Dr. Raphael J. Sonenshein, Ph.D.

Dr. Raphael J. Sonenshein is the executive director of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. Previously he served as the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA. He received his B.A. in public policy from Princeton, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Yale. He is a nationally recognized expert on racial and ethnic politics, on California and Los Angeles, and on charter reform. His book Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles (Princeton, 1993) won the American Political Science Association’s 1994 Ralph J. Bunche Award. Dr. Sonenshein served as Executive Director of the Los Angeles (Appointed) Charter Reform Commission that led to the city’s first comprehensive charter reform in 75 years, described in his book The City at Stake: Secession, Reform, and the Battle for Los Angeles (Princeton, 2004). He has since guided successful charter reform commissions in a half dozen cities. His third book is Los Angeles: Structure of a City Government (2006, League of Women Voters, LA). All three books received significant grant support from the Haynes Foundation.

Dr. Sonenshein received a Wang Family Excellence Award as one of the four most outstanding Cal State faculty members. He was co-recipient of the Haynes Foundation Research Impact award, and received the Harry Scoville Award from the American Society for Public Administration SoCal Division. Dr. Sonenshein was the fall 2008 Fulbright Tocqueville Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Paris VIII. In 2022-3, he joined a multi-university collaborative of six scholars supported by philanthropy in the Los Angeles Governance Reform Project, to make recommendations for better governance at LA city hall.

Tiann Ortiz

Tiann Ortiz serves as the Executive Assistant for the Haynes Foundation, where her primary role is to support the Foundation’s mission and the work of the Executive Director.

Tiann brings with her over 20 years of progressive experience in an executive support role in philanthropy. Before joining the Haynes Foundation, Tiann filled roles as executive assistant and grants manager for Specialty Family Foundation where she managed an extensive portfolio of grants and programs with a primary focus on housing and homelessness in Los Angeles. Before, she was the Senior Executive Assistant in Sales Strategy at Johnson & Johnson SLC, and International Coordinator for Neutrogena Corporation.