Our Co-founders
LaTosha Brown
(she, her)
Co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund & the Southern Black Girls and Women’s Consortium
LaTosha Brown
LaTosha Brown is an award-winning visionary thought leader, institution builder, Cultural Activist and Artist, and Connector. She is a nationally recognized, “go-to” expert in Black Voting Rights and Voter Suppression, Black Women’s Empowerment, and Philanthropy.
Her voice is the nexus between the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and Black Lives Matter.
LaTosha is the Co-Founder of Black Voters Matter Fund and Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute. These initiatives are designed to boost Black voter registration and turnout, as well as increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities.
LaTosha is also the Visionary, Founder and Co-Anchor of a regional network called the Southern Black Girls and Women’s Consortium. This is $100 million, 10-year initiative to invest in organizations that serve Black women and girls. The goal of the consortium is to create a new approach to philanthropy by allowing every component of the program, inception to execution, to be created by Black girls and women in the South.
LaTosha is the 2020 Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, the 2020 Leader in Practice at Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program, and a 2020-2021 American Democracy fellow at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard.
LaTosha has worked in 23 different countries to include Kenya, Guyana, and Brazil. Her next mission involves resourcing and empowering women across the Diaspora. “I don’t want women to be seen as victims; they are the problem solvers for the world. I am convinced that Black Women are going to liberate the world!” LaTosha has received numerous awards and accolades for her work. She has been featured on ABC, CBS, CNN, Democracy Now, and PBS. Her Op-Eds have been showcased in the New York Times, Politico and Essence. Her work has also been highlighted in several docuseries: What’s Eating America?, American Swamp, and Finding Justice.
Tarana Burke
(she, her)
Executive Director of
‘me too.’ International
Tarana Burke
Tarana is fueled by a commitment to the interruption of sexual violence and other systemic issues disproportionately impacting marginalized people — particularly Black women and girls. Tarana has created and led campaigns which have shone a spotlight on the harm perpetrated against communities of color. Specifically, Tarana’s work to end sexual violence has exposed the ugly truths of sexism, has spoken truth to power, has increased access to resources and support for survivors, and has paved the way forward for an expanding and inclusive movement.
A proud native of the Bronx, Tarana’s passion for community organizing began in the late 1980s. As a young girl, she joined a youth development organization called 21st Century. She launched initiatives around issues including racial discrimination, housing inequality and economic justice. That work, coupled with a desire to deepen her academic education and community organizing skills, eventually led her to Alabama State University, a historically Black institution. Upon moving to Selma, Alabama, her career took an intentional turn toward supporting survivors of sexual violence. She encountered a Black girl who shared her story of sexual violence and abuse. Soon she found herself meeting dozens more. As a survivor herself, these were the stories with which she identified personally. Tarana faced the realization that too many girls were suffering and surviving abuse without access to resources, safe spaces and support.
Tarana’s theory of “empowerment through empathy” is changing the way the world thinks and talks about sexual violence, consent and body autonomy. Tarana’s steadfast commitment to the cause has led to numerous accolades including 2017 TIME Person of the Year, and the 2019 Sydney Peace Prize, among many other honors.
Dr. Monique Couvson
(she, her)
Ed.D., President and CEO of G4GC
Monique Couvson
Dr. Monique Couvson is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and criminal justice. Monique is the President and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, one of the nation’s premier philanthropic intermediaries explicitly focused on resourcing movements and organizations led by, and in support of cis and trans girls and femmes of color.
Monique is the author of Cultivating Joyful Learning Spaces for Black Girls: Insights into Interrupting School Pushout and Charisma’s Turn: A Graphic Novel, about supporting Black girls who stand in their gifts. She is an Executive Producer and co-writer of the documentary film, PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, which is based on her book of the same name as well as Sing A Rhythm, Dance A Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls. She has written dozens of articles, book chapters, and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on research, policies, and practices associated with improving juvenile/criminal justice, educational, and socioeconomic conditions for girls and women of Color. Her 2018 TED talk on how to stop the criminalization of Black girls in schools has received over 2 million views and been translated into 20 languages.
The Founder and Board Chair for the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, Monique’s work has been profiled by MSNBC, CSPAN2, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, and PBS, among other national and local print, radio, and television media.
Fatima Goss Graves
(she, her)
President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center
Fatima Goss Graves
Fatima Goss Graves is a nationally recognized leader in the fight for gender justice and an expert in law, policy, and culture change. She is President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, President of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, and a co-founder of the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund.
Fatima has a distinguished track record working across a broad set of issues central to the lives of women and girls – including income security and COVID relief, equal pay, ending sexual harassment and violence, health and reproductive rights, education access, and workplace justice – with a particular focus on outcomes for women and girls of color. She is widely sought
after for her effectiveness in the complex public policy arena at both the state and federal levels, and regularly testifies before Congress and federal agencies.
Fatima has received numerous awards and recognitions for her leadership, and currently serves as a member of numerous boards – in both advisory and governance capacities – including
Indivisible. She has appeared as a legal and social commentator on CBS, MSNBC, BBC, CNN, PBS, and NPR, and has been published and quoted in numerous outlets, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. She is a graduate of UCLA and Yale Law School, and resides with her family in Washington, D.C.
