THIS IS ILI

The Intercultural Leadership Institute is a year-long intensive leadership program for artists, culture bearers and other arts professionals.
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ILI is a collaborative program of Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures (NALAC) and PA’I Foundation. The effort grew out of our direct experiences as leaders of these founding cultural organizations. We often found that many personal and professional leadership programs emphasized dominant cultural norms, modes of learning and social approaches that didn’t match our commitment to cultural equity and change-making in our own communities.

ILI’s  “intercultural”  approach emphasizes overlapping experiences, shared spaces and mutual accountability – and seeks to challenge dominant social norms while honoring differences of histories, traditions, vocabulary and more. We seek to develop leaders specifically within the arts & culture field to adeptly respond to significant changes that impact society, politics, environment and economy. As a peer cohort, ILI intercultural leaders hone personal and professional skills to affect local, national and global communities – and promote a shift toward greater awareness, resourcing and action in the broader field of arts & culture.

The long-term goals

1. BUILD stronger strategic intercultural collaborations and solidarity in the field of arts, culture and social justice.

2. PROMOTE the traditional and contemporary practices of artists and culture bearers, establish an alternative pathway for them to work within existing structures and provide opportunity for them to create and normalize new structures.

3. ADVANCE and enhance the capacity of artists, culture bearers and arts organizations to pursue cultural equity and sustain their work in a changing environment.

4. IMPACT the language, shift the attention and endow greater resources in multiple sectors to support transformative practices of artists and culture bearers.

In this political moment, our country’s leadership is skewing male and white. ILI represents a space for leadership development where narratives from indigenous, Native, immigrant, and other varied voices are central.
- Carlton Turner, Alternate ROOTS Executive Director

Learn more about the year-long ILI program

ILI Year Guidelines & Application

ILI LEADERSHIP

María DeLeón, NALAC President & CEO

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María DeLéon
​NALAC President & CEO

San Antonio, TX
María López De León is the President, CEO, and board member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC). In 2013, President Obama appointed Mar.a to serve on the National Council on the Arts. In 2012 and 2013, she was named among the nation’s Fifty Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts. María has been with NALAC for seventeen years and has served as Executive Director for fourteen years. She directs all aspects of development of NALAC programs and national strategic initiatives. Under her leadership, NALAC developed three grant programs, the NALAC Fund for the Arts (NFA), the Transnational Cultural Remittances (TCR) and NALAC Diverse Arts Spaces grant program. She has directed the continued development of fifteen editions of the annual Leadership Institute and the Latino Arts Advocacy Institute in Washington, DC; directed the convening of six NALAC National Conferences and dozens of Regional Arts Training Workshops; and the production of Visiones, a six-part documentary series on Latino art and culture and development of accompanying education curriculum. María is a cultural organizer and practitioner and noted speaker and advocate for the arts and cultural equity. She is dedicated to strengthening communities through the arts and has multiple years of experience working with Latino artists and arts organizations nationally and internationally. She serves on many arts and culture policy panels. She is a member of the National Council on the Arts and board member of the First Peoples Fund, the Performing Arts Alliance and serves on the advisory boards of San Antonio Cultural Arts and Women of Color in the Arts. She studied Journalism at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Vicky Holt-Takamine, PA'I Foundation Executive Director

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Vicky Holt-Takamine
​PA'I Foundation Executive Director

Honolulu, HI
Vicky Holt-Takamine is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools and received her BA & MA in Dance Ethnology from the University of Hawai’i. In 1975, She graduated as kumu hula (master teacher of Hawaiian dance) from Maiki Aiu Lake. In 1977, Vicky established her hālau hula (school of Hawaiian dance), Pua Ali‘i ‘Ilima. Twenty years later, in 1997, Vicky co-founded ‘Īlio‘ulaokalani Coalition, a coalition of Native Hawaiian artists and cultural practitioners to advocate and protect Native Hawaiian rights. In 2001, she established PA‘I Foundation to protect and preserve Native Hawaiian cultural traditions and the natural and cultural resources of Hawai’i for future generations. She is the executive director of PA’I Foundation and a lecturer at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Lori Pourier, First Peoples Fund President

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Lori Pourier
​First Peoples Fund President

