Announcing Our Leading Us Toward Liberation Honorees

In October 2023, we asked our community members: who are the innovative changemakers who have touched your life and the lives of your community members? Who are the women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals who have fought for their communities and have yet to receive their flowers?

We received 86 nominations of incredible unsung heroes and beloved community leaders in the Greater Boston area. We assembled a Selection Committee of BWF staff, board, grantee partners, and community members to conduct interviews, research, and select our honorees. Our Selection Committee spent six months getting to know the nominees, their commitment to our collective liberation, and their impact on community. We prioritized individuals who have not yet received any awards or press, founders of one-of-a-kind organizations, and disruptors tackling racial, gender, economic, and social justice issues with an intersectional lens. These 40 honorees — our Liberation Leaders — emerged as some of the most innovative changemakers trying to create new systems for our communities to thrive.

We are so excited to present our 40 Leading Us Toward Liberation honorees!

Learn more about each of these incredible leaders on our website, and be sure to stay connected with us on social media as we uplift their work!

We hope you'll join us in rolling out the red carpet for these 40 Liberation Leaders!

Asha Abdullahi Executive Director of Somali Parents Advocacy Center for Education	Dr. Valerie Batts Founding Director, Senior Consultant, VISIONS, INC.
Jamila Batts Capitman Mental Health Counselor/ Youth Development Specialist/ Drama Therapist	Dara Kwayera Imani Bayer Co-Director of Cambridge HEART
Stefanie D. Belnavis Founder | Perinatal Movement Psychotherapist + Creative Wellness Practitioner for A Bucket For the Well LLC., Founder | Kinesthetic Storyteller + Portrait Photographer for The Diahann Project and Founder | Perinatal Photographer for Birthlooms	Keturah Brewster Executive Director of I Have A Future
Ivelisse Caraballo Founding Member and Executive Director of CPLAN	Cherie A. Craft Founder/CEO, Smart from the Start, Inc.
Angella Foster Director of Member Engagement and Outreach at Matahari Women Workers Center	Jamila Gales Founder | Executive Director of Girls Reflecting Our World
Krystal Elizabeth Garcia Deras Dance Movement Therapist	Dr. Perpetual Anastasia Adjwoa Baiswa Hayfron Humxn, Altruistic Hedonist & Black Feminist Scholar
Denise Barbosa Lane Co-Founder and Executive Director of Raising Multicultural Kids	Lisa Lazare Executive Director of Educators for Excellence
Pamela Aimee Leins Executive Director of the Boston Education Fund	Beth Leventhal Executive Director of The Network/La Red
Dorotea Manuela Organizer & Activist	Denise Matthews-Turner Co-Executive Director of City Life/Vida Urbana
Sandra M. McCroom President & Chief Executive Officer of Children's Services of Roxbury	Sam Montaño MA State Representative
Liz Najjar Executive Director, Shadida Solutions	Radha Natarajan Executive Director of the New England Innocence Project
Nickey Nesbeth Founder & Executive Director of Boston Girls Empowerment Network	Chioma Nnaji Senior Program Director at the Multicultural AIDS Coalition and Founder / CEO of Ocha Transformations
Clare Louise Okalany Chief Operations Officer - ACEDONE CDC	Miriam Ortiz Director of Education and Training, Just A Start
Kishana Osei Executive Director of the Massachusetts Women of Color Network	Camila Amanda Rojas Pineiro Pagan Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Beat The Odds
Stacy Reed-Barnes CEO & Founder of Stacy's Joy Consulting LLC	Aziza Robinson-Goodnight Founder and Co-Director of Repair America Collective
Shanique Rodriguez Executive Director of Massachusetts Voter Table	Ruth Rollins President and Founder We Are Better Together Warren Daniel Hairston Project
Ivanna Solano Founder of Love Your Magic	Joanne Christine Suarez Founder and Executive Director of Prospera Institute
Andrea Swain Chief Impact Officer, Boys & Girls Club of Boston	Olga Tacure Executive Director of Women Encouraging Empowerment
Magalis Troncoso Lama Executive Director of Dominican Development Center	Tiffany Vassell, RN Manager of Community Engagement & Communications of the Neighborhood Birth Center
Dr. Fatima A. Watt Chief Executive Officer, Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children	Anuradha Yadav Founder and Executive Director of Women of Color Entrepreneurs

Meet Our New Board Member — D.J. Baker

The Boston Women's Fund recently added new leaders to our incredible Board of Directors!

We are excited to welcome D.J. Baker (they/them) to the Boston Women’s Fund board! D.J. currently serves as the Program Manager at the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, one of BWF’s Community Impact grantee partners. Early in their career, D.J.’s work focused on food justice and access in economically disadvantaged communities. Later, they became a certified birth doula and their work has niched in working with queer and trans/nonbinary individuals and families. 

