Roxanne Lawson (she/hers) is a strategist, trainer, community organizer, internationalist, technologist, and policy analyst who has worked on various sites and in various communities around the globe. She is the Executive Director of Vision Change Win starting in November 2025.

She is the former Deputy Director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, acting as the Deputy Director of Organizational Strategy and then of Infrastructure from 2022 to 2025.  In that capacity she served on the Leadership Team of the Rising Majority movement ecosystem.

Prior to that Roxanne was the co-Executive Director of Youth Rise Texas, a statewide Organization that worked with youth whose parents were incarcerated, deported and detained.    From 2014-2019, she was the Program Director at Rethink. In that role she worked with young people and their families to gain greater access and accountability in the first and only all-Charter School districts in the country.

In the 2000s Roxanne worked as the Director of Africa Policy at TransAfrica Forum transforming U.S. Foreign Policy in ways that created political, economic and cultural sovereignty for African people and as an International Policy Campaigner for Friends for Earth-US working to promote community rights related to natural resources and the environment on the African continent, with a particular emphasis on the impacts of international financial institutions and multinational companies.

She began her career at the American Friends Service Committee as the National Liaison to United for Peace and Justice, Stop the FTAA Coalition and as the national coordinator to their Life Over Debt Campaign aimed at canceling the illegitimate debt of African nations.   As a youth organizer she was the first staffers for the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC).

Roxanne is a trained media analyst and spokesperson she was a featured commentator on National Public Radio’s News and Notes with Farai Chideya from 2006-2009 and as a spokesperson for print, television and radio outlets including, PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lerher, BBC World News, Al-Jazeera, and Voice of America.

She has written for Development, Blu, Planet, and Peaceworks, CorpWatch.org, TomPaine.com, Foreign Policy in Focus, and The Black Commentator; as well as various other periodicals devoted to politics and political thinking.   She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Che Johnson-Long is an abolitionist who can’t leave well enough alone. For nearly two decades she has worked as a community organizer and security practitioner to build a world without prisons or police. She is currently the Community Safety Director at Vision Change Win where she develops community safety curriculum, coaches left movement organizations, and builds left movement safety infrastructure. She serves as a board member of Convergence Magazine, which works with organizers and activists on the frontlines of today’s most pressing struggles to produce articles, videos and podcasts which lift up stories from the grassroots and make space for reflection and study. She is also a board member of Third Wave’s Accountable Futures Fund Advisory Council which resources Black people, trans people, sex workers, and youth who are on the frontlines and at the forefront of both visioning and practicing transformative justice, restorative justice, and community accountability.

Before this, Che was the organizing director of Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative of the Racial Justice Action Center where she co-led the successful campaign to decrease jail time and fines for marijuana possession in Atlanta, Ga. Che co-led the design team of the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative, which provides an alternative to police response and diversion from jail for people experiencing extreme poverty, problematic substance use, or mental health concerns. Che coordinated the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project where she worked with small business owners to address hate violence against Trans and Queer people of color without relying on the police.

She holds a Juris Doctorate, comes from a long line of Blues singers, and calls Atlanta, Ga home.

chelsea cleveland is the Administrative Coordinator at Vision Change Win, where they help the organization with administrative and programmatic duties.

chelsea is an imaginator with more than 12 years of experience in organizing and facilitation. They have created many spaces that promote deeper connections among people and use their skills to bring warmth and humanity to administrative work.

They co-founded Hearing Youth Voices in New London, Connecticut, and are a former Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute facilitator. They graduated from BOLD Directors and Leads in 2015, previously served as a BOLD Board member, and are a dreamer and co-creator of a tarot deck inspired by Octavia E. Butler.

Emmy Esquerre is the Community Safety Program and Media Assistant at Vision Change Win, where she develops social media and communications content around VCW’s safety and security consulting service offerings and programs. As the program assistant, she provides administrative support to the Community Safety Department. In 2022, Emmy was VCW’s research fellow and representative for the Movement for Black Lives’ Abolishing Patriarchal Violence table. As a research fellow, she conducted interviews of left movement elders, organizers, and security practitioners/trainers with decades of experience in the safety and security. Prior to VCW, she has volunteered with Dream Defenders Broward Chapter and Noname’s Book Club to send Political Education materials to incarcerated folks. Emmy received her undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Southern California. She is passionate about ceramics, Legos, and puzzles.

