Melissa Luna

Melissa Luna is Vice President of Site Success at GreenLight Fund, where she leads the organization’s efforts to strengthen the effectiveness and impact of its national network of local sites. She oversees the performance and development of Executive Directors across GreenLight’s communities, providing coaching and strategic guidance on community-centered grantmaking, organizational leadership, fundraising, portfolio management, and implementing GreenLight’s selection process. As a member of GreenLight’s Executive Team, Melissa helps shape organizational strategy, leadership development, and systems that enable high-quality execution across the network.

Throughout her tenure at GreenLight, Melissa has championed leadership by those closest to community challenges, embedding community voice throughout the grantmaking process and elevating proximate voices on the Selection Advisory Councils. This approach earned recognition from the Fund for Shared Insight as a leading practice in participatory philanthropy. She led GreenLight Boston’s grantmaking strategy, building a portfolio of innovative organizations designed to address interconnected barriers to economic mobility through complementary, evidence-based solutions. She raised more than $12 million to sustain this work and spearheaded GreenLight’s portfolio reinvestment strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the portfolio continued to meet evolving community needs.

Before joining GreenLight, Melissa managed a national portfolio of grants and programs focused on women’s political leadership and ending sex trafficking at Ambassador Swanee Hunt’s foundation. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade at Sociedad Latina designing and leading initiatives focused on youth development, civic engagement, and systems change in Boston.

With more than 20 years of experience in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, Melissa is passionate about strengthening organizations, investing in leaders, and building community-driven solutions that create lasting opportunity. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Women’s Foundation of Boston, and the boards of We Are ALX and Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard University. Melissa graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in Government and is an alumna of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice.