Susan Misra has over 20 years of experience in developing equitable, sustainable organizations and networks for movement building.
For funders, Susan has designed, managed, and evaluated capacity building and grantmaking initiatives on a range of topics such as strengthening senior leadership and fundraising of grassroots organizations, diversifying audiences and increasing the financial resilience of arts organizations, and developing equitable and sustainable business models for intermediaries. For nonprofits, Susan has worked with over 400 organizations and networks on complex strategic planning, leadership development (including executive coaching, shared leadership, leadership teams, and board development), organizational restructuring and culture change, and financial sustainability. She particularly specializes in aligning internal operations with social justice values through inclusive, participatory, and analytically rigorous processes.
Susan is also a thought leader who generates innovative ideas and works with others to turn them into reality. For complex and emergent systems change, Susan developed the “Systems Grantmaking Resource Guide,” has coached philanthropists on investing in movement building, co-wrote “Influencing Complex Systems Change,” and worked with community leaders on equitable systems change. For shared leadership, Susan has modeled shared leadership as a Co-Director at Change Elemental, co-wrote “Doing More with More: Putting Shared Leadership into Practice” and “Emergent Coaching: Becoming Nimble in Complex Times,” and has guided many networks and organizations on developing leaderful cultures and structures. For strengthening organizations and building power, Susan helped develop the Core Capacity Assessment Tool as an Associate Director at TCC Group, advised on integrating equity and networked ways of working into the Organizational Mapping Tool, and co-wrote “Essential Capacities for Building Community Power” and “Organizing Liberatory Networks: An Invitation.”
Susan Misra is the former Co-Director of Change Elemental. In shared leadership with board and staff, she quadrupled the size of the organization, transformed the business model and brand, and developed new thinking around movement networks, building power for systems change, and racial equity. Susan was also the Associate Director of Program/Grants Management and Capacity Building at TCC Group. At TCC, she designed, managed, and evaluated several multi-million-dollar, multi-year, national initiatives with regranting, capacity building, and learning community components. In addition, Susan has been a long-time volunteer organizer around issues like global justice, living wages, the environment, immigrant queer rights, and electoral politics.
Susan holds a Master in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she gained advanced skills in strategic nonprofit management, leadership and political organizing, and economic development. She has been trained in transformational consulting, emergent and peer coaching, and diversity and equity facilitation. When not working, you can find Susan volunteering her time on local economic justice and political campaigns and reading revolutionary young adult fiction.
