Gathering to Rise: A Leadership Cohort
Gathering to Rise: A Leadership Cohort
September – November 2026 | Online
Gathering to Rise is a transformative leadership and resourcing space for Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders to reconnect with their gifts, build skills for navigating change, and find joy and solidarity in community.
Applications are now closed! Participants will be announced the week of August 17, 2026.
Join the list below to get notified of future cohorts.
A Message from the Facilitators
Why this cohort, why now
Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive people have long led with vision and solidarity, while navigating critique, marginalization, and harm. Today, many Black women leaders are leaving senior roles and nonprofits due to hostile environments, unrealistic demands, and ongoing microaggressions rooted in racial capitalism, patriarchy, anti-Blackness, and ableism.
As old systems unravel, we’re living in a moment of crisis and possibility – one where the leadership of women and gender-expansive people of color is essential.
Gathering to Rise helps leaders reconnect with ancestral wisdom, radical imagination, and liberatory practice while building community through shared learning. Together, we nurture resilience, clarity, and collective strength for the road ahead.
YOU WILL LEAVE WITH
✽ A renewed sense of your own skills, gifts, and leadership purpose and the importance of these in the current context
✽ Liberatory practices for sustaining yourself and your organization (somatic, healing, restorative tools).
✽ Deeper awareness of identity, power, privilege, accountability, and resilience.
✽ Connection to a supportive peer network, cultivating solidarity, and joy.
✽ Individualized coaching insights that connect personal reflection with collective practice.
Who Should Join
This cohort is for Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders serving through formal or informal roles. We aim to gather an intergenerational community across Turtle Island (North America).
How it works
Gathering to Rise blends collective learning with individualized support. Each gathering weaves mindsets, heartsets, and practices that nurture sustainable, joyful, and impactful leadership.
• 3 × 3‑hour group sessions — storytelling & grounding; small‑group practice; large‑group wisdom sharing.
• 3 × 1:1 coaching sessions* — personalized integration of themes and tools.
All sessions are live online with closed‑captioning. Accessibility needs are welcomed.
*Sep 15, Oct 27, Nov 17. Coaching sessions will be scheduled by you and your coach between September – November 2026.
OUR COMMITMENTS
✽ Equity & Liberation: Centering justice and community power in content and process.
✽ Care & Sustainability: Practicing rest, reciprocity, and boundaries that honor our humanity.
✽ Collective Wisdom: Weaving peer learning and networks that last beyond the cohort.
About the Facilitators
Adeola Oredola (she/her) is a space holder, educator, and facilitator rooted in a lineage that stretches from Saki, Nigeria, and Bolgatanga, Ghana, to Chicago, Starkville, and her home community in Providence, RI, on Narragansett land. With over 20 years of experience in nonprofit leadership and consulting, she supports social justice circles through facilitation, coaching, training, and event curation, centering systemic well-being, collective healing, transformative play, and Black liberation.
She works independently and in partnership with IISC. Adeola’s joy lives in curating play spaces, Black geekiness, meditation, ceramics, firelight, and the kind of conversations that nourish the soul. Learn more about Adeola.
nisha purushotham (she/her) is a leadership coach, facilitator, and cultural worker with three decades of experience in movement-building across organizing, research, youth work, and the arts. Her practice blends facilitative leadership, popular education, somatics, parts work, and sound and ancestral healing—rooted in healing justice, abolitionist vision, and deep trust in our bodies’ intuition and the wisdom of the Land.
nisha joined IISC in 2017 and has since partnered with organizations and networks working toward racial justice, health equity, climate resiliency, digital equity, and more. She is also a certified coach through Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation, where she serves on the Wisdom Council and primarily supports women and queer leaders of color. When she’s not coaching or facilitating, nisha is experimenting with sound, tending ancestral practices, and exploring the connections between healing, imagination, and collective liberation. Learn more about nisha.
Pricing
Gathering to Rise is offered on a sliding scale to support access while honoring the depth of facilitation, coaching, and care that make this cohort possible.
We invite participants to select the rate that best reflects their financial reality and organizational support.
TIERS
✽ Solidarity (Individual Leader) – $800
✽ Base (Grassroots) – $1,200
✽ Sustainability (Nonprofit) – $1,700
✽ Redistribution (Foundation) – $2,400
Note: Due to current funding constraints, we can only offer a limited number of seats at each tier. We created this space because we believe it’s deeply needed, and we’re working to grow our funding so future cohorts can reach more people. Email info@interactioninstitute.org with any recommendations for potential partners. And if you’re not applying this round but want to support the work, donations are welcome.
