Mayra Cuevas is the Individual Giving Coordinator at WOLA, where she cultivates relationships with WOLA’s growing community of individual supports and finds new ways to keep donors engaged in WOLA’s work. She joins WOLA’s Development team with over 10 years of fundraising experience, with most of her career anchored in the San Francisco/Bay Area.
Mayra is a native Californian, she was born in Los Angeles and lived in San Francisco for 13 years—during which she pursued an M.A. in International and Multicultural Education, with a focus on Human Rights Education and began developing her knowledge and skills in Mexican folkloric dance. She moved to D.C. to pursue a M.A. in International Affairs Policy and Analysis at American University. During her M.A., she focused on Policy Development, and Conflict and Migration. As a student, she interned with numerous organizations including the Institute of World Affairs, the Refugee Solidarity Network, and collaborated with a policy lab developing a networks of peace map in Colombia for a UN-funded project.
After graduating in 2021, Mayra worked on a team developing data analysis on a Peacebuilding program in Burundi through the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund in Burundi. Following that project, Mayra completed a fellowship with the United Nations Foundation (UNF). Her fellowship focused on gender equity via the UNF’s initiative, Girl Up. In her role, Mayra supported and helped develop a number of projects for young girls’ empowerment and leadership development, including a virtual STEM camp for teenage and college girls in Central America and a hybrid STEM camp for female youth in Southeast Asia.
Mayra is a proud second-generation Mexican American. She dances with a Mexican folklórico dance company in D.C. and volunteers with migrant-serving organizations in the DMV.