“As I reflect on the lessons from New Seneca Village, one of the things that really stands out to me is that my body…is home. My body tells me when I’m feeling unsafe or when it’s time to rest. [This experience] has turned me inside out and I feel like I’m becoming more of who I’m meant to be.” This reflection from Kayla Tolentino, a philanthropic and health equity advocate and a participant in the restorative leadership residency at New Seneca Village is something we hear across our work in movement and social justice spaces: BIPOC nonprofit leaders often feel disconnected from their own inner wisdom.

Prioritizing Restoration as a Power Building Strategy for BIPOC Nonprofit Leaders

Particularly for BIPOC women and gender-expansive people, sustaining leadership is about more than professional identity and capacity. It is about ensuring that they are aligned with their own spirit and values—that they are practicing trusting their intuition and integrating their insights in ways that activate their leadership.

Across this backdrop, the recent trend of sabbaticals and rest experiences is encouraging. Restoration, including the core element of rest, is crucial to ensuring that BIPOC nonprofit leaders reconnect to the baseline of their own nervous systems and recover from the stress-induced exhaustion prevalent in nonprofit spaces.

However, we know that while time away from the workplace and from our professional identities is essential, it is not sufficient to fully restore BIPOC nonprofit leaders engaged in the relentless work of addressing systemic injustice. Our world is moving at a pace of increased urgency, complexity, and consequence—to respond requires thinking about and practicing leadership differently.

The origins for New Seneca Village began in 2013. I was working for the City of Oakland and meeting young, vibrant BIPOC nonprofit leaders with new and exciting ideas. And yet, there were limited opportunities for them to step into leadership and implement their inspired ideas to benefit the community.

Read the full article about restorative practices for BIPOC nonprofit leaders by Ain Bailey at Nonprofit Quarterly.