Cohort 7 (2023-2024)

Robin (they/them) is a multimedia storyteller, solidarity economy nerd, and tender plant tender. Their work involves bringing wealth stewards, artists and grassroots organizers together for culture-shifting and money-moving efforts–especially shifting the culture of how money moves. Their roles include co-organizer with Art.Coop, a steward of Creative Wildfire, and co-director of Cooperative Journal Media. They recently finished facilitating a pilot Reparative Retirement Practice Group about divesting from the stock market and planning a more collectively regenerative future, co-hosted with the Next Egg, Resource Generation’s Solidarity Economy Working Group and CJM. 

Their ancestors are from western and northern Europe and they’re learning to collaborate in repair. They are trans, queer, and making home at Canticle Farm on Ohlone Land, Oakland, CA. In this season of study, they are curious about watershed restoration, the history/future of non-extractive finance, composting toilets, and improv (and too many other things–they are very much a Gemini).

Xitlali Villa’s background has consistently been in social movements and sovereignty work. They are driven to support the creation of community-led, sustainable organizations and businesses that strengthen BIPOC ownership and wealth.

Throughout Xitlali’s career, they have conducted research with funding through the National Science Foundation and Fulbright, mainly on topics of post-industrialism, gentrification, land sovereignty movements, and environmental justice in the USA and Latin America. In addition, they worked with Indigenous and rural communities in Ecuador and Colombia, developing community-led digital media workshops.

In Baltimore City, Xitlali worked with the Black Yield Institute strengthening Food/Land Sovereignty in the neighborhood of Cherry Hill by coordinating the city’s first Black and Brown-led food cooperative. Most recently, she completed a fellowship with impact investment firm Mission Driven Finance, developing financing solutions for companies practicing Regenerative Agriculture in the USA.

The belief that economic justice is social justice has long shaped Veronica Vences’ service and commitment to the comunidad. As the Latino Community Foundation’s first Entrepreneurship Director, she is eager to scale LCF’s efforts in unleashing the economic power of Latinos across the state.

Veronica has built her career around examining the circumstances that create social inequities and creating ways to achieve transformative change. She spent four years with the Sonoma County Human Services Department’s Economic Assistance team where she played a critical role in deploying safety net programs that our community relied on during the 2008 recession. She has contributed to research and evaluation efforts domestically and internationally, including at 826 National and at Kari Grande in Cusco, Peru.

Most recently, Veronica served for seven years at La Luz Center, Sonoma Valley’s leading Latino advocacy organization. During the Northern California Wildfires of 2017 and COVID-19 pandemic, she witnessed the devastation of these events first-hand and led the culturally aligned distribution of more than $1.5 million in direct relief services through both crises.

Veronica received BA degrees in Economics and Urban Studies from San Diego State University and a Master’s degree in applied Economics from San Jose State University.

Born and raised in Sonoma County where her parents settled after emigrating from Mexico, Veronica knows that she stands on the shoulders of many who have sacrificed a great deal to pave her a path towards a better future. Her father is originally from Michoacan, and her mother is from Toluca. She visits often and hopes to one day have a home in Mexico with her husband and son where they will continue nourishing the roots they are ever so proud of.  

Maria Cherry Omírelekún Rangel (she/they) is an Indigenous cultural strategist, resource organizer, and racial justice coach from lands colonially known as Mexico and Morocco. With over 15 years of experience in resource organizing, transforming philanthropy, and a solid track record of guiding organizations of color to grow and scale, she currently serves as Director of Advancement for NDN Collective, where she works to resource the future of Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. As a resource organizer, Cherry’s advocacy has ensured that tens of millions of dollars have been redirected to Southerners, BIPOC communities, and TGNC and queer communities. With Ron Ragin, she co-authored Freedom Maps: Activating Legacies of Culture, Art, and Organizing in the US South which was instrumental in guiding philanthropy to resource Southern cultural work. Cherry was a 2019 Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow and serves on the boards of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (Board Treasurer), LOUD: the New Orleans queer and trans youth theater, and the Weavers Project.

Ever the proponent of the links between healing justice, liberation, ceremony, cultural remembering, and world building, she is an initiated priest of Yemayá in the Lukumí tradition, and is a water protector and movement healer.

Nolizwe Nondabula (they/them) is a queer Bay Area born, Johannesburg raised, Xhosa spirit. As a child of Black South African immigrants and keeper of horrible puns, Nolizwe brings over a decade of experience interconnecting financial curiosity, community engagement and racial justice to achieve greater impact. They currently serve as the Co-Director of the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP). BLMP uses leadership development, capacity building, and organizing to address the ways in which Black LGBTQ+ migrants are criminalized by the legal and immigration systems, and marginalized in the broader migrant community as well as racial and economic justice movements.

Nolizwe has a deep commitment to building critical connections and leveraging resources. They are passionate about transformative movement building practices that are rooted in reclaiming their connection to land, guided by movement at the speed of trust and centered in resilient community-based solutions. When they’re not basking in QTBIPOC joy, you can find Nolizwe recharging with the power rangers and/or turning inward to rest.