About
Brigette Rouson, J.D., M.A., (she/her) is principal of Rouson Associates, a consulting practice formed to support policy advocacy, then expanded to strengthening organizations and the people that transform society. She brings more than 25 years’ experience advancing nonprofit effectiveness toward a just society. Brigette is a member of the RoadMap (www.roadmapconsulting.org) network of social justice consultants, serving on its leadership teams for over 4 years. She is deeply committed to bringing an equity frame to organizational change and leadership development, facilitation, training, action research, and public speaking.
Brigette has designed and supported many initiatives to transform groups, community and society — which includes planning and facilitating hundreds of sessions. Her work centers racial justice and intersectionality. She has worked with more than 250 groups on strategic planning, staff development, board development, nonprofit advocacy, as well as making equity front and center. She has consulted independently and with colleagues, including staff positions at Management Assistance Group (now Change Elemental), Mosaica: The Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism, Maryland Nonprofits – and its national Standards for Excellence Institute.
Formerly, as national program director of Alliance for Nonprofit Management, Brigette co-led a capacity builders of color network that sparked the Cultural Competency Initiative, for which she was a presenter and trainer, book co-author and project manager, and in a pivotal staff role to set professional standards moving the field toward equity. Brigette has worked in philanthropy to support increased power-sharing across racial/ethnic, generational, LGBTQ and other cultural identities. At Ms. Foundation for Women, she led a $4 million multi-year grantmaking and capacity-building collaborative for girls’ and young women’s leadership, with support to 14 community groups rooted in African (Black), Indigenous, Latina, Asian and Appalachian (White) cultures.
Brigette is a proud graduate of Howard University (B.A.), Georgetown University (J.D.), and University of Pennsylvania (M.A.) where she completed all coursework toward a Ph.D. in communications and culture. She is a DC Bar member. Community leadership includes serving as a co-founder and board of instigators member of Diverse City Fund – a grassroots grantmaker for social justice work by global majority people in DC – and representing the fund in Resourcing Radical Justice, a funders collective that centers Black liberation as the key to a thriving national capital region. Brigette is also an elected board of social action member for her faith congregation, which she represents in activities such as a coalition seeking reparations for DC Black residents, and is actively involved in other advocacy, organizing and cultural liberation groups.
Brigette is dedicated to learning and thought leadership, co-authoring a RoadMap report on “Practicing Liberation” (forthcoming 2024), serving as keynote speaker for regional and national convenings such as Alliance for Nonprofit Management, session leader at grantmaker and capacity builder conferences, and participant in gatherings by Facing Race and others.
