Strozzi Institute offers training for change making leaders, coaches, and organizations to embody pragmatic wisdom, skillful action, and grounded compassion; who use conflict as a generative force. https://strozziinstitute.com

Viveka Chen is an organizational development and transformation consultant, certified coach, facilitator, curriculum designer and trainer. For over twenty-five years she has worked for social justice. She specializes in guiding transformational processes: race equity and liberation work, team building and coaching, organizational culture, vision, strategy, change and working with conflict, leadership transition, alliance building, and innovation practice in collective contexts. Viveka enjoys a wide range of established relationships with leaders and organizations in many communities of color and across a spectrum of sectors including community-based organizations, grassroots base-building groups, coalitions, intermediaries, labor, government, academic institutions, and philanthropy. Much of her work has built multi-stakeholder collaborations.Viveka brings a strengths-based approach, a commitment to liberation and joy, and a deep grounding in healing practices. She is a Rockwood Leadership Institute Trainer an organization development coach for Move to End Violence, Ford BUILD executive transitions program, and LeadersTrust. She is affiliated with Change Elemental, RoadMap Consulting, CompassPoint, and Coaching for Transformation. Viveka also works through co-LAB, a black and woman of color organizational justice consulting collective co-founded with Maura Bairley and Monica Dennis centering race equity and liberation in capacity building.Prior to consulting, Viveka was Executive Director of the East Bay Conversion & Reinvestment Commission and Associate Director of Urban Habitat. Viveka is also a Buddhist meditation teacher appreciated for the calm, steady, and compassionate presence she brings to her work with clients.A diverse selection of associate consultants are available to partner with Viveka to ensure that clients receive the services and skills they need.

Viveka is partnering with The New School’s Tishman Environment and Design Center and Social Movements + Innovation Lab on the launch of the Environmental Justice (EJ) Movement Fellowship. The Fellowship will support the capacity of leaders nationwide to develop, scale, and implement disruptive strategies to advance systemic solutions to the urgent crises of climate change and inequality. Movement leaders will have the space, time, and resources to lean into radical approaches, and create new ones in a generative community of leaders.

Lead design consultant and facilitator, partnering with Community Change leaders Trish Tchume and Aida Cuadrado and evaluator Zuri Murphy, to create a cohort-based leadership program for women of color leaders in power-building organizations across the country. Power 50 completes its 2nd cohort in June 2020 and Viveka's role has shifted to a support and coaching role.

https://rockwoodleadership.orgSince 2000, Rockwood Leadership Institute has provided thousands of social change leaders across the globe with tools and skills to help change themselves, their communities, and the world. Viveka is co-facilitator of the Reproductive Rights, Health and Justice Fellowship, Art of Leadership for Women and Femmes of Color, and a co-designer of the Art of Innovation and the popular Art of Navigating Change offering.

The O2 Sabbatical Award honors dedicated Bay Area nonprofit executive directors with an essential break for rest and renewal. Viveka is a sabbatical coach working with the executive director and the leadership team at organizations receiving the O2 aware.

Viveka works with people purposefully creating transformative change in their own lives and for a socially just world. She is a certified coach drawing on over twenty years of experience working across a spectrum of cultures, communities, and sectors. Viveka is also a Buddhist meditation teacher offering a spacious and compassionate presence and holding a deep respect for the people she works with. Her coaching opens space for inquiring into what is present, honoring what is changing, discovering what is emerging, and galvanizing creative energy to bring new possibilities to life. Viveka coaches in nonprofit organizations and alliances, and works with individual leaders and teams. She coaches leaders in several cohort-based fellowships and leadership development programs (for example, Move to End Violence, Center for Community Change Power of 50 Women of Color Leadership Program, Neighborhood Funders Group & Aspen Institute CEO fellowship Philanthropy Forward, a Ford Foundation cohort for new women of color executive directors and the Momentum fellowship for BIPOC leaders newer to philanthropy). She specializes in change leadership, strategic visioning and planning, leadership development, and executive transition. Her work is rooted in her own experience of being an executive leader in several nonprofits and the broad range of organizations she has coached and consulted (community-based organizations, grassroots base-building groups, coalitions, intermediaries, unions, government, academic institutions, and funders).Viveka also enjoys life coaching with individuals looking to reflect, imagine, and make personal breakthroughs.She earned her certification in 2012 from the International Coach Federation accredited Coaching for Transformation coach training and certification program in an inaugural cohort devoted to working with social justice nonprofits and leaders. Viveka is also certified as a somatic coach through the Strozzi Institue.

Working to advance rights and create opportunities requires a combination of passion, leadership, and practical, can-do skills. The Haas, Jr. Fund launched the Flexible Leadership Awards (FLA) program in 2005 to provide social-sector organizations and their leaders with resources and support to become even more effective.As a Plan Consultant, Viveka is paired with grantee organizations to provide strategic advice related to developing and implementing a leadership development plan.Viveka also provides coaching and organizational consulting to FLA grantees.

Viveka is chair of the working board of this community based and community run organization. In her leadership role, Viveka has successfully established a shared leadership model for the Buddhist Center.The purpose of the SFBC is to meet the pressing need for wisdom and compassion in the world through sharing the Dharma, supporting ethical living, taking responsibility for our communities, and exemplifying the values of diversity and mutual respect.

https://www.nfg.org/philanthropyforwardNeighborhood Funders Group (NFG) and The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions launched a new leadership fellowship for CEOs of progressive philanthropic institutions. Viveka Chen is the lead design consultant partnering with Michelle Gislason as project consultants, facilitators and CEO coaches.The first cohort of 15 dynamic fellows will be the start of an annually growing network of visionary CEO leaders who share a belief in a model of community partnership that centers community knowledge and power building.Together, fellows will be strategic thought partners, with a dedicated space to organize together, boldly envisioning and advancing the transformed future of philanthropy. A future that centers and achieves equity and social justice. Philanthropy Forward fellows will be unlocking the challenges to philanthropy realizing its fullest role as a collective financial engine for social change.

