Brandy Hudson

Serve as a key thought partner to the Executive Director and a source of organizational expertise, bringing forward a theory of change for the Foundation's power-building and movement work, investing in People of the Global Majority-led and accountable power-building to grow and sustain a well-funded, thoroughly supported ecosystem of proximate leaders and organizations across issue areas who are committed to racial justice advocacy and structural change.

• Co-developed Weissberg's new five-year innovative grantmaking strategic framework and funding priorities to ensure the foundation's investments are community-driven and values-aligned.
• Developed and maintained relationships with over 40 multi-year grantee partners across four funding priority areas, representing over $7 million in grantmaking annually.
• Designed and launched the BIPOC Movement Healing and Rest and Strengthening Organizational Infrastructure and Sustainability Funds to direct critical resources to BIPOC-led and accountable leaders and organizations.
• Led the design and launch of the Foundation's first participatory grantmaking process, embedding the tenets of shared leadership and trust-based philanthropy to shift power from the Foundation to directly impacted communities effectively.
• Significantly expanded the Foundation's funding footprint, increasing the flow of resources to rural areas throughout the Commonwealth to elevate and amplify the work of grassroots BIPOC leaders and organizations in historically underfunded communities experiencing racial and geographic marginalization.

• Translate individual, family, and community experiences into insights that inform jurisdictional planning, implementation, and continuous quality improvement.
• Conduct empathy interviews, focus groups, and listening sessions to co-create meaningful engagement strategies.
• Co-design tools and approaches that reflect human-centered design and elevate trust and impact.
• Analyze trends, co-develop logic models, and interpret both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Apply frameworks such as Human-Centered Design (HCD), Implementation Science (IS),
  and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in all phases of engagement.

• Support internal and external resource development, technical assistance, coaching, and training in the areas of youth development and family empowerment, change management, foster care and permanency, primary prevention, racial equity, diversity and inclusion, and workforce.
• Help jurisdictions build organizational capacity and readiness for collaboration between child welfare agencies and the communities they serve.
• Contributed to the development of the Center's (1) formalized coaching support structure and framework for lived experience consultants, (2) lived experience engagement approach, (3) process for initiating engagement with lived experience consultants, and (4) annual lived experience consultant training plan and curricula.
• Led the design and ongoing facilitation of a racial equity community of practice to ensure the integration of the Center's approach to advancing racial equity into jurisdictional capacity-building practice through peer support and learning opportunities.
• Co-designed a racial equity competency framework, coaching model, and individual development plan for Center staff to act as a guide for identifying areas of growth in practice toward advancing racial equity and building critical skills and knowledge to embed racial equity within their capacity-building work with child welfare agencies.

• Led and directed a national movement for foster care system change committed to ensuring that all children in out-of-home care have excellent parenting and lasting relationships so they can thrive.
• In partnership with ED, co-lead all strategic planning, fund development, and management of strategic partnerships with funders, policymakers, and national organizations.
• Collaborated with child welfare agency and system leaders, executive, legislative and judicial branches, values-aligned advocacy organizations, and philanthropic partners to (1) build strategic alliances; (2) embed the voice and expertise of directly impacted individuals in policy-making and practice change; and (3) co-design insightful, pragmatic, inclusive and sustainable ways to produce equitable and just outcomes for children, families, and communities.
• Co-designed and led implementation of a base-building strategy to cultivate lived experience leaders that has grown from an initial cohort of 12 individuals in 2020 to more than 450 individuals in 2024.
• Secured more than $1M in philanthropic investments to support the launch and ongoing operation of a text-based qualitative data collection tool to increase youth and parents' engagement and impact in system reform efforts.

• Provided project management, strategic planning, and implementation design nationwide to decrease the overrepresentation of and improve disparate outcomes for children of color involved in the child welfare system.
• Led executive human services leadership teams from nine states in work efforts targeted at addressing systemic racial inequities and biases in child welfare.
• Successfully implemented a data-driven review process that increased permanency for children of color in long-term foster care placement by 25% in 12 months.
• Provided strategic direction and coordination of a Racial Equity Community of Practice that involved over 30 experts/speakers and 150 individuals representing 18 jurisdictions purposed to transform how child welfare systems interact with children and families of color.
• Supported the development of a racial equity history and data training series for system-impacted youth and parent leaders to help inform and shape their advocacy agenda.

• Served as the principal liaison between the Deputy Director of Program Operations, internal organizational staff, outside officials, stakeholders, and service providers.
• Implemented strategic priorities and advised the Deputy Director on controversial issues with policy and programmatic impacts.
• Exercised sound judgment in making major decisions regarding project priorities and the order in which to accomplish them; and assuring that organizational needs were met and objectives and overall goals were achieved.
• Led the design, planning, implementation, and facilitation of complex, short and long-term projects, including research, design, and implementation of an innovative lived experience staffing strategy to increase timely reunification and decrease reoccurrence of maltreatment for children in out-of-home care.
• Designed and led the implementation of coalition-building strategies with community-based organizations, judicial partners, stakeholders, and contracted service providers to promote shared child and family outcome accountability and impact.
• Managed the implementation of an evidence-based positive parenting model districtwide for all licensed foster and kinship families as well as systems-impacted parents to promote effective, shared parenting for children in out-of-home care.

• Researched and conducted environmental scans to identify and incorporate child welfare best practices into agency operations utilizing implementation science and change management frameworks.
• Provided thought partnership, strategic direction, and implementation expertise on projects to improve agency policies to increase financial and community-based support for families experiencing socially adverse conditions.
• Convened multi-stakeholder workgroups to improve families' experiences navigating the child welfare system and increase place-based upstream supports to strengthen protective factors.
• Developed and oversaw a fatherhood program to promote and support co-parenting for child welfare-involved families and offer peer support for single fathers.

• Conducted in-depth assessments and analyses of system strengths and challenges.
• Gathered and analyzed qualitative data to inform strategy recommendations.
• Developed and implemented policy and practice interventions to improve targeted outcomes.
• Co-developed an adolescent permanency model to increase positive exits for older youth experiencing out-of-home placement with a 65% success rate over two years.
• Assisted jurisdictions in incorporating impacted youth and families in reform processes through the development of peer-led initiatives.
• Co-developed an asset-framing team decision-making model for the state of ME that centers on family voice and choice.

• Assisted public agencies in identifying and implementing promising practices and approaches to address racial inequities and increase the involvement of youth and families in agency decision-making.
• Provided lived experience leadership to an internal Eliminating Racial Disparity and Disproportionality (ERDD) workgroup that developed a framework to embed racial equity into organizational policies and practices.
• Designed and conducted family empowerment and racial equity trainings and led the development of stakeholder engagement and racial equity action plans with 26 departments of social services throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.
• Co-led a Racial Justice team that facilitated learning collaboratives and peer-to-peer learning experiences and provided technical assistance to over 11 jurisdictions on data, equity, and community and family engagement.

• Cultivated youth leadership to transform the foster care system through legislative, practice, and policy change.
• Implemented a youth-led advocacy, organizing, and base-building model to train and support foster care and juvenile justice system-impacted youth to design and lead transformation efforts.
• Conducted recruitment and outreach campaigns to build and expand existing youth membership base and pool of adult volunteers to increase the reach and impact of foster care involved and impacted youth advocates throughout southern California.
• Provided leadership and practical skill development for youth leaders to participate in statewide policy advocacy and system reform opportunities.
• Bridged relationships between county-level decision-makers and youth leaders in support of CYC's policy agenda and expansion of local chapter work and campaigns.