I have worked to strengthen grassroots social justice organizations led by and benefitting Black and Brown low-income communities.
In 1977 I became a board member and board president of the Contact Center (Cincinnati OH), and learned housing organizing and grassroots and donor fundraising from Black women committed to ending displacement as urban pioneers and gentrifiers encroached on their Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. In the same time period I met the South African women who created Training for Transformation, a methodology for community problem solving that introduced me to Paolo Freire, feminist analysis, spiritual community building, and organizational group process. This approach undergirded Steven Biko’s organizing in South Africa and became and continues to be my compass for supporting the capacity of grassroots social, economic, and environmental justice organizations. In 1983, with the permission of my community in Cincinnati, I became a Community Land Trust technical assistance advisor at the Institute for Community Economics.
Working for ICE in Massachusetts gave me the opportunity to meet the women who founded the Boston Women’s Fund. I had the privilege of serving on BWF’s first Allocation Committee. In that role many of us saw the struggle grassroots women, girls and gender queer folx had in funding their organizing work. Efforts led by low-income and women of color strategized to meet both their social change agenda and provide a comprehensive approach to enabling the participation of poor people — access to childcare, hospitality and food, transportation to meetings. Many foundations did not consider funding those activities, or even consider them community organizing. BWF did (and still does). In order to strengthen the ability of these organizations to access a diversity of funders and donors BWF created what I believe was the first capacity building program. I left my role as then board member to help develop that program, providing services ranging from typing grant applications to the basics of organizational development to compliance with IRS and stat non-profit regulations. In collaboration with Haymarket People’s Fund, we would create the Women of Color Fundraising Institute, an 18 month program that strengthened the capacity of women of color EDs and their volunteer leaders.
My work in support of Black and Brown leadership has evolved to include a focus on resource development that includes data management and CRM development, board/steering committee capacity building, project management and Freirian organizing based on the Training for Transformation process.
I am part of the founding network of consultants and current president of RoadMap Social Justice Consulting Inc.
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