The Boston Foundation, Boston Women’s Fund announce the 2022 Women of Color Leadership Circle

Boston – The Boston Foundation and Boston Women’s Fund today publicly announced the fifteen nonprofit leaders who comprise the 2022 Anna Faith Jones & Frieda Garcia Women of Color Leadership Circle. The Circle is a six-month cohort program that aims to support women of color leaders to advance their professional development and leadership goals. The program seeks to honor the leadership, strength, and resilience of women of color who do incredible work within their communities and provide them with a cherished space to share challenges and opportunities.

Launched by the Boston Foundation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program is being led beginning this year by the Boston Women’s Fund with partnership and support from TBF and the Angell Foundation, and is being facilitated by the Interaction Institute for Social Change.

A listing of the fifteen members of the 2022 Circle is below. Learn more about the Women of Color Leadership Circle at https://tbf.org/woclc. The 2022 program begins on January 20.

“We are grateful to The Boston Foundation, Angell Foundation, and Interaction Institute for Social Change for their dedicated commitment to supporting women of color,” said Natanja Craig-Oquendo, Executive Director at Boston Women’s Fund. “We are honored to continue what we believe to be legacy work. We know women of color often lack mentorship and experience isolation in the workplace. Over the next six months, the Boston Women’s Fund is excited to support a safe space that meets those needs while supporting the collective restoration and advancement of women pursuing incredible work in their communities.”

“As women of color facilitators and former executive directors of organizations, we know how hard it can be to lead and especially during a time of continuing shocks and challenges,” said Kelly Bates, President of Interaction Institute for Social Change. “For so long, IISC wanted to manifest a space for belonging and transformation for women of color by women of color leaders. The timing couldn’t be more important.”

“The Boston Foundation is thrilled to be sharing the leadership of the Anna Faith Jones & Frieda Garcia Women of Color Leadership Circle with the Boston Women’s Fund and IISC,” said Orlando Watkins, Vice President and Chief Program Officer at the Boston Foundation. “While we are proud to have partnered in the launch of the WOCLC, one measuring stick for our success should be how successfully our work can live on beyond its founding with community partners. We believe this is a great example of that strategy in practice.”

The Anna Faith Jones & Frieda Garcia Women of Color Leadership Circle is named in honor of the groundbreaking women who led the Boston Foundation as the CEO and Board Chair, respectively, in the 1990s.  They were the first women of color to occupy those roles in the foundation’s history.