Manal Aboleta

Manal Aboelata has been appointed Chief Program Officer at Liberty Hill Foundation, where she will lead the organization’s Movement Infrastructure work—strengthening the systems, programs, and partnerships that enable grassroots movements to win, sustain gains, and build long-term power across Los Angeles County.

Most recently, Manal served as Managing Director at The California Endowment, where she advanced Inclusive Community Development strategies statewide and supported community-centered grantmaking in the Los Angeles region. Prior to that, she spent more than two decades at Prevention Institute, including serving as Deputy Executive Director. During her tenure, Manal deepened the organization’s health equity and racial justice capacity, expanded statewide advocacy efforts, led coalitions and alliances, and founded the organization’s Los Angeles office. She also stewarded the purchase of a building in historic Leimert Park and directed regional, statewide, and national initiatives, including People, Parks and Power, which regranted more than $7 million annually to organizing and base-building groups across the United States and Puerto Rico.

Manal is a widely recognized thought leader on health equity, the built environment, parks and greenspace, walkability, and community safety. She is the author of Healing Neighborhoods, which grew out of her work advocating for equitable implementation of public financing for parks and greenspace, and has contributed to several influential publications, including Building Strategic Skills for Better Health and Making Healthy Places. She has also written the foreword to Schools that Heal: Design with Mental Health in Mind and co-authored C is for Capoeira.

A dynamic public speaker and facilitator, Manal regularly participates in conferences nationwide. In 2024, she hosted a conversation with Gloria Steinem for CalEndow Live and moderated a national panel on parks, recreation, and wellbeing at the National Recreation and Park Association’s Annual Conference.

Manal holds a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on health and social justice issues impacting women of color. She was inducted into the UCLA School of Public Health Hall of Fame in 2009 and received a Stanton Fellowship from the Durfee Foundation in 2017.