MISSION
InteRoots is a U.S. based initiative that partners with projects and funders both domestically and internationally. We work with communities – on their own terms – as they develop and implement sustainable solutions for self-identified needs.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
For change to take root, it must be cultivated by the individual or community seeking that change.
InteRoots applies this philosophy through its model of non-colonial philanthropy, which at its root is an equity-based structure of collaboration built around the self-identified needs of communities.
Rather than designing, implementing, and evaluating projects from the top-down, we believe that communities can accomplish all of these steps from the roots-up. A community knows best what it needs, what it already has, and the challenges that must be overcome to bring about lasting change.
InteRoots strives to be a tool that opens doors for communities and funders alike. We connect local initiatives with resources they identify as critical for success, and funders with the opportunity to invest in communities not yet connected to traditional philanthropic structures.
InteRoots Offers a Pathway to Fuel Community-Based Initiatives
The services we provide include but are not limited to:
- Project planning support
- Fundraising (grantmaking, sponsorship, grant writing, partnership building)
- Project workshopping, or as we call it, ”Project Incubation”
- Facilitation of access to targeted resources when requested
- Donor consultancy and engagement
Our goal is to work with projects and supporters to develop sustainable, community-run enterprises. We are a partner and facilitator, working to remove barriers between communities and the resources they need to achieve meaningful change.
Once a project is financially independent, we step aside, thus redefining legacies of charitable giving.
Board of Directors
Ronald Kibirige, PhD - Board Chair and Co-Founder
Ronald is a Music and Dance Practitioner, Instrumentalist, Educationist and Researcher of African Music and Dance traditions. He pursued his undergraduate education in Music and Dance at Makerere University – Kampala. He completed graduate studies in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage in a consortium of four Universities; University of Blaise Pascal-France, University of Szeged – Hungary, University of Roehampton – London, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology – Norway, where he recently completed his doctoral studies in Humanities and the Arts.
Beyond Academia and the Arts, Ronald has significant experience with nonprofit collaborations and management in Africa.
Tim Harrell - Board Treasurer
Tim Harrell retired in 2018 after 44 years in Texas state government, working in numerous project management and program administration positions. He structured and managed projects with numerous non-profit organizations, including Breakthrough Central Texas, United Way, New Tech Network, Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), the Multicultural Refugee Program, and the Texas Council on Family Violence. He worked with a non-profit organization – Computers for Learning – to create a unique partnership between Texas government, Computers for Learning, Texas school districts and community organizations. The project provided over 4000 refurbished computers and internet training to economically disadvantaged students and over 2000 refurbished computers to community organizations in impoverished areas along the Texas-Mexico border. He also worked on projects in central Texas with numerous businesses, including Dell, Microsoft, and Grande Communications. His projects received numerous awards from community organizations, school districts, and the federal Job Corps program, and he received four individual commendations from his state agency. He has a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Texas Christian University (TCU).
Molly Frank, MD - Board Secretary
Molly Frank received a BS degree in Zoology from CSU in Colorado and then attended the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, graduating with a Medical Degree in 1978. She completed residency training in Family Medicine in Columbus, Ohio, and began practice in three rural clinics in Appalachia in 1981. In 1984, she moved with her family to Denver, Colorado, and continued working in Family Practice in non-profit clinics for the underinsured, and finally at Stout Street Clinic for the homeless, until retirement in 2016. She received a Certificate in Tropical Medicine from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 2008, and subsequently served as a Site Assessor for Denver-based Project CURE, making several international trips to evaluate the need of medical facilities for durable goods.
Her work in medicine was always focused on recognizing the social forces affecting health, and her goal was to empower individuals in her care to believe in themselves as change-makers.
Chloe Desmoulins - Board Director
Chloe obtained her undergraduate degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver and soon after received her Master’s degree at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in French Literature. While obtaining her MA, Chloe published her thesis, which was the first of its kind exploring a deep partnership between a playwright and set designer: Eugene Ionesco and Jacques Noel. Their partnership enabled them to accentuate each others art and realize numerous successful plays around the world. The motif of partnership is resonant for Chloe as she now works with the InteRoots Initiative.
