GOOD TALK WITH JEN RAININ
Director for AHEAD OF THE CURVE
Jen Rainin’s personal mission is to use her experience in philanthropy, her credibility in the queer community, her filmmaking skills and her financial resources to build community and hope, eliminate shame, and inspire others through storytelling and film.
As CEO of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation since 2007, Jen works to enhance quality of life by championing the arts, promoting early childhood literacy and supporting research to cure chronic disease. She has developed major initiatives toward a world where all Oakland children read at or above grade level, no one suffers from Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Bay Area artists thrive.
Through Frankly Speaking Films, Jen and her creative partner make and support high quality films to address the deep need for representation of queer women’s stories. Their projects show powerful characters making positive changes in our world which complicate mainstream assumptions and lead to better questions, deeper empathy, and authentic connections.
With her wife, Jen co-founded The Curve Foundation, the only national nonprofit dedicated to championing lesbian, queer women, transgender, and nonbinary stories and culture. The organization supports journalists who tell our stories, produces speaker series to connect the community directly with our culture makers, and hosts intersectional intergenerational conversations on gender, queerness, race, ability, and activism.