Lily Sargeant is the Senior Program Officer of US Partnerships at Wagner Foundation, where she leads a relationship-driven portfolio dedicated to advancing health as a fundamental human right.
Through her work at the foundation, Lily seeks to maintain deep, trust-based relationships with grantee partners and stakeholders. Lily brings over a decade of diverse experience in nonprofit operations, health care, and social services.
Lily’s grantmaking portfolio encompasses organizations working to advance strategies across three interconnected funding priorities: Social Drivers of Health, which broaden access to essential non-medical factors promoting health and wellbeing; Individual and Community Ownership, which expands access to and ownership of collective resources—both tangible and intangible—that ensure communities determine their own futures; and Birth Equity, which advances community-driven birth ecosystems led by doulas, midwives, and freestanding birth centers, prioritizing dignity, autonomy, and safety in childbirth.
Before joining Wagner Foundation, Lily’s work focused on strengthening organizational effectiveness and advancing preventative strategies to end homelessness. Before relocating to Boston, she spearheaded Vermont’s statewide Supportive Services for Veteran Families Rapid Resolution Program, an initiative focused on transforming the homelessness response system to prioritize prevention over a reliance on emergency shelters. Lily holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Vermont, where she received the award for the most outstanding Capstone project, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology, where she earned the Allen B. Urgent Award for her commitment to advocacy for social justice. She currently serves on the steering committee of EPIP Boston, an organization focused on supporting emerging philanthropic leaders to embed equity into their practice.
