Katie Oran

Associate Program Officer & Coordinator, Wildfire Resilience Funders
Oakland, CA

Katie Oran has dedicated her career to ensuring communities have the resources they need to prepare for disasters and adapt to climate change. She brings experience in climate adaptation, disaster response, affordable housing, land use planning, philanthropic coordination, and wildfire mitigation. Her prior roles include developing climate-smart design guidelines for affordable housing with the Community Corporation of Santa Monica; supporting New America’s Future of Land and Housing Program on the Displaced in America report; and contributing to the State of California’s Wildland Urban Interface Planning Guide with the Community Wildfire Planning Center.

Katie also spent several years with Northern California Grantmakers and Philanthropy California, where she supported statewide philanthropic efforts to strengthen investments in communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Her work has helped direct more than $300 million toward regions recovering from severe flooding, earthquakes, and wildfires. She co-designed a $2 million program with the California Office of Emergency Services to build the capacity of nonprofits and tribes to access public and philanthropic funding for disaster preparedness. She also led development of the Resourcing Resilience Report, offering recommendations to help philanthropy catalyze public funding for community resilience.

Katie holds a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University, where her thesis explored managed retreat as a wildfire mitigation strategy, and a B.S. in Planning, Policy & Law from SUNY ESF, where she led a successful fossil-fuel divestment campaign. In 2017, she studied international climate adaptation and rural disaster response as a Visiting Student at New College, Oxford University. Her research and writing have been featured in Places Journal, Business Insider, New America Weekly, NPR, and Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Based in Oakland, CA Katie can often be found exploring local restaurants or spending time with her sweet dog, Dolly Parton.