Rapid City, SD
Lori Pourier, (Oglala Lakota) President, First Peoples Fund, an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation in southwestern South Dakota, has served as the President of First Peoples Fund since 1999. She has nearly 30 years of experience in community economic development with a specific emphasis on native arts and culture revitalization within tribal communities. Between 1994 and 1998, Ms. Pourier served as the Executive Director of the Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN), a U.S. based nongovernmental organization. While at IWN she was responsible for fundraising, operations and the political action work of the organization. She represented IWN at numerous international conferences at the United Nations as well as the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. During her tenure at IWN, Ms. Pourier established a leadership program placing young emerging leaders in non-profit organizations throughout Indian Country and within regional and national foundations. Ms. Pourier served on several boards; Grantmakers in the Arts, Native Americans in Philanthropy, Honor the Earth Fund, the Chinook Fund. She was awarded Native Americans in Philanthropy’s 2013 Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Award in recognition of her work in philanthropy. In addition she was awarded the Women’s World Summit Foundation’s 2013 award for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life. She holds a Master of Science degree from New Hampshire College’s Graduate School of Business. Nominated by the Ford Foundation, Ms. Pourier was selected for the Center for Social Innovation fellowship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a partnership between Stanford University and National Arts Strategies.

Carlton Turner, Alternate ROOTS Executive Director

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Carlton Turner,
​Alternate ROOTS Executive Director

Utica, MS
Carlton Turner is the Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS, a regional non-profit arts organization based in the South supporting artists working at the intersection of arts and social justice. Carlton Turner is co-founder and co-artistic director, along with his brother Maurice Turner, of the group M.U.G.A.B.E.E. (Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction). M.U.G.A.B.E.E. is a Mississippi-based performing arts group that blends jazz, hip-hop, spoken word poetry and soul music together with non-traditional storytelling. He is also a member of the Progress Theatre Ensemble. Carlton is currently on the board of Appalshop, an advisory member to the National Theater Project at NEFA and the Catalyst Initiative, a member of the We Shall Overcome Fund Advisory Board at the Highlander Center for Research and Education, a steering committee member of the Arts and Culture Social Justice Network, and former Network of Ensemble Theaters steering committee member. In 2011, Carlton was awarded the M. Edgar Rosenblum award for outstanding contribution to Ensemble Theater by Irondale Ensemble Project in Brooklyn, NY. In 2013, Carlton was named to the Kennedy Center Honors Artist Advisory Board alongside Debbie Allen, Mar.a De Le.n, and Ping Chong. M.U.G.A.B.E.E. is a recipient of the 2015 Otto Ren. Castillo Awards for Political Theatre.

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Alternate ROOTS supports the creation and presentation of original art that is rooted in community, place, tradition or spirit. We are a group of artists and cultural organizers based in the South creating a better world together. As Alternate ROOTS, we call for social and economic justice and are working to dismantle all forms of oppression – everywhere.

First Peoples Fund (FPF) supports the Collective Spirit. of artists and culture bearers. Rooted in the traditional values of generosity and respect, humility and fortitude, FPF uplifts the Indigenous Arts Ecology – relationship based ecosystems that strengthen Native arts and culture grounded in ancestral knowledge. We accomplish this by 1) supporting culture
bearers and artist entrepreneurs as transformative community leaders, 2) deepening tribally
based organizations’ capacity to serve artists and their families and 3) investing holistically
into the next generation of resilient artists.

National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC), is the nation’s leading nonprofit  organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development and cultivation of the Latino arts field. In this capacity, NALAC stimulates and facilitates intergenerational dialogues among disciplines, languages and traditional and contemporary expressions.

PA‘I Foundation, organized in 2001, preserves and perpetuates Hawaiian cultural traditions for future generations. PA‘I Foundation is the non-profit organization of Pua Ali’i ‘Ilima, a h’lau hula (school of Hawaiian dance) founded by kumu hula (master teacher of Hawaiian dance) Vicky Holt Takamine in 1977. While the organization is centered around and supported by h’lau members, the purpose of PA‘I Foundation is to address and serve the needs of native Hawaiians and those who make Hawai’i their home.

In Native Hawaiian, ‘ili means skin – the outer layer that holds together something vital. The ethnobotanical meaning alludes to the skin or bark of the Hau plant (hibiscus). The traditional mele Ka ‘ili hau pa kai o ‘Alio (the hau bark wet by the sea sprays of ‘Alio) is a reference to a strong shore-dweller, indicating that salt air and sea sprays made the bark of the hau trees on the shore stronger than those of the upland. The hau plant is useful in a variety of ways crucial to Native Hawaiian culture: as cordage to sew kapa sheets or tie sandals and hula skirts; as wood for outriggers and floats for fishnets; and as medicine. Like the Native Hawaiian ‘ili, our ILI intercultural approach to leadership cultivation, too, aims to hold together a space for resiliency and resourcefulness.

