Ariel E. Guerrero, MPA

Ariel is a Christian, husband, father (proud Girl Dad!), son, brother, and uncle within a lineage of Afro Latinos and Pacific Islanders. He is a born and raised New Yorker, on Munsee Lenape and Matinecock nation land. His career and life have been marked by the historical and present throughline of the very systems and institutions that he desires to transform today through his work. Acknowledging the privilege he was raised in, Ariel lived between two realities, a “redlined” one where much of his family lived and still resides and the “greenlined” one where he grew up. These two realities instilled in him the core values of his work of being informed, organized and empowered to dismantle and transform the oppressive structures and systems that have driven so many of the outcomes of BIPoC communities to achieve fairness, justice and liberation. 

Ariel’s professional experience is grounded in over 15 years of work in non-profit, government and philanthropy sectors with organizations such as the National League of Cities – the national association for over 19,000 cities, towns and villages, Lutheran Services in America - one of the largest health and human services networks in the country whose members touch 1 in 50 people in the US each year, the Annie E. Casey Foundation – one of 50 largest independent foundations in the United States, and The National Housing Partnership (NHP) Foundation - a national nonprofit committed to preserving and building truly affordable communities across the US. 

As a co-founder and managing principal of O&G, Ariel believes it's critical to understand that our systems currently work the way they were designed and intended to operate (they are NOT broken), recognizing that the very foundation by which the United States was created, is built upon the ideology of white supremacy. His work in collaboration with the O&G village is committed to leveraging the collective lived and professional experiences of each individual and community to mobilize and cultivate racial equity practitioners and leaders to transform the policies, procedures and/or practices that ultimately drive the “rules” by which we (society) operate in so that race is no longer the number one predictor of one's success. Each of us, regardless of color, have a role to play in taking down brick by brick our current system and rebuilding a new. It will demand us to take ownership and love one another like never before.