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Dear Tzedek Community,
We are delighted to announce that Libby Kyles will be joining our team as the new Director of Community-Led Grantmaking later this month! Libby has extensive experience visioning and launching community-led solutions that increase the collective power and well-being of those impacted by systemic racism in Asheville.
Libby Kyles is a widely trusted community leader who is pushing for systemic change in our region. As one of her references reminded us, “Libby has already been doing this work for free.” Libby is part of the founding teams for CoThinkk, Asheville Buncombe County Land Trust, Black Asheville Demands, PEAK Academy and Youth Transformed for Life. She is the founder of Changing LENS Consulting and former CEO of the YWCA of Asheville where she was instrumental in pivoting their childcare programming to provide support to frontline and essential workers during the height of the pandemic. The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County recently awarded Libby the 2021 Inaugural Rosa Parks Award in honor of her community leadership. We are thrilled that she is coming on board to help us live into our new mission to redistribute money, resources, and power.
In the spirit of transparency, here’s some information about our hiring process. We received 39 applications for this position from a wide array of applicants. The applicant pool reflected Asheville’s diversity and our focal areas 38% of applicants were people of color, and the majority of applicants identified as a member of Asheville’s Jewish, BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ communities. We held Zoom interviews with 7 candidates whose applications were most aligned with the requirements of the position. All seven candidates were people of color. Three finalists completed a second interview with our grantmaking team.
Establishing this permanent full-time position is another step in our journey to live into our updated mission to redistribute money, resources, and power to support systems change and community healing in Asheville, North Carolina.