Sandy Ho

Sandy Ho began as the Executive Director of the Disability & Philanthropy Forum in June 2024. She was most recently the program director of the Disability Inclusion Fund (DIF) at Borealis Philanthropy. Prior to her role in philanthropy, Sandy was a disability policy researcher at the Community Living Policy Center at Brandeis University. She was a member of the inaugural 2023 Obama Foundation USA Leaders program, and a 2022 Disability Futures Fellow supported by Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

She is a co-partner of the Access is Love campaign that she leads with Alice Wong and Mia Mingus. In 2016 Sandy founded the Disability & Intersectionality Summit, a national biennial conference that is organized by disabled activists and highlights the lived-experiences of marginalized disabled people of color. Sandy was recognized by the White House in 2015 as a “Champion of Change.” She comes to disability community organizing and activism by way of youth mentoring for young women with disabilities. Sandy came to the DIF in 2021, and helmed a $4 Million annual grantmaking strategy for disabled-led organizations building power to dismantle ableism across the U.S. At the DIF she spearheaded Joy Grants, and the launch of the $1 Million DIFxTech Fund, further expanding pathways to inclusion and thriving disability futures. Sandy is a visionary whose commitment to disability communities and grassroots organizing centrally inform her values within and beyond philanthropy. Core to her values is the belief in disability justice, rights, and inclusion as powerful tools and ways of being that are essential to all social movements and civil sectors.

She earned her Master in Public Policy from The Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Sandy lives in Oakland, CA where she can be found birding, reading by Lake Merritt, and spending time with her communities.