Effiana Svarre

Associate - Cohort 001

Effiana “Effie” Svarre uses collaborative approaches to develop products and policies that maximize positive impact for the public.

She is a rising second-year at King’s College London studying International Relations with a focus on the relationship between the United States and East Asia. She aims to work in the foreign service or intelligence.

As a member of the first cohort of summer associates at Normal>Next, Svarre was directly involved in the development of a music museum and re-envisioning philanthropy through collaboration.

At the Mayshad Foundation, she worked with female entrepreneurs in Morocco to help facilitate economic development. She worked on fundraising, organizing events, and developing their social media accounts and strategies.

At Feedback Labs, she helped develop “welcome books” used by donors and members of the organization’s feedback network and learned how feedback loops help development and aid workers to bring bottom-up ideas for more sustainable solutions.

With the Office of the Westchester County Executive, George Latimer, Svarre gained insight into how the public sector works, focusing on constituent services, building an economic development database, and in-the-streets marketing, driving a six-foot cutout of a dragon across the county. She also learned how the complex system of jurisdictions in New York State makes collaboration between towns, cities, counties, and states incredibly difficult to execute.

She has volunteered for two New York state senator campaigns and a county executive campaign, doing various tasks necessary to help them win office (which they all did).

Svarre carries her childhood ambition of being a Presidential historian with her today. Present her with a number from 1-45 and she can name that President and tell you something unexpected about him.