Lee esta biografía en Español aqui: https://tinyurl.com/BiographyJAR-Pride
Omni is the inaugural Director of Community Advocacy, Research, and Education (C.A.R.E.) at the Pride Foundation, where they are reimagining philanthropy and growing a living archive of gender-affirming storytelling to enable cultural change for BIPOC Trans+ people. Omni identifies as a nonbinary organizer, strategist, and storyteller living with HIV committed to transformative justice and wellness for all BIPOC LGBTQI2S+ people and their communities. Their philanthropic experience is trust-based and rooted in mutual aid and includes service in a variety of grantmaking capacities from localized giving circles to federal grants to municipal and nonprofit participatory budgeting, among others.
Omni was born to undocumented Mexican and Salvadoran farmworkers in rural Washington State where they spent their youth working in agricultural fields across the Northwest. English was not their first language, and they are the first in their family to attend a university. Omni graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honors in Cultural Anthropology where they learned to value lived experience as much as, if not more than, academic credentials. Since 2012 they have led anti-racist and gender-affirming systems change across the US and Mexico. Since 2017, they have provided gender-inclusive Spanish interpretation/translation for clients globally. Before returning to the Pacific Northwest, they lived in North Carolina for over 8 years and organized for abolition across the South thanks to Durham Beyond Policing, Southerner’s on New Ground, and other Black Queer Feminist formations. Omni has held various social justice leadership positions nationally and has trained thousands across the country on topics including evidence-based interventions in healthcare, gender-affirming HR, and transformative grantmaking and storytelling. Omni’s HIV Language Justice work has been featured in CNN’s Blind Angels Series.
Omni loves to explore rivers and starscapes, experiment with metal and poetry, they love all things purple, and their proudest moments are making people laugh.
Schedule a meeting with Omni: https://calendly.com/jrmeeting
Favorite Quote: “Our earth is round, and, among other things, that means that you and I can hold completely different points of view and both be right. The difference of our positions will show stars in your window I cannot even imagine. Your sky may burn with light, while mine, at the same moment, spreads beautiful to darkness. Still we must choose how we separately corner the circling universe of our experience. Once chosen, our cornering will determine the message of any star and darkness we encounter.” ― June Jordan
Favorite Place in the Northwest: Along the Columbia River (Nch’i-Wàna) & anywhere purple.