Staff

Proteus Fund is committed to increasing diversity in the workplace. Our staff represents a wide range of experiences, educational achievement, and cultural backgrounds. Biographies of current staff are as follows:

Meg Gage - President and Executive Director
Meg founded the Peace Development Fund in 1981 and served as its Executive Director until 1992. She served as the Executive Director of the Ottinger Foundation from 1992 through 1999 and founded Proteus Fund in 1995. She was awarded the Inaugural Robert W. Scrivner Award in 1986 for Creativity by an Individual Grantmaker. In 1997 she wrote the Funders Handbook on Money in Politics. She earned a Bachelors Degree from Brandeis University in 1967.

Beery Adams - Grants Manager
Beery joined the Proteus Fund in August 2008.  Before joining the Proteus staff, she worked as an International Trade and Investment Specialist at the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, where she assisted small and medium sized businesses relocate to Maryland.  Prior to that she developed Baltimore City's immigrant outreach program, and instituted its language access policy.  She earned a Master's degree in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona in 2003.

Marc Caplan - Piper Fund Program Officer
Marc began working for Proteus as a consultant in September 2000. He was the founding director of LEAP, a statewide voter engagement coalition in Connecticut; created and directed a project sponsored by Northeast Action and the United Auto Workers to build similar voter engagement coalitions in four other New England states; and consulted with progressive leaders in more than a half dozen other states around the country in assisting them found or strengthen statewide coalitions. He directed Northeast Action, a regional support center for New England and New York, from 1992 to 1999. He also served as the Executive Director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group from 1974 to 1980. Marc earned a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University in 1972.

Paul A. DiDonato - Civil Marriage Collaborative Program Officer
Paul joined the Proteus Fund in November 2007. Paul has been an activist, advocate and philanthropic leader in the areas of HIV/AIDS, LGBT issues, civil and human rights and social justice for over 25 years. Most recently he was the Director of Institutional Relations at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) From 1997 to 2005, Paul was Executive Director of Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA). Prior to FCAA, he was Public Policy Director of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel and Executive Director and Legal Director of National Gay Rights Advocates. Earlier in his career, Paul was a litigator in private civil rights practice focusing on prison reform, employment discrimination and other civil rights issues; in 1985 he was appointed a Revson Women’s Rights and Public Policy Fellow. Paul earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1985.

Amber French - Development Officer
Amber joined the Proteus Fund in April 2001. She served as the Leadership Center Director at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA from 2000-2001 and graduated in 1999 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a Bachelors Degree in Ancient Greek and Latin with Linguistics.

Muthoni Magua - Director of Finance & Administration
Muthoni joined the Proteus team in February 2003. Prior to that, she worked at Electronic Data Systems (EDS) as a Business Analyst from 2001 - 2003, and at AT&T as System Support Manager, among other positions, from 1995 - 2000. Muthoni completed her MBA at Duquesne University in December 2000. She is currently an active member of the ACT Foundation, a non profit organization that helps African youth obtain access to computer technology.

Dini Merz - Peace and Security Programs Program Director
Prior to joining the Proteus team in March of 2003, she was the Program Director for the Tremaine Foundation where she designed the strategies as well as managed the grantmaking for the foundation's Learning Disabilities, Arts and Environment program areas. In this capacity she further helped the foundation design governance structures reflecting the family's philanthropic interests and develop its first program-related policies. Before the Tremaine Foundation she was an environmental policy consultant for Public Sector Consultants where she worked extensively on sprawl and contamination remediation. Dini serves as a Board member and Secretary of the New England Grassroots Environment Fund. She also serves on the Steering Committee of the Peace and Security Funders Group. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from The National Law Center, George Washington University in 1993, and graduated cum laude in international relations from Cornell University.

Brenda Thomas - Office Manager
Brenda joined the Proteus Fund in September 2006. She earned her BA at Smith College in 2006 with a major in Afro-American Studies. Before joining the staff at Proteus Fund, she held a position of Development Assistant at the National Priorities Project. Her experience includes administrative/support staff responsibilities at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.