Becoming Together: Leading with Feminine and Collective Power

October 29, 2026 | 8:30 AM-6:00 PM

An immersive day of story, reflection, embodied practice, connection, and collective imagination.

8:30-9:00 AM | Registration, Breakfast and Connection

Arrive, enjoy breakfast, and connect with fellow participants as we prepare for the day together.

9:00-9:15 AM | Welcome and Opening

CWIP + BECOME

We will ground ourselves in the purpose of Becoming Together, introduce the journey for the day, and open our shared space.

9:15-10:00 AM | Reclaiming Power

Live Podcast Recording: Reclaiming Sisterhood with Kimberly Casey and Adrienne Johnson

What is power, and what might it look like to fully embody feminine and collective power in this moment?

Join us for a live recording of the Reclaiming Sisterhood Podcast with Kimberly Casey and Adrienne Johnson, exploring power, leadership, and what it means to reclaim and embody feminine and collective power in this time. Participants will also have an opportunity to reflect on their own relationship with power.

Feminine Power

10:00-10:30 AM | A Story of Feminine Power

A featured storyteller, Lesley Kennedy, share will a personal journey of discovering, reclaiming, and actualizing feminine power.

10:30-11:15 AM | Embodying Feminine Power

Somatic and Embodied Practice

Erin Barnett will lead us in a guided experience, inviting us to connect with the wisdom of our bodies, slow down, listen inward, and experience power beyond words.

11:15 AM-12:30 PM | Mapping and Embodying Our Power

Facilitated by BECOME

An interactive exploration of the many forms of power we carry and encounter. Together, we will reflect on feminine power, identify the power already present within and around us, and create intentions for how we want to lead and live.

12:30-1:00 PM | Lunch and Connection

Enjoy lunch, conversation, and time to connect with others.

Collective Power

1:00-1:30 PM | A Story of Collective Power

A featured storyteller, Mama Edie, will share a personal journey from individual power toward collective power, reflecting on the relationships, experiences, and shifts that helped shape a deeper sense of connection and collective possibility.

1:30-2:30 PM | The Power of Our Ancestors

Ancestral Connection and Collective Practice

Pilar Audain will guide us in an experiential session connecting us to the wisdom, creativity, strength, and legacy of those who came before us. Through reflection and collective practice, we will explore how ancestral power continues to live through us and inform what we create together.

Participants are invited to bring a small ancestral item, such as a photograph, symbol, piece of fabric, jewelry, or another meaningful object, to accompany them during this experience.

2:30-4:00 PM | Cultivating Collective Power

Facilitated by BECOME

A participatory experience focused on what we can cultivate together. We will explore the relationships, practices, and possibilities that strengthen collective power and create intentions for carrying that power into our communities, organizations, and lives.

Power in Unity

4:00-4:45 PM | Gratitude and Closing Circle

We will close our shared experience in community, offering gratitude for ourselves, one another, our ancestors, and what we have created throughout the day. Our closing circle will include rhythm, movement, and collective celebration guided by Ayo Dele Drum and Dance. 

4:45-6:00 PM | Optional: Becoming Together Happy Hour

Off-Site

Continue the connection after our closing circle with an informal off-site happy hour. Join us for conversation, refreshments, and time to simply enjoy being together. (Pay your own way.)

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

Ally Sponsors

T. Ayo Alston
Executive Artistic Director
Ayodele Drum & Dance

T. Ayo Alston, a Brooklyn native and Chicago transplant, holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Vermont State University-Johnson. They are an educator, choreographer, and artist specializing in West African drum and dance, emphasizing the strength of women and power of community. As Executive Artistic Director of Ayodele Drum & Dance, Ayo leads the all-women organization in empowering women through cultural connection, artistic expression, and dynamic performance. A 2018 3Arts Award and 2022 USA Fellowship recipient, Ayo creates queered Afro-diasporic work rooted in storytelling and community building. They have studied with master teachers M’bemba Bangoura, Mouminatou Camara, Rosangela Silvestre, and Youssouf Koumbassa, and performed with companies throughout West Africa, Brazil, and the United States. Ayo is adjunct faculty at Columbia College Chicago and the University of Michigan, advancing African dance in academia through curriculum development and expanded presence in higher education.  

