Kolu joined the Noyes Foundation in 2000 and is responsible for managing grants to constituency-led non-profit organizations seeking to build the environmental sustainability and social equity of our food systems through leadership development, organizing and advocacy. She is responsible for evaluating grants, conducting site visits, facilitating networking amongst grantees, and supporting grantees with informal technical assistance and funding. In 2006, Kolu initiated an innovative partnership with W. K. Kellogg Foundation called Diversifying Leadership for Sustainable Food Policy Initiative, which supports capacity building for 10 diverse, people of color-led groups engaging in advocacy for more equitable food and agriculture policies.

Through her leadership within the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, the Environmental Grantmakers Association and the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders Group, Kolu co-develops and coordinates conferences, work shops, issue briefings, and articles to encourage funders to increase the impact of their grantmaking through the incorporation of social justice values, analysis and practices into their work.
Her diverse non-profit background includes work as a group therapist, coordinator of peer-education programs for community organizers advocating for affordable housing, and designing training and grants programs for neighborhood-based organizations.

Kolu spent a year studying international environmental issues as well as urban planning as a Charles H. Revson Fellow at Columbia University.

Kolu received her Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and has an undergraduate degree in Rural Development Studies with a focus on West Africa from Stanford University. Her formal education, work experience, and values have been greatly shaped by her grandfather, Leh Leh Crawford, an upland rice farmer and traditional town chief who organized clan members to take control of their local development process rather than allow outside investors to dictate land use decisions. Kolu grew up in the Bronx, and now resides in Central Harlem with her family.