Scoping & Planning
For foundations ready to engage more intentionally.
Assess current engagement, weigh approaches and trade-offs, and test recommendations with stakeholders. Leave with a chosen approach and a practical roadmap.
Community-centered strategy & learning
Community insight that helps your funding go deeper.
I help foundations learn from the communities they serve and adapt their goals, so their funding can go deeper.
Find your starting point15+ years across the social impact fieldImmigrant & refugee community expertiseExperience as a funder, direct service provider & intermediary
Ways to work together
Consulting services
Four starting points, shaped to your foundation’s goals, capacity, and relationships. Each is a place to begin a conversation, rather than a fixed package.
Insights & Learning
For foundations seeking an honest picture of people’s experiences.
Hear from grantees, communities, and partners. Get findings tied to strategy and grantmaking, and share them back so participants see how their input was used.
Grantmaking Strategy & Design
For foundations ready to bring community insight into what they fund and why.
Build a framework for funding priorities, criteria, and learning, informed by a landscape scan and community listening. Align leadership on how to put it into practice.
Participatory Grantmaking
For foundations ready to share funding decisions.
Co-design priorities and selection with community members. Recruit and support an advisory committee, facilitate deliberations, and leave a reusable blueprint, with clear roles and realistic time commitments.
You don’t need a perfect plan to start. We’ll find a level of community input that’s realistic for your team and build from there.
Areas of expertise
The expertise behind the work.
These strengths shape how I approach every engagement.
Immigrant & refugee communities
Insights and outreach focused on immigrant and refugee communities and the organizations that serve them.
Trust-based & equity-centered grantmaking
Design processes that reduce grantee burden and make shared decision-making practical.
Inclusive facilitation & consensus building
Facilitation for convenings, retreats, advisory committees, and board sessions, with different ways to take part.
Research, analysis & learning
Stakeholder interviews, focus groups, surveys, and clear findings briefs your team can use.
Project management
Hands-on support for grantmaking cycles, initiative launches, and projects involving multiple partners.
These areas can also be scoped as standalone support, on a limited basis as my schedule allows.
Karla Gregorio · Founder & Principal
Meet Karla
A perspective from every side of the work.
Over 15+ years, I’ve been a funder, a direct service provider, and an intermediary. I’ve seen how decisions move inside a foundation, and how they’re experienced by the people and organizations receiving funding. I bring all of those perspectives to the table.
I bring a cross-cultural background and a deep appreciation for the knowledge people bring from their own experiences. This shapes how I build relationships and design every process.
Through Amaya, I work alongside your team to build the structures and nurture the relationships that turn listening into decisions you can act on.
Karla Gregorio
FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL
Experience inside foundations
Having been a funder myself, I understand how foundations make decisions, navigate internal priorities, and turn strategy into practice.
Space for candid conversations
As an independent facilitator, I help surface perspectives partners may hesitate to share directly with a funder.
Clear findings. Practical next steps.
Careful research, inclusive facilitation, and disciplined project management connect insight to action.
Selected experience
Commitments made practical.
My experience connects community perspectives to grantmaking, strategy, and learning.
Community-shaped grantmaking
Led a participatory grantmaking initiative centered on immigrant leadership, with community participants shaping the process.
Shared insights and alignment
Led and facilitated multi-stakeholder groups to surface shared insights, build alignment, and identify priorities.
Learning that informs decisions
Co-developed learning and accountability systems with community partners, connecting feedback to strategy and program refinement.
Start a conversation
Let’s start a conversation.
Every engagement starts with a conversation about your goals and what you’re hoping to learn.
I’d love to hear how your foundation listens to and learns from the communities you serve. You’re also welcome to exchange ideas or simply say hello.