#blackwomensparkchange
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Joy Nelson Thomas is Helping At-Risk Girls Become Confident Community Leaders
Joy Nelson Thomas is the founder and executive director of LEAD Girls of NC, a nonprofit dedicated to helping at-risk preteen girls build self-confidence and gain the skills they need to be strong leaders in their community.Since its founding in 2015, LEAD Girls has helped more than 500 girls through evidence-based school and community programs. …
#BlackWomenSparkChange: Celebrating the First Year
Inspired by the racial justice uprisings of 2020, the inequity laid bare by the pandemic, and our commitment to anti-racism, we started the #BlackWomenSparkChange campaign in August of 2020. Our goal has always been to celebrate the stories, voices, and leadership of Black women in the nonprofit sector. Not only did the social climate of…
Andrea Copeland Sets a Standard of Excellence
When Andrea Copeland studied social work in college, she knew her future would be in macro-level work, navigating through complex systems that affect large communities. “I’m a policy nerd,” she says. “I want to make sure the policies we create and implement positively impact populations that we’re trying to target. My biggest goal as a…
Angela Patton Listens to What Black Girls Need, and Shows Up
When Angela Patton’s parents moved recently, her mother found a yearbook of Angela’s from high school. Fellow students had written, “You’re going to lead something one day” and “You’re going to change the world.” Angela had written that her goal was to make a difference in people’s lives. “I don’t remember feeling that way as…
Shemika Whiteside Wants to Help Women Thrive in Pregnancy and Beyond
As a New Year’s resolution in January 2021, Shemika Whiteside posted an idea on Facebook she’d been thinking about for years: a maternity program to help women in Louisville, Kentucky with housing, medical and mental health needs, birthing support, and social services. The response was incredible. Shemika heard from numerous people saying, “I’ve been waiting…
Chandra Clark is advocating for VHL patients on a global level
Chandra Clark is a self-described “late bloomer” who traveled a winding path into a career in nonprofits. Growing up, Chandra faced a lot of adversity and took on much of the responsibility for caring for her three younger siblings. Without a lot of guidance and support from adults in her life, she struggled to understand…
Dr. Danielle Moss Leads with Compassion and Clarity
While studying at Swarthmore College, Dr. Danielle Moss had her sights set on a career in academia — but upon graduating and in need of a job, her cousin helped secure a role for her in financial services. Early on, Dr. Moss realized that the financial services world was not for her. Thankfully, she was…
Charity Blanchett Wants to Expand Opportunities for BIPOC Women Chefs
After growing up in Alaska, founding two businesses there, and then living briefly in Hawaii and Los Angeles, Charity Blanchett had an awakening in New Orleans: “To move to a city where it’s predominantly African-American, I felt like, for the first time in my life, I looked like everybody. When I walked out the front…
Tige Charity Shines a Spotlight on Foster Youth
Tige Charity is the Founder and Executive Director of Kids in the Spotlight (KITS), a Los Angeles-based non-profit that provides a platform for young people in foster care to write, cast and star in their own short films, telling their stories their way. Since its founding in 2009, the organization has worked with more than…
Mikisha Morris-Tucker Says, “You Can Do It All”
After studying film production in college, then working for a time in corporate communications, Mikisha Morris-Tucker was recruited by a mentor to build programs in the Philadelphia school system to serve students of color in predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods. Mikisha took students to New York and Washington DC for cultural activities, and had speakers…