World Leadership School: Salmon River for School Heads

EMA doesn’t just talk about empowering youth as one of its core values, it is a top priority. Nearly 75% of the EMA Foundation team members are under 25, with about 70% still pursuing their undergraduate degrees. EMA gives students the opportunity to lead and undertake projects based on their capabilities and interests rather than their degree. And, as always, trust is at the heart of it all. 

As a result, EMA's approach to centering youth in its work has led to a majority-student staff who are passionate about tackling global issues, which aligns them with the foundation's values. Like Erika Cao, EMA Senior Project Manager and rising senior at the University of California Irvine, most young team members describe EMA’s vision as being a large part of why they became engaged in the work.

“EMA has deeply shaped my values and perspective on the world. Our team members and partners are deeply committed to a lens of empathy, community, and equity and that's the most powerful and engaging space to work in.”

As a direct result of this empowering environment, team members have described significant personal and professional growth during their time with EMA. While the foundation's approach to youth empowerment is uncommon in its own right, it's the individual experiences of staff members that truly bring it to life.

Olivia Reibel, Development Associate and a rising junior at Washington University in St. Louis, has felt a strong affinity for EMA’s values. In her experience, coming to EMA was like a breath of fresh air after taking a gap year, as she sensed that EMA would be a place where she could make a difference with her unique set of skills. “I think it was a perfect fit of an alignment of values and facilitating an impact that I believed in,” says Reibel.

Reibel and Cao were introduced to EMA through others on the team whose values resonated with them, and it was those people who helped to create the positive environment in which they wanted to work. Julia Minassian, Partner Relations Associate and rising junior at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, attests to the power of that combination: “The environment at EMA is incredibly synergistic. Ideas and passions just build off of each other in a really beautiful way that allow everyone to share their perspective.”

Juliane Garcia, Development Intern and a rising senior at Barnard College, also thrived in an environment where every perspective was valued. Working with the EMA development team this summer, she helped to draft a report summarizing the impact of EMA’s work, which enabled her to cultivate her abilities in a professional capacity. “We had a lot of independence to choose the work we do. That has really helped me hone in on my skills and decide where I can contribute in that mosaic of collaboration,” said Garcia.

This encouraging space allowed Minassian to lean into her interests because of how much the staff at EMA believed in her. She gives credit to the foundation’s culture of taking young people seriously for her increased self-confidence.

“I feel that I am challenged in my perspectives and beliefs, but also trusted in my own vision and experience. Since working at EMA, I've grown to trust myself a lot more. In previous jobs, I've felt I had to work a lot harder to be taken seriously, especially as a woman, being more afraid to mess up or not say something that I wasn't 100% sure of.”

Anna Crawford, Social Media & Communications Intern and a 2024 graduate of University of Texas Austin, has also been able to develop greater confidence in herself while collaborating with EMA’s Communications Director, Cedrick Gustave, who is himself a 2023 graduate of University of Massachusetts, Boston. “The mix of trusting myself to be able to do things and knowing that I have the space to learn and grow within EMA has been really helpful,” said Crawford.

Jalen Walker, Director of Operations and rising senior at Washington University in St. Louis, has a similar story. After joining the team in May 2023, he had a vision for how to help the foundation grow in its professional capacities and has been achieving those goals ever since. 

“I've done some important work at EMA and things that are meaningful. I sort of take that as a continual reminder to myself that I'm super capable and super able to do all these things that people do not expect me to be able to do.”

Walker is most proud of his work with EMA partner Haa Tóoch Lichéesh (HTL), a community-based coalition in Alaska that follows a trauma-informed, survivor-centered approach to preventing violence and promoting healing. In collaboration with HTL’s Violence Prevention and Outreach Director, Ati Koon Ya Nagoodi Nasiah, Walker helped to write and establish a community agreement for all members of the coalition to assist them in dealing with individuals who have caused harm to those in the community. 

Similarly, Cao was trusted to take on a leadership role while working with EMA partner BYkids in creating the Community of Learners last summer, facilitating numerous virtual cohort meetings where teachers strategized how to integrate BYkids films into their curriculum. As the foundation’s Senior Project Manager, Cao also leads meetings and manages the Partner Relations team year-round. An aspiring educator, she strives to prioritize student voices and has found a way to do that in her work at EMA.

“Everything about who I am and have been has been really dedicated to creative storytelling and shifting power opportunities and increasing equity by activating communities. I feel like I'm capable of learning things on my own, and partners and team members are given a lot of agency and room to dream, to create, to realize our visions.”

Tracy Tran, Partner Relations Associate and a rising senior at the University of California Irvine, has been able to realize their vision for career aspirations while working with EMA partner Children of the Forest (CoF), where they have assisted with CoF’s website development, enabling them to better understand effective messaging frameworks and develop their articulation skills.

As a public health major, Tran has always been interested in mental health, but had only seen possible cures being found in medicine or education. Now, through their work at EMA, they have found another one.

“I have a much better grasp on how stories can be used for facilitating empathy. It’s opened up a lot more choices for me in terms of how I can facilitate healing. As an artist, it's really exciting for me to think that there is a middle ground that exists.”

