Trish Adobea Tchume is a first generation Ghanaian-American, a social and racial justice advocate, facilitator, and trainer. She currently serves as the Director of Liberatory Leadership Practice for the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Network Organizer for the Sterling Network, a diverse group of 60 New Yorkers collaborating across sectors to build a more vibrant, racially and economically just New York City. She brings to her role a deep reverence for the transformative power of networks and a breadth of experience growing and organizing them from former roles as the executive director of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, the co-organizer for Within Our Lifetime: A Network to End Racism, the director of civic engagement for the Building Movement Project, and her most recent role as the director of leadership development at the Center for Community Change. She holds a Masters in Education, has been published in the Huffington Post, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Nonprofit Quarterly, and has co-authored several reports.

Jose Alfaro is a first-generation Salvadoran-American from Queens, NYC. Jose’s career ranges from working as a community educator to working with adolescents to dismantle systems of oppression, organizing communities for healthcare access, parents for education reform, and sexual and reproductive justice. His political work includes independent expenditure campaigns at the gubernatorial, cabinet, and State Senate levels, helping secure former Governor Dannel Malloy’s reelection in 2014 and several critical seats for Democrats across Connecticut in 2015. Today, Jose is the Director of Latinx Leadership and Community Engagement at Everytown for Gun Safety, where he works to build power in the Latinx communities by organizing Latinx people at the national level and uplifting the voices most impacted by gun violence.

Lolan Buhain Sevilla, MPA, is a cultural worker, organizer, and trainer who strives to root their work in community, study, and practice. With roots in Southeast San Diego, Oakland, Brooklyn, and Jersey City – they have organized with the communities they belong (BIPOC queer & trans folks, Filipina women & migrant workers, survivors), and primarily within the gender-based violence and anti-imperialist movements. Lolan has spent their career cultivating an expertise in cross-sectoral nonprofit leadership & management, specializing in crisis response, program strategy, and organizational development that is grounded in an anti-oppression framework. Currently, they work as the Director of Organizing at Funders for Justice, and have served on the Board of Directors for CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities and the Audre Lorde Project. A long-time member of the National Writers Union (Local 1981), they also have numerous publishing credits, including the most recently co-authored “Speak Up About It: Community Experiences, and Actions to Reduce the Impact of Anti-TGNC Discrimination in the Workplace.”

Maria Dautruche is the inaugural director for the Westchester Center for Racial Equity at the YWCA Whtie Plains & Central Westchester. Maria is also the manager of the newly launched H.E.A.L. (Honest Education Action & Leadership) Together initiative at Race Forward.She most previously served as a vice president at the National Urban League, raising more than $60 million and playing a critical role in shaping the organization’s current racial equity partnerships. Maria is a graduate of the National Urban League Washington Bureau Certificate in Advocacy Program and is an Elias Foundation Activist Fellow. Maria is a co-founder of New Voices for Reproductive Justice – a powerful organizing force for the health and well-being of Black women and girls, women of color and LGBTQ+ people of color at the local, state (PA and OH) and national levels.

Kyky Knight is a political and labor movement organizer with demonstrable skill in strategic organizing, base building, and campaign development. Born in Nashville, TN and currently based in Atlanta, GA, Kyky has deep cultural roots planted in the US south, and those roots inform her day to day work and orientation towards black and low wage worker organizing. Kyky is passionate about organizing workers to take power in the workplace, has a longterm strategic orientation towards building and supporting healthier movement organizations, and is invested in the critical work of developing strong organizers and leaders necessary for our movements to scale up and win. She currently works as a Campaign Lead organizing Higher Education workers into wall to wall unions across the Southeastern US.

Jaritza Geigel found a home in the Youth Power Project (YPP) of Make the Road New York (MRNY) where they were able to begin their re-education and reintegration into the community that they had been living in, but also felt hidden from.The extension of trust, compassion, honesty, and accountability that was given to them as a youth leader was critical to their successful experience as an organizer. In addition to their government work, Jaritiza is a student-apprentice of Warrior’s for Embodied Liberation, a 2-year training program in which the students learn and practice the core methodologies for embodied training and coaching.

Stephen Jenkins has worked in a variety of social justice settings for the past three decades. His experience started with homeless rights work in California working at an outreach center in Santa Monica. That experience led him to attend Northeastern Law School and then to the Door’s Legal Services Center in New York where he worked with young people in areas such as immigration, welfare and foster care rights. He subsequently transitioned to the labor movement, spending fourteen years at SEIU Local 32BJ. Stephen’s work included successful campaigns to organize tens of thousands of low-wage workers in janitorial and security work, as both an organizer, and eventually as director of the union’s research department. He currently serves as Deputy Director of the 32BJ Benefit funds, which includes health, training, legal and retirement funds as well as a major member service operation.

Ashley Johnson is an experienced circle keeper and transformative justice practitioner who has conducted and trained peacemaking circles in schools and communities throughout New York City. Before their work at RaceForward they worked as a violence interrupter in neighborhoods dealing with high rates of gun and domestic violence co-creating alternatives to violence that centered community safety without the reliance on law enforcement. Their work addressing harm and conflict is grounded in creating an environment for personal and social transformation by addressing and repairing harm in relationships and developing creative responses to conflict. At RaceForward, they train and create the content and activities for the public facing trainings and webinars. All their work, writing, and research seeks to establish creative alternative interventions for communities rooted in rich ancestral practices.

