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“It’s Everything, Everywhere, All At Once:” Rethinking the Check-In QuestionJuly 31, 2025 By Rosie Aquila | Program Manager, ProInspire These days, when someone asks me, “How are you?” my brain short-circuits. Not because I don’t have feelings, but because I have too many. The question lands fake or out-of-touch, and the only honest answer I can muster is either a dee…
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Liberatory Practice and Racial Equity: Three Perspectives on Leadership in Disruptive TimesMay 29, 2025 Written By: Bianca Anderson, Ericka Stallings, Jas Hall, Kristen Lucas, Nikki Dinh, and Shannon Ellis This is a collaborative knowledge product of CompassPoint, Proinspire, and Leadership Learning Community Introduction In 2025, the social good sector stands at …
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Rest in Practice: Emerging Lessons from our Rest FellowshipFebruary 28, 2025 At the start of the fellowship, many fellows carried a deeply held belief that “their worth was tied to productivity.” These sentiments were underscored by themes of our focus groups from our first in-person retreat that made space for self-exploration to guide personal reflect…
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Change is a Portal Towards PossibilitiesDecember 19, 2024 “All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change.” – Octavia Butler How do you resource yourself to be adaptable in transition? Through their creative medium of choice, our staff members Rosie Aquila, Neriel David Pon…
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Centering Care in Our ApproachDecember 17, 2024 By Camille De La Rosa This fall we released our Thriving Leaders & Communities report, featuring the insights and recommendations of 58 senior BIPOC leaders representing 39 cities across the United States. A year in retrospect since our three TLC convenings, I’m…
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Rest as the Way Forward: Black Women Reclaiming Rest in the Big EasyDecember 16, 2024 By Rachel Leonidas A month before the elections, the Black women and femmes of the Fellowship for Liberated Futures (FFLF) gathered in New Orleans to delve into the elusive concept of rest. Our second in-person retreat, Rest and Freedom Dreaming, was more than just an escape�…
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Leadership Transition Update at ProInspireOctober 3, 2024 Dear ProInspire Community, We are writing to share that we have reached another significant milestone in ProInspire’s journey. On December 1, 2024, Isabelle Moses will step down as co-CEO, and Bianca will step into the role of sole CEO, marking a new chapter filled with potent…
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Our Reflections on the Crises in the Middle EastNovember 9, 2023 This past month at ProInspire, we have been reflecting on the crises in the Middle East, particularly the events in Gaza. We have held one-on-one check-ins and engaged in open dialogues as a full team (about individual needs and our collective solidarity). We acknowledged the comple…
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Lessons Learned for Why a Teams-Based Approach Can Advance Equityby Monica Biswas and Rosie Aquila Monica and Rosie have partnered on the design and facilitation for three of ProInspire’s team-based cohorts. These reflections and learnings stemmed from their experiences, observations, and feedback from participants in these programs. April 20, 2023 ProInsp…
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Not Just Surviving, But ThrivingProInspire Exploring How We Step Towards Organizational Resilience by Ashley Bernal March 31, 2023 “Give Light and People Will Find the Way” – Ella Josephine Baker In my experience as a social scientist and advocate for racial justice, I’ve observed that racial equity is ana…
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Being and BecomingOn the Dawn of Transformation by Bianca Anderson February 15, 2023 ProInspire co-CEO Bianca Anderson expands on what “Being and Becoming” looks and feels like as the co-CEO of our growing organization in the midst of its own beautiful transitions. Enjoy the fourth and final blog ins…
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Reimagining Leadership: The Co-CEO Model at ProInspireby Bianca Anderson and Monisha Kapila January 17, 2023 Since publishing our Leadership Model for Race Equity Impact in 2021, our work has centered around supporting organizations and leaders with embodying practices that accelerate race equity in both outcomes and experience within their organizatio…
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Together We Thrive: 5 Elements that Define a Thriving OrganizationProInspire Director Monica Biswas shares insights from her work with organizations this year. She explores 5 elements she has observed across thriving organizations. Enjoy the third blog installment in our Thrive Through the Season and into 2023 campaign. In terms of commitment, thriving organizatio…
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Get On Board: How Centering Relationships Can Guide GovernanceIn the following Q&A conversation below, our Board Co-Chair Nancy Withbroe explores how the core commitment of Centering Relationships helps to guide board governance at ProInspire and shares tips around how other boards can use this core commitment. This is the second blog installment in our Th…
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Succession is Not a Dirty WordLet’s talk about succession planning. Given my Founder identity, I often think about how the organization thrives beyond me. This question isn’t exclusive to Founders, as we know that Executive Director transitions in general can lead to instability in organizations. But when I bring up successi…
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Part II: Exploring Identity with Founder Monisha KapilaPart two of this series picks up with a conversation Monisha has with a new cohort of ProInspire fellows in 2014. If you missed part one, read the complete blog here. In August 2014, I was sitting around a conference table with the new cohort of ProInspire Fellows. We had 15 fellows in the DC [&hell…
