Writing Sessions and Retreats
Women of color leaders deserve spaces that honor their unique embodiment of leadership, offering ways to reflect with care and respect for their lived experience and impact. We ask that you connect to your inner knowing to understand how you evolved to the leader you are today.
Behind the Veil hosts virtual and in person gatherings for women of color leaders to write together, share meals and reflect on your leadership journey. With the bonus of sharing space with other amazing women of color leaders across the social justice and nonprofit sector.
Our writing retreat spaces offer low pressure, low-facilitation, creative space for WOC to grow as storytellers, orators, and writers.
For more information on joining the BTV community and participating in writing sessions and retreats, please visit this page.
Forums at Claremont Colleges (2017-2019)
In collaboration with the Claremont Colleges, Behind the Veil hosted a series of events centered on women of color (WOC) leadership from 2017 to 2019. Hundreds of students, community members, and faculty connected with executive directors and founders in the nonprofit sector through lunch panels, interviews, speeches and workshops. Behind the Veil created and co-sponsored the First Annual Women of Color: Power and Purpose Forum with the Kravis Leadership Institute and the Berger Institute at Claremont Mckenna College.
Women of color leaders often credit intuition for its effectiveness in personal and professional settings. But what is intuition? Former State Senator Holly Mitchell of California’s 30th senate district engages a curious community at Claremont McKenna College, defining intuition and explaining its integral role in any leader’s toolkit.
Archana Sahgal ’99 is a former Obama White House official and CMC alumna who works at the intersection of politics and movement building. Sahgal’s keynote speech for the Women & Leadership Workshop centered on her experiences navigating opportunities and challenges as a woman of color and finding inner and outer power through networking.
How do women of color create and sustain their leadership styles? Laura Jiménez executive director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, Aurea Montes-Rodriguez executive vice president at Community Coalition, and Eveline Shen executive director of Forward Together outlined their process and the way to forge a path for the future.
How do WOC navigate the worlds they seek to change? Three executive directors – Vanessa Daniel of Groundswell Fund, Isela Gracian of East LA Community Corporation, and Yin Ling Leung, formerly with Asian Pacific Environmental Network and Asian and Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health, discussed their leadership journeys and the external and internal forces that influenced them on this panel.
What fuels women of color leaders to become changemakers? Going beyond the visible and entering behind the veil, Tamika Butler, former executive director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, and Connie Malloy, former director at The James Irvine Foundation, discuss their leadership journeys, including navigating multiple identities, managing others’ expectations, and invisibility.
Behind the Veil 