Shifting Power and Advancing Justice
This focus area uplifts movement leaders to reclaim their power and strengthen the communities they serve. Through multi-year funding and resources, we will launch three years of sustained support (beginning in 2024) for a group of core leaders and their organizations that have critical roles in advancing social justice in Greater Boston.
Investment
$4M over three years, $225K Annual Investment per Leader/Org:
- 3 years of sustained support for 6 regional Movement Leaders vital to the social justice ecosystem.
- Partner with Nonprofit Sector Infrastructure team for holistic wrap-around “beyond the grant” support.
- Collaborative journey and on-boarding process | non-transactional partnerships.
Latest News
A Celebration of the Movements and Leaders Shaping Our Collective Future
On April 9, 2024, we hosted our Shifting Power, Advancing Justice (SPAJ) partnership launch event, announcing the six local nonprofit leaders who have been selected as the inaugural partners in this focus area. These six remarkable movement leaders and their organizations will receive over $4 million to advance their collective work to transform communities, drive systemic change, and foster innovation. The event featured engaging discussions, networking opportunities, and stories of change and action, offering a space to connect, reflect, and draw inspiration from the individuals and organizations who are redefining our community’s future.
Meet the 2024 Movement Leaders
Darian Burwell Gambrell, Executive Director, DEAF, Inc.
Since 2021, Darian Burwell Gambrell has led DEAF Inc., which is the only Massachusetts community-based, multi-service nonprofit run by and for Deaf (Deaf, DeafBlind, Hard of Hearing, and Late-Deafened) adults. In her previous role, Darian was a manager at the Raleigh regional center of the North Carolina Division of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, which has seven regional centers across the state. Gambrell has worked in several positions in non-profit, colleges, and state agencies throughout her career. She is a current member of the Board of Trustees at Gallaudet University and a former board member for Arts Access, Inc. Gambrell hosts community conversations and workshops and has since cultivated a reputation as an engaging facilitator on diversity and inclusion dialogues and an emerging advocate of disability rights and justice across our region. Gambrell has been the Executive Director of DEAF Inc. since September of 2021.
Gamaliel Lauture, Co-Executive Director, Brockton Interfaith Community
Gamaliel Lauture is the Associate Director of Organizing for Brockton Interfaith Community (BIC). Brother Game as he is fondly referred to, is a husband, father of four, and resident of the City of Brockton Currently, he is the organizer for Restoration Community Action Ministry (RCAM), Second Chance Justice (SCJ), and the police accountability and public safety group DARCC (Demilitarize, Accountability, Reallocation, Reimagine Community Coalition).
Game envisions a Brockton where the conditions have been created so that community members have full agency over their bodies from governance to economic empowerment and freedom. That all community members have a voice and utilize those voices to shape an inclusive vision of Brockton that includes them no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, or immigrant status. A city where families feel safe and have an ownership stake here. As the Co-Director of Brockton, Game strives to train and develop his community to dare to walk in their power and build that vision out.
Mike Leyba, Co-Executive Director, City Life/Vida Urbana
Mike Leyba is a mapmaker, legend myth writer, futurist, and community weaver of Latinx and Chicanx people. He is the Co-Executive Director of the anti-displacement community organizing group City Life/Vida Urbana and has been a part of this community since 2012.
A Chicano from Los Angeles, Mike became an activist fighting for equal marriage for LGBT+ people. He has managed and worked on many local electoral campaigns, both in Boston and Los Angeles. In 2023, Mike helped catalyze community momentum in East Boston, working with a multitude of partners on developing a Boston-focused community land-trust building acquisition fund.
Noemi Mimi Ramos, Executive Director, New England Community Project
With a fresh pair of eyes from the neighborhoods of Boston and a savvy way of thinking and shaping community and political organizing, Noemi, aka Mimi, has hit her 19th year, fighting for social, racial, and economic justice within the Greater Boston area and beyond.
Mimi has gained most of her experience from working on direct advocacy issues such as Earned Sick, Early Education, Housing Justice, Worker Rights, and the power of Base Building connected to Civic Engagement. The strength of her organizing has been focused on local power building while weaving together a city and statewide agenda led by grassroots organizing. Her work has been guided by the efforts to strengthen leadership led by black and brown residents and within intentional coalitions and partnerships that reflect and support building a long-term agenda centering black and brown voices, low-income and working-class communities.
Some of the partnerships and spaces Mimi has been helping to build and shape are connected to; are key organizations such as Right to the City Boston, Homes for All Mass, Community Labor United, and the MassVoter Table.
She is a young Black Latina from Dorchester who learned how to move through the political system, to help others become a voice in their community.
Shanique Rodriguez, Executive Director, Massachusetts Voter Table
Shanique Rodriguez is a political, social, and reproductive justice activist who has dedicated nearly a decade to organizing in BIPOC communities across Massachusetts. With a BS in Criminal Justice from Mount Ida College, Shanique is a native of Kingston, Jamaica, and is a current resident of Springfield. She brings her lived experiences and passion for uplifting and finding justice for marginalized communities like her own to her work. In 2022, Shanique delivered a hard-fought win for the Fair Share Amendment campaign as the BIPOC Community Director.
Before the Fair Share campaign, Shanique spent 4+ years at Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts working on reproductive rights and justice issues in Western and Central MA as the Manager of Mobilization and BIPOC Organizing.
Dwaign Tyndal, Executive Director, Alternatives for Community and Environment
Dwaign Tyndal has over twenty-five years of professional experience in economic development, community and neighborhood development, youth development, and workforce development. Throughout his professional experience, Dwaign has effectively led capable and diverse teams and has also been able to communicate complex public policies to various stakeholders to show how community-based partnerships can build stronger communities and empower residents and businesses to take active roles in their neighborhoods.
