This event takes place on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. 

Charis welcomes Niloufar Khonsari in conversation with Eveline Shen for a discussion of The Future Is Collective: Effective Workplace Strategies for Building a Culture of Care, a practical guide for nonprofit leaders and social justice organizations to transform workplace structures and empower cultures of care.

This book is a powerful call for nonprofits and movement organizations to rethink their internal systems and processes—and to bring workplace culture and management into alignment with their political values and liberatory missions.

Drawing on two decades of experience in community organizing and nonprofit leadership, Niloufar Khonsari guides us in transforming our workplaces by decentralizing power; implementing collective governance structures; and centering principles of transparency, equity, and mutual care.

Khonsari demystifies collective management for fellow activists, nonprofit workers, and community leaders. This book is not a one-size-fits-all plan; instead, readers are encouraged to draw from its rich collection of real-world examples, case studies, sample workplace policies, tools developed by activist collectives, and personal reflections of movement leaders to explore what works best for their organization at its current stage of growth and evolution.

Khonsari also address how to communicate workplace changes to funding bodies—and why this is an essential part of your movement work. Crucially, this book looks at how to handle challenging workplace dynamics, everyday conflicts, and job terminations using a compassionate justice-centered approach. Khonsari calls for nonprofit and movement leaders to embrace conflict resolution as a generative practice—one that builds and strengthens us, nurturing both individual autonomy and collective responsibility.

Inspiring and hopeful, The Future is Collective guides nonprofit workers, activists, and community leaders toward a workplace culture of care that truly models the relational systems we want to see in the world.

Niloufar Khonsari is a longtime Bay Area organizer, facilitator, and movement lawyer who supports communities and organizations to build more just, caring, and participatory ways of working together. They are the co-founder of Pangea Legal Services, a worker-led immigrant justice organization, and now work through Bala Rising to support groups with organizational development, capacity building, and practicing collective leadership. Their work is rooted in lived experience - shaped by their journey across borders, years of legal advocacy, and an ongoing practice of listening to and learning from community.

Eveline Shen is an award-winning leader and social change strategist who has spent over two decades empowering others to lead with courage and authenticity. As a seasoned executive director, she helped to build and grow the national reproductive justice movement.

Now, through her work at Leading Courageously, she teaches the Courageous Operating System. This framework helps leaders stay true to their values, transform adversity into strength, and exponentially increase their impact. Her new book, Choosing to Lead Against the Current, oﬀers a bold blueprint for changemakers committed to building a just and liberated future.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate.

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org.

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The Future Is Collective: Effective Workplace Strategies for Building a Culture of Care -- An Evening with Niloufar Khonsari