Leadership

Felicia Griffin (she/her) began her work in social and economic justice in 2002 and has spent more than two decades advancing equity through leadership, policy, and movement building.

Over the course of her career, she has served as an executive director, deputy director, president, research associate, and program manager — bringing strategic vision and grounded, on-the-ground experience to every role.

Felicia has shaped economic security policy at both the state and national levels in partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and helped lead a successful campaign that secured health insurance for 80,000 children in New Mexico. She also spearheaded the “Race Matters: Policy through a Racial Lens” campaign in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, working to reduce racial disparities in housing, employment, health, and education across New Mexico.

In 2013, she became Executive Director of United for a New Economy in Denver, where she helped lead major victories including a statewide minimum wage increase, statewide wage theft protections, and increased funding for affordable housing in Denver. In 2019, she joined its national network, Partnership for Working Families (PowerSwitch), serving as Deputy Director.

Felicia currently serves as Co-Director of Transformative Leadership for Change, the fellowship she co-founded during her tenure at United for a New Economy to cultivate the next generation of movement leaders. A seasoned institution-builder, she is President and Owner of Sweet Magnolia Consulting, serves on the boards of the Colorado Fiscal Institute (CO) and New Houston (TX), and is a Founding Advisor to Friends of Foster Children Fund (NM), Stand-Up Nashville (TN), and New Houston (TX). Across these roles, she has helped launch, strengthen, and guide organizations committed to expanding opportunity and power in communities across the country.

Her leadership development journey includes completing a fellowship with Cornell University National Labor Leadership Initiative and serving as both a former Fellow and current advisor to Rutgers University Center for Innovation in Worker Organization / Build the Bench. She has also completed the Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation program.

Raised in Aurora, Colorado, by a single mother in poverty, Felicia understands firsthand what a good job can mean to a struggling family. In her first job at King Soopers, she was a proud member of UFCW Local 7 and became a union steward at just 16 years old. Her lived experience grounds her deep commitment to expanding opportunity and power for communities that have been excluded from the promise of the “American Dream.”

In her free time, Felicia enjoys traveling, writing, reading, and spending quality time with her husband and children.

Neha Mahajan is the daughter of South Asian Punjabi immigrants and brings nearly 20 years of experience fighting for social justice. As a young activist, she developed political consciousness in movements such as immigrant justice, youth organizing, ending violence against women of color, and dismantling the prison industrial complex. 

Over the last 14 years, Neha has led multiple philanthropic and community organizations in the Colorado ecosystem. She served as Co-Executive Director of Chinook Fund, Co-Executive Director of Survivors Organizing for Liberation, and State Director of 9to5 Colorado. Neha has supported a number of local organizing campaigns, from police accountability to housing justice; she played a critical leadership role in building the campaign that won paid family and medical leave for Colorado workers. She also worked as the National Organizing Director for Family Values at Work, where she helped their national network center the leadership of women of color, invest more deeply in grassroots organizing, and work more intentionally at the intersection of race, class, and gender. 

Neha helped to co-found Transformative Leadership for Change (TLC) in 2017, and was honored to step into an Executive Director role to steward the vision of TLC in 2020.

Neha is currently Board Treasurer for Cultivando (Commerce City, Colorado) and on the coordinating committee of the NorthStar Network (national). She is a graduate of the Satya Yoga Cooperative BIPOC teacher training program and a certified coach through the Coaching for Healing, Justice and Liberation school. She also weaves together social justice, healing, and spiritual practices in her own coaching/consulting business.

Tania Soto Valenzuela (she/her/ella), of the documentary Tania Monarca, is originally from Mexico, and moved to the US with her family when she was 9 years old. She has been fighting her mother’s deportation since 2009 and this past December 2019 they won a cancelation of removal. She lived as an unauthorized immigrant up until 3 years ago. Her lived experience has always been closely tied with inequity, lack of opportunity, and exclusion. This has led her to working to dismantle inequalities as a researcher and community organizer. She attempts to guide conversations towards positive community change, using tools to assist people to identify their privileged and marginalized identities towards shaping our collective liberation.

She graduated from Regis University with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, where she started her activism on immigration issues. She has led many campaigns on an array of social justice issues and has been part of the activist community in Denver, CO for over 10 years. Besides joining TLC as the Program Manager, Tania is conducting research with the Right2Learn Dignity Lab making the argument of education as a fundamental right of personhood. She serves American Friends Service Committee as the co-clerks the Third World Coalition a space for BIPOC throughout the organization and community to come together to support their efforts.