Beatrice Lors-Rousseau seeks to walk graciously in her purpose as a connector, advocate, and caregiver of people and communities. She is an experienced grant maker with expertise in social justice philanthropy and relationship management. In this capacity, she awards grants to organizations focused on direct service, community organizing, base-building and policy advocacy work across various issues, including sexual health and reproductive justice, anti-violence and safety, civic engagement, economic justice, and education. Raised by low-income Haitian immigrants in Brooklyn, NY, she is driven by an unyielding passion to support visionary leaders working to enact bold solutions that address the challenges being faced by the communities they love. Beatrice is an active member of her community and currently serves on the board of Haitian American Caucus, Mocha Moms Brooklyn Chapter, and has held leadership roles (and continues to volunteer) in the New York Urban League, Parliamentarians of Metro New York, and her local church.

Bianca Mounce currently serves as a proud team member of Community Tech Alliance, a group of progressive technologists and strategists that provide data infrastructure and building blocks to the progressive ecosystem at low cost. Since 2013, she has empowered for-profit companies, electoral campaigns and non-profit organizations to strategically use data. Previously, she served as the Director of Data and Technology Strategy at The Movement Cooperative, a collective of independent organizations working to build a world-class data and technology infrastructure that is shared by key organizations within the progressive movement. After working on President Obama’s re-election campaign as a Field Organizer in Tampa, Florida, Bianca continued immersing herself in data-driven campaigns and non-profit work. She was the National Data Manager at Organizing for Action where she oversaw reporting, training and data for grassroots staff and volunteers.

Dona Murphey is a neurologist, neuroscientist, historian of science, and community organizer. She organizes at the intersections of race, poverty, immigration, and health. Understanding the intimate relationship between the health of individuals, the health of our communities, and the health of our democracy, she ran for her local school board in Pearland, Texas in 2019 and co-founded the patient-centered, justice and equity-oriented political action committee, Doctors In Politics.

Adrian Ogle is the Director of Events at the Ford Foundation, a global grant-making philanthropy that works to disrupt inequality by investing in visionary leaders and institutions. For nearly 15 years his career in public service leadership has sat at the intersection of racial and gender justice. His expertise in curating intentional spaces and experiences supports people and communities to tell their own stories – and show up for themselves and each other more authentically, radically, and lovingly. His career includes events that have received national press coverage, including CNN, New York Times, Huffington Post, and Vogue Magazine. Before joining Ford, Adrian worked in the social innovation and LGBTQ advocacy movement space, serving in senior leadership, communications, public policy, and community engagement roles. He is Board Chair Emeritus of COLAGE, a national organization for people with LGBTQ+ caregivers.

Andrea A. Ortiz is a Senior Manager of Education Policy at the New York Immigration Coalition. She engages educational stakeholders and coordinates coalitions to develop policies that advance educational equity in New York public schools. She is a committed advocate for immigrant rights, with over fourteen years of experience organizing with undocumented youth, families, and allies. Before joining NYIC, she consulted with state education officials to develop desegregation initiatives and with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education to improve academic enrichment programs serving youth of color. She is also passionate about ending the criminalization and detention of communities of color and advancing worker rights for farmworkers and day laborers. She holds an M.A. in education policy with a specialization in law from Columbia University’s Teachers College and a B.A. in philosophy and gender studies from New College of Florida.

Dave Palmer directs the Center for Popular Democracy’s Voting Rights and Democracy program, and the Justice Partnership. Most recently, Palmer directed the coalition in New York State working to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. Palmer has served as Deputy Director for ROC United; Vice President, Director of Advocacy for the Roosevelt Institute; Executive Director of the Center for Working Families (allied with the Working Families Party); and as an Equal Justice Works fellow and environmental justice attorney for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. He’s been working on democracy issues since early in his career organizing at NYPIRG. He holds a JD from the CUNY School of Law, and sits on their Board of Visitors. He also sits on the advisory board for Climate Action Now, a project of NY Communities for Change, and sat on the Board of Million Hoodies for Justice.

Ingrid Romero is the Co-Director of Mayday Space, a multi-story organizing center and social hub in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They are an artist, educator and organizer, born and raised in new york city – the unceded, traditional lands of the Munsee/Lenape – with deep roots in the Andes of colombia. They grew up as the only documented person in their family and began doing community work through their local youth group at St. Brigid’s church in Bushwick. ingrid has been organizing for fifteen years, and brings ten years of facilitation and youth work experience. Their youth work experience includes Sadie Nash Leadership Project, The Brotherhood/Sister Sol, Kite’s Nest, and Global Action Project. ingrid has completed trainings and fellowships from School of Unity & Liberation (SOUL), Good Ol’ Lower East Side (GOLES), Third World Newsreel, and The Laundromat Project. Currently, ingrid can be found dreamin’, schemin’ and fallin’ in love somewhere on Pachamama.

Wendie Veloz is a coach, consultant, and social impact strategist. She helps social entrepreneurs change the world by turning their passion and ideas into sustainable businesses and non-profit organizations. Wendie uses her 15 years of experience in policy and grant management to assist social ventures with infrastructure development. Wendie has a deep passion for changing how community members and service systems interact by establishing partnerships, measuring success, and leveraging funding for a sustainable future. Wendie supports her clients by infusing various healing modalities in her work including Reiki, crystal healing, and sound healing.

Wendie is the host of the Social Impact Level Up Podcast and the founder of Wellness Grind, an online community for wellness motivation and accountability. She is also the CEO/founder of Wendie Veloz Enterprises specializing in consulting services for social impact ventures.