The Divinity School’s Office of Alumni Engagement and Development welcomes four new staff members: Jake Miles Joseph, Associate Director for Alumni Engagement and Donor Relations; Tonette Cookson, Assistant Director for Development Operations and Data Analytics; Justin Izbinki, Development Coordinator; and Bryce Tapp ‘22 M.A.R., Assistant Director for Annual Giving.
“The additions of these talented advancement professionals complete our team and position us to push ahead energetically in achieving our goals for alumni engagement and fundraising, all to the benefit of our students and their callings,” said Barbara Sabia, Senior Director of Alumni Engagement and Development.
Jake Joseph is an experienced fundraising, community engagement, and diversity professional with a record of creating change through an equity lens. He comes to YDS from the Anti-Defamation League, for which he has served as Associate Regional Director for Connecticut the past two years. Prior to that, he served churches in Georgia and Colorado, and, most recently, two churches in Connecticut: First Congregational Church of Guilford and First Congregational Church of Fairfield.
A Grinnell College alumnus, Jake served on Grinnell’s Alumni Council from 2021 to 2023. He has also been a leading advocate for fair housing and LGBTQ equality. Among other roles, he has served on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. Jake also founded and chaired that group’s LGBTQ Subcommittee.
In addition to his undergraduate degree from Grinnell, Jake has an M.Div. from Emory University. He has also earned a Certificate in Business Management Essentials from Cornell University and a Graduate Interdisciplinary Certificate in Human Rights from Emory.
Tonette Cookson joined YDS on June 1 as Assistant Director for Development Operations and Data Analytics. Tonette manages YDS database reporting and operations in addition to overseeing campaign prospect research. Her work is instrumental in advancing fundraising efforts and providing best practices in engagement and stewardship programs.
Tonette holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. She comes to Yale from Westover School in Middlebury, Conn., where she has served as Director of Development Operations and Research since 2016. Prior to that, she served in development positions for the Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk; the American Red Cross, Metro New York North Chapter; Merit School of Music in Chicago; and the nonprofit Reading in Motion, also in Chicago.
Since graduating from YDS in 2022, Bryce Tapp has been teaching Religious Studies and English at Notre Dame High School in West Haven. He has also served in several leadership and staff roles for the Model United Nations non-profit organization in his home state of Florida. He has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2019 and Chief Financial Officer since earlier this year. Previously, he was Director of Academics for Florida High School Model United Nations, and he has taught policy-writing, consensus-building, and research-synthesis to high school and middle school students at statewide conferences.
While pursuing his M.A.R. at YDS, Bryce was a Marquand Chapel Communications Minister and served on Yale’s Title IX Graduate & Professional Advisory Board. He earned his B.A. at the University of South Florida.
Justin Izbinski joined YDS on May 30 as a Development Coordinator. He provides high-level administrative support to the YDS alumni engagement and annual giving programs, manages gift processing and acknowledgements, provides event support, and works closely with volunteers.
Justin has a B.A. from California State University, Long Beach. For close to a decade, he worked as a fine-arts professional in art galleries throughout Los Angeles prior to transitioning to the non-profit sector in 2017. Before joining YDS, he was a grant writer for Inner-City Arts, a Los Angeles non-profit devoted to providing arts education to underserved children, in addition to working in the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations at UMass, Amherst.