Vic Gómez Betancourt (they/them) is a fundraiser extraordinaire who leverages 20 years of resource mobilization at the grassroots level and trust building with both state and national funding partners to secure multi-year investments for small to medium-size, social-justice organizational budgets. They work collaboratively and with a shared leadership approach that centers interdependence, appreciative inquiry, and collective healing. In May 2022, Vic joined Transformative Leadership for Change as Resource Strategist and is focused on cultivating financial abundance and sustainability.

Vic’s grassroots leadership includes professional, volunteer, and board roles with efforts focusing on worker’s rights, immigrant rights, human rights, education, and reproductive justice at organizations like ACT for Women and Girls, COLOR, Chinook Fund, Coalition Against Global Genocide, El Centro Humanitario Para Los Trabajadores, Good Business Colorado, Rights for All People / Derechos Para Todos, Cultivando, Tewa Women United, Women’s Voices for the Earth. Vic has a bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of Colorado Denver and a master’s in nonprofit management from Regis University, is a Transformative Leadership for Change 2019 fellow, a 2015 Regis University Affiliate Faculty, and a 2014 Mayoral Appointee for the Denver Women’s Commission. Vic also publicly advocates for health equity as a recognized opinion leader and published author in the reproductive justice space.

As a political creative, gender migrant, crip immigrant, and cuir feminista uplifting the struggles of the Caribbean diaspora, Vic is an active storyteller, spoken word performer, and visual artist committed to stigma busting.

South Carolina-born and raised, Ash Ferguson (they/she), was nourished and nurtured by a village of Black Women: her mother Jacquelyn Ferguson, aunt Frances McCarroll, and granny the late Mae Ferguson. Their tenacious testimony of Black Womanhood instilled an unwavering spirit in Ash which inspired her to become a truth teller, visionary, and channel. Her primary work is centered on decolonizing love and spirituality as a tool for collective liberation.

Ash is a queer, non-binary, mystic, spiritual coach, friend and community leader. A lover of Black people, Ash is committed to creating spaces for Black Femmes and Thems to heal and thrive against all odds. Her work personally and professionally is fueled from her knowing that all Black people are destined to live pleasure filled lives. They are a manifestor, with a deep knowing that anything you think of, you create, so Ash works hard to hold a high vibration so that the things she attracts are in alignment with that which her heart desires. As a pleasure & intimacy coach, they journey with people in creating and birthing a life filled with pleasure. She also holds space for beloveds healing from trauma using Acudetox, Reiki, and sacred touch.

Ash is currently based in Denver, CO – ancestral land of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe nations – and is the Associate Director of Programs & Community Wellness for Soul 2 Soul Sisters, a fiercely love-based, Black-centered racial justice, reproductive justice organization, focused on actualizing Black healing and Black liberation.

Celia Herrera is the founder and creative director of URBN Brands, a communications consultancy that supports community-focused organizations and nonprofits to shape their brand, tell their story, and build the digital content that makes their purpose felt. With nearly twenty years of experience in branding, marketing and digital media, Celia has learned to blend design, storytelling, and community insight into visually compelling messages. Her work is collaborative, culturally aware, and rooted in creative problem-solving with teams who care about access, expression, and impact.

Celia has been supporting Transformative Leadership for Change with organizational branding and social media support since 2024.

Kathy is an independent consultant who works with variety of non-profits located in Colorado, California and Montana. She has more than 25 years of nonprofit experience. Kathy holds a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Denver and a Masters of Public Administration with a Concentration in Nonprofit Organizations from the University of Colorado at Denver Graduate School of Public Affairs. Her career began as a corporate accountant in the tele-communications industry. Shortly thereafter, Kathy transitioned into the nonprofit sector at INROADS. After working for numerous nonprofits in various capacities, she decided to start her own consulting business.

Additionally, Kathy volunteers her time and currently serves as a board member of The Wayfaring Band and Organizing Roots in California. In the past, she has sat on the Autism Society of Colorado, Board of Directors, Florence Crittenton Services Hispanic Advisory Council Co-Chair and Denver Shared Spaces (DSS) Steering Committee. She is also one of the founders of CEDIL Puerto Rico, a bilingual learning center for children with disabilities. Kathy has a sincere passion for empowering people and building strong long-lasting relationships, which is evident in both her professional and personal life. Her community work has been recognized as a Latinas First Foundation Unsung Heroine in 2019 and Latino Leadership Institute Cohort 3 Unsung Heroine. She was recently a guest on The Resilience & Resistance Podcast: Latina Entrepreneurship Series. Kathy is most proud of her three children, Sierra, Sage & Sofia.

Focus areas:

Leadership Transitions
Nonprofit Accounting
Budget Preparations
Quickbooks Training
Event Management
Program Development
Capital Campaign Support
Operations Support
Nonprofit Board & Staff Financial Training
Nonprofit Start-Ups
Special Projects