Paul Wenell, Jr. (Tall Paul) - Board Director
Paul Wenell, Jr. (Tall Paul) is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe tribe in northern Minnesota and was born and raised in south Minneapolis. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2010 with a B.A. in American Indian Studies and a minor in Sociology. He was a full-time youth worker for the Division of Indian Work from 2011-2017, where he primarily worked in school and after school programming at a Native American Magnet school called Anishinabe Academy. In 2017, Paul pivoted to being a full-time artist, inspirational speaker and workshop facilitator as an active member of the Dream Warriors artist collective. Since then he has traveled extensively with the group, hosting performances, speaking engagements, workshops, community building initiatives and more. As a Board Director of InteRoots, he will lead the the next steps of building out Dream Warriors as a project (Where Warriors Wake), and looks forward to helping with other organizational projects. An end goal of his current work is to positively impact Native homeownership rates. The land back movement in Indian country, financial literacy, community development and the arts are among the primary topics Paul is inspired and moved by.
Domonique James - Board Director
Domonique James is an award-winning political and communications strategist on a mission to restore the American Dream and unlock the potential of individuals to impact their communities and the world. Her agency, Politics with Purpose, transforms Everyday Experts–– the leaders with the lived experience and issue expertise–– into the influencers who drive change in the media, politics, advocacy, and philanthropy.
Her cross-sector career in corporate, politics, and nonprofit have established her as a go-to strategist to social changemakers. Domonique is an example of when society gets social impact right. She’s gone from a poor working-class family to Deputy White House Liaison, all thanks to an ecosystem of people, policies, and programs that broke barriers and unlocked her potential. In addition, Domonique worked as the Director of Business Development at Audience Partners (now A4 Media), a digital advertising company. There she oversaw nearly 200 campaigns in politics, issue advocacy, and public affairs. Domonique also counts First Data Corporation (now Fiserv), MillerCoors, and Girls Who Code as previous employers. Notably, she was part of a coalition that secured $30 million in appropriated funds for paid congressional internships to diversify the pipeline of future public servants.
For her impact, Domonique was named a top 40 Under 40 leader by PR Week and the American Association of Political Consultants. She’s been featured in numerous publications including InStyle Magazine, Morning Consult, Communications Director, Diversity Professional, and Global Risk Insights. Domonique holds advisory roles at Buzzfeed and College to Congress. She’s a graduate of Spelman College and The Campaign School at Yale University. She was born and raised in Colorado.
Antonio Lewis - Board Director
Antonio Lewis, a fifth-generation Atlanta resident, represents District 12 on the Atlanta City Council. After graduating with honors from South Atlanta High School and serving as class president and captain of the basketball team, he went on to intern in the office of Mayor Shirley Franklin and was soon awarded the Mayor’s Youth Program Scholarship.
Lewis was raised by his grandmother after his mother was tragically killed when he was only three years old. This loss forever shaped his view of how impactful and essential it is to be involved in the community. This passion to positively impact his community lead Antonio to be awarded the “Outstanding Georgia Citizen” proclamation and garnered him the title of a “true son of Atlanta” in a profile by the New York Times.
After high school, Antonio continued his education at Lincoln University, an HBCU in Missouri, where he served as the student government president. His commitment to student service and leadership provided him the opportunity to become the first student to speak at the commencement ceremony in 30 years.
After graduation, Antonio furthered his objectives of service by working diligently in Washington, D.C. under U.S. Representative Lacy Clay Jr. from Missouri’s 5th District. While working there, he also worked closely with the Congressional Black Caucus, including late Representatives John Lewis of Atlanta and Elijah Cummings of Baltimore, to draw national attention to the issue of police brutality in Ferguson.
In 2012, Antonio joined the Barack Obama reelection campaign “Organizing for America,” helping sign up over 6,000 people for health coverage in Atlanta through the Affordable Care Act.