Frequently Asked Questions
If something’s still unclear after reading, reach out directly to us at info@interactioninstitute.org, and we’d be happy to talk it through one-on-one.
▼ What is Gathering to Rise?
Gathering to Rise is a transformative leadership and resourcing space for Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders to reconnect with their gifts, build skills for navigating change, and find joy and solidarity in community.
▼ How is this different from a typical leadership training?
Gathering to Rise centers liberatory practice, somatic and healing-based tools, and peer community over a conventional top-down curriculum. It’s built around equity and liberation, care and sustainability, and collective wisdom that lasts beyond the cohort itself.
▼ Who is this program for?
Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders serving through formal or informal roles. We’re aiming to gather an intergenerational community across Turtle Island (North America).
▼ When does the cohort start, and how long does it run?
The cohort runs September through November 2026, entirely online:
Session #1: Opening Group Session – September 15, 2026 from 1-4pm ET
Coaching #1: Individual Coaching – Week of September 21, 2026*
Session #2: Group Session – October 27, 2026 from 1-4pm ET
Coaching #2: Individual Coaching – Week of November 2, 2026*
Session #3: Closing Group Session – November 17, 2026 from 1-4pm ET
Coaching #3: Individual Coaching – Week of November 23, 2026*
*Coaching sessions to be scheduled between you and your coach
▼ What does participation actually involve?
The program blends collective learning with individualized support:
– Three 3-hour group sessions (storytelling and grounding, small-group practice, large-group wisdom sharing)
– Three 1:1 coaching sessions, scheduled directly between you and your coach sometime between September and November 2026
All sessions are live online with closed captioning, and accessibility needs are welcomed.
▼ Is there a cost to participate?
Yes, offered on a sliding scale so participants can select the rate that best reflects their financial reality and organizational support:
– Solidarity (Individual Leader): $800
– Base (Grassroots): $1,200
– Sustainability (Nonprofit): $1,700
– Redistribution (Foundation): $2,400
Due to current funding constraints, only a limited number of seats are available at each tier.
▼ How do I decide which pricing tier is right for me?
The tiers are meant to reflect your own financial reality and any organizational support behind you, Solidarity for individual leaders, Base for grassroots contexts, Sustainability for nonprofit roles, and Redistribution for foundation-affiliated participants. Choose whichever feels honest for your circumstances; there’s no formal qualification process for tier selection.
▼ Is financial assistance available if none of the tiers are affordable?
Unfortunately, not at this time. We created this space because we believe it’s deeply needed, and we’re working to grow our funding in this tough political moment so future cohorts can reach more people. If you know folks who might fund this work, please reach out to us at info@interactioninstitute.org.
▼ I don’t hold a formal leadership title, am I still eligible?
Yes. This cohort is open to leaders in both formal and informal roles, you don’t need an official title to belong here.
▼ What time zone will sessions be held in?
These sessions will be held in EST.
▼ What happens if I miss one of the three group sessions?
Gathering to Rise is built on the belief that we learn not only from the facilitators, but from one another. For that reason, we encourage participants to attend all three group sessions, as each conversation builds community, trust, and collective learning. We intentionally kept the program to three group sessions to make participation more accessible for leaders with full schedules, while using one-on-one coaching to deepen learning and support reflection between sessions. If you miss a session, your coaching conversation can help you stay connected to the overall journey, though it won’t replace the richness of the group dialogue.
▼ What does the application process involve?
The application is a single online form (no interview or references required) with eight sections: contact and pricing info, self-identification and personal context, longings and learning goals, availability and access needs, a shared understanding of core themes (identity, power, and privilege, and somatics), leadership practice and purpose, and a final “before you submit” section. Questions are mostly short reflective prompts; there are no “right” answers, and brief responses are welcome. If you’ve applied to a previous cohort before, the form lets you skip ahead to the final section.
▼ I applied to a previous Gathering to Rise cohort, do I need to fill out the whole application again?
No. If you’ve previously applied, the form lets you skip directly to the final section rather than completing the full application again.
▼ When will applicants be notified of acceptance?
Applications close Sunday, August 9, 2026, at 11:59 PM ET. Applicants will be notified beginning August 17 via email.