Mama Edie McLoud Armstrong

Mama Edie McLoud Armstrong is a speech and language pathologist who began using storytelling, poetry, music and movement in her language programs in the late ‘70’s to more holistically meet the needs of her multiply challenged children and adult clients.  

Many of them also suffered from low self-esteem resulting largely from lack of self-knowledge and of personal cultural history. With interactive folktales, cultural/historical stories, personal and spirit-filled stories, Mama Edie found through this medium a way to empower her children. She imparted the knowledge that each of them was beautiful, unique and capable of doing great things, while also meeting their speech and language goals as well. With increased requests for paid performances and workshops from colleagues outside of the school setting, often blending Spanish with English, a professional bilingual storyteller was born. Including American Sign Language was a way to honor her deaf and hard-of-hearing children and simultaneously taught her hearing children how to “see and tell a story with their hands.” Read more. 

Pilar Audain
Wellness Coach & Executive Director
Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Greater Chicago

Pilar Audain is a healing practitioner, wellness coach, community leader, and advocate for collective well-being with more than 25 years of experience helping individuals and communities heal, reconnect, and thrive. Through trauma-informed practices, ancestral wisdom, mindfulness, guided reflection, and healing-centered facilitation, she creates spaces that support mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellness.

Pilar serves as Executive Director of Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Greater Chicago, where she leads efforts to advance racial healing, strengthen community connections, and cultivate belonging across Chicago. She also serves on Chicago's Reparations Task Force Mental Health & Wellness Committee, helping shape conversations around healing, equity, and community restoration. Read more. 

Erin Barnett
Black Girls Dance

Erin Barnett is a Broadway performer turned transformational coach, choreographer, and founder of Black Girls Dance®, a nonprofit that boldly disrupts the dance industry by creating access and opportunities for Black and Brown girls to train, perform, and lead at the highest level.

With over two decades of experience in the performing arts, Erin blends her background in dance, wellness, and faith to create healing spaces that restore both body and spirit. She is the visionary behind The Erin Barnett Experience, a corporate wellness concierge service, and the creator of The Confidence Code™ — a faith-rooted digital experience helping girls build authentic confidence through mirror work, affirmations, movement, and mindset mastery.

Erin’s work has been supported by the Chicago Foundation for Women, the Girls Opportunity Alliance, and the Ronald L. McDaniel Foundation, and her impact continues to ripple across stages, classrooms, and communities nationwide.

At her core, Erin is a movement healer, a confidence catalyst, and a living testimony of what happens when women lead from wholeness. Whether on stage, in the studio, or in sacred healing spaces like this one, she shows up with one mission: to help others remember who they are and rise into it — fully, freely, and faithfully.

Sharon Bush
President
AMARA Illinois

Sharon Bush is the President of AMARA Illinois, a $200 million grantmaking organization with annual giving of $10 million to nonprofit organizations across Illinois.

For decades, Sharon has spearheaded transformations of organizations and initiatives that resulted in deep social impact in Chicago and beyond. She led the transformation of AMARA to become one of the largest Black-centered foundations in the country. Her civic service has been diverse and influential. She is a Chicago Park District commissioner and a Trustee of Roosevelt University, a community of educators, scholars, and learners committed to academic, creative, and service excellence. She has also served as a member of the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Chicago Fed Advisory Council on Small Business, Community and Economic Development, Agriculture and Labor, comprised of diverse leaders who advise the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago leadership about issues impacting their industries and communities. Sharon is the immediate past chair of the Board of Directors of ABFE, a national philanthropic organization that advocates for responsive and transformative investments in Black communities.

Born and raised on Chicago’s west side, Sharon has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Public Administration from Roosevelt University.  