Antonio’s passion for addressing issues that working families face lead him to work in the labor movement for one of America’s most powerful and politically engaged unions, AFSCME (American Federation for State, County, and Municipal Employees). While at AFSCME, Antonio tenaciously fought for the rights of workers on campaigns across the country.
Throughout these years, Antonio has remained a persistent voice for change in his community through his activism and mentorship. He has organized protests against injustices like the murder of his close friend Rayshard Brooks by police, worked with community artists to paint several murals, and many other impactful deeds throughout Atlanta. He’s also spoken at schools and mentored youth by coaching sports teams and conducting college tours with upcoming graduates.
Yves Mulowayi - Board Director
Yves Mulowayi is a Renewable Energy Project Manager with a Masters in Renewable Energy Systems and a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. Although originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yves grew up in Denver, Colorado, where he currently works pushing to implement Solar System on new and existing buildings. His background and upbringing has made him appreciate organizations that empower people to choose how their future is going to unfold.
Katy Raffensperger - Board Director
Katy Raffensperger is a Denver-based attorney. Her expertise is in a broad range of corporate and commercial matters, including mergers and acquisitions (M&A), dispositions, and securities and listing compliance.
Tanaya Winder - Board Director
Poet, writer, and educator Tanaya Winder is an enrolled member of the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe and has ancestors from the Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, Navajo, and Black tribes. She grew up on the Southern Ute reservation in Ignacio, Colorado, and earned her BA at Stanford and an MFA from the University of New Mexico. Winder’s collections of poetry include Words Like Love (2015) and Why Storms are Named After People and Bullets Remain Nameless (2017). Poetic Theater Productions performed a suite of Winder’s poems as Love in a Time of Blood Quantum, and she won an Orlando Prize in poetry from the A Room of Her Own Foundation.
Winder centers her poetry and activity around expressing and building community. In an interview with Zingara Poetry Review, Winder notes, “I am a person who hopes my own writing and poetry reflects the times and the needs of society; without interacting with the community the poetry cannot attempt to reflect communities and so I believe poetry must intersect with community. Poetry has the potential to create community for people who are searching for it by providing a space to interact and share experiences on the page.”
Winder cofounded As/Us, an online journal devoted to writers of color; cofounded the traveling exhibit Sing Our Rivers Red to raise awareness of missing and murdered indigenous women; and founded Dream Warriors Management, a company that manages indigenous artists. The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development named her one of “40 Under 40” emerging American Indian leaders, and she was a 2017 First Peoples Fund Artists in Business Leadership fellow.
Winder lectures and teaches widely and is the director of the Upward Bound Program at the University of Colorado.
John Wallin - Board Director
John Wallin is the Principal at Catalyst Social Impact, a consultancy that supports communities and individuals in conservation and social justice advocacy. John has spent over 25 years working in rural and urban communities to build leaders, develop and execute campaigns, and improve inclusion and equity in the conservation space. He believes there is enormous joy, insight, and opportunity in grassroots power rising from communities of all kinds. He lives with his wife and daughter in Durango, Colorado.
Advisory Board
Rekha Mehra - Advisory Board Member
Rekha Mehra is an agricultural economist whose work includes research, technical assistance and training in the areas of women’s economic empowerment, agriculture, employment, financial services and multi-sector gender mainstreaming. Recent work includes design of a multi-sector gender training program for UNICEF and technical assistance to the UN Foundation on a women’s economic empowerment program in India. Dr. Mehra worked at the World Bank (2006-8) on gender mainstreaming in the economic sectors. At the Ford Foundation in New Delhi (2000-5), she led the South Asia portfolio on financial services and livelihoods. She was Vice President (1996-2000) at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) where she led economic work (1989-2000; 2008-13) in agriculture, environment, property rights, financial services and enterprise development and a USAID-funded multi-sector global technical assistance and training program. She has served on several research and development policy advisory and review groups and published articles and book chapters on topics related to gender and development. She has a Ph.D. in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida.
