DENISE PERRY – PRESIDENT
In over 25 years of labor and community organizing, Denise Perry has been dedicated to developing strong grassroots leaders, democratic organizations, and progressive social movements. Among other positions, she organized health care workers into labor unions in the east and southeast; she directed field training for the Organizing Institute creating curriculum, managing organizing sites and working with participating unions. Internationally she worked with a team to develop the Women’s Global Equity Project, which took her throughout Africa and the Caribbean to train and work with women labor activists. In 2001, Denise co-founded Power U Center for Social Change, a 501(c)(3) organization rooted in Miami’s historically Black community of Overtown. Power U has equipped residents to challenge the displacement of low-income families by gentrification, blocking the proposed use of public land for luxury condominiums in the neighborhood. Other Power U projects are training youth to have a voice in school policies and engaging women in childbirth classes that also introduce them to social justice organizing increasing women leaders. Bringing the work to the national level, she has served on several boards and Denise played a key role in the development of the Right to the City Alliance, a national alliance of racial, economic, and environmental justice organizations, and its work to connect with environmental justice issues. Denise currently serves on the boards of Power U, Franklinton Center Inc. and The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (a Project of the Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) organization). She is a graduate of the University of Maryland.
Danielle Mahones – Vice President
Danielle Mahones currently serves as Director of the Leadership Development Program at The University of California, Berkeley Labor Center. She is a skilled facilitator and trainer and has 20 years of experience in social justice movement work. For nine years, Ms. Mahones served as the executive director of the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO), a 501(c)(3) racial justice organization dedicated to building a social justice movement led by people of color. As executive director, she still kept her hand in direct program work by facilitating Spanish-language organizing trainings, providing strategic and organizational consultations to key allies, developing curricula for The University of California, Berkeley Labor Center’s California Lead Organizer Institute, and co-founding new programs such as the Black Organizing Project. Prior to this Ms. Mahones spent a decade working in the labor movement. She organized hotel workers with HERE Local 2850 and janitors with SEIU Local 1877, and directed new organizing and contract campaigns for Stanford hospital and university workers with SEIU Local 715 (now 521). She has worked as an independent consultant to community, labor, and philanthropic organizations, including The California Endowment’s East Oakland Building Healthy Communities initiative, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Latino Outreach Program of the League of Conservation Voters, the Ella Baker Center, and the Bay Area Black Workers Center. Ms. Mahones is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
Maurice Weeks – TreasureR
Maurice is the Co-Executive Director of ACRE Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization. He works with community organizations and labor unions on campaigns to go on offense against Wall Street to beat back the destruction of communities of color. He was previously the Campaign Director of the ReFund America Project, a fiscally sponsored project of the Roosevelt Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College.
Jennifer Toles – Secretary
Jennifer Toles is an Organizer and the Training Director for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative which does social, racial, and economic justice work across the state of Ohio. She is a director and board member for the Way of Mind and Body (the Womb) – a Cultural Community Center located in Akron, Ohio, which focuses on holistic health and wellness, arts & lounge, and community outreach. She is also a trainer for BOLD and Generative Somatics. Jennifer received her BS from Ohio University and her MBA from Case Western Reserve Weatherhead School of Management.
Nathaniel Chioke Williams – Board Member
As Executive Director of Hill-Snowdon Foundation, a 501(c)(3) private foundation, Mr. Williams lead the Foundation’s philanthropic and programmatic work, operations and partnerships within the community. Nat manages the Foundation’s Youth Organizing and Fund for DC programs, and is responsible for developing learning and leveraging opportunities in these program areas. In 2015, Mr. Williams took the lead on the Foundation’s newly launched Making Black Lives Matter Initiative, a three year grantmaking and strategic co-funding initiative. Mr. Williams’s funding experience has focused on community organizing and youth organizing, and his background includes research on the socio-political development of African American youth activists, social movements, social oppression and liberation psychology; tenant organizing and non-profit management consulting. He previously served on the board of the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing and the board of the Neighborhood Funders Group, a 501(c)(3) organization, and serves as co-chair of Grantmakers for Southern Progress, a network of local, regional and national funders committed to social justice in the US South. Nat’s prior philanthropic work in youth and community organizing includes positions as Program Officer for Youth Development at the Edward Hazen Foundation and Program Officer for the New York Foundation, both 501(c)(3) private foundations. Additionally, Nat has served as Assistant Professor of Black Studies for the State University of New York at New Paltz, Senior Program Associate for Community Resource Exchange in New York City, and Director of Organizing for the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board in New York City. Nat holds a B.A. in Psychology from Morehouse College, as well as a M.A. and Ph.D. in Community Psychology from New York University.
Ingrid Benedict – Board Member
Ingrid Benedict, executive director of the Daphne Foundation, has spent over a decade helping leaders and organizations reach new levels of capacity and efficacy. As a grantmaker, Ms. Benedict has overseen the programmatic and grantmaking activities of these multimillion-dollar funder collaboratives. In addition to working with the Daphne Foundation, Ingrid works with philanthropic and community-based organizations as an organizational development consultant and capacity builder, facilitator, and grantmaker. She is the co-founder of New York Blacks in Philanthropy and is on the board of the United We Dream Network, a 501(c)(3) organization, and the Solidaire Network, a project of the Proteus Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization. A first-generation immigrant from Nicaragua, Ms. Benedict’s family moved to California in the early 1980s where she began her work in social justice as a regional organizer against an anti-affirmative action ballot initiative – Proposition 209. She continued to work in the field of student and youth leadership and organizing, supporting the programmatic direction of Youth Together, School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), and as the Director of the California Fund for Youth organizing.