[Image description: An illustration of CompassPoint’s new Project Directors set against an abstract backdrop with green and blue splashes. From left to right, depicted from their heads to their shoulders: Monica Marie Avery with light brown skin and short curly dark hair, wearing a red and white striped top; Kyla Hartsfield with deep brown skin and dark hair coiled back, wearing a black turtleneck and translucent glasses; Maryssa Hall with light brown skin and blondish/brown hair pulled into a bun, wearing hoop earrings and a pink top covered with green and yellowish leaves.]
CompassPoint continues to grow our ability to support Black leaders and power building efforts and move toward regenerative financial practices, inside and out. We are thrilled to share that we have three new Project Directors joining our team: Monica Marie Avery, Maryssa Hall, and Kyla Hartsfield.
Maryssa Hall and Kyla Hartsfield are CompassPoint’s first ever Project Directors focused on Black Programming and Power Building. As Finance Director, Monica Marie Avery will focus on systems that grow our approach to Regenerative Finance.
We’re excited for how all three of them will help us continue to evolve, contributing to programs like Self-Care for Black Women Leaders, Next Generation Black Leaders; growing our networks; reimagining financial systems at CompassPoint and with our participants; and training in our public training program. Learn more about them below and help us give them a warm welcome!
Illustration by Learkana Chong
Monica Marie Avery
What kind of community are you excited to build at CompassPoint?
I’m excited to build with other progressive people, especially people of color, who are looking to create and implement regenerative and participatory finance practices.
What brings you to this work and what are you excited to do at CompassPoint?
I believe that business and finance are areas underpopulated by politically progressive people. In turn, I decided to pursue my Masters of Business Administration so as to build skills to do movement work that focuses on our economy. As CompassPoint’s Finance Project Director, I am excited to mold CompassPoint’s finance practices to mirror the economy we want and then train others to do the same in their organizations, communities, and beyond.
Where can CompassPoint's community of participants expect to connect with you?
CompassPoint’s community can connect with me through our Finance Fundamentals training, our Network Cafes, on the Finance Professionals Network listserv, and strolling around Oakland.
What gifts do you bring to CompassPoint's community? What are you most excited to learn, or where do you want to grow?
I bring over 20 years of experience in nonprofit and community organizing spaces. This experience gives me familiarity with systems that are no longer serving our sector and makes me excited to learn and practice new structures, like participatory budgeting, that allow us to run organizations and do work that better aligns with our values.
Maryssa Hall
What kind of community are you excited to build at CompassPoint?
So many things to be excited for! I am excited to build a community of folks that are unapologetically pro-Black and committed to collective liberation. I am excited to build community with other radical folks looking to heal and create transformative change in our world. I’m excited to build a community of deeply inquisitive and imaginative folks willing to ask the hard questions, get messy and deep, and explore the expansive possibility of not just what is but, what could be.
What brings you to this work and what are you excited to do at CompassPoint?
My deep love of my communities brings me to this work. I carry with me the knowing, power, resilience, spirit, and love of my ancestors. I am, because they were. I am committed to continuing their legacy and creating a better world for those that come after me. I am excited to support Black folks with healing—our minds, bodies, and spirits. I am excited to share space and joy with Black folks. I am excited to build power with Black folks. CompassPoint is at a pivotal moment and I am so honored and overjoyed to be joining at this particular time in its 45+ year existence.
Where can CompassPoint's community of participants expect to connect with you?
CompassPoint participants can expect to connect with me in our Black Programming Cohorts: Self-Care for Black Women in Leadership and Next Generation of Black Leaders; as well as in Facilitation Skills: Creating Powerful and Purposeful Meetings and Supervision: Relationships and Structures that Help us Thrive workshops. You can also catch me at our Peer Network Cafés and listservs.
What gifts do you bring to CompassPoint's community? What are you most excited to learn, or where do you want to grow?
I bring many gifts to CompassPoint’s community, perhaps most notable are my lifelong commitment to collective liberation, an abundance of curiosity and hunger for learning, a critical analysis and politic, a healthy dose of humor and optimism, and a love of community and deep empathy. I am most excited to learn from other folks in the CompassPoint community; I know it will take all of us to get free and I am eager to learn from the wisdom that exists in all of you. I want to continuously grow and strengthen my politic and lens in this work. Black folks are not a monolithic community (no community is) and we bring a multitude of gifts; I want to strengthen how I best leverage my gifts to nurture and support others’ gifts.
Kyla Hartsfield
What kind of community are you excited to build at CompassPoint?
I am really excited about expanding our network and building community with more Black-led youth organizations, Black trans-led organizations, and more Southern organizations.
What brings you to this work and what are you excited to do at CompassPoint?
My hunger for a better future for Black, brown, Indigenous, Asian, Queer, poor and working class communities brings me to this work. The investment of my comrades and community into me has made it possible for me to do this work. I am really excited to be involved in thinking about our current approach to network building, and more specifically, building out a Black network.
Where can CompassPoint's community of participants expect to connect with you?
CompassPoint’s participants can expect to connect with me through our workshops (including Manage Your Energy, Reclaim Your Time: A Path to Personal Sustainability and Conflict Resolution with Power and Privilege in Mind) and upcoming Black Programming (like Self-Care for Black Women in Leadership and Next Generation Black Leaders).
What gifts do you bring to CompassPoint's community? What are you most excited to learn, or where do you want to grow?
I bring a hunger for change, I am a forever student, I lean into curiosity and have a deep commitment to Black joy. I am most excited to continue my journey in growing my skills around program development and facilitation.
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