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Welcoming our first ever Program Operations intern!

In September, re:power welcomed Isabella Guinigundo (she/her) as our first-ever Program Operations Intern! Isabella is a Filipina organizer from occupied Myaamia lands (so-called Cincinnati, OH). She got her start in organizing early on when she led Cincinnati’s Young Activists Coalition at 17 years old. In 2019, Isabella helped develop the national youth climate movement as a member of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike’s Logistics team. And during the 2020 election, she led AAPI voter engagement efforts with Ohio Progressive Asian Women’s Leadership. Isabella is a co-founder of Ohio Youth for Climate Justice, a youth-led, anti-capitalist movement fighting to address the climate crisis with the focus and urgency that it deserves. 

When she’s not causing trouble for people in power, Isabella enjoys baking, reading, and long walks in the park. Presently, she is a third-year student at The Ohio State University studying Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Science & Environmental Communications. 

Isabella Guinigundo

Announcing our new Director of Strategic Communications & Marketing, Victor Suarez

Victor Suarez

Our newest staff member, Victor Suarez (he/him) joined our team in September as our Director, Strategic Communications & Marketing! Victor is based in Pasadena, CA and for the past 7 years, has worked at the intersection of electoral campaigns, narrative strategy, and digital organizing. Before joining the re:power team, Victor was the Strategic Communications Director at California Calls, a progressive statewide alliance of community-based organizations. There he led communications campaigns in support of statewide ballot initiatives, public education campaigns, and year-round power building.

Victor began his career in communications working in the political tech space. He served as an Account Executive at NationBuilder where he worked with political campaigns and non-profits in the U.S and Latin America. And he is an alumnus of re:power’s Digital Organizing School! Victor is a proud Angeleno and the son of immigrants from Mexico. He is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He lives in Pasadena with his incredible partner and their two cats, Simba and Mochi.

Welcome Heidi Gerbracht, our new PGA Director!

Heidi Gerbracht

re:power Fund, along with our partners at Local Progress and State Innovation Exchange (SiX), are thrilled to announce our newest staff member—Heidi Gerbracht (she/they) as the Director of the Progressive Governance Academy (PGA). 

The PGA is a shared venture of three values-aligned organizations committed to training, supporting and enhancing the capacity of elected officials to govern, all while building the larger progressive movement. re:power Fund, Local Progress and SiX jointly launched the PGA in 2019 after seeing the significant and unique opportunity for the progressive movement to build infrastructure it has long been lacking: a national hub for training legislators. The program  supports newly elected leaders to successfully transition into governance and deepens the expertise of incumbents to build and strengthen the bench of leaders our country needs to ensure a thriving multiracial Democracy. 

The PGA strengthens elected officials’ capacity to govern by providing them with critical skills, training, and a supportive community of practice. Our curriculum emphasizes an organizing approach to governance, including training on skills like power mapping, relational organizing, and coalition building. We also focus significantly on models for collaborative and inclusive governance, working towards a new vision for progressives to hold and exercise governing power.  

In her new role as Director, Heidi will be leading the PGA as the project enters a new era with solidified support and infrastructure. The PGA will continue to offer meaningful training to local and state elected officials across the country and will also seek to strengthen the networks of local and state officials to work together in meaningful ways. 

“We are excited to welcome Heidi to our incredible team and know she is exactly the right leader to further cohere our shared vision and leverage our collective resources to  create the most powerful iteration of the PGA,” says Karundi Williams, Executive Director of re:power and re:power Fund. 

Welcome Heidi! We’re so excited you’re here!

“We are excited to welcome Heidi to our incredible team and know she is exactly the right leader to further cohere our shared vision and leverage our collective resources to  create the most powerful iteration of the PGA.”

Karundi Williams, re:power Executive Director

About Heidi

Heidi Gerbracht is a policy and local government expert and strategist with nearly two decades experience working on equity and justice using an intersectional approach.  Her career has involved the full spectrum of democracy, from recruitment to training to elections to policy and programs.

She founded and directed the nonprofit consultancy Equity Agenda, which works with city governments and mission-aligned nonprofits across the country using an intersectional approach to assess gender equity in their communities and to develop and implement policy and programs to achieve equity for all. Equity Agenda partnered with Mayors Innovation Project in January 2020 to launch the Women Mayors Network, which provides resources and support to nearly 200 diverse women mayors from cities of every size across the country. Previously, she developed, launched, and managed a successful national environmental health program called Bright Cities and was a public servant at the City of Austin in various capacities for nearly a decade where she spearheaded successful passage of several progressive policies that were the first of their kind nationally.

She is a past Board Chair of Annie’s List, an organization that recruits, trains, and elects progressive women who support abortion rights at the state and local level in Texas. Her leadership as Board Chair resulted in the organization’s Board of Directors surpassing fifty percent representation for women of color for the first time in the organization’s history, better reflecting the Texas population. Annie’s List also hired its first Black woman Executive Director during her Board Chair tenure, and their partnership created the space for Annie’s List to be the powerful multiracial coalition that it now is. Heidi is also the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, a state-driven national organization that builds power and sustains a young people’s movement for reproductive justice by centering the leadership of young people of color who are women, queer, trans, nonbinary, and people of low-income.   

