Alumni Convening - Remembering the Threads: Weaving our Collective Purpose

With the annual LeaderSpring Alumni Convening this year, we invite leaders to spend the day together cultivating the power of remembrance to envision all we can do together. We’ll hold space for folks to reconnect, reflect, and weave together our work towards a more collective purpose.

Additionally, we’ll celebrate the Class of 2021 & 2022 Women of Color LeadStrong alumni with a community graduation. Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic they weren’t able to be celebrated in the larger LeaderSpring Center community, we look forward to celebrating them together!

Join us for either our Alumni Reception, our all day Alumni Convening, or both!

We look forward to reconnection soon!

With gratitude,

LeaderSpring Team

Safi, Rachel, KC, Gete,, Railyn

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Reception

Wednesday October 8th, 2025

4:30pm – 7pm

*5pm Class of 2021 & 2022 Graduation Celebration

NIDO’s Backyard, 104 Oak St, Oakland, CA 94607.

Who is invited: Open to all LeaderSpring Center alumni and the larger LSC community.

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Convening

Thursday October 9th, 2025

9:30am – 4pm

The California Endowment, 2000 Franklin St., Oakland.

Who is invited: Open to all LeaderSpring Center alumni

Convening Theme : Remembering the threads: Weaving our collective purpose

“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.”― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

It is power to remember where we have been, to remember the stories of those who came before and the freedom strategies they employed. It is power to remember our connections to land, to remember our connection to our beyond human kin, to remember our connection to each other. The 2025 LeaderSpring Alumni Convening invites leaders to spend the day together cultivating that power of remembrance towards the goal of envisioning together. This is a network of deeply rooted and impactful leaders, we welcome each of you to soak up the nourishment of connection.

We’ll hold space to reconnect, reflect, and weave together our work towards a more collective purpose.

In these times of escalated violence and threats targeting our most systemically impacted communities, we invite ourselves to be catalyzed by the visions of Afrofuturism and Native Sovereignty movements. Even as we come from many different lineages and communities, we can all learn from the resistance, healing, and joy of African American and Native American communities and movements.

Convening Purpose

This day-long, in-person gathering is intended to facilitate continued relationship and skill building among powerful leaders in the field. The Alumni Convening is a dynamic engaged gathering designed to foster connections, inspire leadership, and provide space for continued learning and well-being within our alumni communities. Invitees from all 30 cohorts will be immersed in a rich learning environment through engaging workshops, panel discussions, space for restoration, and interactive networking opportunities. Central to our work is love, liberation, and sustainable leadership in the social sector.

Participants will:

1. Nourish and build relationships with justice-centered leaders.

2. Have time to reflect on, bring in, and share joy and solidarity building practices rooted in ancestral freedom fights and wins.

3. Practice contributing to an environment of collective care.