Christopher Chavez, Jr. - Advisory Board Member
Christopher Chavez Jr. is a proud Denverite. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from CU Boulder, and his professional background includes engineering leadership and business development.
Team Members
M. Scott Frank - Executive Director and Co-Founder
After working in the political realm for 6 years as a policy advisor and campaigner, Scott is now committed to seeing The InteRoots Initiative achieve its mission. Scott’s approach to forwarding equitable systems is informed by his academic and professional experience, which allows him to engage in work with InteRoots’ partners both as an advisor and mobilizer.
InteRoots does not currently have a full-time paid staff. Instead, we focus on providing resources for communities to hire locally. This maximizes impact, eliminates redundancies, and reduces overhead.
A BALANCED APPROACH
InteRoots projects are led by Community Boards, which are selected by a community to represent its interests and goals. These Boards work with local organizations, selected advisors, and InteRoots in realizing a community’s vision.
Input from InteRoots is shared through a Community Liaison, who is trusted by the community to translate norms and needs effectively. In this way, all project efforts are communicated and carried out by a local source. A representative from the community will serve on the InteRoots Board of Directors during their project and for at least one additional term. This means communities have equity in every level of the decision making process, and can lead/influence organizational approaches and narratives. More importantly, critical knowledge is preserved and shared through Board membership as project leaders become advisors and champions for other initiatives across the InteRoots network.
Below is an example framework for an InteRoots project:
APPLY FOR PARTNERSHIP
How does The InteRoots Initiative select and develop partnerships?
If a proposed project aligns with InteRoots’ mission and shows potential for success through subsequent dialogue, project leadership is asked to work with InteRoots in identifying a Project Liaison. The role of a Project Liaison is to act as an intermediary between the project and InteRoots. Liaisons are selected by InteRoots and the community in tandem. Once a project liaison is selected, the project enters the “Incubation Phase.”
The “Incubation Phase” encompasses the wide-array of activities needed to cultivate a meaningful, sustainable, community-led project. The purpose of the Incubation Phase is to ensure communities can access resources necessary for project start-up, engage in a constructive dialogue, and clear bureaucratic hurdles that often exclude community projects from established nonprofit support structures. This may be accomplished through many avenues, including but not limited to:
- Fiscal sponsorship of existing activities;
- Execution of smaller-scale community projects, called “roots projects," to develop trust and test concepts;
- Joint fundraising activities;
- Financial support for critical thinkers, activators, and project cultivators;
- Exploring accountability systems.
Although InteRoots works to provide helpful input through Project Incubation, feedback is never prescriptive, and is provided through experience-based questions appropriately filtered through the Project Liaison.
Once a a project is prepared to move forward with a comprehensive vision, InteRoots will review the project proposal and move to invite a community member to serve as a Board Director. If elected, this Board Director will head a subcommittee overseeing the project and any structured funding dispersed.
Standards of success, commitment, and transparency will be generated by the community, but mutually agreed upon by all project partners. This process of holding the community accountable to its own terms of success we call “community compliance."
Utilizing InteRoots’ existing infrastructure, projects are able to conform with standards governing the activities of nonprofit organizations. This allows funders and donors to provide meaningful, non-colonial, support to projects otherwise inaccessible through existing philanthropic networks.
What are the steps to apply for an InteRoots Partnership?
The first step when seeking an InteRoots partnership is to make sure an envisioned project aligns with InteRoots’ mission. If you feel a project does align, we encourage you to email or call our Executive Director (Scott Frank, scott@interoots.org, 917-558-5115). Please include any information you think is relevant in starting a dialogue.
Currently, InteRoots is unable make any additional direct financial commitments with partners for FY2022. However, if you are interested in exploring a fiscal sponsorship for outside funding, or would like to engage in a conversation regarding a potential future project and its incubation, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Contact Us
The InteRoots Initiative
67 N Logan Street Unit D2
Denver, CO 80203
If you have any questions please reach out to: scott@interoots.org or call (917) 558 5115.