Q&A with host Tanya Dawkins, two inspiring leaders interviewed, plus: what’s next

About Leadership Matters

KFLA is proud to host Leadership Matters, a new platform designed to inform and engage the KFLA community and other national and international stakeholders on important and emerging issues relevant to communities in the United States and globally. Leadership Matters is hosted by global-local advocate, policy entrepreneur and artist, Tanya Dawkins (KNLP XIV Fellow, KNLP XVI Advisor).

About Tanya Dawkins

Tanya is the founder and principal of Global-Local Links Project and New World Rising Studios. She is dedicated to engaging one of the most pressing issues of our time — what it means to build citizen and community power in an age of intensifying globalization(s).

Tanya is an experienced analyst, executive and consultant in the areas of leadership, policy, strategy and innovation for the common good. Her work has helped a wide range of local, national and international partners and clients map their strategic priorities, understand and interpret increasingly interconnected global and local phenomena and manage emergent issues and opportunities. As the artist at New World Rising Studios, she develops unique artwork, concepts and commissions inspired by community, family and movements for freedom, democracy and human rights around the world. Tanya is a Group XIV Kellogg National Fellow and host of Leadership Matters.

Introducing Leadership Matters!

KFLA: What is Leadership Matters?

Tanya: Leadership Matters is an exciting new platform for engaging the KFLA leadership network in exploring important and emerging opportunities for leadership, dialogue and action on the urgent issues facing communities in the United States and around the world. I’m excited to be the host of a platform dedicated to projecting the insights, voices and ideas of KFLA’s diverse, transnational network of leaders, activists, entrepreneurs, innovators, thought leaders and change-makers committed to leadership and action in the service of creating more just, equitable and sustainable communities.

KFLA: What format(s) will Leadership Matters take and what themes will you be exploring?

Tanya: Leadership Matters formats are as diverse as the voices it will feature. We’ll be broadcasting using podcasts and online live events that include one-on-one interviews, briefings, roundtables and more. The possibilities are, of course, endless, and we’re eager to include ideas and input from the network as the series evolves. In the coming months we’ll be exploring themes related to Race, Healing, Equity and Justice; Immigration, Health and Well Being; Art, Creativity, Community Development, Climate, the 2020 Census and more. Of course, children, families, communities and leadership are our connective tissue.

Perfect timing? I think so. We’re just getting started and the response has been great.

We launched with a powerful one-on-one conversation with Dr. Gail Christopher, Kellogg Foundation senior advisor and vice president for policy as our guest and featured leader for our inaugural episode. Gail joined me to launch the Race, Healing, Equity and Justice theme in the Leadership Matters series.

Gail and I discussed the recently launched Truth Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) enterprise, the first ever national day of Racial Healing — which will now take place each year on the Tuesday after Martin Luther King Day each year — and the ways that the foundation and it’s many partners are moving an ambitious agenda to advance racial healing in the United States. Gail offers a powerful and inspiring vision of the power of racial healing when it is rooted in truth, justice and love. 

Dr. Eva Moya, KFLA board chair and Associate Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at El Paso, joined me for a wide-ranging discussion on immigration as a human rights and social justice issue; how her fellowship experience has shaped and informed her academic research and community service in areas ranging from health to social work, participatory research and co-leadership. Eva also gives us a snapshot of today’s KFLA network, including the important and timely “CONVERSATORIOS” being hosted by KFLA’s Community of Practice on immigration. To quote Eva Moya:

“Our work is sacred and more important than ever.”

KFLA: What’s coming up and how can the network get involved?

Tanya: Up next? Lots! First, SIGN UP to get notified about new installments and the latest with Leadership Matters.

Then, be there on June 20th, 2017 at 7:00 PM (Eastern)/4:00 PM (Pacific)/11:00 PM (GMT) for a Leadership Matters LIVE online roundtable event on Race, Healing, Equity and Justice, featuring James Bell, civil rights/juvenile justice attorney and founder of the Burns Institute for Juvenile Justice, Fairness and Equity and Dr. Manual Pastor, professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity and director of University of Southern California’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE). Join us for a dialogue on leadership, movement-building, what’s changed and what hasn’t in the work of creating more just, sustainable and inclusive communities. SIGN UP here »

Leadership Matters welcomes input and ideas and invites the network to email us at info@kfla.org with suggestions for topics, speakers and themes for future installments.

KFLA: Anything else before we wrap up?

Tanya: I just wanted to say how excited I am about KFLA’s new Connected Leadership publication. I’m looking forwarding to contributing articles about Leadership Matters and reading the articles and contributions from other members of the network. Other than that? See you on the Leadership Matters platform and thank you!