Sondra Cosgrove serves as the Executive Director and Chair of the Board for Vote Nevada. Vote Nevada is a state-specific, civic-engagement non-profit.
Meet the board of Vote Nevada. We carry Vote Nevda’s mission:
Vote Nevada is a voter education nonprofit.
We are a pioneering civic engagement organization.
We believe every voter is important and deserves to be a confident voter.
Sondra Cosgrove, Executive Director
Sondra Cosgrove moved to Nevada in 1986 and raised her family in Las Vegas. She earned a PhD in History, with a minor in Cultural Anthropology, from UNLV in 2004 and is currently a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada. At CSN, Sondra teaches history of the U.S., Nevada, and Native American. She also teaches Latin American Studies at UNLV.
In addition to teaching, Sondra works with the CSN Women’s Alliance to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Women’s Alliance offers programming, services, and advocacy for the institution’s female-identifying students, staff, and faculty.
Sondra serves on many community boards and commissions. In addition to being a past president of the League of Women Voters of Nevada, she is the Vice Chair of the Nevada Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a City of Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commissioner, a board member of the ACLU NV, and a board member of Nevada Women in Trades.
Sondra is the Executive Director and Chair of the Board for Vote Nevada. Vote Nevada is a new civic engagement nonprofit that promotes civic participation, legislative advocacy, and advancing civil rights. With a Nevada-specific focus, Vote Nevada addresses our state’s needs with a deep understanding of our culture, history, and governing processes. Vote Nevada is accountable to Nevadans, not an out-of-state entity or organization.
Betty Pardo, Vice Chair
Betty Pardo is a long-time Nevadan active in her Temple and civic engagement organizations. Betty is dedicated to empowering voters to participate in every election through voter education and civic engagement opportunities.
Ann Marie Smith, Treasurer
Ann’s background is in business administration and publishing. She is the Managing Partner of Communications Consulting Service LLC, a full-service foreign language agency. In addition to running the business end of the company, she translates and edits documents from Spanish, Portuguese and French into English. She is a graduate of the University of Navarre, Pamplona, Spain, and attended NYU Graduate School of Business. Before joining CCS full time, she was publisher/editor of a music magazine, Spotlight on Country, in New York City, and she worked for the United Nations, publishing companies and accounting firms. She and her family moved to Nevada from New York City in 1987.
Her community activities include past president of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) of Southern Nevada; founding president of NAMI of Nevada; founding president of Americans for Mental Health; steering committee member of Nevada Women’s Lobby; 15 years in board member positions including past secretary and past treasurer of the League of Women Voters of Southern Nevada as well as past treasurer of the state League of Women Voters of Nevada; and 16 years on the board of Caminar, a San Mateo, California-based behavioral health agency that delivers high-quality services to persons with mental health and substance abuse issues. During her affiliation with Caminar, she served as president, secretary and treasurer at various times.
She brings her business expertise and behavioral health advocacy experience to her position as treasurer of Vote Nevada.