Our Team
Cierra Brown Hinton
Director
Cierra Brown Hinton turns the Fund's strategic statewide vision into effective action by mobilizing funders and partners around local news and information that serves North Carolina's communities. She refines and drives the organization's proven impact model, supports other funders building ecosystems, and carries the banner for Press Forward North Carolina and Press Forward Charlotte.
Cierra Brown Hinton is a nationally recognized strategist, fundraiser, and movement infrastructure builder working at the intersection of media, philanthropy, and social change. A North Carolina native from Reidsville and living in Durham, she has dedicated her career to helping mission-driven organizations grow sustainably — without losing the clarity, creativity, or community accountability that make them matter in the first place.
Most recently, as the Development Director at Blue Engine Collaborative, Brown Hinton coached newsrooms across the country on fundraising strategy, revenue diversification, and long-term sustainability. She is also a strategist at the Southern Power Fund, a growing movement infrastructure project working to raise and redistribute $100 million for Southern movement work, where she helps shape the project’s vision, narrative and donor strategy, governance development, and ecosystem partnerships. Brown Hinton is the Board Chair of LION Publishers, the national membership organization for local independent digital news outlets. Prior to that, Brown Hinton served as the Executive Director-Publisher at Scalawag, a Southern, Black-led, abolitionist media organization reporting with communities across the South on race, power, culture, and liberation. In that role, she led the organization's business and operational development — building the revenue infrastructure, governance systems, and organizational capacity that allowed Scalawag to grow into a nationally recognized institution.
Natalie Roper
Associate Director of Field Partnerships
Natalie Roper (she/her) manages the Fund’s grantmaking processes and operations and provides critical support to our grant partners in the field. She guides partners to local resources, convenes and facilitates peer spaces, champions our grant partners, and elevate key needs and lessons learned from the field.
Natalie sees local news as a natural extension of her longstanding work expanding equitable access to the things that help people thrive in Appalachia and the South, from reliable internet and quality jobs to diversified funding. She brings experience as both an organizational leader and a funder, as the founding Executive Director of Generation West Virginia and most recently leading grantmaking and capacity-building work at the Just Transition Fund. Natalie lives in Durham with her wife, Jordan, two fluffy dogs, Tia and Hoagie, and giant orange cat, Edgar. When she's not working, you can find her singing in a local choir or reading queer fiction.
Sam Spencer
Associate Director of Funder Partnerships
Sam Spencer (he/him) manages the Fund's partnerships and communications with funders. Stewarding our funder coalition, Sam builds and reinforces strong relationships, raises pooled and aligned funds, and convenes funder learning opportunities. Based in Charlotte with deep community ties, Sam is also the local contact for Charlotte funders.
Sam is a longtime communications and fundraising professional, public information officer, and former educator.
As a consultant and staff member, Sam has raised millions of dollars for non-profit and political causes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sam worked as a Communication Director and Deputy Chief of Staff in the United States Congress, connecting thousands of North Carolina constituents to vital information about health care resources and emergency disaster benefits. In addition, Sam's public service roles include serving as chair of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Commission, and as a member of many Charlotte-based boards including the Citizens Transit Advisory Group, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, and the Arts & Science Council.
As the child of two journalists, Sam has had an interest in the media from a young age. After growing up in studios and press boxes, first job was a magazine delivery route across the Metrolina region. He has contributed opinion pieces to newspapers ranging from the Charlotte Observer to the Boston Globe, and has bylines in many North Carolina publications. In 2022, he co-founded the award-winning local arts and culture newsletter Y'all Weekly.
Sam graduated from Davidson College with a bachelor's degree in Political Science. He lives in Charlotte with his wife (Rebekah), Rottweiler (Willow), and Corgi (Sonny), and in his spare time he reports on both professional soccer and the United States' national soccer teams. He is looking forward to photographing the Men's World Cup next year.
Jemima Abalogu
Finance and Operations Associate
Jemima Abalogu (she/her) executes financial operations to support the Fund’s stewardship, grantmaking, and core operations.
Jemima brings strategic expertise in participatory grantmaking, youth leadership development, and justice-centered philanthropy to her work at the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund. Her commitment to building accountable funding practices and centering the voices of those closest to the issues has shaped her approach to operations and grant management.
Jemima's dedication to advocacy work began in high school as the Youth Justice Ambassador for the Texas Center for Justice and Equity, where she researched and authored "Reversing The Pipeline to Prison in Texas: Ensuring Safe Students and Safe Schools." This experience sparked a career focused on transforming how resources reach grassroots organizations. As a youth movement leader with the Visionary Freedom Fund, she helped design participatory grantmaking processes and directed over $3.6 million to organizations in the American Youth Justice Movement. Also serving as the Grant-Making & Operations Associate at the Piece by Piece Fund, she has managed the distribution of over $1.4 million to 59 organizations across 42 states while coordinating comprehensive training programs for grantees. Jemima holds a Master of Science in Philosophy and Public Policy from The London School of Economics and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Philosophy & Social Justice from Loyola University Chicago.
Lizzy Hazeltine
Senior Advisor
Lizzy helps teams solve real problems, grow revenue to sustain themselves, and deepen their service to their communities. She applies hard-won lessons from local media, early-stage venture capital, and product management to build teams' capacity for service and sustainability. As Director, Lizzy Hazeltine leads the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund’s overall strategy and portfolio, supports funders to maximize their impact, cultivates connections among organizations in the North Carolina news ecosystem, and tracks and amplifies case studies and lessons learned. With the goal of making the Fund and philanthropy more accessible, Lizzy holds open office hours, and especially encourages those who are new to grant seeking to connect. She also coaches teams in various national news transformation programs and supports industry-wide learning around revenue and DEI. Lizzy’s journalism training began at UNC Chapel Hill where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar.