Sandeep Bikram Shah is a strategy and partnerships leader with over a decade of experience in philanthropy, most recently as Director of Community Engagement at the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, where he advises executive leadership on organization-wide strategy and led the Foundation through a structural transition from a regional to an initiative-based grantmaking model. Before that, as Senior Program Officer and Racial Justice Advisor, he directed a $1.5M+ annual grantmaking portfolio spanning racial justice, health, disability, housing, environmental health, and civic engagement.

Sandeep's approach to grantmaking is built on trust-based practice: co-developing the Foundation's Racial Justice Fund from the ground up, embedding power-sharing into governance rather than treating community input as advisory, seeding a $100K Youth Organizing Pool Fund that put grantmaking decisions directly in the hands of BIPOC youth, and facilitating the first-ever dialogue between Indigenous tribes and land conservation organizations on land access and stewardship. He has also worked directly with individuals with disabilities as a Business Relations Consultant with NH Vocational Rehabilitation, applying person-centered planning and advocating for competitive integrated employment — experience that carried into managing disability-focused grant portfolios later in his career.

Sandeep holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Social Work, both from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley. He serves as an advisor and mentor in the PLACES Leadership Advisory Group at The Funders Network and was a founding board member of the NH Center for Justice and Equity.

Sandeep is a first-generation immigrant from Nepal who grew up in Richmond and Oakland, and speaks Nepali and Hindi in addition to English. He is based in Sacramento, where he is rebuilding relationships across California's philanthropic and community landscape after a decade in New England.