ILI SUPPORT TEAM

Dr. Maribel Alvarez, Faculty & Curriculum Lead

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Dr. Maribel Alvarez
​Faculty & Curriculum Lead

Tucson, AZ
​Dr. Maribel Alvarez is an anthropologist, folklorist, writer and curator. She is the Jim Griffith Public Folklore Chair at the Southwest Center, University of Arizona (Tucson), where she also has an appointment as Associate Research Professor in the School of Anthropology. For six years she served as Trustee of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. She is currently Executive Director of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, an independent nonprofit with affiliation status with the the University of Arizona. SFA is also the designated State Partner agency for Folk Arts for the National Endowment for the Arts in Arizona. In 2017 she was appointed as Policy Fellow at the Herberger School for Arts and Design at Arizona State University. Her portfolio of work under SFA includes artist fellowships and awards, documentation of traditional knowledge, community asset mapping and the production of the 43-year old festival Tucson Meet Yourself, the largest heritage arts event in the Southwest region, attended by over 100,000 annually and presenting over 300 artists and home cooks. Dr. Alvarez teaches courses on methods of cultural analysis with particular emphasis on food, objects, oral narratives and visual cultures of the US-Mexico border. In 2009 she was a Fulbright Fellow conducting research in rural Mexico and writes and speaks regularly across the country about heritage and identity, food, Latino arts, informal cultural networks and community cultural development. She has served on the Faculty of NALAC’s National Leadership Institute for the past 12 years. Maribel was born in Cuba; she arrived in Puerto Rico at age 7 where she grew up; in her second year in college she moved to California and stayed there the next 25 years, where she became an active participant in the Chicano arts movement, leading to her co-founding of one of the country’s top Latino arts centers, MACLA in San Jose, CA.

Carrie Brunk, Program Manager & Facilitation Team

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Carrie Brunk
​Program Manager & Facilitation Team

Clear Creek, KY
Carrie Brunk works with people and organizations committed to envisioning and enacting a better world. She works primarily as a facilitator and coach drawing on two decades of experience as a non-profit executive, program director, coalition organizer, event producer, popular educator, fundraiser, writer and small business owner. Carrie conceived and leads Ridgeway | A Transformative Leadership Experience, a program designed to support Appalachia’s post-coal transition to a brighter future by offering an immersive year-long regional cohort experience that is on par with the best national-level leadership, organizational and network development programs. The vehicle for her work is Clear Creek Creative, which also serves as an artistic and event production company most recently touring a performative piece “Where’s That Power Gonna Come From?” which explores her community’s resilience in relation to the threat of fracking and ongoing fossil fuel extraction in Appalachia. Carrie lives and works within an off-the-grid community gathering place in the Appalachian foothills of East Kentucky where she co-curates and hosts the annual Clear Creek Festival, abundant local farm-fresh performative feasts, rustic artistic exchanges and residencies all of which are powered by the sun and fresh mountain spring water. Carrie was a Fulbright Fellow at Oxford University and her training has been guided by the Social Transformation Project, Presence-Based Coaching, Social Justice Leadership and through joint programming of SJL and the Rockwood Leadership Institute.

Vickie Oldman-John, Facilitation Team

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Vickie Oldman-John
​Facilitation Team

Albuquerque, NM
Vickie (Navajo) is a managing partner with Seven Sisters Community Development Group, LLC (www.7sistersconsulting.com), a national community development consulting firm. Vickie specializes in culturally relevant approaches to organizational development. She has over 18 years of expertise in strategic planning, board development, leadership training, team building, asset building and executive coaching to Native and rural communities. She is recognized nationally as a skilled facilitator, trainer, and speaker. Vickie is a certified coach, trainer and facilitator for Leadership that Works, Institute of Cultural Affairs’ ToP Strategic Planning and Workshop Methods, True Colors, Nonprofit Management, Building Native Communities: Financial Skills for Families, and the Grove Team Performance Model. Vickie has been a lead trainer, technical assistance provider and executive coach in various capacity building initiatives funded by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s CDFI Fund, including YouthBuild USA, NeighborWorks America, Corporation for Enterprise Development and the Native American Indian Housing Council. Vickie currently sits on the Boards of Rural Community Assistance Corporation Board, New Mexico Resiliency Alliance and is an advisory member for Partnerships with Native American Leadership Program. She has been recognized for her achievements like “2015 Distinguished NMHU Alumna,” “2004 Women of Vision Award” and with numerous awards from the National Association of Social Workers, including the “2006 President’s Award“ and “2003 Social Worker of the Year” Award. Vickie has a Masters in Social Work with a concentration in Community Planning and Administration from New Mexico Highlands University. She also holds a Bachelor of Social Work degree from Arizona State University. She is an enrolled member of the Navajo tribe, and her clans are Black Streak of the Forest People, Mud People, One Who Walks Around People, and Folding Arm People.

