Why I Started Counterpoint Leadership Lab
Being an early-career nonprofit leader is hard. Despite your relative youth or limited experience, you’re expected to navigate fundraising, governance, finance, people management, strategy, and countless other responsibilities. You search for support, but never seem to find enough of it. I’d describe it as juggling chainsaws while blindfolded—except that might be easier.
If you’re a leader of color, it’s even harder. You learn to code-switch without losing sight of who you are. You become accustomed to being the only person in the room who looks like you. You carry the weight of representation while reminding people that you are an individual, not a symbol.
I know this because I’ve lived it. After nine years founding and leading an arts outreach program at Princeton University, I became CEO of a million-dollar music education nonprofit with virtually no formal nonprofit management experience. I was 27 years old, relatively untested, and terrified that I would burn everything to the ground.
I read leadership books, only to find their corporate vernacular alienating. I attended webinars, only to find the advice too broad to be useful. I searched for executive coaching, only to discover I couldn’t afford it.
What sustained me was an informal network of friends, colleagues, and mentors who answered the phone whenever I called with a question—no matter how small. They helped me avoid mistakes, recover from the ones that I inevitably made, and gave me the practical education in nonprofit leadership that no book or webinar ever could.
That doesn’t change the fact that I’m still early in my own leadership journey. So why would I choose to mentor other early-career leaders?
Because I’ve seen the power of near-peer mentorship before.
As a music teacher, I’m not effective because I am a world-class performer. I’m effective because I am only a few steps ahead of my students. I still remember what it felt like to struggle.
I believe leadership works the same way. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I am deeply familiar with the questions. I know what it’s like to be the youngest person in the room, to wonder whether you’re ready, and to decide which parts of yourself to bring into the room and which parts to leave at the door.
Sometimes the person best positioned to help isn’t the one who’s ten miles ahead of you. It’s the one who’s a few feet ahead, remembers exactly what those first steps felt like, and can reach back with a helping hand.
Counterpoint Leadership Lab is my way of offering the kind of support that changed my own leadership journey.