Nathan Doughty, a Partner Relations Associate who is taking a gap year before starting  Middlebury College next fall, sought to expand upon the meaning of academically focused work. While in high school, Doughty found it challenging to find motivation with some projects, but at EMA he found that a belief in the foundation’s mission and values has been a game changer. “It's been a while since there's been intellectual work to do that I care about, so being a part of EMA has forced me to get rid of the mindset of doing the bare minimum,” said Doughty. His perception of what he envisioned his future career might look like has also been challenged. As someone interested in studying engineering in college, he was afraid that he would have to choose a career in that field or a career that shares his values, where he would make no money. “EMA shows me that I don't necessarily have to do either of those things. I can find a place that's not a massive defense contractor, but that is also making some money and doing something that I really care about.”

Communications intern Crawford also learned what is possible for a workplace environment to be through her work at EMA– one that is not controlled by obligations but by a practice of uplifting one another. That normalization of having both shared values and appreciation for each other has changed her hopes for the future.

“You can have great values and also appreciate your staff continuing to do great work, and actually those things propel each other forward. Standards for a place to work have been lifted for the rest of my life. That’s a really big deal for me.”

The way that EMA empowers young people feels unique and has made a difference in the lives of the staff that work here, including myself. We firmly believe that intergenerational work is powerful when it comes from a place of trust in our partners, each other, and ourselves. 

Minassian and all the young folks on staff at EMA believe in that power:

“I think youth empowerment means trusting young people to carry out work, not in spite of their age, but because of the unique perspectives that they bring. You don't need to be an older white cis-het man to deserve to be taken seriously and to take up space with your ideas. Your ideas are valued just because you exist.”

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Devon Davey has been partnering with social organizations for 15 years and has worked with EMA for the past two years doing consulting and coaching work, both with EMA team members and with our partners. For Davey, coaching is all about helping others realize their full potential. As reflected in her EMA job title of Director of Partner & Organizational Thriving, her persistent goal is to help build thriving organizations. 

Davey attributes experiential learning as what led her to become interested in a career in coaching. At 17 she volunteered at a Ronald McDonald House, helping to take care of kids who were terminally ill. She then interned for dozens of organizations, where she observed many different leadership styles. Prior to adding EMA to her list of clients, she worked for various global human rights groups, local chapters of social service organizations, and community engagement efforts. 

After coaching EMA’s Executive Director Bill Meyer, Davey expanded her work with EMA and began to prioritize building meaningful relationships with EMA partners. “When you've seen a lot of processes, structures, and ways of working and collaborating, it's really nice to be able to offer those models and tools and resources to organizational leaders to help them get to where they want to go a little bit more effectively and carefully with a relational approach,” Davey said.

Davey described her work with the EMA partners as transformative. Being able to work with multiple people within a singular nonprofit, to her, has been the difference maker because “the work runs on trust and relationships."

"There's an embedded layer of trust that I get to come in with, which is what helps my coaching relationship and partnership really thrive and grow.”

Baqir Bayani, Global Partnerships and Refugee Participation Lead at EMA partner Asylum Access, can attest to the impact Davey's coaching has had on him, and the role it has played in helping him and his team tackle the challenges unique to their work. "Working with Devon as my coach was a transformative experience," said Baqir. "She introduced me to the concept of Positive Intelligence and the nine Saboteurs, which was entirely new to me. This approach not only increased my awareness of my mental behaviors but also significantly improved the quality of my decision-making and work performance. As a wise thought partner during our sessions, she created a safe and supportive environment for me to explore my thought processes and offered guidance that helped me shift some of my perspectives."

For Chloe Esposito, Co-Director at Lighthouse Relief, learning how to deal with self-sabotage was just one of the many things that she learned under Davey’s mentorship. “I see the value of identifying my saboteurs and continue to think about what I learned,” said Esposito. “Other techniques I find valuable are the procrastination list and just having her ongoing support and validation during a challenging period.”

As her role with EMA continued to grow, Davey also began working with many of the young members of the EMA team in peer groups, meeting with them for weekly virtual discussions and assigning mental strength-building homework and exercises. Through those conversations, Partner Relationship Manager Tracy Tran (they/them) found their own answers about self-sabotage, which they were able to successfully apply to their life outside of a professional setting. “I learned I avoid tasks because my saboteurs tell me I’ll be happier without completing them,” said Tran. “But the truth is that the rewards of completing the task far outweigh just the temporary action of fulfilling the task. I applied this learning most significantly with my gym routine.”

Partner Relationship Manager Julia Minassian’s experience learning from Davey has also influenced the way she approaches challenges. “I value the unique perspective she brings to EMA,” she noted. “Devon asks insightful questions and is able to challenge me and make me smile simultaneously. Her influence encourages me to be a strong leader and take more creative risks in my work." For former Director of Development Sam Silveira, a sense of empathy is a key element of Davey's coaching skills: “She was always willing to meet me where I was at. Our coaching relationship was really rooted in trust and honesty. She’s so great at noticing and expanding people’s strengths.”

