The Leading Edge Fund supports emerging movement leaders by providing unrestricted funding and leadership development so that they can pursue the bold visions for change that lasting transformation demands. Fellows receive $250,000 in general support over three years; individualized technical assistance in program development, fundraising and strategic communications, executive coaching; and trainings and retreats.
The 2022 to 2024 formation of Leading Edge Fund Fellows are:
- Aria Sa’id aims to end the ecomomic oppression and marginalization of transgender people by creating thriving economic hubs led by and for transgender people of color.
- Cat Brooks is revolutionizing public safety in cities across the state by engaging visual arts, theater and organizing to imagine and implement abolitionist solutions to effectively respond to community crises with care – not a badge and a gun.
- Chaney Turner is working to win tax and policy changes so people in the communities most harmed by the drug war can enter the cannabis economy, and realize equity and economic mobility by increasing reinvestment in those communities.
- Christina “Krea” Gomez’ vision is replacing punitive and dehumanizing systems with a comprehensive new architecture that provides young people with the support and resources they need to address their trauma, heal and thrive.
- Jackie Byers is inspiring radical change through grass-roots organizing, telling the story of Black organizing that led to historic victories and a national reckoning around the role of police in schools and communities.
- Malkia Devich Cyril is creating a Radical Loss Movement, mobilizing California’s bereaved Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color to build a radical practice of grief that can fuel transformative grievance and governance, replacing racialized policies and practices that punish and disenfranchise BIPOC grief.
- Nicole Lee is working to end youth incarceration in Alameda County and pass that torch to the next generation of activists who are reimagining an entirely new youth justice system across California.
- Shimica Gaskins vision is to close the racial wealth gap and create economic mobility for California’s most vulnerable children by piloting the largest baby bond program in the country.
Foundation Partners
Launched in 2016, the Leading Edge Fund supports emerging movement leaders by providing unrestricted funding and leadership development so that they can pursue the vision for change that deep transformation demands. The fund is generously supported by the Rosenberg Foundation, Hellman Foundation, Meadow Fund, Akonadi Foundation, The California Wellness Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation and The California Endowment.