Heidi has trained candidates for local office as well as current local officeholders, and regularly serves as a campaign consultant for city-level candidates who are part of the New American Majority: women, people of color, young people, and LGBT candidates in particular.

Heidi holds a Masters in Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a B.A. in International Relations from American University’s School of International Service.  She lives in Austin Texas.

Mercedes Fulbright Joins re:power As Director Of Civic Engagement Programs

re:power is excited to welcome Mercedes Fulbright as its new Director of Civic Engagement Programs. In this role, Mercedes will manage a portfolio of civic engagement programs—including campaign management and public leadership—to train and support field organizers, campaign leaders, and candidates.

An experienced and respected voice on political strategy, racial justice advocacy, grassroots, and electoral organizing, and public policy, Mercedes is a Southern Queer organizer, political strategist, and DJ. She formally led the Texas Working Families Party as Organizing Director. Based in Dallas, she is also a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. 

“Mercedes is a leader with deep ties to the movement and civic engagement spaces,” said Karundi Williams, re:power’s Executive Director. “We are excited to have found in her a leader who not only understands the challenges facing so many of our communities but who has rich experience in building coalitions and mobilizing activists in those same communities.”

re:power’s Civic Engagement training and support focus on campaign preparedness for electoral campaigners and for candidates ready to run for public office, as well as training individuals on managing campaigns and working on local and federal campaigns. Mercedes will be tasked with building upon existing civic engagement offerings while also developing innovative and impactful ways for participants to grow their skills, reflect, build community and receive peer-to-peer learning and support as re:power alumni.

“I am excited to support the capacity and leadership of grassroots organizers and activists, and for participants to envision ways to utilize electoral organizing and civic engagement as a base-building tool to build power for communities that have been pushed to the margins.”

Mercedes Fulbright

About Mercedes

During the 2020 summer uprisings, Mercedes co-founded a formation of organizations and emerging organizers called In Defense of Black Lives Dallas. She helped to elect a Democratic Socialist from Texas to Congress during the 2022 Democratic Primary as Texas WFP’s Organizing Director. She also established the Texas chapter of Local Progress, a national network of progressive municipal elected officials, as the Texas State Coordinator.  

Mercedes is also a political strategist and founding table member of the Electoral Justice Project with the Movement for Black Lives. Outside of political organizing and movement building, Mercedes is a DJ under the moniker ‘Saint Cedes’.

You can follow her on both Twitter for political hot takes and on Spotify for her custom playlists to energize your spirit and the movement @SaintCedes.

Ateira Griffin Named re:power’s New Director of Women of Color Leadership Programs

re:power is excited to welcome Ateira Griffin as its first Director of Women of Color Leadership Programs. In this role, Ateira will engage re:power’s self-identifying women of color alum and vision and implement programming that supports and uplifts the work of women of color organizers.

A life-long Baltimore City resident, educator, facilitator, community organizer, and writer, Ateira is the founder and CEO of BOND—Building Our Nation’s Daughters, Inc. which mentors single mothers to cultivate positive mother-daughter relationships and increase their economic mobility two generations at a time. 

“We’re excited to have Ateira join our team, and help us further our work to build a truly inclusive political system in this country,” said Karundi Williams, re:power’s Executive Director. 

“We needed a leader who understood the challenges women of color face, at every level in their careers. Someone who deeply understands that, when Black, brown, and Indigenous women lead, we all win. We needed someone who could develop this framework with our partners and our communities and, with intentionality, center women of color and our leadership on the campaign trail, in the chambers, in the streets, and everywhere in between. I am beyond proud to say we have found that leader in Ateira.”

While this is a new position within re:power, the focus on women of color leadership is not. re:power has spent the last several years reflecting on how the intensifying nature of opposition has required quick skilling up and deeper commitments to ethical and effective leadership. The Women of Color Leadership Programs is designed to meet this moment, by centering the needs of one of the most marginalized groups among us: women of color. The efforts to come out of this new program area will create space for skills building, reflection, community building, and peer-to-peer learning and support.

“Liberation movements, and the people who power them, face both unprecedented opportunities to win and grave threats. Women of color are on the front lines, showing up every day to fight for all of us. It is our duty to ensure they have a safe space to learn, develop and build. I’m excited to help create that space within re:power.”

Ateira Griffin

About Ateira

Ateira earned her bachelor’s in civil engineering from Morgan State University and a master’s in secondary education along with a certificate in school leadership and administration from Johns Hopkins University. She previously served as a K-12 educator and school administrator and has authored and facilitated leadership training for adults across the nation serving as Director, Regional Leadership Development with Leadership for Educational Equity.

While serving as Director of Civic Engagement in the 1st District of Baltimore’s City Council Office she played a key role in organizing the “Back on the Bus” campaign for two extra hours of free student MTA ridership, organized the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund Community Forum, passed the Transparency in Lobbying Act, and led Baltimore Rising, a 7-week free organizing and advocacy training for Baltimore residents. Most recently, Ateira testified at Congress for fair housing policies amplifying the Fair Housing Act’s impact on Black single mothers and women of color.

Currently, Ateira serves on the board of Teach For America—Baltimore and The Unity Hall in West Baltimore. She also serves as a school board commissioner for Baltimore City Public Schools. Ateira was awarded the 2019 Echoing Green Fellowship in recognition of her leadership and her work with BOND. Ateira also co-hosts Point of Hue, a podcast by and about women of color.