Lead consultant and co-facilitator of capacity building assistance for the Ford BUILD initiative's first two years of executive transition capacity building assistance. A central program is WOC Leadership Rising, a leadership development program for a cohort of 19 new executive directors of BUILD grantee organizations.

https://www.movetoendviolence.orgMove to End Violence supports leaders in the U.S. movement to end violence against girls and women to step back from their daily work to envision the change they want to see, imagine new strategies, and build the capacity needed to realize this change. MEV provides the opportunity, training, and resources for individual Movement Makers, their organizations, and allies.

RoadMap is a national team of of 69 consultants across the country dedicated to advancing the power and promise of social justice organizations. We bring extensive on-the-ground experience, a range of complementary skills, and a diversity of race and ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and geographic backgrounds that is rare in the consulting field.

http://www.compasspoint.org/CompassPoint intensifies the impact of fellow nonprofit leaders, organizations, and networks as we achieve social equity together. We believe that nonprofit organizations and leaders need relevant support that builds on their strengths, experiences, and achievements and that those individuals and organizations that invest in increasing their leadership and management capacities are better poised to achieve progress.For over 35 years, CompassPoint has worked to carry out this purpose by guiding nonprofits as they become better managed, more adaptive, and achieve higher impact.

https://www.nfg.org/project_phoenixProject Phoenix: Connecting Democracy, Economy and Sustainability (Phoenix) is a year-long cohort collective learning program for funders who are:- Grounded in social and racial justice values and analysis,- Focused on how to practically achieve a just transition to a “new economy” and philanthropy’s role in that transition,- Interested in developing as “new economy” philanthropic thought leaders, in a cohort that is challenging itself to grapple with complex structural and intersectional issues and lift up viable pathways forward.Viveka's leads the design team that is translating the concept into programming and is facilitating the learning community process and events.

Viveka is lead faculty and design consultant for CoreAlign's leadership development programs including two fellowships that offer in-depth and immersive leadership development in innovation practices and race and power.​ The cohort-based, experiential learning design helps connect a network of leaders who work collaboratively to change policies, culture and conditions that support all people’s sexual and reproductive decisions.CoreAlign works to shift culture in the reproductive rights, health and justice movement toward innovation, collaboration and impact, with the ultimate goal of supporting people to develop and implement a long-term, emergent strategy fighting for the resources, rights and respect for their sexual and reproductive lives.

The Strength From Within - Environmental Health and Justice Capacity Building Program (Strength) is a three-year initiative to develop financially strong and organizationally effective and resilient small grassroots “anchor” organizations in the Bay Area region working at the intersection of environment, health and social justice in traditionally underserved communities of color. Strength’s evaluation-based design includes three years of sustained capacity building grants and a cohort support component that provides opportunities for training, sharing of tools and lessons, coaching, peer education evaluative learning, movement building and networking. A program evaluation is also being conducted.

TCE created this project to support existing grantees focused on health and freight transportation “to strengthen their individual and collective strength in order to effectively address the expected proliferation of massive infrastructure projects (including expansion, road building, bridges, and rail yards)."The project was based around a series of convenings to build the capacity of freight transport grantees in the areas of communication and messaging, grassroots leadership development, alliance building, strategy development and joint policy advocacy.The EH+EJ Consulting Group was selected from an RFP process to bring facilitation, movement building and process expertise along with content and policy knowledge.

PolicyLink is a nonprofit organization advancing a new generation of policies to fight poverty and achieve social and economic equity.• Managed human resources (35 employees) including recruitment and interviewing of staff, fellows and interns, compensation plan development, and policy and procedure development.• Coordinated administrative staff and resources to meet the needs of a growing $4M organization.• Managed grants reporting (primarily private foundations with one federal grant).• Managed budgets and expenses for administrative operations.

Urban Habitat Program (UHP) builds multicultural urban environmental leadership for socially just and ecologically sustainable communities in the Bay Area’s low-income communities of color.• Played key role in overseeing and defining programmatic strategy with staff and external allies.• Directed the organization’s management, planning, operations and organizational development.• Managed grants and fundraising.• Recruited, hired, and supervised multi-cultural staff with Executive Director.• Developed budget and provided financial oversight for a $900,000 annual budget (funded by private foundations, federal agencies, earned income, events and contracts).

EBCRC was a quasi-governmental regional planning body comprising 38 defense conversion stakeholders convened to address military base closures in Alameda County.• Developed programs, wrote grants, and managed budgets for $4.7M in federal funding, secured $250K local match. • Advocated and provide TA for community priorities including environmental clean-up, inclusive planning processes, low income and homeless housing and economic development projects.• Planned public meetings and outreach• Directed the organization’s start-up and operations.• Represented agency in negotiations with local and regional governments and public agencies.• Developed and advocated for federal legislation through Congressman Dellums’ office.• Competitively procured, negotiated and managed $750K in contracts with over 50 consultants.• Supervised a multi-cultural staff of nine people.

ASIAN, Inc. provides 1) small/minority business assistance, 2) affordable housing, and 3) program development services to the economically disadvantaged Asian American communities of San Francisco.