Meet the C4 Power Program Coaches
“Many people confuse coaching with giving people advice. In practice, coaching is an empowering process where the coach asks rigorous questions and provides sacred space so people can discover their own creative solutions.” (Excerpt from Coaching for Transformation by Lasley, Kellogg, Michaels and Brown.)
There are several components of Civic Health’s C4 Power Program (C4PP): training, peer-networking, travel. In addition, each grantee organization is paired with a coach to support their learning and growth.
Dancing Hearts Consulting (DHC), C4PP’s facilitator, hand-selected each coach to work with up to three organizations. Coaches support their organization’s planning and implementation process. Coach assignments were made after careful consideration of organizational needs and each coach’s areas of expertise, and success relies heavily on coaches and organizations building relationships of trust. DHC is excited to have lined up coaching contracts with some of the movement's best electoral doers and teachers. This dynamic coaching team brings a diverse set of organizing experience, mentoring approaches, and specialties.
Meet the coaches:
Alex Tom (paired with Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, NAYA Action Fund and Pacific County Voices Uniting) is executive director of the Center for Empowered Politics, a new capacity-building project that aims to train and develop new leaders of color and grow the movement’s infrastructure, particularly at the intersection of racial justice, organizing, and power-building strategies. He has nearly 20 years of experience in social justice organizing, including grassroots organizing, civic engagement and policy campaigns. Tom has been active in supporting grassroots, progressive social movements as co-founder of several organizations, including San Francisco Rising, a multiracial electoral alliance, and Seeding Change – a Center for Asian American Movement Building, a national project that includes building a national pipeline for the next generation of organizers.
Akili (Greg) (paired with SW Washington Communities United for Change, Washington County Ignite and The Ebony Collective Coalition) brings 45 years of experience as a labor, community organizing and political leader, working with organizations such as the United Farmworkers, SEIU, the Los Angeles Black Worker Center and the NAACP. He has worked on numerous political campaigns, both locally and nationally, including the presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson (1988) and Barack Obama (2008), and he has also served the staff of several prominent elected officials in California. Akili continues to work on the ground as well as develop new leaders for the movement for social change. He is currently the Director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute and a lead organizer for BLM-LA.
Minister Sheena D. Rolle (paired with Imagine Black and Unite Oregon Action) was born and raised in Orlando, FL. As the daughter of a pastor and a union president, her faith has always merged with the idea of a just world. She has been consistently devoted to connecting with people on a state, local, national and international level for nearly 20 years as a community organizer, public speaker, activist, trainer and minister. Sheena holds bachelor's degrees in both Political Science and English from Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) where she gained years of experience serving in campus and international ministry. Her ministerial call led her to Princeton Theological Seminary, where she earned a Master of Divinity degree. As a local and global leader and learner, she has studied and traveled throughout Europe, Africa, South America, The Caribbean and North America, dedicated to more deeply studying biblical text and its connection to today’s world. Sheena is the founder and lead strategist of the consulting firm FHJ Strategies and co-founder of the nonprofit The FHJ Institute, which shares radical love with world changers by focusing on Faith, Healing and Justice. She blogs at www.BecomingRevRolle.com. She’s a church girl, through and through, but her favorite sanctuary is at the ocean.
Lisa Castellanos (paired with Latinx Power Table, Unite Warm Springs and OneAmerica Votes) is a second generation Xikana born and raised in California by way of México and the Arizona Sonora desert. Lisa's over 25 years of organizing experience includes delving into issues such as immigrant rights, quality education in public schools, welfare and employment rights, housing and transit issues and economic citizenship projects. They have experience with membership structures, leader development, political education, policy work, grant writing and systems change. Lisa found their vocational organizing path through the Center for Third World Organizing’s (CTWO) Minority Activist Apprenticeship Program (MAAP, class of ‘88). They are a freelance trainer and coach, currently lend their expertise to reproductive justice organizations as a Grassroots Organizing Institute coach, as well as other social and racial justice and arts organizations locally and nationally. An artist and a runner, Lisa lives in Chochenyo/Huichin (Oakland) with their son, Abel, and a puppy named Sol.
Program participants are very excited to begin working with coaches and have a long list of questions for them already. Over the next few months NWHF will share highlights of how this piece of the program is going.