My Focus is My Locus: The tension between doing the mission and managing the people doing it.

For me, one of the most enduring leadership lessons is this: where we place our attention shapes what we are able to build.

Right now, endless distractions compete for our focus. We are under constant pressure to react immediately to political chaos, attacks on democratic participation, shrinking resources, culture wars, and fear-based narratives. But sustainable leadership, especially in challenging times, cannot be built in a perpetual state of reaction.

That is why my personal mantra this season has been: My focus is my locus.

At CEN, we are centering our attention on the work that endures and on the areas where we can have meaningful impact. We remain committed to strengthening organizations long after the news cycle changes and helping leaders navigate complexity without abandoning their values or themselves.

We also recognize that leadership and political power are deeply connected. When communities lose access to representation, voting protections, or equitable participation, nonprofits often become part of the civic infrastructure that helps hold democracy together at the local level.

That work matters deeply to me personally. I come from a family that helped shape the Civil Rights Movement in the American South, and I have never taken for granted that our rights are permanently secure. They must be protected, exercised, and strengthened across generations. I carry that commitment into my role at CEN, where we support organizations and leaders doing the hard work of protecting democracy, advancing civic participation, and upholding the dignity of every community.

CEN’s focus remains clear: leadership development, healthy governance, courageous conversations, collaboration, and strengthening organizations so they can continue to act with integrity under pressure, even in the most daunting moments.

Focused leadership is not light work. In times like these, it is transformational.

Beyond Survival: A Reflection on Women Leadership

In closing what felt like a particularly consequential Black History Month, I find myself reflecting on the weight—and the gift—of leadership in this moment. The political climate in the U.S. is not abstract. It shapes funding flows, public narratives, and the lived realities of the communities we serve. For many in our CEN community—especially Black leaders—Black History Month was not just commemorative, it was clarifying.

As we begin Women’s History Month, my thoughts move toward envisioning what exists beyond mere survival—something very relevant to the nonprofit sector.

For decades, women have kept institutions functioning—even when they did not fully serve or protect us. We are seeing painful, real-time reminders of how systems can enable abuse and reward silence. As powerful networks are exposed and held to account for perpetrating and protecting harm, in an effort to take away lessons from these situations, I consider what our nonprofit organizations are designed to sustain and uphold and how.

Stabilizing a team in turbulent time is infrastructure. Applying an IDEAL lens to governance is infrastructure. Insisting on dignity in budgeting, programming, and policy is infrastructure. But building sustainable infrastructure cannot come at the cost of depletion or our settling for survival rather than seeking our birthright to thrive.

I hope women—especially those early in their leadership journeys—hear clearly that great leadership is not proven by how much we endure. Each passing day teaches me that it is strengthened by what we protect. Our health. Our family and faith. Our joy and creativity. Our integrity. Our sanity! The life we are building alongside the work. The parts of us that existed before the title and will remain long after it.

During this Women’s History Month, may we move beyond surviving flawed systems and toward imagining and building new ones that support cultures of shared power, accountability,

justice, love, and care. May we build institutions strong enough to hold truth—and humane enough to protect the people inside them.

That is the future worth leading toward.