Trish Adobea Tchume is a first-generation Ghanaian-American, a Brooklynite, a proud auntie, and a beach stan. She works closely with organizations to explore, define, and support leadership and organizational approaches that prefigure a world where all of us can thrive via her roles with the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Liberatory Leadership Partnership. Trish devotes her volunteer time to dope spaces that teach her about all the beautiful ways we can belong to each other, like the Diaspora Bridge Fund, the Central Brooklyn Food Coop, Change Elemental, and the New York Foundation. She thinks you are a gift.

Ese is the Global Network Weaver for the Global Fund for Community Foundations. In her role, she works with and helps to strengthen connections across GFCF’s global network of community philanthropy and civil society partners. She also works with allies in the #shiftthepower movement around shaping broader advocacy, influencing and engagement efforts involving other parts of the mainstream development sector. She has spent the past 20 years working in the international development field, including leading a participatory, community-based model of grantmaking for sustainable development.

Ericka fosters beloved community by listening to the wisdom of everyday people and sparking the collective imagination. She explores how participatory processes can be used to build resource distribution systems that value the voices, experiences, and contributions of every community member. Her experiences as a democratic educator and community organizer give her a deep belief in the potential for curiosity, creativity, and leadership that lives within each person. She dreams of infrastructures that cultivate the full potential of emerging Black visionaries.