Hispanic Heritage Month Interviews
Co-Executive Director Sonia Mañjon was featured in two different pieces by CBS Bay Area about her Afro-Latina identify during Hispanic Heritage Month. Click on the images below to watch the videos!
Lifting Tides’ Leaders to Advance Black Collective Power and Equity
In March 2021 Tides, LeaderSpring Center’s fiscal sponsor, hosted an inaugural Tides Talk panel, Advancing Black Collective Power and Equity, to hear from four transformational leaders including Executive Director Sonia Mañjon about what is needed to advance racial equity and healing and how they’re navigating challenges within the nonprofit world.
Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise: An Online Conversation with Cecilia Muñoz
Sonia Mañjon, Executive Director, interviewed Cecilia Muñoz, for California Institute of Integral Studies “Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise” program in July 2020. Cecilia is the first Latinx person to direct national domestic policy issues and knows the difficulties of getting ahead without trailblazers to follow. In their conversation Cecilia shared invaluable insights about working through fear, overcoming injustices, facing down detractors, and more.
Why Women of Color are the Future of Tech
In December 2019 Executive Director Sonia Mañjon and Advisory Council member Yulkendy Valdez gave a joint TED talk at TEDxAlbany. They presented LeaderSpring Center and Forefront’s collaborative research project to create viable pathways to increase participation and retention of women of color in the technology sector.
From Promise to Practice — Embedding Equity and Inclusion
LeaderSpring Center Executive Director Sonia Mañjon was a featured panelist and presenter at TSNE MissionWorks’ annual conference in Boston, MA, November 2019. Sonia and her fellow panelists discussed the gaps between the aspirations for embedding equity and inclusion in our organizations and the reality of trying to do so, as well as shared strategies to build pathways to developing effective organizational practices that move us toward a more diverse and equitable sector.
LeaderSpring Center on KTVU
LeaderSpring Center Executive Director Sonia Mañjon and Deputy Director Safi Jiroh discuss the Women of Color LeadStrong Fellowship and the impetus for diversifying social sector leadership.
Case Studies in Distributed Leadership
What is distributed leadership? Find out in a new series of thematic case studies looking at how forward-thinking nonprofit organizations—including LeaderSpring Center—are vesting real decision-making authority among more of their staff members. Click here to view the five-part series.
Women Of Color Cohort Will Address
Social Justice, Racial Equity
““The [Women of Color LeadStrong] Fellowship is important because women leaders of color have historically been under-represented in the social sector even though they have been champions in working with communities suffering from poverty, poor health, low education, inadequate housing and poor jobs prospects.””
In this SFGate article, Bay City News Service interviews LeaderSpring staff Sonia Mañjon, Safi Jiroh, and Molly Linares and Women of Color LeadStrong Fellow Adria Moss about the importance of empowering female leaders of color in the social sector.
What’s at Stake in Today’s Election?
In case you missed it, tune in to hear Executive Director Sonia Mañjon engage in conversation with Living Room host Kris Welch on KPFA 94.1 about what's at stake in today's election, especially for women and communities of color. Discussion includes hopes and fears emerging from the election, as well as commentary on Black Female Project founder Precious Stroud's op-ed, "Will I Take a Morning After Pill on November 7?"
Can A For-Profit Business Be Socially Responsible?
In this insightful article, former LeaderSpring Advisory Council Chair and Class 5 Alumna Holly Gold explores the relationship between social responsibility and entrepreneurship, and discusses LeaderSpring's role in helping her achieve her vision of starting a social enterprise.
“While at LeaderSpring, one of Gold’s mentors introduced her to the concept of social enterprise, where ownership, as well as the broader funding streams from a business, provide what Gold saw as a sustainable model for transforming communities.”
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) Report:
NCRP released a report titled "Cultivating Nonprofit Leadership: A (Missed?) Philanthropic Opportunity," featuring LeaderSpring and three other leadership development programs across the country.
“LeaderSpring also builds communities
of leaders, providing the space needed for creative
idea exchanges and forging relationships
across issue silos for transformational change.”
Case Study: A Bolder Form of Leadership
LeaderSpring is proud to share A Bolder Form of Leadership, a case study of how Jennifer Lyle of Building Blocks for Kids accelerated change in Richmond's Iron Triangle community with the help of her LeaderSpring Fellowship.
Left to right: Mariana Moore (Former Council Chair), Jennifer Lyle (Alumni '12), and Cynthia Chavez (Former Executive Director).
Photo by: Jonathon Fong
““Many decisions were being made on behalf of people who lived in the community. Much of the work being done was grounded in the perspective that people are broken and need to be fixed, rather than that the systems are broken.” ”