BIPOC Nonprofit Leader Series
About the program
Leadership in our communities is more than strategy and deliverables; it is relational, cultural, and embodied. This series invites BIPOC nonprofit leaders — executive directors, staff, and board members — into a space designed for connection, reflection, and restoration.
A Restorative Space for BIPOC Nonprofit Leaders
Together, we will strengthen how we integrate culturally grounded leadership into our daily practice, aligning our values with our decisions and staying responsive to the ecosystems we are part of: our organizations, communities, histories, and our own bodies.
Participants can expect a safe and supportive container to connect honestly with peers, process the realities of leadership, and share lived experiences in a way that feels constructive and generative. This is a space for honest reflection, meaningful dialogue, and shared strengthening where we can name challenges, gain clarity, and build collaboration together.
Meet the people leading the conversation
Vickie Oldman
Vickie Oldman
Vickie K. Oldman is a founding partner of Seven Sisters Community Development Group, LLC; Principal of Kitseallyboy Consulting, LLC; and founder and host of the Real Native Roots: Untold Stories podcast. She also serves as Board Chair of First Peoples Fund. With more than 30 years of experience, Vickie advances culturally grounded, relational approaches to organizational development, specializing in strategic planning, governance and board development, leadership training, and executive coaching to strengthen Native, rural, and movement-based organizations. A nationally recognized facilitator and trusted capacity coach, she partners with foundations and community leaders across environmental justice, gender and reproductive equity, Indigenous sovereignty, housing, and economic development. Vickie holds an MSW from New Mexico Highlands University and a BSW from Arizona State University, and she is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, proudly carrying her clan, Black Streak of the Forest.
Oriana Lee
Oriana Lee
Oriana Lee is the founder of ESHE Wellness & Art, which helps people both personally and professionally to discover what they want, what's blocking them, and what works to move them forward. For over a decade, Oriana has been using the unique gift as a well-being coach to help clients come up with solutions so that they will be empowered to achieve successful results. As a coach, Oriana largely serves BIPOC and nonprofits, as well as partnering with local and national organizations to create "well work environments'' through mindfulness practices.
Angel Charley
Angel Charley
Angel Charley is a New Mexico State Senator, strategist, and facilitator whose work centers on community-centered leadership, systems change, and relationship-building. In addition to her legislative work, she leads Desert Rain Strategies, a consulting practice focused on communications, facilitation, and organizational strategy at the intersection of culture, policy, and community impact.
Angel brings extensive experience working with nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, Tribal communities, and public sector partners across New Mexico. Her facilitation style is interactive, grounded, and action-oriented, helping groups move from reflection and relationship-building into practical implementation.
Her fundraising training approach reframes fundraising as trust-building, storytelling, and long-term community engagement rather than transactional “asking.” Participants leave with practical tools, clearer messaging, and actionable strategies they can immediately apply within their organizations.
Phoenix Savage
Phoenix Savage
Phoenix Savage recently retired from Tougaloo College where she was an Associate Professor of Art and has relocated to Santa Fe, where she operates a small but highly successful grants management service for nonprofits. In addition to maintaining a studio practice as a sculptor, Savage directs the Santa Fe Community Yoga Center’s Yoga in Prison Project, now in its second year.
Savage received a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Georgia State University and holds two additional graduate-level degrees: Medical Anthropology from the University of Mississippi, and Art History from Northwestern State University. Savage received her undergraduate degree in Photography from Mississippi Valley State University, as well as having a degree in Advertising Design from the Art Institute of Philadelphia.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. She has received the Scholar-in-Residence award from New York University on three separate occasions for her research on Euphemia Toussaint, a Haitian American who left behind the only child’s perspective of 19th-century New York City.
Savage received the 2019 Humanities Council of Mississippi Teacher of the Year Award. In 2012 Savage was awarded the Being Humans Fellowship from the Institute of Arts and Humanities at Penn State University where she inaugurated the Human Touch Project. The United States’ State Department awarded Savage a Fulbright Fellowship in 2011 where she spent a year in Nigeria conducting research on the Yoruba concept of Ori, (human head) while also investigating metal casting in the ancient city of Ile-Ife. Savage also taught at Obafemi Awolowo University during her time in Nigeria. Savage maintains her relationship with Africa as Chief Yeye Olomo Osara of Ile-Ife, Nigeria where she is a contributing member of the Osara community. Here in the United States, Savage maintains her devotion to Osara, serving as psychic medium channeling Osara, the maternal essence of water.
Savage is widely known for her cultural writings: Peju’s Indigo appearing in the art catalog for the exhibition Peju Layiwola, Indigo Reimagined; University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria, 2019 and I Declare for the works of Tina M. Dunkley, Sanctuary for the Internal Enemy: An Ancestral Odyssey published by Wilmer Jennings Gallery of Kenkeleba House, New York, NY. Other works by Savage have appeared in the Encyclopedia of Slavery and Resistance, the Encyclopedia of the Blues, and the Encyclopedia of Mississippi. Savage has published two books: African Americans of Jackson, 2009 and African Americans of New Orleans, 2010, featuring community histories of two iconic cities in America.
In addition to her scholarship Savage maintains a strong record of national exhibits and art residencies. In 2022 Savage was the recipient of the REVOLUTION Artist in Residency with the Santa Fe Art Institute.