Tufara Waller Muhammad, Faculty & Facilitation Team

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Tufara Waller Muhammad
​Faculty & Facilitation Team

Little Rock, AR
Tufara Waller Muhammad is a Cultural Organizer, Strategist, Popular Educator and Artist. From May 2004 through May 2015 she directed Cultural Programs at Highlander Research and Education Center. As a Community Organizer, Tufara worked with Arkansas Equality Network on their “Safe Schools Campaign,” ACORN (Arkansas Community Organization for Reform Now) Community Reinvestment Act issues, the Arkansas Women’s Project with the “Hate Free Arkansas Campaign,” was the lead organizer for the African American Women’s Institute (Women’s Project), and with American Friends and Service Committee on the Blood Diamonds Campaign. As radio show Producer/ DJ on on KABF 88.3 in Little Rock, Arkansas, for many years she hosted The Sankofa Sessions, a grassroots radical alternative to commercial radio outlets. Tufara was instrumental in bringing national artists and scholars to the Little Rock Metroplex, initiating collaborations with community organizations to support progressive policy and practice shifts lead by grassroots leaders that connected to national and international campaigns. During the “Bangin’ In Little Rock” era, Tufara was the founding Project Director for Safe Haven Ministries, a youth and young adult program that worked to support leadership development of children who lived in public housing development in Central Little Rock. As a vocalist, Tufara has worked with the Essie Neal Blues Band, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Guy and Candie Carawan, and others. In 2011, she performed as the only American-born African artist on the Africa Stage at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. In August 2015, Tufara was named as one of “Twenty-Five Visionary Arkansans” by the Arkansas Times Newspaper.

Les Etienne, Program Evaluator

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Les Etienne
​Program Evaluator

Indianapolis, IN
​Leslie (Les) Etienne has worked in areas of education, social justice and community power. For over twenty years he has had specialized experience working in education ranging from K-12 through higher education, youth leadership and development, therapeutic community direct care, and organizational development. He was the Director of Education Justice and Research for Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide in Atlanta, GA and also has extensive academic training as a social justice/social movement historian whose research is focused on Pan African frameworks for liberation, grassroots leadership, and community based alternative multigenerational education. Dr. Etienne has also been a member of the Board of Directors at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN and was the Campus Coordinator for University Sin Fronteras Atlanta Campus and a facilitator of its Teacher/Organizer Institute.  Currently, he teaches in the School of Education and in the Africana Studies Program at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, where is also a Community Engagement Research Associate in the Family, School, and Neighborhood Engagement Office.

Social Impact Studios, Creative Collaborator

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We Communicate Good

Philadelphia, PA
Since 1996, the people at Social Impact Studios have combined artistry & activism to promote important social issues. We believe positive, proactive messages should get more attention than anything else. And we are committed to thoughtful, beautiful, meaningful communication as the best way to engage and motivate people toward action. Through the lens of art, history and culture, Social Impact Studios is a place where creative activists collaborate, learn, and do the work. From concept to the material, we create action plans, visuals, messages and moving grassroots experiences to make a better world – together.

​ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many, many people played a part in the development of ILI. We are thankful for the guidance, support and hard work of the following individuals.

Core Partners
Thanks to the staff at all our core partner organizations, and especially the leadership of:
• María López De Le.n, President & CEO, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures, San Antonio, TX
• Lori Pourier, (Oglala Lakota) President, First Peoples Fund, Rapid City, SD
• Vicky Holt Takamine, Executive Director, PA’I Foundation, Honolulu, HI
• Carlton Turner, Executive Director, Alternate ROOTS, Atlanta, GA

Facilitation Team
• Carrie Brunk, Program Manager & Facilitation Team, Clear Creek Creative, Clear Creek, KY
• Stephanie McKee, Facilitation Team, Junebug Productions, New Orleans, LA
• Vickie Oldman-John (Navajo), Facilitation Team, Seven Sisters Community Development Group, LLC, Albuquerque, NM
• Tufara Waller Muhammad, Facilitation Team, Datule’ Artist Collective, Little Rock, AR

