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Our Staff

Meet our staff who are passionate about inspiring and mobilizing people of faith and conscience to take climate action.

Jonathan Lacock-Nisly Federal Policy Associate

Annette Baney

Chief of Staff

Annette serves as the Chief of Staff at Interfaith Power and Light. Annette brings 10+ years of experience in administration and operations having worked closely with advocacy organizations that focused on poverty, climate change and early childhood education in Washington, DC. Most recently, Annette acted as the Director of Operations for a global climate justice organization, where she created and implemented new financial procedures, information systems, human resources policies and operational plans. Throughout her career, Annette has always prioritized working with organizations that support missions to serve underserved communities both locally and internationally. Annette is a graduate of University of Maryland where she earned her degree in Early Childhood Education. Annette lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling and discovering new and engrossing podcasts.

Bill Bradlee National Organizing Director and Affiliate Liaison

Bill Bradlee

Senior Organizing Director and Affiliate Liaison

Bill supports all of IPL’s state affiliates and federal advocacy campaigns. Previously, he served as The Regeneration Project’s managing director from July 2004 until March 2007. Bill has two decades of experience in the nonprofit world. In 2007, he and a climate scientist spent much of the year bicycling across the U.S. giving talks and doing media outreach around global warming. Bill previously worked for The League of Conservation Voters and The Union of Concerned Scientists. He completed his Master of Environmental Studies degree at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.

Susan Stephenson Executive Director

Janny Chang

Chief Advancement Officer

Janny is the Chief Advancement Officer at Interfaith Power & Light. She was born in Taiwan, came to the US when she was 5 years old, and grew up in Los Angeles. She has a PhD in anthropology and cares deeply about climate change, especially how it impacts the Global South and intersects with racial justice. She’s worked in the nonprofit and NGO space for over 12 years wearing multiple hats – always with a focus on social justice – in the education and STEM sectors, but a recent role made her realize that she enjoys the fundraising side the most, especially connecting with people on their passions and interests. In her spare time, she loves to spend time with her two young kids, Finley and Sloane, and her husband David. They like to hike and explore all the diverse neighborhoods that Dallas has to offer. She’s also certified as a life coach and enjoys coaching women on burnout, career change, and living a life of purpose and meaning.

Tiffany Hartung

Chief Strategy Officer

Tiffany works to connect IPL’s federal policy advocacy and program efforts across the network, with state affiliates and IPL supporters.  She joined IPL in 2020 with two decades of advocacy, campaign, and coalition management experience in the environmental, clean energy, and climate space. Tiffany served as IPL’s 2020 Faith Climate Justice Voter Campaign director. Previously, Tiffany worked with the North Carolina Chapter of The Nature Conservancy to build broader support for climate action with conservatives and to promote low-impact utility-scale solar development through responsible siting and design. She managed the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign work in Michigan, working to ensure that the state’s future electric needs were met in the cleanest, smartest, and most affordable ways. She has deep roots in organizing and bringing together community stakeholders. She’s based in Tennessee.

Rev. Susan Hendershot

President

Rev. Susan Hendershot has served as president of Interfaith Power & Light since 2018. She was raised in a blue-collar family outside of Cleveland, Ohio, before attending Bethany College in West Virginia where she graduated with honors with a B.A. in Religious Studies. Rev. Hendershot went on to graduate school at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia where she received her Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology. After graduate school, she moved to Iowa, where she was ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and served as a pastor in local congregations, focusing on social justice. Rev. Hendershot also led faith-based nonprofit organizations and served as the first Heartland Field Organizer for the ONE Campaign on global poverty. Just prior to her current role, she served as the Executive Director at Iowa Interfaith Power & Light, one of the state affiliates in the Interfaith Power & Light network.

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Susan Stephenson Executive Director

Mike Kennedy

Faith Votes Campaign Manager

Mike leads IPL’s 2024 Faith Votes Campaign after managing our 2022 campaign and coordinating our 2020 campaign’s volunteers. Before providing services to several business clients in recent years, Mike served as director of Florida operations for MLB’s Pittsburgh Pirates, executive director of the Bradenton (FL) Downtown Development Authority, and director of discipleship at Harvest United Methodist Church. A native of Pittsburgh, he lives in Florida where he enjoys spending time with his family, supporting his favorite soccer and baseball teams, and pondering the meaning of life. 