Joanne N. Smith
(she, her)
Founding President and CEO of Girls for Gender Equity
Joanne N. Smith
Joanne N. Smith is the founder and CEO of Girls for Gender Equity (GGE). She moves GGE closer to its mission through strategic advocacy, development, and leadership cultivation. Joanne is a queer Haitian-American social worker born in NY. A staunch human rights advocate, Smith co-chaired the nation’s first Young Women’s Initiative, a cross-sector Initiative coordinating government, philanthropic, and community efforts to create the conditions for cis, trans girls of color and gender-expansive youth to thrive. Joanne’s leadership helped facilitate a $40M commitment from government and philanthropy to invest in community-driven recommendations. Joanne is the co-founder of The Black Girl Freedom fund #1Billion4BlackGirls Campaign, a 10-year initiative to invest 1 Billion dollars into advancing Black girls, and serves on several steering committees and boards to support the advancement of gender and racial equity.
Joanne is an alumna of Hunter Graduate School of Social Work and Columbia Institute for Nonprofit Management and is a board member of Nonprofit New York, Inc. She has co-authored Hey Shorty: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets. Girls for Gender Equity’s work to combat sexual violence is featured in the documentary Anita: Speak Truth to Power and Surviving R. Kelly Part II: & III. Smith has received many awards, including the Ms. Foundation 2018 Gloria Award as a Woman of Vision, the Visionary Award from A Call to Men for her leadership and commitment to Gender & Racial Equity, and See The Best In Me 2022 Equity Award from Gwen’s Girls. Joanne is married with a daughter and resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Salamishah Tillet
(she, her)
Scholar, Writer, Activist,
Co-founder of A Long Walk Home
Salamishah Tillet
A scholar, writer, and activist, Salamishah Tillet was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2022 for her work as a contributing critic at large for The New York Times where she has been writing since 2015. She is the author of In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece (Abrams, 2021), and Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination (Duke University Press, 2012). She was the co-host and co-producer of “Because of Anita” podcast with Cindi Leive of The Meteor. In 2022, “Because of Anita” won Webby and Gracie awards. She was awarded the 2020 Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction fellowship for her cultural memoir, All The Rage: Mississippi Goddam and The World Nina Simone Made. In May, she was named a 2021 Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for her next project, In Lieu of the Law: “Me Too’ and The Politics of Justice, a cultural history of the world’s largest social media movement. She is the Henry Rutgers Professor of Creative Writing and African American and African Studies and the executive director of Express Newark, a center for socially engaged art and design at Rutgers University – Newark. Upon arriving at Rutgers, she founded New Arts Justice, an initiative for feminist approaches to public art in the City of Newark.
With her sister, Scheherazade Tillet, she founded A Long Walk Home, an arts organization that empowers young people to end violence against girls and women. Salamishah received her Bachelor of Arts in English and African American Studies and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, her Master of Art in Teaching in English from Brown University, and her Masters of Art in English and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard University.
Scheherazade Tillet
(she, her)
Co-founder and Executive Director of A Long Walk Home
Scheherazade Tillet
Scheherazade Tillet is a photo-based artist, curator, and feminist activist who explores the themes of Blackness, play, freedom, trauma, and healing. She is currently the Executive Director of A Long Walk Home, a nonprofit that she founded with her sister, Salamishah Tillet, in 2003, that uses art to empower young people to end violence against girls and women. Tillet has dedicated her life’s work to Black girls, including those who have been marginalized by society and who are survivors of all forms of violence.
Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Weinberg/Newton Gallery, Project of Empty Space, Columbia University, and Rutgers University-Newark, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Cut, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Teen Vogue, ELLE Decor, Gagosian Quarterly, and Vice. She was a consultant for the Lifetime doc-documentary Surviving R. Kelly, the lead organizer of the #MuteRKelly campaign in Chicago, and curator of the #SayHerName Rekia Boyd memorial project. In 2022, she co-curated the “Picturing Black Girlhood: Moments of Possibility,” the largest exhibition on Black girls and genderqueer youth. Scheherazade is nationally recognized for raising public consciousness, changing cultural narratives, and advancing research and policy.
Teresa C. Younger
(she, her)
President and CEO of the
Ms. Foundation for Women
Teresa C. Younger
Teresa C. Younger is an activist, advocate, renowned public-speaker, organizational strategist, and a proven leader in the philanthropic and policy sectors. Having spent 30 years on the frontlines of some of the most critical battles for comprehensive equity and the elimination of institutionalized oppression, she now serves as the President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women. Prior to joining the Ms. Foundation for Women, Younger served as the Executive Director of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women and as executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut — the first African American and the first woman to hold that position. Younger is a thought leader at the critical intersections of gender and race. Within the philanthropic sector she has served on initiatives to shape and change the narrative of women and girls, including Grantmakers for Girls of Color, Funders for Reproductive Equity, Philanthropy New York and Black Funders for Social Justice. Additionally, Younger serves on a number of boards including the Ethel Walker School and Essie Justice Group. She has appeared on MSNBC’s UP with David Gura, NBC News, NPR Radio, Elle Magazine, Cosmopolitan, SiriusXM, and in USA Today, AP, Rewire, the Badass Women podcast, and the New York Times. Teresa is a graduate of the University of North Dakota and in 2018 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in Humanities from the University of New Haven. She is also a proud lifetime Girl Scout and Gold Award recipient.
