Leadership Philosophy

Historically, nonprofits have operated under an executive director model,allowing one individual to hold significant power and influence over an organization and its external relationships. Such organizational structure creates an inequitable hierarchy of power that values the decision making, knowledge & expertise of one individual at the expense of others, while subordinating the wealth of wisdom, expertise, and diversity of the organizational collective. 

At the Transformative Justice Project of Colorado we explicitly recognize that we exist under an inherently racist, capitalist, ableist and patriarchal system that will take more than empty commitments to anti-racism to abolish. As such, we are obliged to operationalize our anti-racism, anti-oppressive & reindiginization values, vision, and goals. Our first step towards intentional anti-racism and decolonization is to adopt a shared leadership model, where we distribute decision-making power among multiple leaders,countering the racialized, gendered, ableist concentration of power that Western leadership models have historically embodied. At TJP we will move beyond hierarchies and do all we can to abolish them. 

Learn more about how we were inspired to shift to a shared leadership model