Bio

Sara Guderyahn Policy and Advocacy Director

Sara brings both international and domestic organizing and advocacy experience to The Sheridan Group. In her current portfolio, Sara oversees the day-to-day strategy for the ONE Campaign, and manages domestic initiatives around disability, education and child welfare.

Sara formed, launched, and managed the Action Group to End Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery, the nation’s first advocacy coalition of human trafficking organizations. Within two years of formation, the coalition successfully worked to enact the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which transformed U.S. government prevention and response to human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad. Sara is the current Project Director of America Forward, a coalition of leading social entrepreneurs advocating for federal policy changes to support greater innovation and accountability in the nonprofit sector. Sara was the lead advocate on the 2009 appropriation of the $50 million Social Innovation Fund. As part of this effort, Sara worked with individual social entrepreneurs and the America Forward coalition to educate policymakers on the principles of the innovation agenda and mechanisms of the Fund.

Prior to coming to The Sheridan Group and as part of the ContactTrust in Cape Town, Sara helped bridge the divide between South African parliamentarians and newly formed nongovernmental organizations, building advocacy capacity for the organization's portfolio. Domestically, Sara lobbied for women and children's issues at the American Association of University Women and worked for Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) focusing on education and health care.

Sara has her undergraduate degree in government and economics and holds a Masters in Applied Political Science from American University.

Community Engagement

Sara’s volunteer work has focused on international development. She is an Advisor to Roots of Development, a nonprofit organization that works directly with communities in Haiti to obtain the resources they need to sustainably manage their own development. In November 2010, Sara joined a delegation that travelled to La Gonave, Haiti to review Roots’ progress and meet with community leaders. And during baseball season, despite the distance from her native Illinois, Sara and her family all proudly wear Cubs' blue and red on game days.