Meet the people leading the conversation
Meet the people leading the conversation
Vickie Oldman
Vickie Oldman
Vickie K. Oldman is a founding partner of Seven Sisters Community Development Group, LLC; Principal of Kitseallyboy Consulting, LLC; and founder and host of the Real Native Roots: Untold Stories podcast. She also serves as Board Chair of First Peoples Fund. With more than 30 years of experience, Vickie advances culturally grounded, relational approaches to organizational development, specializing in strategic planning, governance and board development, leadership training, and executive coaching to strengthen Native, rural, and movement-based organizations. A nationally recognized facilitator and trusted capacity coach, she partners with foundations and community leaders across environmental justice, gender and reproductive equity, Indigenous sovereignty, housing, and economic development. Vickie holds an MSW from New Mexico Highlands University and a BSW from Arizona State University, and she is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, proudly carrying her clan, Black Streak of the Forest.
Oriana Lee
Oriana Lee
Oriana Lee is the founder of ESHE Wellness & Art, which helps people both personally and professionally to discover what they want, what's blocking them, and what works to move them forward. For over a decade, Oriana has been using the unique gift as a well-being coach to help clients come up with solutions so that they will be empowered to achieve successful results. As a coach, Oriana largely serves BIPOC and nonprofits, as well as partnering with local and national organizations to create "well work environments'' through mindfulness practices.
Angel Charley
Angel Charley
Angel Charley is a New Mexico State Senator, strategist, and facilitator whose work centers on community-centered leadership, systems change, and relationship-building. In addition to her legislative work, she leads Desert Rain Strategies, a consulting practice focused on communications, facilitation, and organizational strategy at the intersection of culture, policy, and community impact.
Angel brings extensive experience working with nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, Tribal communities, and public sector partners across New Mexico. Her facilitation style is interactive, grounded, and action-oriented, helping groups move from reflection and relationship-building into practical implementation.
Her fundraising training approach reframes fundraising as trust-building, storytelling, and long-term community engagement rather than transactional “asking.” Participants leave with practical tools, clearer messaging, and actionable strategies they can immediately apply within their organizations.
Phoenix Savage
Phoenix Savage
Phoenix Savage recently retired from Tougaloo College where she was an Associate Professor of Art and has relocated to Santa Fe, where she operates a small but highly successful grants management service for nonprofits. In addition to maintaining a studio practice as a sculptor, Savage directs the Santa Fe Community Yoga Center’s Yoga in Prison Project, now in its second year.
Savage received a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Georgia State University and holds two additional graduate-level degrees: Medical Anthropology from the University of Mississippi, and Art History from Northwestern State University. Savage received her undergraduate degree in Photography from Mississippi Valley State University, as well as having a degree in Advertising Design from the Art Institute of Philadelphia.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. She has received the Scholar-in-Residence award from New York University on three separate occasions for her research on Euphemia Toussaint, a Haitian American who left behind the only child’s perspective of 19th-century New York City.
Savage received the 2019 Humanities Council of Mississippi Teacher of the Year Award. In 2012 Savage was awarded the Being Humans Fellowship from the Institute of Arts and Humanities at Penn State University where she inaugurated the Human Touch Project. The United States’ State Department awarded Savage a Fulbright Fellowship in 2011 where she spent a year in Nigeria conducting research on the Yoruba concept of Ori, (human head) while also investigating metal casting in the ancient city of Ile-Ife. Savage also taught at Obafemi Awolowo University during her time in Nigeria. Savage maintains her relationship with Africa as Chief Yeye Olomo Osara of Ile-Ife, Nigeria where she is a contributing member of the Osara community. Here in the United States, Savage maintains her devotion to Osara, serving as psychic medium channeling Osara, the maternal essence of water.
Savage is widely known for her cultural writings: Peju’s Indigo appearing in the art catalog for the exhibition Peju Layiwola, Indigo Reimagined; University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria, 2019 and I Declare for the works of Tina M. Dunkley, Sanctuary for the Internal Enemy: An Ancestral Odyssey published by Wilmer Jennings Gallery of Kenkeleba House, New York, NY. Other works by Savage have appeared in the Encyclopedia of Slavery and Resistance, the Encyclopedia of the Blues, and the Encyclopedia of Mississippi. Savage has published two books: African Americans of Jackson, 2009 and African Americans of New Orleans, 2010, featuring community histories of two iconic cities in America.
In addition to her scholarship Savage maintains a strong record of national exhibits and art residencies. In 2022 Savage was the recipient of the REVOLUTION Artist in Residency with the Santa Fe Art Institute.
Strengthening Grounded & Culturally Aligned Leadership
With Vickie Oldman
This session invites BIPOC nonprofit leaders into a space for reflection, connection, and shared learning. Through guided dialogue and experiential practices, participants will explore how to strengthen leadership that is grounded in cultural values, community relationships, and collective responsibility.
Rooted and Rising: Practical Tools for Small Nonprofits
With Oriana Lee
Leaders in New Mexico face unique challenges: balancing limited staff capacity, diverse cultural traditions, and rural realities. This session offers a blend of mindfulness and practical tools to support culturally grounded, resilient leadership. This event is free; registration is required.
Leading Toward Liberation: Indigenous Lessons on Accountability, Power, and Collective Care
With Angel Charley
Nonprofit leaders are navigating increasingly complex challenges, from staff burnout and organizational change to growing community expectations. This session explores how Indigenous values, collective care, and liberatory leadership practices can support more sustainable and values-aligned leadership.
Beyond the Assistant: Reclaiming Voice, Visibility, and Value
A 90-Minute Reflection and Empowerment Workshop for BIPOC Leaders with Phoenix Savage
This interactive workshop introduces the concept of "Assistant Syndrome" as a framework for examining how people-pleasing, overcommitment, and self-sacrifice can show up in leadership. Participants will have an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences, identify patterns that may be limiting their growth, explore practices that support greater self-advocacy and alignment, and create a personal action plan.
