Who can apply

YWCA is the world’s oldest and largest multicultural organization for women. Since 1870, YWCA Dayton has been a convener of women’s voices — lifting up their needs, triumphs, and challenges so that together, we all rise. This legacy of leadership and commitment to intersectionality are core tenets of our Sojourn Leadership Academy. Sojourners:

Are nominated by members of the YWCA Dayton Circle of Influence (past Women of Influence honorees) or current members of the YWCA Dayton Board of Directors;

Experience a leadership curriculum that strengthens their social consciousness and centers racial justice, gender justice, and economic empowerment;

Have exclusive access to invitation-only Women of Influence events and are paired with an Honoree mentor;

Receive an expertly-curated leadership library and participate in a cohort journaling exercise that builds an intentional three-year community and career plan;

Prepare for future leadership roles through practical, real-world demonstrations (i.e., a mock board meeting);

Earn a Board and Equity Leader Certificate and are added to the YWCA Dayton Board Registry.

At its core, YWCA advocates for an end to discrimination against women in every sphere — economic, political, and social. YWCA’s approach goes beyond changing hearts and minds. We strive to transform communities, systems, and public policies. YW believes that change happens at the local level, so YWCA Dayton is committed to equipping our region’s leaders with the information and experiences they need to recognize when marginalized voices are absent — and then are leaders who use their privilege to ensure marginalized voices get heard.

Sojourner Truth (born Isabella “Belle” Baumfree circa 1797) was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Born into slavery in New York, she escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826 and regained custody of her son in 1828, making her the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.

She took the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 after feeling called by her faith to leave the city for rural areas, “testifying the hope that was in her.” Her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, becoming widely known as “Ain’t I a Woman?.” In 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazine’s list of the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time”.

Sojourner Truth believed her talent for influencing others through education and inspiration needed to be used to uplift those communities most often marginalized: often, women, and especially women of color. She understood what bondage, and poverty, and lack, looked and felt like for these populations.

Thus, Sojourn Leadership Academy takes its names from this legacy and invites participants to pause — to stop, temporarily — and focus on the ways in which the power they have now, and the influence they will acquire, can be leveraged to empower those same communities today in the 21st century.