Reimagining what is possible when building just communities
aven Leadership Collective is an ideas lab that creates the ecosystems of support for queer and trans social impact leaders of color and allies to build just communities with greater ease, agency, and belonging.
Maven Denise Ghartey (she | her)
Maven Kyle Maharlika (he | him)
What if? Maven Leadership Collective began with the deceptively simple premise that if we are to change the narrative about justice-centered social impact then we need to change who shaped that narrative. What if we focus on people at the center of the work? Increased the agency of the communities most impacted by policies they had little opportunity to influence, but must live with the consequences? What was initially a training-forward model has evolved to become a robust ecosystem of support that includes coaching, funding, travel. At its core, our approach has always centered queer and trans social impact leaders of color, encouraged experimentation and play.
Ideas must have the audacity to exist.
t is an act of liberation. The unhurried, uninterrupted, deliberately lush, iterative and expansive endeavor of pulling a conceptual thread with no other intention but to see where it takes us, is increasingly a pursuit that is off limits. Despite the indisputable benefits of capacity-building—the art and science of reimagining how to do what we do better—for many queer and trans social impact leaders of color, the urgent call to do supplants the need to daydream and experiment. The lack of financial and professional resources preclude it.
Collaborative professional development for impact leaders at critical junctures in their career or organization’s development experiences. Click here to learn more.
In-person and digital opportunities to prioritize individual care and collective healing while celebrating Black and brown bodies.
On-demand professional development and well-being resources. Click here to learn more.
Initiatives
Learning, Healing & Catalytic Sponsorship
Maven Leadership Cohort
The Maven Leadership Cohort experience is a four-month gateway to lifelong professional development support. Our focus is mobilizing peer learning, site visits with practitioners, meaningful connections, coaching, and well-being to catalyze creative solutions for shifting culture and protecting democracy.
Maven Camp
Maven Camp is a weeklong respite where social impact leaders, creatives, and other change-makers reclaim restorative healing traditions and reimagine strategies for interrupting failing systems.
Creators Studio
Creators Studio is a rigorous ideas vetting intensive that assists people who have a variety of professional aspirations to determine if their good idea is not only a viable idea, but a sustainable one.
Maven Vitamins
Maven Vitamins create unique well-being experiences for queer and trans communities of color to celebrate all bodies, move, and ground more consistently. In-person and digital practices combined with practical resources
Maven Digital Library
The Maven Digital library is a collection of original audio, video, articles, micro-learning sessions, and movement/meditation classes all curated to nourish self-paced learning and well-being as a companion resource to our other initiatives.
Maven Rising
Maven Rising is a very special annual gathering where meaningful connections, artistic expression, and learning spark discovery and collaboration for social impact leaders who are building more just communities
Consistent Gardeners
Consistent Gardeners engages artists with a social practice and creatives leading cultural organizing and narrative change. Through commissions, incubators, residencies, and collaborative productions, Maven creates opportunities for more expansive expression and experimentation.
Linkages/Enlaces
Linkages/Enlaces is an important element of our QTPOC Well-being Initiative. It is a community initiative designed and led by people living with HIV to encourage innovative approaches to expand professional networks, reduce stigma, inspire intersectional advocacy, and informed culture shift. We achieve consistent impact by integrating training, strategy sessions, convenings, referral resources, and narrative work.
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Planting Seeds
What If
Maven invited us to reimagine how communities thrive when we are intentional about creating a robust ecosystem of support for talented QTPOC social impact leaders in the areas of civic engagement, economic independence, health equity, access to the arts and public education. It incorporates and begins planning how to become an effective community resource.
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New Beginnings
Redefining Leadership
Maven invites its first group of extraordinary social impact leaders to form a learning community in South Florida after gaining its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization. Our team organized impactful workshops, arts & culture events, community dialogues, and well-being activities at no cost to participants–a practice that continues today for all initiatives.
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Growth
Thinking More Expansively
As word spread about Maven’s impact in providing operational skills, deeper professional connections, and wellness activities, additional opportunities to build community arise. We launched our first cohort in Central Florida, provided organizational support in Boulder, Colorado, and convened change agents who are building more just communities in Miami for our first Maven Rising.
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Impact
Elevating Equitable Impact
Recognizing a need to support Mavens who are scaling their community initiatives, we launched our first advanced learning lab. Maven also elevated stories of alumni success in our first annual Impact Report.
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Rest
Centering Greater Ease
Building on the momentum of a growing community well-being initiative, Maven increases access by building a digital platform and institutes Maven Camp, a gathering where leaders unplug, share big ideas, and focus on individual care and collective healing.
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Milestone
Celebrating 5 Years
Our anniversary year was special in that we were joined by our first multi-city professional development cohort and traveled internationally; produced creative digital content to influence the equity narrative and increase access to learning beyond the classroom; and expanded our ecosystem of support to include extraordinary leaders in North Carolina.
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New Chapter
Maven enters a new era of reimagining what is possible in building more just communities when leading with experimentation and values-aligned collaborations.
Maven expanded access to our signature leadership initiative, Maven Leadership Cohort and conducted a single regional cohort for change agents in Florida and North Carolina.
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Our Values
Maven Leadership Collective is an ideas lab that creates the conditions for Black and Brown social impact leaders who are queer, trans and allies. As an organization we commit to prioritizing:
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- Multi-year commitment to providing an ecosystem of support for practitioners in our learning community.
- Building a community of lifelong learners, exchanging ideas and reframing the leadership narrative through practice–based on meaningful relationships and a culture of care.
- Holding sacred space for individual and collective healing that restores the covenant of trust that must exist for those in service to each other and community.
- Identifying financial resources that are values aligned with our work and trusting our learning community to connect them to opportunities with true promise.
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Maven Iman Clark (she | her)
In Conversation with Amani Lewis
Artist Amani Lewis (they|them) speaks their mind. At a recent Commissioner event they shared candid insights on the business of art making and the personal journey they are on during an intimate conversation with Corey Davis, Maven’s founder & creative director for Commissioner. Artists, collectors, enthusiasts, and culture workers filled the Mindy Solomon Gallery marking the close of Amani’s latest show, “Chapter One: The Mind in Chaos Meets the God of Clarity” on Saturday, November 23.
‘Bad Poems’ Makes Good
In the heart of Miami, on an unassuming Thursday evening, multidisciplinary artist, Arsimmer McCoy (she|her) posed a daring question to the audience inside of the dimly lit Red Rooster Pool Hall. Located in Miami’s historic Overtown community–once hailed as the “Harlem of the South”—people cozied next to each other on velvet couches listening intently to McCoy as she asked: “What do you defy? And what do you demand?”
Entry #4- “The Gift of Me: Reclamation”
I was 22 years old when I “came out of the closet” to my parents. I had just moved back to Miami after graduating from Florida State University. Like most young people, my time in college provided me the opportunity to explore new parts of myself freely and far away from possible judgment of those who had known me all of my life. For me, this included interrogating the feelings that I’d held for years deep down regarding my sexuality. During my time in school, I created a life where I experimented with who I was and who I Ioved. I found a supportive community who was there to help me through the journey of discovering (and loving) my queer identity. By the time I graduated, identifying as a Black, queer woman became one of the most important parts of myself.