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…
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 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…
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…
On Aisha Arrington’s first day at the LTC Ombudsman Program, an organization that advocates for people who live in long term care, she wrote on a piece of paper that her dream was to become the Executive Director and “lead from the front.” She folded the note up and placed it in her desk. Within…
After a successful 20-year career in commercial banking, Renee Ligon moved from Florida back to her native Ohio and pivoted to community-centered work. In a perfect melding of her banking experience and her desire to make a difference, she served as the Regional Director of the Urban League of Greater Cleveland’s Minority Business Assistance Center….
In many ways, Muriel Smith always knew she’d find her way to a career in nonprofit — in her ideal world, even leading one. Now, as Executive Director at the St. Louis Area Diaper Bank, she’s not only realizing her dream, but working with an incredible team and community to ensure local families’ basic needs…
For Janece Kleban, fundraising and working in development for non-profits was in her blood. Her mother is a consultant and does strategic planning for both local and national organizations, so Janece was able to see firsthand how this type of work impacts everyone in the community. During college, she led her collegiate chapter for Habitat…
By 2010, Kimberly Bryant had built a successful career working as an electrical engineer in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Around that time she began exploring other options and started to look at opportunities through the lens of an entrepreneur. The more networking and circulating among new spaces she did, the more she noticed the…
As a lifelong competitive swimmer, Anna Barber started her undergraduate degree at Howard University knowing that she wanted to pursue a career as an athletic director. After graduating, she headed to Arizona State University where she continued to lay the groundwork for a future in athletics — and earned her law degree. “I worked as…