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.

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.

In 2016 The East Contra Costa STRONG Nonprofits Fund Initiative was created by a committed group of funders with the long-term goal of strengthening the ecosystem of organizations addressing poverty in the East Contra Costa County (ECCC) region through the provision of direct services, community organizing, and advocacy for systems change.

We invite board members, executive directors, and CEOs to join us for an opportunity to learn, engage, and gain a pathway to build a more racially equitable and inclusive governing body.

Coaching is often embraced as a vital tool in leadership development, but the coach's voice is seldom heard outside of the coaching session. Join members of LeaderSpring's talented coaching pool as they share valuable insights and tools for those who provide, receive, and fund coaching services.

In this interactive session, we will workshop strategies to identify how self-reflective intentionality can be a driver for equity in the design thinking process. This workshop will provide an overview of design thinking and its most common applications and uses, while introducing areas of blind spots that may not be considered within the process. We will learn how, if unaddressed, these blind spots and biases risk perpetuating the very inequities we are trying to remedy.

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.

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 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.

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.

The Contra Costa Leadership Institute (2016-2018) was a two-year program that helped nonprofit leaders strengthen their leadership skills through trainings, team coaching, and peer learning. By fostering collaboration and practical application, participants built lasting relationships that enhanced their organizational effectiveness and community impact.

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.

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?"

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.

NCRP released a report titled "Cultivating Nonprofit Leadership: A (Missed?) Philanthropic Opportunity," featuring LeaderSpring and three other leadership development programs across the country.