A Message from our new Board Chair, Julissa Cruz

Greetings, YNPN Chicago community.

I’m thrilled to announce this past week, YNPN Chicago welcomed 11 fantastic members to our Executive Board, complementing the skills and experience of our 9 phenomenal returning board members. As an all-volunteer working and governing board, we take our commitment of supporting young nonprofit professionals’ growth and helping strengthen the nonprofit sector with earnest enthusiasm. And let me tell you…we are pumped for the year ahead!

So, what’s new? This year, in our commitment to centering equity in our work, we’ve formally established a Creating Space Committee whose aim is to help us be more deliberate with supporting BIPOC professionals and professionals with marginalized identities by providing targeted, relevant, and meaningful opportunities to learn, grow, and build community.

We recognize the ways, places, and philosophies of how we ‘work’ has changed considerably in the last year and a half. Given this reality, we’re especially tuned in to how we can fine-tune our programming to best deliver valuable and engaging opportunities for our community to build meaningful connections and gain valuable skills and knowledge to support their professional growth.

I am honored to Chair YNPN Chicago’s Executive Board this year alongside our Vice-Chair, Amena Wallace. Stay in touch and be the first-to-know about our programming opportunities by signing up for our newsletter. And reach out directly to us at executive@ynpnchicago.org if you want to get involved with supporting our mission.

With deep gratitude and eager anticipation for the year ahead,

Julissa Cruz, YNPN Chicago Board Chair