Susan Stephenson Executive Director

Rev. Rebekah Kokalis

Grants and Online Communications Manager

Rebekah supports Interfaith Power & Light’s development and communication teams. She has been an Interfaith Minister and meditation teacher for over 15 years and has worked with non-profit organizations for 10+ years. After graduating from UC Berkeley with degrees in Social-Cultural Anthropology and Art History, Rebekah went to Niger as a Peace Corps volunteer. There she found a love of Africa and later became the Assistant Director of a national park in the Republic of Congo. She still volunteers time to help indigenous groups create conservation programs in the Congo Basin and hopes to one day see sustainable changes for indigenous rights. Currently, Rebekah is our resident digital nomad who might be anywhere on the globe at any given time, but she particularly enjoys places she can scuba dive.

Jonathan Lacock-Nisly Federal Policy Associate

Ileagh MacIvers

Clean Cars Organizer
Ileagh is Interfaith Power and Light’s Clean Cars Organizer, and works to mobilize people of faith across the country in the fight for clean transportation. She is especially passionate about the intersections between climate change and racial, gender, and economic justice. Ileagh joins IPL after graduating from the University of Houston with a BA in Political Science and minors in Energy and Sustainability, Music Literature, and Women’s Studies. In her free time, you can find Ileagh reading, practicing yoga, or hiking around the Houston area.
Jonathan Lacock-Nisly Federal Policy Associate

Madison Mayhew

Federal Policy Manager

Madison supports Interfaith Power & Light’s advocacy work in Washington DC as a Federal Policy Manager. Madison joined IPL after working with the United Church of Christ in their policy office, where she learned about the power of faith based organizing and the value of moral imagination in addressing the climate crisis. She has a Masters Degree in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and a Bachelors of Social Work from Lipscomb University. She is most happy in the summer sun, sitting amongst wild things and watching birds with her partner.

Broderick McBride

Program Manager

Broderick McBride is an advocate for sustainability, serving as the Program Manager for Interfaith Power and Light. He brings 10+ years of serving in ecumenical spaces and nonprofit organizations that focus on mental health advocacy, social and racial justice, as well as empowerment. His academic journey led him to Morehouse College where he earned a BA in Psychology, and to Emory University’s Candler School of Theology where he received his Master of Divinity degree with a concentration in Pastoral Care and Christian Ethics. Both experiences provided him with a unique blend of theological wisdom and a profound understanding of human values. This fusion of knowledge equips him to facilitate meaningful conversations within faith-based organizations, transcending faith boundaries to embrace shared principles of ecological stewardship. He enjoys building intergenerational connections, spending time with family and friends, and sharpening his culinary skills.

Sarah Paulos Community Engagement and Programs Manager

Sarah Paulos

Community Engagement and Programs Director

Sarah is the Community Engagement and Programs Manager for Interfaith Power & Light. She was awakened to climate action with the proposal to build a huge coal-fired power plant in her community in Iowa. Her response was to create the Cool Congregations program to help members of her home congregation reduce their energy use and care for our common home. Cool Congregations is now a program of IPL. Prior to IPL Sarah served for twelve years as the Program and Outreach Coordinator for Iowa IPL training green teams in Iowa and sixteen other states to conduct the Cool Congregations program. She developed additional educational programs including Food, Faith, Climate: Connecting the Dots, The Good Life Redefined addressing how our “stuff” contributes to climate change, Faith for Energy Equity on environmental justice, and Common Good, on advocacy. Sarah also served as Faith Caucus coordinator for RE-AMP, and trained as a secondary teacher with degrees from Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. She is inspired to do this work by her three daughters.
Susan Stephenson Executive Director

Susan Stephenson

Senior Advisor

Susan is the executive director of California Interfaith Power & Light, and was part of the original staff of The Regeneration Project/Interfaith Power & Light when it began in 2000. Susan has 20 years of experience developing and implementing issue-advocacy and electoral campaigns for environmental and other public interest organizations. Prior to joining The Regeneration Project, she served as vice president of the Oakland-based campaign consulting firm The Next Generation. Beginning in 1999, she organized and coordinated the California Global Warming Campaign, which implemented a proactive strategy resulting in several landmark legislative victories. She has been involved with California Interfaith Power & Light since its inception in 2000. Susan received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Carolina. When not at work she can be spotted hiking in the East Bay hills or attending a local music festival.

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