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anat. welcomes Emily Whitfield as Vice President of Business and Community Development

We are pleased to welcome Emily Whitfield to anat. as our new Vice President of Business and Community Development.

Emily brings more than 25 years of experience in communications, advocacy, and the law. Her work has focused on helping civil rights and social justice organizations communicate clearly about complex issues, and on making sure those messages reach the audiences who need them most. She has built a career grounded in care for both the work and the people behind it.

Before joining anat., Emily founded Emily Whitfield Communications, a strategic communications consultancy. In that role, she advised a range of leading organizations, including the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Innocence Project, Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Vera Institute of Justice. She also stepped in as interim communications director for several civil rights organizations, providing steady leadership during periods of transition. Her work has led to placements in national outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle.

Earlier in her career, Emily spent nearly a decade at the ACLU as Media Relations Director. During that time, she led national communications strategy through a period of significant public debate around civil liberties in the years following 9/11. She also led annual Supreme Court briefings for legal journalists and helped shape how the organization engaged with national media. Her work contributed to the ACLU receiving the PRSA Silver Anvil Award for Excellence in Public Affairs.

Emily’s approach to communications is thoughtful and steady. She brings a strong understanding of how to navigate complex issues while staying grounded in clarity, purpose, and trust. These values align closely with our work at anat. and with the partners we serve.

A lifelong New Yorker and a product of New York City public schools, Emily lives on the Lower East Side with her husband, a bookseller, and their two dogs, Alfie and Percy. Her stepdaughter is currently studying education at Hunter College.

We are grateful to have Emily join the team and look forward to the work ahead together.

We’re so excited to welcome Rebecca Greenberg to the Anat Gerstein team! 

Rebecca brings more than a decade of experience in broadcast journalism. She most recently worked as a reporter at NY1, covering breaking news across all five boroughs of New York City. During her time there, she also earned five Emmy nominations as a news producer. Earlier in her career, Rebecca worked at an NBC affiliate in Massachusetts and at CNN in Atlanta.

She cares deeply about telling stories that inform, connect, and drive meaningful change, which makes her a great fit for our team.

Rebecca earned a dual degree in Journalism and Political Science from the University of Connecticut and a certificate in Digital Marketing from Cornell University.

She grew up in Hoboken and now lives in Brooklyn. Outside of work, she loves the arts, especially going to the movies and playing guitar.

A Familiar Face, Now Full-Time

If Amy Sohn’s name sounds familiar, it may be because she’s already been part of the anat. orbit. After working with us as a consultant over the past eight months, she’s officially joined the team.

Her background spans journalism, publishing, and the Mayor’s Office—bringing a perspective that’s both strategic and deeply grounded in New York.

We asked her a few questions about nonprofit communications today:

What drew you to working with nonprofits?

I’m a native New Yorker who wants to make New York a better place for all New Yorkers. When I entered the MPA program at Baruch several years ago, my intention was to work in nonprofit communications. But I wound up becoming a press secretary for the Mayor’s Office instead. I’m happy to land back in the nonprofit space because nonprofits are the beating heart of NYC. And too often they are unsung heroes. Having worked in nonprofits on the development side, I also understand the communications challenges they face (more about that below).

What communications challenges are nonprofits facing right now?

Shrinking budgets, staffing shortages, and a mistaken view of comms as a “nice to have” rather than a vital organ. Crisis makes communications more important – not less – but too often they are the first vertical to go.

They’re also facing the challenge of a shifting media market, with nonprofit newsrooms laying people off and local TV outlets short-staffed. They’re also facing competition for city reporters’ attention with a brand-new buzzy administration. Finally, nonprofits struggle to do social media that’s authentic and on-message and actually fun and engaging to read. I’m excited that anat. Is growing its digital services.

What excites you most about working with anat. clients?

Just like I love helping policy advisors learn to write and speak with more impact, I love helping nonprofits learn to talk like regular people. Organizations in a deprivation mindset often employ deprivation language. That language is also clunky and opaque. Of course, it can work for internal communications or getting grant renewals.

But it doesn’t translate well into press hits. The more we can move them away from “programs,” “technical assistance,” “priority areas,” “capacity-building,” and “populations,” the better.