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Exploring Identity: AAPI Heritage & LeadershipProInspire’s AAPI staff opens up and answers how their racial identity and lived experience shaped their leadership. I identified most strongly with my Asian identity until witnessing 9/11 as someone with the last name of Islam. Namira Islam Anani, Director In order to lead forward, I’ve found I…
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Part I: Exploring Identity with Founder Monisha KapilaPart I of a two-part series on Exploring Identity with ProInspire’s Founder Recently, I had the opportunity to join the Catalyst Collective, a community of practice hosted by ProInspire for senior leaders of color, at the inaugural group’s final convening. Members shared stories about how th…
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How are we practicing Collective Reimagining?“At ProInspire, we have been creating space for people to share their individual experience, and then understand it through the eyes of a collective.“ At ProInspire, we took the last few weeks of December to reflect on what we did and learned through our work in 2021. As an organiza…
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Aligning Values: What’s Undermining Your Organization?“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”– Brené Brown Advancing racial equity within organizations builds upon the work of “Leading Self” and “Leading…
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A Conversation on Centering Relationships“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” – Lilla Watson and Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s Neriel: First, I wanted to ask you what the commitment…
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Exploring Identity: The Day I Found Out I was BlackPart one of our four-part Commit to Shift blog series I vividly remember the day I found out I was Black… It was in the Shaffer’s hallway, as the sunlight pierced through the glass front door. Moments before, I had been playing happily with Emily and Greg. I can still hear the sound of our…
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Self to Systems: Leading for Race Equity ImpactWe’re excited to introduce our newly released… Self to Systems: Leading for Race Equity Impact This model is based on research ProInspire started five years ago and supports individuals and organizations in identifying how their practices can create and sustain racially equitable e…
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This #GivingTuesday- We’re Saying Thank You!Your unwavering support and investment in our mission and vision of ProInspire have helped us expand our capacity to activate leaders and accelerate racial equity. Last year on #GivingTuesday, you responded to our appeal for support and helped us raise $42,000 to improve our internal capac…
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Supporting BIPOC-owned BusinessesThe reality of the pandemic has disproportionately impacted BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) business owners already contending with an existing economy mired with social and systemic inequities. Supporting small BIPOC-owned businesses and vendors, who often give back to their local commun…
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Observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day with Three Learning OpportunitiesOn Friday, October 8, 2021, President Biden signed the first-ever presidential proclamation declaring October 11 Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Today and every day, ProInspire acknowledges the vast contributions, sheer resilience, and rich culture of our country’s first inhabitants and their d…
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Earthquakes, Hurricanes, a Persisting Pandemic… Is it Time to Revisit Your Employee Benefits?As a Haitian American who currently has family on the ground in Haiti impacted by the recent earthquake, I am working through a lot of heartache and grief. Since the 2010 earthquake and before joining ProInspire, I have worked in Haiti, organizing mobile medical clinics and supporting disaster relie…
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Practical Examples, Personal Discovery and our Leadership PracticesThe importance of practical examples to contextualize race equity practices seems to be a running theme in our recent training and workshops. Last week we were invited by LeadersTrust, an organization that invests in people at the heart of change, together with its sister program, the Resilience Ini…
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Chronicle of Philanthropy Publishes Op-Ed by Co-CEO Bianca AndersonIn her op-ed, How MacKenzie Scott’s Gifts to Leaders of Color Fuel Transformation, published by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Co-CEO Bianca Anderson shares her reflections as a recipient of Scott’s unrestricted generosity and investment in BIPOC-led work. Bianca reflects on …
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Race Equity and Leadership: ProInspire Responds to the Generous Gift from MacKenzie ScottJune 15, 2021 “We are excited to share that ProInspire has received a one-time transformational gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. This unrestricted gift is the largest in our organization’s history and opens up the possibilities for us to deepen investments in ProInspire’s infrastructu…
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Board Insights on ProInspire’s Co-CEO Planning Process, Part II, and What’s Next for ProInspireIn a recent blog post Isabelle Moses reflected on the succession planning process, she led as ProInspire’s board Chair throughout 2019 and 2020, resulting in ProInspire’s founder, Monisha Kapila, becoming Co-CEO with Bianca Casanova Anderson, a shared model of leadership that officially began on…
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Holding Space When People Are GrievingThe past month has been filled with so much pain all around us and constant reminders of the harm that white supremacy causes every single day. Police killings of Black and Brown boys and men, mass shootings, anti-Asian violence, enduring Derek Chauvin’s trail and the re-traumatization of George F…