Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Affiliations
Additional Information
Hobbies
Timeline
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Elsa Barboza

TOLEDO,OH

Summary

Passionate community organizer with decades of experience mining the wisdom of low-income, working class communities of color, particularly women, to envision and build a thriving community. Very inspired to experiment with new pathways to organize the critical mass needed to bring about economic and social change.

Overview

33
33
years of professional experience

Work History

Senior Organizer

Community Change
08.2015 - 04.2024
  • Supported local and state-based community organizations across the US in base-building, power-building strategies, and shared power analysis tools and methods to wage strategic campaigns to advance social change at the local-level.
  • Led learning cohorts of local community organizations and their community organizers on topics including: base-building and leadership development; clean energy jobs and workforce development; water equity and infrastructure; federal resources for local infrastructure and jobs; people, parks and power organizing for local green projects and parks.
  • Collaborated with national organizations to raise awareness of local issues and local partners' work across the country at a national level and to the federal government.

Community Organizer and Campaign Director

Strategic Concepts In Organizing And Policy Education
01.1993 - 07.2015
  • Empowered Black and Latino residents to address poverty issues they faced through political education, community organizing, and advocacy.
  • Increased civic engagement through organizing events, forums and door-to-door outreach workshops. for community members.
  • Strengthened relationships amongst community, labor, and environmental groups by developing partnerships, long-term alliances and collaoration.
  • Enhanced public awareness of community needs through effective campaigns, strategy and outreach efforts.
  • Facilitated productive meetings between stakeholders, fostering open communication and collaborative problem-solving amongst community members and alliances.
  • Mobilized support for policy change through grassroots lobbying efforts targeting key decision-makers at the local level.
  • Organized town hall meetings to facilitate dialogue between elected officials and constituents regarding pressing concerns.
  • Coordinated volunteer recruitment, training, supervision, recognition activities to maintain a strong base of committed individuals supporting our cause.
  • Operated outreach efforts to recruit and lead team of canvassers to fundraise for important issues.
  • Participated in strategy development and planning to grow organizing program and advance campaigns.
  • Engaged with larger campaigns to build deeply collaborative partnerships.
  • Led several grassroots-led policy campaigns that resulted in new jobs and workforce development programs for the unemployed in healthcare careers, local city public sector jobs, green-retrofit careers and Los Angeles utility weatherization jobs.

Community Organizer

Los Angeles Jobs With Peace
05.1992 - 04.1993
  • Built neighborhood coalitions of volunteers to get-out-the-vote in local elections
  • Trained local residents in community outreach efforts to hear and document neighborhood concerns and conditions they faced toward activating them to create and advocate community solutions.
  • Led community education workshops on local ballot issues.
  • Developed community voting educational guides.

Labor Organizer Apprentice

HERE
10.1991 - 05.1992
  • Led organizing committees of hotel workers to raise awareness of working conditions and what it means to have respect on the job.
  • Held coalition meetings with local activists in support for workers' dignity and rights at work.
  • Shadowed and coached by Latino labor leader and collaborated with apprentice team to learn the world of labor organizing.

Education

Bachelor of Arts - Sociology And Latino Studies

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI
12.1989

Skills

  • Strong knowledge and practice of the key fundamentals of community organizing, campaign development and implementation
  • Building alliances of diverse backgrounds and constituencies toward partnership and action
  • Creating peer cohorts to build relationships, share learnings, do peer counseling and a space to strategize new solutions
  • Documenting, analyzing and sharing community organizing practices, materials and tools of the trade
  • Strategizing on organizing practices and experimentation
  • Experience in healing and transformational organizing approaches
  • Leading power analysis and political landscape trainings with grassroots members and alliances
  • Understanding of the community organizing field
  • Strong facilitation skills to lead discussions, learning circles and political education trainings
  • Networking with local partners, hearing their needs and connecting with other partners, training, and programs
  • Tracking and assessing organizing metrics
  • Voter engagement training

Accomplishments

  • Completed Minority Activist Apprenticeship Program(MAAP) Summer Internship
  • Studied at CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies "Power and Strategy" graduate course
  • Practiced in Collective Acceleration in Strategic Thinking in the Long Arc Learning Series
  • Practiced in Strategy in Waging Peace Learning Series

Affiliations

  • Non-Profit Professional Employees(NPEU) union member
  • Daihonzan Chozen-ji zen practitioner

Additional Information

Board Experience:

  • Community Coalition National Organizer Fellowship Advisory Council
  • Equity Research Institute (formerly USC PERE) Advisory Council
  • Windcall Residency Program Board member
  • Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board(WIB) ad-hoc committee on jobs and workforce member
  • LA City Green Retrofit Program Advisory Council
  • Welfare-to-Work City Jobs Program Oversight Committee
  • Center for Inclusion's Diversity Advancement Project Advisory Council


Featured in:

  • Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development by Joan Fitzgerald
  • The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems by Van Jones
  • Beyond Green Jobs: Building Lasting Opportunities in Energy Efficiency by The UCLA Labor Center

Hobbies

I am a lover of all music, especially the blues and jazz, and I am a vinyl record collector.  I enjoy live music, films and documentaries, and singing.   I practice tai ji, meditation and cooking homemade meals. I, along with my family and friends, love birdwatching together.  Long walks and hikes are daily practices for me.  I love to read novels and create art with pastels.

Timeline

Senior Organizer

Community Change
08.2015 - 04.2024

Community Organizer and Campaign Director

Strategic Concepts In Organizing And Policy Education
01.1993 - 07.2015

Community Organizer

Los Angeles Jobs With Peace
05.1992 - 04.1993

Labor Organizer Apprentice

HERE
10.1991 - 05.1992

Bachelor of Arts - Sociology And Latino Studies

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

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Elsa Barboza