and Curriculum Specialist for the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports where she developed the first community development program in its 80-year history. Cristina then served as the Training and Engagement Director at Instituto in Phoenix, Arizona where she served as one of the founding architects to Instituto's leadership development fellowship that focused on building electoral and advocacy leaders across the state and managed their capacity-building programs for partner organizations in Arizona. As one of Instituto's first employees, she built out many of their internal processes such as their hiring processes and onboarding trainings. Cristina resides in Phoenix with her wife, Ambar, and dog, Churro, and is proud to call El Paso, Texas home. You can catch her making extravagant meals, grilling, mixing cocktails, and learning how to garden during her free time.
AMBAR CALVILLO-RIVERA
Founder
Ambar brings nearly a decade of experience in strategic partner engagement, coalition building, and civic engagement across diverse communities. She has managed national education and awareness campaigns, built and engaged national coalitions, and executed large scale summits and conferences. Most recently, Ambar served as the Vice President of Campaigns for Voto Latino, where she led the implementation of Somos Más, a national campaign that mobilized young Latinos ahead of the historic 2018 midterm elections, successfully registering over 200,000 people to vote in 11 states with 76% voter turnout. Prior to that, Ambar led the mobilization of national organizations and caucuses during the historic 2017 special elections, to support down-ballot candidates across the country, as the Director of Community Engagement and Strategic Partnerships at the Democratic National Committee (DNC). She also previously served as National Director of Field and Partner Engagement for Enroll America, where she led a multi-state team and national partner program to implement an awareness campaign for the Affordable Care Act.