Announcing Ally & Voices New Board Members

Ally Theatre Company is proud to welcome our eight newest board members - Antoine Coleman, Damon Donelson-Bey, Darrell Scott, Fernando Smith, Je Naé Taylor, Kim Mann, LaShunda Hill, and E. Paige White! We are so excited by the passion, commitment, and expertise in various areas these four individuals bring. From on-the-ground organizing experience to lived experiences that reflect the community we serve; theatre to policy knowledge; deep understanding of traditional board structures to fresh eyes ready to take a new approach – we know this new expansion of our board will continue to help build a strong, sustainable organization with our values at the heart of it.

The Process & What We Learned:

Last year, we were accepted as a Fair Chance partner and spent the fall undergoing an evaluation of the organization and participating in a leadership book club. We then spent the winter and spring of this year working on the two areas of need identified. Ally & Voices chose to focus on board development and program evaluation. Our board worked with our capacity building specialist to build out systems to help us transition from a founding and working board to a governance board. We took what we learned from Fair Chance, as well as our values-aligned process for recruitment we previously developed, and underwent an updated board recruitment process with a clearer understanding of who we need on the board as our organization grows and the board transitions.

During this recruitment process, we, again, were intentional about seeking applications from those directly impacted by incarceration. Last time we recruited, we saw how common barriers to board service hindered our ability to onboard people directly impacted – boards have historically been mostly white and often male; also people who have enough free time and the ability to volunteer that time do not always overlap with the people we are seeking. Due to these reasons, among others, serving on a board can seem daunting and foreign to many people. It has long been our goal to have a Board reflective of the community we serve. 

In our 2023 recruitment campaign, we designed our application process to encourage more people impacted by incarceration to apply. We made sure our application was accessible by offering people a choice to apply via video or written form, offering a chance to talk with a current board member before applying to answer any questions about serving on the board or about the application itself, and limiting the questions asked and expected length of answers. It is very important to us that people impacted by incarceration not only have their voices amplified through our programming, but have leadership positions throughout our organization. We also made sure to share the application with individuals who have experienced incarceration and various listservs and organizations who serve those who have been incarcerated and could share the opportunity with their constituents. Our scoring rubric was weighted with the responses to our questions mattering the most, then relevant experience, and finally, a special weight was added for people who were systems-impacted so those applicants were not penalized for lack of job or board experience. Members of our onboarding committee each scored the applications blindly, and then those scores were averaged together and weighted. We then held short interviews with the top scoring candidates. 

After these measures still weren't enough to bring in systems-impacted candidates, we decided to spend the last two years refining the process and realized we had to be even more intentional year round. We met with our Community Advocates throughout the year outside of programming to offer various leadership training and skill building sessions, including one session with a board member, in the hopes of paving an internal pathway to serving on our board for those we work with who are interested. We also shared the application earlier and with many more partner organizations this year. Our process also shifted slightly around scoring and offered an interview opportunity for everyone who applied.

And we are thrilled to share that this intentional process over the last two years has paid off. In 2026, our board will include five members who are directly systems-impacted, two of whom are Community Advocates with Voices Unbarred, and three members who have a loved one who is systems-impacted. That makes our board a majority systems-impacted! Their voices, insight, and lived expertise are not just represented—they’re leading. This is what real community-rooted governance looks like, and we’re honored they’re joining us in shaping the future of our work.

We are so excited to onboard these incredible eight changemakers onto our Board under the current leadership of Board President Jusna Ninah Perrin and Board Secretary Patrick Crowley in January 2026. 

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Check out our Meet the Team page to see board members, as well as Community Advocates, facilitators, and others who make our work possible!