Meet the Team
4 Staff Members
22 Board Members
Carla Crowder
Executive Director
Carla Crowder is the Executive Director of Alabama Appleseed, where she serves as the organization’s chief strategic officer and voice for its mission, vision, values, and programs.
Carla brings more than two decades of experience, both as a journalist and an attorney, in public policy research, advocacy, and litigation on behalf of marginalized and vulnerable communities.
Prior to joining Appleseed, Carla served as Program and Policy Director at The Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham. There, she oversaw implementation of the nationally-recognized Collaboration Institute and launched multiple initiatives focused on increasing the economic security of single women and their children through workforce development, quality childcare, and family-friendly workplace policy.
Previously, Carla worked as a staff attorney at The Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, where she represented clients sentenced to life without parole as children, clients on Death Row, and was part of teams whose work exonerated two wrongfully convicted Alabama men who were freed after decades behind bars. At EJI, Carla was heavily involved in Alabama prison reform efforts, investigating and documenting abuses at multiple prisons, including St. Clair Correctional Center, where she worked on federal, class-action litigation over unconstitutional violence and abuse.
She spent 16 years as a newspaper reporter, most recently at The Birmingham News, where her work on poverty and prisons in Alabama earned multiple awards, including the Thurgood Marshall Award from the Death Penalty Information Center.
A native of Florence, Carla earned a B.A. in English and History from Huntingdon College in Montgomery. In 2009, she earned a J.D. from The University of Alabama School of Law with a certificate in Public Interest Law.
Phillip Ensler
Policy Counsel
Phillip Ensler serves as Policy Counsel at Alabama Appleseed, where he provides direction and leadership to advance the organization’s policy goals. In his role, he manages the Access to Justice Campaign to improve access to adequate counsel for indigent clients in criminal and civil cases.
Prior to joining Alabama Appleseed, Phillip attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, where he received his juris doctorate. During law school, he completed a legal internship at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, where he worked on juvenile rights and education issues. Prior to that, he was a legal intern at the Innocence Project in New York, where he helped wrongfully convicted individuals obtain their freedom by proving their innocence through DNA evidence.
Prior to attending law school, Phillip served as a Teach for America corps member at Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery, where he taught social studies.
Phillip received his B.A. in Political Science from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he was also a White House intern.
Leah Nelson
Research Director
Leah Nelson serves as Research Director at Alabama Appleseed, where she uses stories, data, and information to create white papers, reports, and written advocacy materials to support Appleseed’s campaigns. She is Appleseed’s principal expert on how fines and fees drive poverty and incarceration.
Prior to joining Alabama Appleseed, Leah spent five years in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Middle District of Alabama Federal Defenders, supporting the appeals of death-sentenced individuals seeking ånew trials. Before that, she worked as a research and writing fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, covering white supremacy, nativism, the Patriot movement, and other forms of extremism for SPLC’s Intelligence Project. She has also worked as a journalist covering education issues and New York’s state judiciary.
Leah is a 2006 graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and a 2002 graduate of the University of Connecticut. Her work has been published by The Marshall Project, Salon, Alternet, the Intelligence Report, Hatewatch, In These Times, the Montgomery Advertiser, and elsewhere.
Dana Sweeney
Organizer
Dana Sweeney is a statewide organizer for Alabama Appleseed. His work focuses on the crisis of predatory lending in Alabama, and he is responsible for mobilizing communities across the state in coordinated efforts to curb the exploitative financial practices of predatory lenders.
Prior to joining Alabama Appleseed, Dana worked as a Vote Everywhere Ambassador for The Andrew Goodman Foundation. While working in that capacity, he was selected as a recipient of the 2017 Hidden Heroes Award for leading a successful campaign to eliminate a $60 fee being imposed on thousands of students who wished to vote via absentee ballot at The University of Alabama. Dana also served for several years as the co-founder and director of The Outlet Literacy Initiative, which is a creative writing and poetry performance program for high school students in western-central Alabama.
Dana graduated from The University of Alabama with a B.A. in English in May 2017. While attending school, Dana served as a White House Associate in President Barack Obama’s Office of Correspondence, studied public policy as a PPIA Fellow at Princeton University, and was named a Truman Scholar.
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Dana Sweeney
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Dana Sweeney2019-06-03 14:56:272019-06-03 14:58:50The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Must Protect Consumers
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Carla Crowder
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Carla Crowder2018-10-25 17:42:242018-10-25 17:42:24Public Support for Payday Reform Increases in AlabamaAppleseed Network
