People make progress

Monica Rickert-Bolter is a Chicago-based visual artist and journalist of Potawatomi, Black, and German descent. Her artwork consists of traditional mediums, such as charcoals and pastels, graphic design, and digital coloring to creating expressive characters and telling their diverse stories. After receiving her undergrad in Media Arts and Animation, Monica became more involved with Native nonprofits, where she combined her love of art and education to develop programs and resources for children. She worked with Chicago Public Schools to create a new interdisciplinary Latino and Latin American Studies curriculum incorporating Indigenous history and contributions. Passionate about storytelling through art and writing, she advocates for cultural representation in any project she undertakes and serves as a consultant for various institutions and organizations, like The Field Museum and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Monica writes under the pen name “Whitepigeon,” her family name, for online publications related to Native issues, creatives in the entertainment industry, and Indigenousowned businesses. In 2020, she completed two children’s books as illustrator and layout designer, Journey of the Freckled Indian by Alyssa London and J.W. The Deaf Drummer by Myles Hunt. The following year, Monica co-founded the Center for Native Futures, a nonprofit for Natives in the arts, with a fellow artist group to nurture, elevate, and advocate for Indigenous Futurists. Currently, she participates in the Hyde Park Art Center’s Center Program and serves as an Embedded Artist for “Imagine Just,” an anti-racist arts community project in collaboration with Enrich Chicago and Greater Good Studio.

Roderick Sawyer has always been artistically inclined, but it wasn’t until he started taking photo/video classes in high school that he knew he wanted to continue to navigate the world as an artist. Sawyer started attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013 and began to combine his visual work with writing through the completion of a thesis titled “The Power of Personal Narratives Within Black and Brown Communities Through Graffiti” for his undergraduate degree in the BA in Visual & Critical Studies program. After graduating in 2018, Sawyer decided to take time off from school and began working as a Children’s Associate in the Chicago Public Library to learn about early literacy, explore his love for Spanish, and to work with kids. In the summer of 2019, Sawyer decided to combine his interest in language learning with photography by embarking on Arquetopia’s self-directed photography residency in Puebla, Mexico. Once back in Chicago in 2019, Sawyer joined the Field/Work Residency through the Chicago Artist Coalition. He has gone on to be a part of the HATCH residency program in 2021-2022 and is also a studio member of the Fulton Street Art Collective.

Raised in the southwest suburbs and throughout the city of Chicago, Sadia aka DiJa knew creativity and music was integral to life. Her style is influenced by her complex identity, life experiences, and stories. Her background in community work and overall health gravitates her towards hip hop that heals the soul and moves our people forward. Through emceeing, she reaches a wide audience as a storyteller and connector who uses her eclectic taste in music – credited to her career as a hip hop DJ – to bring people together and inspire towards Oneness. Sadia serves as the Director of Arts & Culture at IMAN (the Inner-City Muslim Action Network) on Chicago’s south side which entails producing large-scale live performance shows and festivals, curating artist residencies and retreats, and overseeing a neighborhood ceramic studio. Sadia awakens the creative process amongst community organizers, returning citizens, and high-risk men and women to identify community solutions and facilitate a transformative self-healing.

A native of Chicago, Vershawn Sanders-Ward holds a MFA in Dance from New York University and is the first recipient of a BFA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago (Gates Millennium Scholar.) Sanders-Ward is a 2019 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Awardee, a 2019 Harvard Business School Club of Chicago Scholar, a 2017 Dance/USA Leadership Fellow, a 2013 3Arts awardee. Vershawn is currently on faculty at Loyola University of Chicago , serves as a board member of the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago and was selected to attend the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit for Emerging Global Leaders.

Nina D. Sánchez is a proud second-generation Chicagoan with roots in Pilsen and Central Mexico. As Director of Enrich Chicago, she collaborates with a collective of 40 arts and philanthropic institutions working to end systemic racism in the arts. She has served in a variety of capacities within multicultural leadership initiatives, direct-service, and education sectors, building anti-racism frameworks, disrupting systemic inequity at its core, and mobilizing strategic plans into meaningful programs, opportunities, and institutional/individual actions. She leverages her strengths of strategy, ideation, and assessment to be an active voice for effective policies and systemic interventions that support increased racial equity in her hometown of Chicago.

Dr. Marcus Robinson is a thought-leader on anti-racism and cultural diversity, a published author and transformative institutional leader in nonprofit management, arts administration, and community development. He is a longtime consultant and trainer in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion. He brings 30 years of artistic experience as a bandleader and composer in the jazz, funk, and pop genres. He holds a doctorate focusing on adult-learning and personal transformation from the American Institute of Hypnotherapy.

Amina Dickerson draws on leadership experience over a 35-year career in the non-profit, corporate and philanthropy sectors. As Senior Director at Kraft Foods she headed multi-national philanthropic programs in hunger relief, the arts, domestic violence and education. Among other executive posts she served with the National Museum of African Art at Smithsonian Institution, Chicago Historical Society and the DuSable Museum of African American History. She began her career as a theater artist with Living Stage at Arena Stage, in Washington DC. Throughout her career she has worked extensively as a grant reviewer, speaker, facilitator and board member.

AmbitioUS is the Center for Cultural Innovation’s (CCI) national pooled fund program that invests in alternative economic paradigms of and federated infrastructure by those most dispossessed—primarily African American and Native American communities—who are seeking financial self-determination in order to preserve and support their cultural identity and artistic expressions on their own terms. Prior to joining CCI, she spent nine years at the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation leading arts and institutional grantmaking; participating in and advising interdisciplinary initiatives that center artists and creatives as change-makers (such as Envisioning Justice), and supporting the Foundation’s racial equity and racial justice work. Additionally, she brings more than a decade of experience in nonprofit consulting, strategic planning, and fundraising. She has served as an advisory board member of the Center for Cultural Policy (University of Chicago), Arts for Illinois Relief Fund, and the Urban Manufacturing Alliance. Cate is a creative writer, trained mediator, mother of three, and self-professed nonprofit nerd. Cate has an M.A. in peace and development studies from the University of Limerick (Limerick, Ireland) and a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies from Hollins University (Roanoke, VA).

Meida Teresa McNeal works with the Chicago Park District as Arts & Culture Manager supporting community arts partnerships, youth arts, cultural stewardship, and civic engagement initiatives across the city’s parks and cultural centers. Recent projects include a series of cultural planning projects from neighborhood cultural center activations and citywide asset mapping to developing special arts & civic engagement residencies, and a cultural stewardship training institute, focused on neighborhood resource development through the lens of arts & culture in communities.

Ryan focuses on the Vital Communities portfolio within the Chicago Commitment program. Prior to joining MacArthur, Ryan served as the Director of Community Programs at the University of Chicago’s Office of Civic Engagement. In that role, Ryan led the work of the Community Programs Accelerator, which supports nonprofits whose work benefits South Side neighborhoods in Chicago. He also designed and implemented the University of Chicago’s Certificate in Nonprofit Management for community leaders across Chicago’s South Side. A native of Chicago’s South Side, Ryan began his career working with youth and families in the Woodlawn neighborhood, serving as a community organizer in the New Communities Program Woodlawn. He also held leadership roles in community-based nonprofits, including as the Associate Director for the Woodlawn Public Safety Alliance. In addition, Ryan is a professional musician and voice actor.