Broadway Advocacy Coalition is pleased to announce our new Executive Director, Elz Cuya Jones.

"I believe that storytelling is our greatest power, which is why I am thrilled to join the team at Broadway Advocacy Coalition,” said Jones. “At BAC, artists and activists create a culture that values our communities, encourages dialogue and activates our empathy. I won’t remember every detail of a 76-page policy paper, but I will never forget a young person’s poem about her parents’ immigration, or a letter written by an incarcerated elder, or the song of a mother whose son was murdered by the police—because those stories didn’t just raise my awareness, they moved me to act."

Elz Cuya Jones is a storyteller, fundraiser, and mother with 20 years of experience in nonprofit leadership. Before joining Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Elz led the all-women of color development team at North Star Fund, a community foundation that supports grassroots organizing for social justice movements in New York. Today, she serves as Vice Chair of Advocacy Institute, an organization that supports the legislative and policy work of community leaders working for equity and justice. 

Over the span of her career, Elz’s highest and most humbling honor has been fundraising for the Let Us Breathe Fund, the only New York-based fund led by and for Black activists organizing for Black liberation. The fund started in 2015 following the death of Eric Garner and has since made over $5 million in grants to Black-led organizations fighting police violence and structural racism. 

Prior to working in the nonprofit sector, Elz spent a decade in the newsroom. There she witnessed the magical power of storytelling which later drove her communications and development strategies at Harlem RBI (now DREAM), Women’s Project (now WP Theater), Hip-Hop Theater Festival (now Hi-Arts) and Youth Speaks. Working in several arts organizations repeatedly affirmed Elz’s belief that art is essential. She has seen firsthand how art mobilizes marginalized communities and how culture paves the way for political change—both of which make her move to BAC feel like an inspired return home. 

Born to immigrant Filipino parents in the San Francisco Bay Area, Elz earned her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications at the University of California, Berkeley, and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Nonfiction at Hunter College. 

Elz is obsessed with the theater, documentary films, and finding the perfect postage stamp. She lives in Manhattan with her son Bolden, incandescent and enchanting, to whom she dedicates every move and every breath.