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Social Justice Movement Leader. Coach. Advisor. Strategist.
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Bio |
For over two decades I’ve built effective power organizations that center the human development of powerful, mature, public people to act collectively for justice in the public arena.
I’ve worked as an organizer, organizing director, and executive director in Indiana; California; and Illinois. From a handful of people, I’ve built multiple volunteer organizations that activate tens of thousands of people to advance immigrant rights, criminal justice reform, healthcare access, climate justice and more. I’ve designed and led sophisticated, multi-year campaigns to shift the public narrative, develop high-functioning multi-racial teams, advance strategic governing capacity, and elect progressive champions in deep red midwest.
Here are just a few of the roles I’ve played:
Faith in Indiana (c3)/Act Indiana (c4), Executive Director and Founder
- Founded and grew Faith in Indiana to a network of 125 institutions organized through six county based chapters and long-standing constituencies; the Black Church Coalition, the Muslim Coalition, the Immigrant Coalition united across race, faith, and place to organize for racial and economic justice.
- Designed curriculum and training infrastructure to develop 3,000+ grassroots volunteers to build distributed leadership teams to move 6,500+ people to action, and engage 30,000+ supporters each year. Of the organizers I developed; ninety percent remain active in the social change sector; 70% are people of color; 50% women.
- Coached and advised Executive directors, Lead Organizers, and strategic capacity staff across the country to build capacity of power building organizations across the movement
- Designed and executed highly sophisticated, multi-year integrated policy, electoral, and governance campaigns to shift the balance of power and deliver real change in areas of immigrant rights, justice reform, public safety, healthcare, housing, revenue, and more.
- Constructed long-standing strategic partnerships among corporate, government, and grassroots actors to win policy reforms at the local, state, and federal levels
- Provided movement leadership to national campaigns and grassroots networks; Faith in Action, Community Change, We Make the Future, State Revenue Alliance, Live Free USA, Healthcare for America Now, and Win the Midwest.
- Ran large scale electoral mobilization and persuasion campaigns on the door, phone, and relational organizing to win ballot measures, increase voter participation, and elect insider champions using c3, c4, LLC subsidiaries, and PAC.
- Responsible for performance, fundraising, and fiscal management of $2 Million budget across multiple entities
- Managed 16 staff across four offices in Indiana.
Indiana Voices (c3)/ Indiana Votes (c4), President and Founder
- Founded Indiana Voices/Votes, the backbone of Indiana’s emerging movement ecosystem in partnership with Indiana’s most powerful unions, community-organizing entities, and membership organizations with a collective membership of 401,957 people, aligned around a shared strategy to advance governing power by 2030.
- Served on the founding steering committee of Indiana’s emergent Donor Table that raised $3.5 Million in first eighteen months to support progressive infrastructure and movement building
- Oversaw grant decision-making process for partner disbursements in support of civic engagement, assess partner capacity to advance shared goals, tracking progress, providing capacity support to grantees, writing final evaluations and reports.
- Conducted initial landscape analysis of 120 executive directors, partners, and funders
- Led start-up process across partners to formalize structure, governance, mission, and vision, and aligned partners toward our shared goals.
- Led the The Indiana Power Audit, a research project to lay the intellectual foundation for our ambitious ten-year plan to take back the state.
- Oversaw the design of Indiana’s truly unparalleled data and technology hub built to support long-term power building. The all in one platform provides uniform tools across c3/c4 entities and integrates voter engagement, member management, fundraising, and data warehousing, and the latest voter engagement tools.
- Hired, trained, and managed multi-racial teams to run Indiana’s first coordinated voter engagement programs across partners. Read Results from 2022 Midterm
Faith in Bay Area, Alameda & San Mateo Counties, Organizing Director
- Managed and grew a foundation portfolio of $1 Million dollars.
- Train, Develop, and Coach of organizing team of five
- Developed grassroots leaders to win community-driven policy campaigns for safe communities, quality education, immigrant rights, healthcare access at the local, state, and national levels.
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Impact |
Here are just a few of the ways my work changed the material conditions of people’s lives:
- Thirty percent drop in gun violence in Indianapolis, a direct result of organizing campaign that secure $150 Million annually launch Group Violence Reduction Strategy, the largest investment in GVRS in the nation
- Led unprecedented coalition to overcome GOP trifecta at state legislature in 2023, to win multi-million overhaul of Indiana’s mental health system so families get the care they deserve rather than end up in jail
- Passed the nation’s most progressive tax for public transit by 19 points. The $1.3 Billion ballot box victory flexed the power of Black people, immigrants, and women, which increased voter participation 14% as part of our all volunteer electoral program
- Protected vulnerable immigrants; secured $425 million in COVID relief for undocumented immigrants, beat back 2 attempts to build immigrant prisons, ended ICE detainers in four cities, 85% of accompanied immigrants stayed with their families as result of our rapid response program
- Raised over ten million dollars for the organizations I directed and seeded from over 90 foundations, small and large donors, labor unions, and membership dues
- Architect of progressive infrastructure to advance multi-racial governing power by 2030; a multi-entity state alignment table, innovative data & technology hub, Organizer training hub, and;
- a candidate pipeline that elected over 250 people from the grassroots to hold office as precinct captain, city-council, and state legislature. All were first time candidates and seventy-five percent were people of color.
- Pioneered the winning Race-Class Narrative in Indiana, training 258 executive directors and communicators, to amplify a shared narrative drumbeat, reaching 11 million people through earned media, digital, and trusted messengers each year
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Mission |
I provide strategic guidance, training, and consultation to organizations and executive staff committed to base building and leadership development. I love working with lead organizers to think through policy and electoral campaign strategy, power analysis, base-building and democratic leadership methodology. I believe people are developed through long-standing relationships which is why I love coaching executive directors, campaigners, and movement building organizations. If that’s you, reach out and let’s see how I can support you!
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