Lizzie Martinez joined the Vision Change Win team in early 2022 as the Deputy Director. She is responsible for leading on client relationships, staff and team culture, as well as overseeing finance and operations.

She spent the first decade of her career as a fundraiser for growing social justice nonprofits, including Latino Network and Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon. She previously served on the boards of Seeding Justice and the Library Advisory Board. She is the founder of the Oregon BIPOC Fundraisers Affinity Group. Lizzie is a long-time instructor for the People’s Nonprofit Accelerator Nonprofit Certificate program, teaching classes on racial equity in fundraising.

In her spare time, she enjoys building the “world’s greatest forts” with her nieces, eating tacos, and traveling to new places.

Nadhira is the Executive Assistant to the Interim Executive Director at Vision Change Win. She supports executive and administrative correspondence within VCW and with external organizations.

A member of the New York chapter of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Nadhira serves as Co-Coordinator. She also volunteers as a New Afrikan Scouts Leader serving Black youth. She previously worked at Little Maroons Childcare Cooperative as a Teacher’s Assistant. In addition to her work at VCW, she works as the Programs Associate at an art center in the Bronx. Outside of work, Nadhira enjoys roadtrips,  concerts of her favorite artists and binge watching horror movies.

phylicia brown is a Community Organizer and Educator with over a decade of experience in community safety work, organizing for material change, and justice-based education for littles.

She is the Rapid Response Coordinator at Vision Change Win, where she supports organizations and individuals in developing their safety and security skills.

Before assuming the role of Rapid Response Coordinator, she served as the executive director of Black Love Resists in the Rust, where she led campaigns to develop community-based safety programs, block jail expansion, redirect funding from police and carceral systems to the community, and more. She is also an organizing member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and a teacher trainer in Buffalo, NY.

As a longtime social justice educator and organizer, Sala has organized with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) NY chapter since 2002 and served as it’s security coordinator for more than fifteen years. Her organizing work with MXGM ranges from coordinating security to leading programming such as New Afrikan Scouts, Camp Pumziko, Copwatch, Know Your Rights Trainings, Black August, political prisoner work and more. Sala was the Founding Director at Little Maroons Childcare Cooperative, which sunsetted in 2020. Passionate about the arts, youth, community safety and liberatory practices, Sala incorporates creativity into every aspect of her work.

As Security Director, Tatiana supports developing and implementing the organization’s overall security strategy. With many years of experience in the field, she brings a commitment to fostering safe environments rooted in care and protection. She holds an undergraduate and law degree from Georgia State University. Her favorite things in the world are her son and hiking to waterfalls.

Ray is a mixed race brown, Eurasian & Ashkenazi, trans, facilitator, process holder, crisis intervention specialist, and harm reductionist who has been working in and adjacent to nonprofits for over 21 years. During this time, they spent 15 years on the front lines supporting young people at the intersections of multiple systems. Ray has been with Vision Change Win since Fall 2020 and provides transformative conflict processes, coaching and consulting to workers, organizers, movement groups, nonprofits and coalitions across the country and trans-nationally. Ray is also a co-coordinator and instructor with VCW’s Transforming Conflict program.

Shonda is a passionate non-profit professional who is a consultant at Vision Change Win specializing in Operations, Finance, and Human Resources.  She is currently the Director of Human Resources at Common Justice. As a highly accomplished and proactive senior HR professional, she is dedicated to providing impressive human resource and operational leadership for small and large non-profits. Shonda is known for building employee trust, achieving results, and loyally supporting organizational goals and objectives.

A graduate of New York University’s Continuing Education program in Non-for-Profit Accounting and Governmental Reporting, Shonda has a seasoned and successful background in Human Resources, Operations, and Accounting. Shonda served as the Director, Human Resources at The Studio Museum in Harlem where she was responsible for the overall coordination, implementation, and execution of the Museum’s institutional planning and capacity-building initiative, with proven success in building high-performing teams and improving organizational performance effectiveness, and expertly administering benefits. She also served as the Controller and Director of Human Resources at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and was HR Manager at Lambda Legal.

In her eighteen years of non-profit administrative and management experience, Shonda has served as a change leader, an expert provider in talent & organizational support, consultation and coaching, as well as a champion of departmental collaboration around organizational culture and values.

At Vision Change Win, Shonda works with clients on human resource planning and strategy, organizational planning, and financial management.