Who We Are
Click on staff names for biographical information.
Class Action Staff
Dana Gillette
Associate Director of Development and Communications
Kristen Golden
Executive Director
Rhonda Soto
Race/Class Intersections Program Coordinator
Jamila Thompson
Office Manager
Felice Yeskel
Co-Founder and Senior Program Specialist
Class Action Board
Class Action Associates
Dana Gillette, Associate Director of Development and Communications
Coming from an upper-middle class family in a small town, Dana experienced class culture shock when she attended Loomis Chaffee, a boarding school in Connecticut. Her experiences there, and her studies of race, class and gender in college spurred her commitment to social justice work.
Dana co-chaired the founding board of Resource Generation, a national organization promoting innovative ways for young people with wealth to align their personal values and political vision with their financial resources. Her volunteer work has included serving on the board of Women in Philanthropy, chairing the finance committee at the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, and participating in a LGBT speakers’ bureau. Dana also consults with organizations to increase their impact by developing effective fundraising programs and improving their communications with constituents. She is a graduate of Barnard College.
Kristen Golden, Executive Director
Kristen is a feminist activist with more than 20 years of stories to tell from a variety of social justice movements.
She grew up middle class in a suburban Long Island, NY town peopled with working class and middle-class families. With an undergraduate degree in theatre, she moved to NYC and briefly pursued an acting career, before  landing a day job at CBS Records. While advocating for the right to a workplace free of sexual harassment for 3,000 female employees at CBS, she met Gloria Steinem. Kristen followed her home and worked for Gloria at Ms. magazine (where she also met her lovely wife Barbara) for a number of exciting years, eventually becoming a contributing editor to the magazine. She earned an MBA from Simmons College School of Management, and then became the original project director of the Ms. Foundation for Women’s runaway hit Take Our Daughters to Work Day. She and Barbara co-wrote Remarkable Women of the Twentieth Century: 100 Portraits of Achievement.
In 1999, with two small kids in tow, Kristen and Barbara moved to Amherst, MA where Kristen was the executive director of Safe Passage, a community-based agency supporting survivors of domestic violence. She greatly expanded the agency’s programs, and purchased and renovated two facilities, including the unique, art-filled, celebrity-designed shelter called Safe Passage House. She’s excited to help Class Action put the issue of class on the national map.
Rhonda Soto, Race/Class Intersections Program Coordinator
Rhonda Soto knows how important and challenging the work is to build  awareness around issues of race and class, specifically what it can mean to a low income person of color. Being bi-racial, born and raised in Harlem, New York, Rhonda has been exposed to various forms of racism and classism. As a single parent on welfare, she moved to a culturally all white suburban area. She continued her education and worked her way towards earning a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College, where she was inspired by her professor, Beverley Tatum, Author of “Why Are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?,” to deeply examine the impact classism and racism has on society. Upon completing her bachelors, Rhonda worked with teens in a transitional shelter, then with GED students preparing for college. Most recently she taught middle school where she also chaired their diversity committee.
Her long-standing interest in social justice has led her to become a vocal advocate, trainer, and consultant around issues of diversity, including facilitating workshops for teachers who serve a diverse population of students. She also participated in a federal funded project on the impact of welfare reform with presentations at national conferences, dialogues on race/class, and interviews in the media. “I have a passion for this work and a commitment to keeping it going.”
Jamila Thompson, Office Manager
Jamila comes from an single parent household. The eldest of two children, she learned and felt at a very early age the stresses of living  in a low-income family.
Through working with Class Action, she hopes to gain a better understanding of her experiences while finding new ways to funnel her passion for equality. Jamila brings her love of organizing to Class Action's office and mission.
Currently residing in Sunderland, MA. Jamila loves acting, singing, and food.
Felice Yeskel, Co-Founder and Senior Program Specialist
 Felice Yeskel, a co-founder of Class Action and United for a Fair Economy, comes from a working-class Jewish family from New York City's Lower East Side. She was a founder of the UMass Stonewall Center: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Educational Resource Center and served as the director for 20 years. Felice is also a founder and co-director of DiversityWorks, Inc. an organization of social justice educators that provides training and consulting on issues of diversity and multiculturalism.
She is an adjunct faculty member of the Social Justice Education Program at UMass Amherst where she has taught both undergraduates and graduate students. She has led hundreds of workshops across the country about economic inequality and about healing divisions among Americans of different class backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations. She is the co-author, along with Chuck Collins, of Economic Apartheid in America, published by The New Press in fall 2000. The second edition was published in the fall of 2005. Felice has a doctorate in Organizational Development and Social Justice Education.
Click here to read about our ASSOCIATES, including Jenny Ladd, Nicole Brown, Chuck Collins, Zoe Greenberg, Alan Preston and Peter Redington.
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