Advisory Board
Jared Makheja
Jared is a student at St. Albans School and a native of the Washington DC area. Jared's guidance helped establish the nonprofit's core operations and organizational structure. During its inception, Jared worked with his sister to develop the organization's founding floor plan for success and selected half a dozen participants to test the multi-floored method and see if this movement can work on a national scale. Today, Jared continues to support the organization by fielding and working with potential applicant's for Project's on-going program efforts.
Jared believes that nobody should be left behind in the movement to end poverty and that, as Nelson Mandela once said, "overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice." Jared hopes that one day he can impact an entire community, then a nation, and someday the entire world.
Scott Rechler
A Washington, D.C. native, Scott graduated from Harvard College with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Anthropology. Scott worked for five years at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, strengthening Ashoka’s dynamic global community of social entrepreneurs. He was selected a 2009 winner of the Linowes Leadership Award of the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region. Scott is the CEO and Director of LearnServe International and has been an amazing mentor to The Elevator Project's founder since 2014, providing support in all aspects of the organization's management.
Gaitri Sharma
Gaitri Sharma has been supporting The Elevator Project since its founding and has aided in the budgeting, fundraising strategies, and other aspects of the organization. Her passion for helping lift the financially disadvantaged combined with her financial expertise has provided invaluable mentorship to The Elevator Project and has served as a key advisor for many program participants that have financial inquiries as they graduate the program.