Reflections: Love, action, reaction 2026

Making Space for the Leaders Who Hold Us

The leaders of our beloved communities show up daily for others — organizing, teaching, advocating, building. But too often, they are stretched thin without spaces to sit and process what they are experiencing, or how they are showing up for themselves and their teams. Movement builders rarely get to take their masks off. This spring, BlackFemaleProject set out to change that.

This year, BlackFemaleProject, supported by a grant from the SF Foundation, hosted Love, Action, Reaction,an emerging leaders and movement builders program. 

Love, Action, Reaction is a cohort-based leadership and character-development experience designed to help emerging leaders, organizers, educators, and movement builders explore a love-centered view of being agents of change. 

Over three Saturdays in May, we gathered our first cohort in an intentionally curated space where movement builders could step out of the role of leader and into that of community member, connecting, resting, and replenishing. As part of the experience, each participant also received a one-on-one coaching call to support their individual journey in accessing and activating their love centered practice. 

Each session included opportunities for reflection, connection, creativity, resource sharing, and time outdoors, all in service of reconnecting and centering ourselves around love as a leadership tool. We made space to sit with our stories and bring our full selves to the table, which we recognized is rare when we have to keep our masks on at work and in other social spaces.

We learned an immense amount from each of these leaders. Our most valuable learning: those who pour out for others every day need spaces where they can be poured into. We need programs like Love, Action, Reaction to give leaders this time to fortify themselves amongst peers in a meaningful way. 

“Today was great being in a space where I can express myself freely among my people, I truly appreciate it. The flow was great. I really like taking that walk.” - Darren. W. 

We are grateful to the San Francisco Foundation for partnering with us in love to make this work possible and to our first cohort for trusting us with their stories. This is only the beginning — and we look forward to growing Love, Action, Reaction so more of our community's leaders can rest, reconnect, and rise.