Hanaa Rifaey is the founder of Press Forward, a boutique consulting shop specializing in nonprofit management, strategic planning, fundraising, and marketing. Previously, Hanaa served as the President and Publisher of The American Independent News Network. She has managed campaigns and programs in a variety of issue areas including civil rights, health care, and climate change. Hanaa received her undergraduate degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and her master's degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She lives in D.C. with her husband and their dog, two cats, and tiny human.

Ashley Toland Trice is the editor and publisher of Mobile, Ala.’s alt-weekly, Lagniappe, which she co-founded with fellow publisher Rob Holbert in July 2002. Lagniappe has steadily grown from a 5,000 circulation biweekly “bar rag” into a 25,000 weekly newspaper over the last 12 years. Bucking national trends, the paper decided to actually increase its print frequency (Gasp!) in April 2014, not only in response to Mobile’s rapid growth but also because the city’s lone (Newhouse-owned) daily reduced its print schedule to three times a week, which, let’s just say didn’t go over too well with our citizenry, who kicked, screamed and almost demanded we fill this void for them. It’s been interesting living in a real-life journalism experiment, but the jump to weekly has been almost frighteningly successful so far. Though we can confirm, as many wise men and women have said before us, with greater print frequency comes greater “office beer” expense.

Carolyn Powers works on outreach and special initiatives at Internews, an international non-profit dedicated to empowering local media around the world. Bouncing around between DC, San Francisco and New Orleans, she most recently helped build Internews’ first media project in the US (based in New Orleans). Outside of Internews, Carolyn has led an intensive storytelling course with college students in Kigali, Rwanda, served as a community organizer on the outskirts of Boston, and traveled a bit around the world, though has many more countries that she would like to check off that list.

Molly de Aguiar directs the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation’s Media grants, which strengthen and expand New Jersey's news and information ecosystem, support and experiment with collaboration and resource-sharing, and encourage deep community engagement. Prior to joining the Dodge staff in 2005, Molly spent 10 years working for arts and education nonprofits in Philadelphia and was active in independent media issues. She is a blogger, a list maker, a weekend baker, and an avid traveler with her family.