In summary
CalMatters is expanding its focus on building engagement with community members.
The latest investments in talented people at CalMatters strengthen our focus on sustainable revenue growth and community engagement.
These new employees will help our nonprofit newsroom to grow its journalism, readership and impact on California.
The team, guided by Chief Development Officer Kate Looby, recently added two uniquely talented people:
Kelly Davis as development director focuses on major gift donations and identifying new supporters of our organization.
Before joining CalMatters, Kelly worked as the director of fundraising for March of Dimes and as the development director for Girl Scouts Heart of Central California. Previously, she worked in marketing at Sacramento Magazine as well as Guild Mortgage. She started her career working for NBC Universal in New York City in the prestigious Page Program. Kelly is a Sacramento native who graduated from California State University, Sacramento with a bachelor’s degree in communications.
Zeke Lihosit as development manager focuses on increasing philanthropic support for our work.
Before joining CalMatters, Zeke worked in a similar role at California Rangeland Trust. Previously, his career has been in development at University of San Diego and University of Arizona, as well as in software sales at Classy.org. Zeke’s first language was Spanish, and he is fluent. He is a graduate of Northern Arizona University and earned his master’s degree in history at University of San Diego.
And Sonya Quick will oversee expanded engagement efforts at CalMatters with a promotion to director of membership and engagement. Two new positions on her team will focus on community engagement (developing new CalMatters readers) and audience engagement (building relationships with all CalMatters audiences).
Ana Clara Otoni is community engagement manager, focusing on building relationships with communities who we expect will benefit from our work and become our newest readers.
Ana is a talented engagement specialist with experience across social media, news, marketing and digital media. In her previous home country of Brazil, she worked at O Globo, one of the nation’s top newspapers. Since then, Ana has expanded audiences, led successful social media marketing strategies and facilitated marketing campaigns for companies in the U.S., United Kingdom and Brazil. She has two master’s degrees, one in communication and media studies and one in business, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Centro Universitário Newton Paiva in Brazil. Ana is fluent in English and Portuguese and has a great understanding of Spanish.
Izz Scott LaMagdeleine is audience engagement manager at CalMatters, focused on connecting Californians with the politics and policy information they need to live their lives.
Izz was most recently the audience engagement producer at PolitiFact, a national news site focused on fact-checking claims made by politicians, organizations and social media posts. They also previously worked as an engagement fellow for the Texas Tribune. Their explainer on gender-affirming care was a finalist for a Institute for Nonprofit News award, as part of the Tribune’s package “Gender Affirming Care in Texas.” Izz is a proud member of the Trans Journalists Association, Online News Association and Ida B. Wells Society. In addition to their work at CalMatters, they love Studio Ghibli movies, Carly Rae Jepsen and their cat Big Boy.