Ramla Bile

Ramla is a grantmaking director for the Bush Foundation. She provides strategic leadership for the Ecosystem grants program and collaborative leadership for other grant and Fellowship programs across the organization. She also supervises the grantmaking officers.

As part of the grantmaking team, Ramla also helps find and select the highest potential ideas from communities throughout the region that can lead to high-impact investments for Bush. She is active in community conversations to understand the impact of Bush’s support and serves as a member of Bush’s management team.

Ramla joined Bush in 2019. She is experienced in racial justice work and enjoys supporting organizations led by Black, Indigenous and people of color leaders as they navigate the grantmaking process to expand their ability to change systems.

She brings extensive experience as a strategist, agitator and storyteller, and as a principal at Qalam Consulting, she helped nonprofits, foundations and small businesses grow their grassroots impact. She is an experienced community organizer, bringing awareness to issues at the intersection of racism, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Ramla spends time outdoors on hikes through Minnesota’s beautiful parks and trails with her young daughter.

Additional experiences and leadership

• Published author, promoting greater understanding, resilience and liberation for Black, Indigenous and people of color communities
• Community leader, Somali-Minnesota community and challenging the Countering Violent Extremism program