INTRODUCING SNAC THROUGH AN INTERVIEW WITH BOARD CO-CHAIR MICHELLE WONSLEY

We are excited to launch our first ever Sadie Nash Advisory Council (SNAC), with the purpose of supporting our mission, deepening our impact in the world, advocating on behalf of Nashers, and serving as ambassadors in our community to raise our profile.

We sat with Board Member Michelle Wonsley to learn more about her and the vision behind SNAC.

If you are interested in joining contact Samra Ghermay at samra@sadienash.org.

Michelle Wonsley’s (she/her) work has focused on critical analysis of people, organizations, systems theory, and competency-based behavior change. Her 20+ year career has been focused in the consulting, education, and non-profit management sectors where she has held executive leadership positions at both local and national non-profits. Prior to this round of strategy consulting, she served as the Executive Director for the Center for Racial Justice in Education (CRJE), a non-profit supporting K-12 educators, parents and communities in dismantling systems of racism in schools. Prior to CRJE, she led People Operations at DonorsChoose.org and was the founder of and principal consultant at LondonPlane Advisory, a consultancy that supports senior leaders in developing equity leadership competence. She has served as a facilitator, mediator, executive coach, and advisor to countless leaders across sectors and industries. In addition to her professional work, Michelle has had a long-standing commitment to service and social justice and currently serves as co-chair of Sadie Nash Leadership Project serving young women and gender-expansive youth in NYC and Newark.

Michelle earned a B.A. in Literature from Spelman College, and both an MBA and Masters in Industrial and Labor Relations, with a labor economics concentration, from Cornell University, where she was a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow and SUNY ILR Fellow, engaged in an individualized course of study on effective and ethical leadership.  Most importantly, she is a mama, a sister, and a friend.  She is grateful for the evergreen gifts of community and happy to serve in whichever ways make the greatest and most desired impact. 

Tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to join the Sadie Nash Board….

I’m a Brooklyn native, and I grew up in Bed-Stuy in the 1980s and 90s. At that time, folks had to be in a space of care if they wanted to be in the community. That has always been really important to me–finding my people. I decided to join the Sadie Nash board because it felt like these were my people. 

I am an alum of a different youth-serving program, so I am familiar with what it means to be in some version of cohort-based development for young people so I appreciate that experience. Perhaps one of the more salient parts of that program for me was a program they had focused on leadership development,” and that was where the seed got planted for me to think about who I was in the world, how I showed up, how I used whatever power I had available to me, the fact that I had power available to me.

The opportunity to help create that kind of experience of the self for other young people was really compelling, and when I met the other Sadie Nash board members, they were lovely! They were smart, funny, really hard-working, kind, generous, and again, just felt like my people. 

This is the first time we are having an Advisory Council. Why do you feel like it’s important to have one?

Sadie Nash is at this interesting inflection point where we have had strong board leadership for a while. That board leadership has been responsible for growing the funding and operating budget as well as the ecosystem of Sadie Nash supporters, which includes donors, funders, and growing the board itself. That’s a lot of tactical work, strategic work, and operational work, and we have the opportunity to zoom out to have more conversations about why Sadie Nash matters, with more people. I do think there is an extraordinary opportunity to invite more of those insights into the organization without the same requirement for engagement as the Board. There are legal responsibilities that we have as members of the board that are meaningful and important. But, for someone who is already committed to a lot of things, it can be a deterrent because it is an additional obligation. It's not a passive experience.

We need to have more insight into how Sadie Nash transforms and evolves to meet the needs of trans and gender-expansive community members in order to meet the needs of Nashers. While there is some insight on the board, having additional community members think deeply and critically about that on Sadie Nash’s behalf is also important. We are also mature enough now to practically implement an Advisory Council. I think it’s a sign of our organizational capacity to have one.

If we have an Advisory Council, those people also become ambassadors in multiple spaces. My hope is that they will find value and community in the same way the board does. Friendships have been developed. Siblinghood has been developed. Some professional networking has taken place. There is also an opportunity for some version of that to happen in an Advisory Council.

What do you envision for  Sadie Nash’s Advisory Council (SNAC)?

I’m hoping that the Advisory Council will advise both the board and the staff regarding things that are meaningful to our work. I envision that the Advisory Council can meet to discuss some of our existential questions, perhaps some of our longer-term questions, like: How do we continue to serve Nashers who serve the community over an extended period of time and in the face of the external threats and opportunities that arise? In brief, I envision that SNAC will advise! 

I hope SNAC offers a complementary perspective to the perspective of staff and the board. By introducing a third stakeholder group that has the best interest of the organization at heart, we create a more circumspect, comprehensive approach to how we care for the mission of the organization. 

Who should join the Advisory Council?

Different from traditional board recruitment, I don’t think there is a specific profile for a SNAC member. SNAC members can be anyone who have an unbridled passion for youth development, identity-based issues, social justice, and education. These are not necessarily people who have to work in any of those spheres. I don’t think that every member of the group needs to agree, but they do need to align, and the distinction I make between agreement and alignment is that alignment is a choice. 

Agreement is rooted in shared principles and shared values, and shared concerns. Those things, because they are a reflection of our individual life experiences and those may bump up against each other. But that does not mean that we cannot get beyond that. We may disagree, but we are aligned. Agreement is great, but it can be transient. Alignment is seeking to move in the direction of the other person's perspective so that you can take whatever action needs to be taken. 

I think what’ll be helpful to form the Advisory Council is to have folks who complement or supplement the representation we have on the board. We don’t have significant representation with artists folks who are currently leading social justice movements. We don’t have folks who are currently in the classroom. We need to know what is important to people beyond our own purview. There is always room for more wisdom and insight. Members of the Advisory Council can also serve as folks who are able to broaden our worldview and our aperture.

What can a future Advisory Council member expect once becoming part of the Sadie Nash community?

Expect to be dazzled in a certain kind of way. There is a wisdom that permeates Sadie Nash in particular. There is a great deal of care in every corner of the organization, a great deal of intentionality. 

My hope is that once someone becomes a SNAC member, that experience will leave them wanting more of the regenerative spirit of this organization. It is a well from which we can consistently be replenished, to be made wiser, to be strengthened, to be restored, to be in community, to be in discourse, to be in disagreement too. And yet, we leave those interactions more self-possessed, more critically conscious about the world, and more human.