Along with our founders, we’ve got an incredibly talented and experienced volunteer advisors.

Founder
Blaise Masinga grew up in a Mennonite home where faith in God had a central role in the development of his sense of ethics. Mennonites are a large denomination of the Protestant Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A relatively normal childhood gave way to many challenges - torture, a lack of educational opportunities, lack of medical care for his mother leading to her untimely passing, and separation from family as he started forged a new life in the United States.

Despite all these challenges, all along the way, God has provided Good Samaritans that have stepped into Blaise’s life to help him with these challenges. He wants to pay his life’s story forward through the Masinga Foundation, and be the good Samaritan for those in the Congo that still need help— the young and the poor without basic medical care or career opportunities.

Advisory Board Chair
After completing a Master of Divinity degree at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston and serving as Senior Pastor for 13 years, Mark-Peter joined Urban Ventures 20 years ago to serve as Vice President of Social Enterprise. In the last two decades he has designed, developed and implemented programs that address emerging needs in the urban community which impact fragile families.

Victim Advocacy Advisor
Curt has worked in the international human rights and humanitarian fields for forty years, mostly at a senior leadership level. In July 2021, he concluded nearly ten years as Executive Director of The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) which grew rapidly during his tenure to become the world’s largest organization providing rehabilitative care to survivors of torture and war atrocities. Headquartered in St Paul, MN, and with offices in several countries in Africa and the Middle East, as well as Washington, DC and Atlanta, GA, he oversaw an international staff of 500 working with nearly 30,000 torture survivors annually.
Prior to CVT, he was the Chief Operating Officer at Amnesty International USA, where he worked for thirty years. During that time he also served as a researcher at Amnesty’s International Secretariat in London, Advocacy Director for Europe and the Middle East (Washington, D.C.), and was posted for periods in Jerusalem. At Amnesty, he led or participated in many human rights missions, often in situations of armed conflict or complex environments. He served as the Head of the Gaza Office for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2009 and 2010.
Mr. Goering has spoken widely on human rights, testified before US Congress and UN bodies. He has appeared on scores of radio and television programs and his writings have been published in newspapers in many countries.
He currently resides in New York City.

Noah has served in the US military and is now involved with customer support at a pet technology startup company. In his free time, he loves to apply his interest in technical skills to good causes and has experience with content creation for technical products.