Curriculum Development & Advisors
• ​Maribel Alvarez, Curriculum Team Lead, Associate Research Social Scientist & Associate Research Professor, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
• Sherry Black (Oglala Lakota), Chairperson, First Peoples Fund, Fredericksburg, VA
• Adrienne Maree Brown, Writer/Facilitator, Octavia’s Brood, BOLD, Detroit, MI
• Dudley Cocke, Director, Roadside Theater, Whitesburg, KY
• Claudio Dicochea, Visual Artist, Educator, and Communications Associate for NALAC, San Antonio, TX
• Timothy Dorsey, Poet, Consultant, New York, NY
• Aisha D. Fletcher, MPH, Program Manager, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Brandon, MS
• Adriana Gallego, Deputy Director, National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures, San Antonio, TX
• Gayle Isa, Executive Director, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA
• Maria Rosario Jackson, Consultant, Los Angeles, CA
• James Kass, Executive Director, Youth Speaks, San Francisco, CA
• Ron Looking Elk Martinez, Board Member, First Peoples Fund, Isleta/Taos Pueblo, NM
• Keryl McCord, Alternate ROOTS, Atlanta, GA
• C. Liegh McInnis, Instructor of English at Jackson State University, Jackson, MS
• Jody Naranjo Folwell Turpia, Community Spirit Award Honoree, Santa Clara/Tewa, NM
• Meena Natarajan, Executive Literary Director, Pangea World Theater, Minneapolis, MN
• Leslie Newman, Partner & Co-Manager, Seven Sisters Community Development Group, LLC, Lawrence, KS
• Vickie Oldman-John, Partner & Co-Manager, Seven Sisters Community Development Group, LLC, Rio Rancho, NM
• Rosalba Rolon, Artistic Director, Pregones Theater, Bronx, NY
• Kalima Rose, Senior Director Center for Infrastructure Equity Policy, Policy Link, Oakland, CA
• Theresa Secord, Independent, First Peoples Fund, Waterville, ME
• Clinnesha D. Sibley, Playwright, Professor of Arts and Letters, Piney Woods, MS
• Makani Themba, Chief Strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies, Detroit, MI
• Malia Villegas, National Congress of American Indians
• Miranne Walker, Director of Programs, First Peoples Fund, Rapid City, SD
• Tufara Waller Muhammad, Datule’ Artist Collective, Little Rock, AR

ILI 2015 Pilot Participants
• Jason Arag.n, Tucson, AZ | Nominated by NALAC
• Jose Nicolas Cabrera-Schneider, Boulder, CO | Nominated by NALAC
• Rodney Camarce, Philadelphia, PA | Nominated by Asian Arts Initiative
• Juliana Clifford, Porcupine, SD | Nominated by First Peoples Fund
• Kapalaiula de Silva, Kailua, HI | Nominated by PA’I Foundation
• Tara Dorabji, San Francisco, CA | Nominated by Youth Speaks
• Alexander Gibson, Whitesburg, KY | Nominated by Appalshop
• Chris James, Little Rock, AR | Nominated by Alternate ROOTS
• Brandie Macdonald, Rapid City, SD | Nominated by First Peoples Fund
• Busi Peters, Houston, TX | Nominated by Alternate ROOTS
• Davis Price, Honolulu, HI | Nominated by PA’I Foundation
• Shey Rivera, Providence, RI | Nominated by NALAC
• ST Shimi, San Antonio, TX | Nominated by Alternate ROOTS
• Jeremy Staab, Rapid City, SD | Nominated by First Peoples Fund
• Ka’iu Takamori, Honolulu, HI | Nominated by PA’I Foundation
• Alejandra Tobar Alatriz, Minneapolis, MN | Nominated by Pangea World Theater
• Warren Guss Yellowhair, Allen, SD | Nominated by First Peoples Fund
• Bethany Yellowtail, Valley Village, CA | Nominated by First Peoples Fund

Communications Support
• April Silver, Akila Worksongs, Brooklyn, NY
• Talamieka Brice, Brice Media, Ridgeland, MS
• Shannon M. Turner, StoryMuse, Atlanta, GA
• Ennis Carter, Social Impact Studios, Philadelphia, PA

Thanks to Our ILI Funders
The Intercultural Leadership Institute has been made possible thanks to generous support from American Express, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bush Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Southwest Airlines., and Surdna Foundation. We appreciate the support of these primary ILI contributors as well as all of the funders, members, donors, and volunteers of our four ILI core partner organizations.