Imani Missouri
Board Member
Imani aims to inspire social impact leaders and communities to dream bigger and create a brighter future for a better world in the areas of leadership development, community development and philanthropy. Her career spans experience in the nonprofit, community development and education sectors.
She delivers leadership development training to Fortune 100 organizations as a certified facilitator through the Center for Creative Leadership. More recently, she served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for DIFFvelopment and has since transitioned to serve as the organization’s Philanthropic Strategy Advisor. Her work in philanthropic engagement also extends globally as the current lead facilitator of the Global Youth Philanthropy Network in partnership with African Youth Philanthropy Network, GADEF International, Philanthropy Together and GivingTuesday.
Professionally, she led program strategy and development at Faith & Prejudice where she designed and implemented strategies that aligned with the organization’s goals, curated programming content, and developed philanthropic engagement opportunities with faith-based communities across the country. Prior to that she was Program Officer for the Knowledge Management & Strategy team at Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), where she engaged in multi-sector thought leadership and partnerships to advance capacity building across urban and rural communities in America, spearheaded an internal and external racial equity strategy and collaborated on talent development initiatives.
Imani holds a BA in Social Psychology from Smith College, MS in Urban Policy Analysis and Management from The New School, graduate certificate in Social Entrepreneurship from SUNY Empire State, Entrepreneurial Achievement by BE NYC Startup Intensive powered by FastTrac® and certificates in Religious Fundraising from Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, Women’s Entrepreneurship & Financial Management through Cornell University. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Philanthropic Leadership at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University. In ministry, she co-leads and has oversight of key initiatives for a paraministry, Legacy, at Dream Life Church International in the Bronx, NY.