Those values of trust and honesty have greatly impacted the way that Davey approaches her clients. As she reflects on her work with EMA and its partners, she notes that it has differed significantly from her other clients, due to the organization’s flat hierarchy structure and empowering environment, which has transformed the way she works.

“Being in such an open, supportive, communicative, and somewhat decolonized environment, I do really feel like while working at EMA I can let go of urgency and perfection that much more. These are all white-dominant supremacist norms that society, the patriarchy, organizational structures, and non-profit structures put on us, and that our family systems also put on us. We have to push against those, and I feel like I can do that so much more with the track record of knowing that EMA has done relationships a bit differently than most organizations and networks.”

Davey focuses on supporting leaders from diverse backgrounds, especially women and leaders of color, who have been historically marginalized. She seeks to help them reach an “abundance mindset.” “Coaching is a really powerful way to do that because leaders hold the structures and processes that create really high impact. If we can create high impact with the leaders who can give what's needed to meet the moment, that's what I want to be a part of,” she said.

One memorable coaching experience for Davey was when she was able to help a former colleague and LatinX business leader who identifies as queer to meet their moment. Seeing how they were struggling with influence and how to encourage people to do what they wanted them to, Davey was able to reframe the narrative and challenge them to see how they functioned as a coach in their own work environment. “That's not their title, that's not their training. That's not how they see themselves," Davey recalled. "And they were like, ‘You just blew my mind that I can reframe what I'm thinking about how I influence people on projects now as a coach'."

Over time, Davey has consistently refined her approach to coaching, allowing her to recognize which aspects of her work enable her clients to thrive. She continues to implement non-judgmental and empathetic listening while striving for an abundance mindset—and always seeking to learn, create, and grow.

EMA partner In-Sight Collaborative believes that anyone can be a humanitarian. Their definition of that role is simple yet profound: “Being a humanitarian is a mindset, a way of grounding yourself in kindness and empathy in all you do to improve the lives of all humankind.”

Twice a year, In-Sight offers a free Mentorship Program for anyone who considers themselves, or aspires to be, a humanitarian. It is designed to equip participants with the tools and resources they need to effectively engage in aid work and to introduce, identify, and discuss issues within the humanitarian sector.

The program’s philosophy is based upon the idea that self-improvement and self-awareness are crucial to social impact work; one cannot address the needs of others without first focusing inward. As noted in the program handbook: “In-Sight Collaborative positions itself as a facilitator and contributor to those in the humanitarian sector who are recognizing that aid work starts with oneself – recognizing the relationship that humanitarians have with themselves, their community, and their work, which translates to larger systemic issues.”

Nadira Saraswati, Chief Operating Officer for the organization, can attest to the significance of In-Sight’s belief in empathy through her own experience as a graduate of their very first Mentorship Program in 2020.

“It's very much an academic program as much as it is a human program. Programs like this exist in the world where they take you as you are, instead of expecting you to already come as someone. It feels nice to find a program that will kind of grow with you.”

During COVID in Northern Greece, In-Sight quickly realized that direct humanitarian aid to migrant communities in need was unsustainable. Instead, they sought to figure out how to best meet the needs of those communities in crisis by addressing the root causes of their need for aid. And from there, the Mentorship Program was born.

The program is free to anyone 17 or older who may not have access to humanitarian training through other sources and is offered over ten weeks every January to April and as a six-week accelerated program in English, Arabic, or Spanish every July to August. As Saraswati put it, “We welcome anyone who is willing to learn and unlearn with us.”

As the program has evolved over the last few years, its curriculum and approach have been designed to reflect In-Sight's core beliefs: to center participants and build relationships. Featuring an array of interactive speaker sessions, discussions, and projects, the curriculum has been created with the input of many subject experts, educators, and activists and adapted based on the input of the program participants rather than that of donors or other humanitarian actors. 

Unlike typical learning structures, the student cohorts are not run hierarchically, sometimes blurring the lines between mentors and mentees. That dynamic is intentional, notes Saraswati. “All mentors are doing is providing structure, but we are learning as much from the mentees as they are from us. It's not like we have power over you; we have power together and keep building that up.” The curriculum reflects this by including the perspectives of multiple cultural groups and letting their voices lead the learning, says Saraswati.

“We believe knowledge comes from everywhere, and the fact that our society only values one type of knowledge is wrong. We want to shift away from that and explore the range of knowledge systems in the world.” 

By embracing this approach, In-Sight conveys its core value of bringing every voice to the table. Specifically, they demonstrate their trust and belief in the unique vision and story of every individual who participates, which Saraswati felt personally while she was a mentee in the program.

“They know you by name. They care about your dreams and they give you support as you grow into yourself, that's a really powerful way of changing the world. You don't need to be a policymaker or a billionaire to change people's lives.”

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If you or someone you know are interested in applying for the next Mentorship Program cohort in January 2025, In-Sight will be posting application information on their website in September. We also invite you to consider making a donation to support In-Sight’s transformational Mentorship Program to equip and empower current and future humanitarians.