Jordan Bellassai

Jordan Bellassai joined the Foundation in 2018 as program manager, and became a program officer in 2021. He is based at the Foundation’s Syracuse office.

Jordan has seven years of measurable advocacy-related experience, as well as extensive involvement in community organizing, grassroots mobilization, and legislative process.  He has expertise in organizing and coordinating events to promote age-friendly communities by engaging older adults through focus groups throughout all 29 municipalities in Oneida County.

Jordan served as the project director for the Working Families Party in the Capital District and ran top-tier campaigns for over six years. In this role he organized and ran volunteer operations, and oversaw targeting and data analysis, hiring, training and payroll.   Jordan coordinated 85 WFP petitioning campaigns simultaneously throughout New York State, ultimately placing all 85 candidates on the WFP ballot.

Jordan’s earlier work was as an education organizer for the Alliance for Quality Education where he led and grew the Mohawk Valley #WeCan’tWait Coalition to create forums, press events and lobbying teams to advocate for public education. Over 1,500 people participated in the #WeCan’tWait capstone event in Utica, NY.

Most recently, Jordan was the project coordinator for Livable Communities of Oneida County, which is a partnership between Oneida County’s Office for the Aging, the Parkway Center and The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties to become part of the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities.  Through his work, Jordan was responsible for building coalitions by bringing organizations out of silos and engaging communities.  While at the Parkway Center, Jordan was also part of the Aging By Design project.  He was a lead contributor with a focus on engaging older adults in the work.

Jordan grew up in central New York and resides in Syracuse. In his free time, he has a goal of camping at least once a month