We connected with D.J. to learn more about what liberation means to them and the work they hope to do with the Boston Women’s Fund!

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Boston Women's Fund: What initially drew you to the Boston Women’s Fund?

D.J. Baker: The history of the Boston Women’s Fund is a powerful history and witnessing the leadership of Natanja, I saw a vision of the future. BWF is playing a crucial role in communities across the Boston Metro. The approach is deeply intentional, unique, and very personal with every organization and partner.

What are you most looking forward to in your new role as a Director of the Board?

Being in collaboration with other directors, the leadership, and staff. There’s a beautiful combination of talent, backgrounds, and simply personality in BWF. I am elated to share space and vision with the incredible women and people who make up this organization.

What does liberation mean to you?

Liberation, to me, means never-ending curiosity. Curiosity lets go of social constructs and barriers, and invites exploration to what has been and what could be. I love to think about how curious children are, and some may see naivety, but I see a willingness to new perspectives, new paths, and frontiers. I am always in awe of where a child’s mind goes because we adults fell out of practice of the curiosity we once had.

If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about philanthropy, what would it be?

The need of philanthropy, if I’m being truly honest. But because we do need it, I would change the tax-incentive. This challenges entities who do give to really work towards a collaborative self-interest and alignment to their values, rather than a tax front. It’s actually putting your money where your values are not where the tax-incentive or marketing convenience is.

What are two fun facts about you?

1. I am a certified Master Naturalist.

2. I am a twin, and his name is J.D. He also works in civic engagement and philanthropy.

What’s one quote that gives you life?

My grandmother used to say a lot of things — funny and inspirational — but my favorite quote of hers, “Do all you can, while you can. In all that you do, let it be good and let it be out of love.” This keeps me going, this would be my ethos.

Announcing Our 2024 Grantee Partners — $400K In Grantmaking and Sponsorships

This year, the Boston Women’s Fund is celebrating 40 years of radical giving and continuing our commitment to women, girls, and gender-expansive leaders across Greater Boston. We’re excited to announce that we’ve selected our 2024 grantee partners! We have awarded $400,000 in grants and sponsorships to 17 grassroots grantee partners and other organizations doing systems change work in Greater Boston.

Our grantee partners represent us and our communities — women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals who are Black and Brown, LGBTQIA+, low-income, youth, elderly, immigrants, refugees, and disabled. Of the 17 grassroots organizations selected as our 2024 grantee partners, all are led by women or gender-expansive individuals, 94% of whom are people of color, and 12 of them are volunteer-run. Together, our grantee partners collectively support over 900,000 people in the Greater Boston area through their programs, services, and policy work.

The Boston Women’s Fund is proud to go where other funders won’t, whether that’s providing first-time Executive Directors with their first significant grant, building spaces for grantee partners to develop their leadership in community, or having candid conversations about disparities in access and resources in the philanthropic sector. 

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“I am just super grateful for you all, the support and the love that you all have poured into me as a leader, and the ways in which you all create these spaces for us to be in community with other Black and Brown women leaders in the community. That's something that is so needed. It's not happening enough. But y'all are really paving the way when it comes to that, and I think, we're all forever grateful for it.”

— Ivanna Solano, Founder & Executive Director of Love Your Magic

“I think, generally, I just really appreciate your partnership, and it's been so eye opening, affirming, and also just really helpful for understanding not only how to navigate funding, but also how to dream and be imaginative, while also aligning that with programming and what our needs are. It's great to be in a space where you're investing in dreams and also encouraged to kind of make that concrete, and to see that in action with sustained support. So thank you.”

— Dr. Jallicia Jolly, Co-Chair of Birth Equity & Justice MA

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We’re honored to continue partnering with these leaders and support the innovative, life-changing work they’re pursuing in their communities. 

We are proud to support the following organizations as BWF’s 2024 grantee partners:

Abilities Dance Boston

Asian American Women's Political Initiative

Asian Women For Health

Association Of Haitian Women In Boston 

Birth Equity & Justice MA

Dominican Development Center

Eastern Woodlands Rematriation Collective

Essex County Community Organization 

Grimes King Foundation For The Elderly

Love Your Magic

Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition 

Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers

Melanin Mass Moms

Propa City Community Outreach

Sisters Unchained

Small House

Women Encouraging Empowerment

We have also expanded our sponsorship efforts and partnerships with organizations driving racial, economic, social, and gender justice. This fiscal year, we have supported the 2023 National Trans Visibility March, joined the Solidarity Philanthropy Learning Circle led by the Center for Economic Democracy and contributed to the Solidarity Economy Initiative Pooled Fund, and supported the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts in affiliation with the The National Philanthropic Collaborative of Young Women’s Initiatives, and more!

Find more information on our website. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin for stories on the change we and our partners are driving across Greater Boston!