CEO & Founder

Jonathan
Kumar

Born to immigrant parents in poverty, Jonathan and his family quickly learned the value and need for community. Receiving an opportunity to study at the University of Michigan, Jonathan earned a degree in Informatics, specializing in UX design. After producing a documentary on social change, Jonathan developed a tool for restaurants to convert surplus food into funding for local food banks called FoodCircles. From there he helped create Samaritan, with the goal to give people without a home the social and financial support needed to leave the street.

Everyone needs a team, rich or poor. When you put a social home around someone, we find that the physical home often follows soon after.

Head of Product
& Co-Founder

Chris
Sun

Believing in Samaritan’s ability to inspire hope and enable change for unhoused communities, Chris joined Samaritan to help overworked and underpaid nonprofits accelerate outcomes of their work. During Seattle’s first pilot, Chris led nonprofits to deploy Samaritan for over 500 unhoused individuals & families. Given his hands-on and deeply-relational work with the unhoused community, there was no better candidate to take over Product Ownership from Jonathan in 2019.

Brand value

1

We are…

Community
-first

We believe the most common cause of homelessness is lack of social capital, and that providing it—providing neighbors—is a vital step on the road back to housing.

Chief Operating Officer

Ariel
Cooper

Ariel works across health and social sectors to generate innovative solutions that improve community wellbeing and center health equity. Grounded in human-centered design practices, her projects have spanned stakeholder engagement, strategic partnerships, and program planning & implementation. Ariel received her Masters from UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, where she conducted research with the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and taught as a Graduate Student Instructor. She previously received her BA in Human Geography from UC Berkeley.

Brand value

2

We exude…

Humility

We come in understated, and let words & actions speak for themselves. We are to be less. Our partners (especially Samaritan Members) are to be more.

Growth Lead

Ashish
Pamula

Ashish helps lead Samaritan’s efforts to reach more people on the street by spearheading partnerships with incredible grassroots organizations. Raised in the Inland Empire and solidified by Hyderabadi roots, disrupting complacency became the common tongue. After learning about Samaritan on a podcast, Ashish jumped at the opportunity to join the team and reduce the days a person spends without a home.

The best feeling is to take others with you… to share the light that you create & the light that you attract. — Sarah Spain

Brand value

3

We exude…

Poverty-in
-spirit

When we realize we are born in the same image and are all in need, we partner with people instead of pitying them.

Sr. Backend Engineer

Danny
Sperry

Danny has witnessed the life-changing power of encouragement, charity, and determination. Raised by a father that showed him the value of taking time out of your day to help another. Danny passionately reached out to Samaritan in 2018 and helped the team scale the technology to more cities. He is dedicated to helping build a service that serves people in need and those that support them.

If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moments. One person can change the world by giving people hope.” — Admiral William H. McRaven

Lead iOS Engineer

Arrido
Arfiadi

arridoarfiadi.com

Arrido believes in tech for good and that it should be inclusive, equitable and accessible to everyone. He found love in the work and impact the company is making, and decided to join the team full-time after completing his hackership. Outside of work, you can find Arrido watching Friends while eating fries.

Operations Associate

Tess
Kursel

Brand value

4

We are…

Hope-oriented

Over time, acts of kindness help people rebuild hope and gain capacity to move forward. We can’t shelter everyone today, but we'll provide social & financial support for them to find homes soon.

Front-end Engineer

Justin
Le

Brand value

5

We are…

Joyful

We seek and uphold joy throughout all facets of our work, as well as in every individual we have the opportunity to serve.

Design Lead

Isa
Paavola

ipaav.com

When it comes to the field of design, Isa has pretty much seen and done it all throughout their 11 years in the industry. From working for top-notch agencies, to partnering with scrappy startups (including Jonathan's first venture, FoodCircles), to managing their own projects for an incredibly diverse freelance clientelle… Isa started out as a visual specialist with a strong creative design background, but grew into sharp front-end development skills (used to build this site), UX chops, and a love for interactive animation & prototyping.

So many people are insurmountably disadvantaged and underprivileged in this society that's ingrained the instinct to blame them for that in us… Let's be honest with ourselves, and do better.

Full Stack Engineer

Nick
Henderson

Born and raised in Sacramento and currently living in the Bay Area, Nick has seen first hand the struggles faced by people in need. He graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of California Santa Cruz and began his career in the tech industry. However, after his first tech job in the real world, Nick realized that he needed his work to have a purpose. He found that purpose at Samaritan, where he currently works to help build a service that serves people in need and those that support them.

Member Success Advocate

Mariah
Green

As a former Educator in high poverty schools, Mariah understands the importance of lending a helping hand, and showing acts of kindness to our vulnerable population. Mariah found Samaritan and jumped at the opportunity to work directly with our Members to provide support. Outside of work, Mariah enjoys spending time with her cat & dog, and being by the ocean. “How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time.