Kimberly Casey
Reclaiming Sisterhood podcast

Kimberly Casey, Founder and Principal of Kimberly Casey & Associates LLC (KCA), is a visionary leader and DEI strategist with over two decades of experience driving social impact. She specializes in helping organizations embed equity into their practices, policies, and leadership structures. Kimberly's expertise includes capacity building, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, diverse supplier procurement, and leadership development, with a focus on dismantling systemic inequities. Her community-centered approach has empowered community-based organizations to foster inclusive cultures and sustainable growth. Kimberly is a trusted partner for those committed to social justice, recognized for her ability to amplify the voices of marginalized individuals and transform organizational practices.

Kim is originally from Milwaukee, WI, and has lived in the Englewood community of Chicago for over 20 years.  She serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the African American Legacy Fund, Vice Chair of the Board for Trilogy Behavioral Health, and board member for BA NIA Inc., a reproductive justice and health equity organization that provides holistic health services for women of color, LGBTQ+ communities, regardless of income.

Adrienne Johnson
Reclaiming Sisterhood podcast

Adrienne Johnson has built and led large teams, managed multimillion-dollar budgets and grant portfolios, developed programs from the ground up, mentored emerging leaders, and cultivated relationships with community residents, government agencies, schools, businesses, and nonprofit partners. She is known for her ability to see what is missing, bring people together, and find practical solutions while keeping people at the center of the work. Adrienne is also the founder of Adrienne Johnson Global, Inc., where she brings her experience in leadership, organizational development, mentoring, and community engagement to her work with individuals and organizations.

Adrienne holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago and a Master of Nonprofit Administration from North Park University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Leadership, Equity, and Inquiry at Illinois State University, continuing to connect what she has learned through decades of practice with research and scholarship. As she enters the next chapter of her career, Adrienne is focused on sharing what she has learned, developing the next generation of leaders, and using her experience to help build stronger organizations and communities. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys gardening, practicing Pilates, and caring for her two dogs.

Lesley Kennedy, AM
Student Midwife, Birth Assistant, Certified Doula, Community Impact Coach
My Brother's Keeper

Lesley Kennedy has dedicated over two decades of her career to fortifying Chicago's non-profit sector. In 2023, Lesley made a remarkable career shift to center birth justice as her main professional focus. Most recently she served as Director of Strategy and Organizational Development for the Chicago South Side Birth Center. Lesley is a student midwife, birth assistant, and doula. Lesley is the proprietor of a thriving consulting practice that predominantly centers on organization development, fostering positive organizational cultures, and providing leadership coaching. Lesley currently coaches systems change leaders across the country with the Obama Foundation’s My Brothers Keeper Initiative. Lesley held key positions, including Chief Equity Officer for Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, where she played a pivotal role in advancing equity initiatives. Additionally, she served as the Director of Strategy and Organization Development at Cabrini Green Legal Aid (CGLA), where she provided invaluable support in shaping the organization's internal culture and strategic direction. Read more. 

Dominica McBride, PhD
CEO
Become: Center for Community Engagement and Social Change

Dr. Dominica McBride is a leading thinker in the realm of community psychology, community healing, and collective transformation. As a champion of Culturally Responsive Evaluation and a grassroots advocacy strategist, she has dedicated her work to building the capacity of communities to create the reality they desire and deserve.

In 2013, Dr. McBride founded BECOME with the belief that communities should be at the forefront of realizing their visions of thriving communities. Drawing on her experience in program development and evaluation projects in Arizona, the Chicago area, and Tanzania, Africa, she recognizes the power of culturally responsive evaluation as a tool for positive change.

With a background in community psychology, Dr. McBride has made significant contributions as a consultant, program director, adjunct faculty member, and therapist in the field. Her expertise and insights have made her a sought-after speaker and trainer for communities, coalitions, and organizations across the nation. She has also been recognized and honored with a range of awards for her outstanding work, including the Supervisor of the Year Award from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and the Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award from the American Evaluation Association.

