ABOUT US

Our Mission

We are all subjected to capitalist, colonial, imperialist, patriarchal, and individualistic paradigms.

We are putting the power back into the hands of the people by returning to Community, investing in our Youth, and redefining what Leadership looks, sounds, and feels like. It’s time we disrupt structural barriers that are the root of injustices, inequities, economical inequality, and social misery.

We do this by prioritizing community care and healing while equipping and empowering individuals, organizations, and institutions with the knowledge and tools to champion systemic change through cultivating spirited, wholistic, brave, and transformational spaces that honors the humanity of all.

Our Vision

We are disrupting traditional leadership and rebuilding community while nurturing a movement of multi-gendered, multiracial, and multigenerational community leaders who seek the courage to heal, stand in their authenticity, center their community, disrupt all oppressive barriers, and are committed to a journey of groundbreaking leadership.

LEAD THE WAY creates space for folks across all backgrounds, identities, and ideologies.

Our Change Values

  • Commitment

    We believe the first step to impacting change is to fully commit to the process of Groundbreaking Leadership.

  • Connection

    We believe the journey begins within, change starts with you. Our ability to connect with ourselves unlocks our connection with others. We must heal, discover who we really are, and recover our human being.

  • Community

    We believe our collective existence is a form of resistance, that our differences are not greater than our shared humanity, and when the people gather in one accord, greater is the impact towards healing, well-being, and restorative and revolutionary change.

“May those from under our feet breathe the warmth of community unto us so that the peace we seek mounts our bodies and sit on the chairs of our hearts, sprinkling love and joy around us all.”

–Prayer of the African Medicine Man

Our Leadership Philosophy

We define Groundbreaking Leadership as someone who loves, serves, and protects their community. An Anti-Oppressive Leader:

  • Centers the well-being, healing, and restoration of oneself and others

  • Communes with and values nature

  • Models grace for self and for others while having a willingness to change and be changed

  • Is responsible for one’s own feelings and accountable to one’s own actions

  • Reimagines what is possible and creates space for others to do the same

  • Has a deep and abiding concern for humanity

  • Rejoices and mourns with others, making their conditions one’s own

  • Invests time and resources toward the advancement of one's community

  • Seeks to identify oppressive and structural barriers, and inviting others to think of innovative solutions to remove them while honoring the humanity of all

  • Believes that education is about healing and wholeness and honors the needs of the spirit

  • Is committed to learning just as much as teaching

  • Establishes sacredness as the ground for learning where everyone is loved, uplifted, empowered, informed, and connected

  • Cultivates spirited, brave, wholistic, and transformational spaces where everyone is seen, felt, and heard

  • Takes time to pause, in order to reflect, be still, and be present (here now)

  • Committed to creating a just, equitable, and joyful world

Our guiding principles are grounded in and influenced by Black Feminist facilitation principles introduced by Adrienne Maree Brown in Holding Change, The Healing Wisdom of Africa by Malidoma Patrice Somé, and Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope by Bell Hooks.

Land Acknowledgement

Lead the Way delivers programs on the occupied lands of the Piscataway and Susquehannock, the Indigenous people of what today is known as Maryland, D.C. and Virginia. We recognize the history of colonization and its impact on first peoples. Find out whose land you occupy.