Dr. McBride holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology with a specialization in Consultation from Arizona State University. Aside from her professional accomplishments, she embraces the joy of motherhood and finds fulfillment in witnessing her two remarkable children flourish.

Shemeka Woodson,  MA, CHW
Transformative Operations Navigator
Become: Center for Community Engagement and Social Change

Shemeka, a nonprofit management professional, and a collaborative community change agent with a passion for people empowerment, human capital and serving marginalized populations. She carries eight plus years of administrative and managerial experience with a versatile skill set ranging from data entry, project management, program management and evaluation, grant writing, branding/marketing and social media management. 

A Houston, Texas native, she began working in the non-profit sector as an affordable housing advocate in social services management for low-income residents and families in South Texas. In 2016, she served on the City of San Antonio’s Community Action Advisory Board as a Private Representative. Shemeka is also the owner of Colorful Conscience LLC, a socially conscious business branding purposeful work to IGNITE change, INSPIRE communities and IMPACT the next generation using collaborative alliances within the public and private sector. Her mission is to address the Social Determinants of Health by creating bridges for people powered solutions that ignite social equity and change.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from St. Mary’s University (San Antonio, TX), a Community Health Worker certification from the State of Texas, a Non-Profit Leadership and Management graduate certificate and pursued her Masters of Public Administration from The University of Texas in San Antonio.

Join Social Sector Leaders For Powerful Learning and Networking

Chicago Women in Philanthropy and BECOME are inviting partners to participate in our 2nd annual Leadership Summit for senior women and non-binary leaders driving change across Chicagoland.

See the sponsorship prospectus here! 

Connect with 80+ leaders throughout a full-day Leadership Summit

• Nonprofit and corporate executives
• Foundation program officers
• Fundraising professionals and advisors
• Business owners and decision-makers

What to Expect

• A powerhouse roster of speakers and facilitators representing the best of Chicago’s social sector
• Dynamic leadership experiences on how to use feminine and collective power to transform ourselves and our organizations
• Plentiful connection, networking, and community-building time during the event, with mutual ongoing support among participants
• Partner recognition to 8,300+ CWIP and BECOME community members receiving pre- and post-event communications
• Put your partnership and product or service in the minds and hands of event participants via sampling or literature distribution

Leader Sponsor | $5,000 (One Available)

• Sole featured speaking opportunity for partner representative during event opening

• Partnership feature article on event registration site and Know Before You Go participant email

• 4 Summit registrations for organization/partner representatives to participate ($700 value)

• Sampling or literature distribution opportunity in 80+ participant and speaker gift bags

• Opportunity to share branded partner item on participant tables (e.g., fidget, pen, journal, etc.)

• Logo recognition on signage alongside participant breakfast or lunch

• Logo recognition as lead sponsor on all event-related materials (pre/during/post)

• One-year CWIP organizational membership (up to 6 individual memberships; $1,000 value)

Advocate Sponsor | $2,500 (Three Available)

• Opportunity to introduce one speaker/facilitator during live event

• 2 Summit registrations for organization/partner representatives to participate ($350 value)

• Sampling or literature distribution opportunity in 80+ participant and speaker gift bags

• Opportunity to share branded partner item on participant tables (e.g., fidget, pen, journal, etc.)

• Logo recognition as sponsor on all event-related materials (pre/during/post)

• Logo and verbal recognition from podium during opening and closing of event

• One-year CWIP organizational membership (up to 6 individual memberships; $1,000 value)

Ally Sponsor | $1,000 (Six Available)

• 1 Summit registration for organization representative to participate ($175 value)
• Sampling or literature distribution opportunity in 80+ participant and speaker gift bags
• Recognition as sponsor on all event-related materials (pre/during/post)
• Logo and verbal recognition from podium during opening and closing of event
• One-year CWIP organizational membership (up to 3 individual memberships; $500 value)

For more information or to discuss opportunities, please connect with Diane Knoepke, CWIP Board Co-Chair, at dianeknoepke@gmail.com.