Nexus Community Partners is a proudly Black-led, BIPOC-majority nonprofit working to build engaged and powerful communities of color for over 20 years. In honor of Black August and Black Philanthropy Month, we sat down with Repa Mekha, Danielle Mkali, and Chalonne Faleke to reflect on their leadership journeys and the importance of investing in Black leadership.
Repa Mekha, Founder & CEO
18 years with Nexus
“I’m a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather. That brings with it a certain level of responsibility as an elder. Part of my role in this organization is to live out what it looks like to be a purpose-driven elder, and to teach principles and values that others around me can steep themselves in.”
“As a Black leader, most of what I do is related to who I’m with. I spend a great deal of my time in the same spaces that I’m working on. And I have a great sense of accountability. Because I have to show up. I have to be present. This work around leadership, for me, is about real, authentic work.”
Danielle Mkali, VP of Programs & Strategies
12 years with Nexus
“Black leadership at Nexus means bringing my whole self as a Black woman into the space. It has meant that Black folks have been able to coordinate and organize rooms and spaces to have conversations that center Black people and that we get to be the designers and the decision-makers on efforts that are for and by Black people here at Nexus, even within a multiracial organization.”
“Black leadership is so important in this time because we are seeing incredible devastation and pain and harm every day, in a way that feels much more forceful and rapid and chaotic than it has before, and yet we know from our history and where we’ve come from that we know a lot about what we’re seeing right now. And we have been resisting and building and creating and moving together and organizing and sharing money, sharing land, sharing food, sharing answers and solutions to what we’re seeing right now. For as long as we’ve been here.”
Chalonne Faleke, VP of Operations & Culture
8 years with Nexus
“Black leadership at Nexus has been a very beautiful thing to witness. I love working with a whole bunch of Black genius people. I love seeing all of that brilliance. And it shows up in so many different ways because Black leadership at Nexus is diverse. There’s not just one kind of Blackness. Everybody is Black in their own way. It shines through.”
“Black leadership is critical to invest in. You can look at the patterns of when people choose to call on Black people—when you need creativity, when you need strategic thinking, when you need to figure out how to do a lot with not very much, when there is major transformation happening. Those are often times when you see people call on the leadership of Black people, and that’s across sectors. But I’ve always felt like, why wait? Why wait until we hit these pivotal moments, these dire circumstances, to listen to and follow Black leadership?”
On Thursday, Aug. 28, Nexus Community Partners is joining Give 8/28, a national day of giving focused specifically on supporting Black-led and Black-benefitting organizations.
Give 8/28 isn’t like other fundraising campaigns. It takes place during Black Philanthropy Month and commemorates multiple historical landmarks in Black Americans’ march toward freedom.
For over 20 years, Nexus has built engaged and powerful communities of color so that each and every person can flourish in a joyful and abundant life. In 2025, we’re at a critical juncture. The disproportionate impacts of economic disparities and social injustice on Black communities underscore the vital need for resources to support Black-led nonprofits.
As an organization with powerful Black leadership and initiatives, we are spotlighting our Black programming in honor of Black August:
The Open Road Fund returns money directly to Black folks so they can build something long-lasting for themselves, their families, and their communities.
These, and all of Nexus’ programs, are designed to nurture the relationships and community resilience we need to weather the volatility and uncertainty we are facing.
Our other programs for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color include:
ROOT (Reclaiming Our Own Time) provides resources, support, and spaces for rest and restoration for BIPOC movement leaders.
The Boards & Commissions Leadership Institute equips people historically shut-out from governing—BIPOC, women, queer folks, disabled folks, low-wealth folks, and other historically marginalized and oppressed people—to serve on city, county, metro, and state boards and commissions.
The Shared Ownership Center @ Nexus changes the face of ownership through worker cooperatives, real estate investment cooperatives, and other shared-ownership models.
Tag us on social media @nexuscp with #Give828 to join the national Black giving community!
Are you passionate about Black economic justice? Are you involved in a Black-led collective, cooperative, or land trust? Apply to our North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship! Together, we will learn and reclaim the history of Black cooperative economics over seven months of co-learning, storytelling, and skill-building. Cohort 9 applications are open Monday, Aug. 4 through Monday, Aug. 25, 11:59 pm CT.
How It Works
The North Star curriculum grounds fellows in Black cooperative economic history locally and nationally, challenges them to analyze and rethink capitalism, and supports them in building their own cooperatives, leadership skills, and networks.
As a cohort, fellows explore and receive:
Grounding in the history of Black cooperative economics in the US and a history of cooperation and Black feminism
Cooperative skills and tools, like governance, decision-making structures, and conflict resolution
Access to alumni funds post-fellowship
Support in designing and creating a strategy for a cooperative economic project
A $1,000 stipend for participating in the fellowship
Time Commitment
October 2025 – May 2026
Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm, one to two sessions per month
Wednesday Black Study Sessions, 5 – 7 pm, two per cohort year
Total time: Approximately 85-100 hours, including reflection, co-op work, and research outside of meetings
It is important that our program participants have not only the passion and willingness to join North Star, but also the time and capacity to fully participate. We understand that life can be a lot of things for us, including stressful, traumatic, and isolating. Our staff work hard to cultivate a sacred Black space for cohort members to participate as fully as they can.
Information Session
Interested in applying? Watch our video below to learn more!
As we enter the season of renewal and growth for what’s ahead, Nexus Founder and CEO Repa Mekha reflects on leadership in an uncertain landscape, discovering your purpose, and following the calling. Watch or read below!
What has leadership looked like to you this last quarter—inside Nexus, in the field, and beyond?
These last three months have called for us to live in the gray far more than in the past, to rely on insights and wisdom, and learn that it’s not always concrete. This calls for adaptation and the ability to be flexible, to be creative in the moment. In some ways, it’s calling for us to show up differently, to exercise our skills differently. But it also taps something that already exists in us.
I enter into leadership knowing that I don’t need to know all the answers, and that others may not know all the answers. But the places and spaces and ways that we never thought about gaining insight are in front of us now, and we’re paying attention: what are people not saying? If you stitch things together in the environment, what do they spell out, that you just wouldn’t have thought of or imagined when you were trudging along by yourself?
We are now operating with a higher level of intentionality and tension—being deliberate about paying attention to what’s in the gray. Before, if it wasn’t solid, if it wasn’t something that we could put our hands on, we didn’t have the time for it, right? Because things had to happen. Now we’re finding that there are answers in the gray, there are answers in the questions, that we wouldn’t have paid attention to before.
As a leader in these times, being able to help people see through that has been ratcheted up, both inside and outside of the organization. We are in this exploratory phase where we’re being called to be on the stage, actively engaged, and then having to go to the balcony to see the big picture at the same time. And in between the two, we’re having to hold this space of greatness, not always knowing what happens between the time that we get to the balcony or back to the stage, but being committed to keeping the work going forward.
I always say there’s far more in between the lines than on the line. It’s in that space between the lines that we’ll begin to find some answers. And that’s a different way of practicing leadership: It’s leadership without easy answers. It’s leadership that answers, “it’s a bad time,” it’s leadership that calls for you to have a sense of groundedness and the ability to hold what is unpredictable sometimes. I don’t think it’s momentary. It’s calling us. We’re being trained and engaged and invited to up our level of leadership, the tools that we use in leadership, in ways that we’ve just not had to do in the past.
As a leader, mentor, and community elder, how do you help people see into the gray?
When we are truly in this work, we come to it not as occupations, but vocations. There’s something very deep inside us that teaches us there’s work we should be doing and should be committed to. And unlike an occupation, you don’t retire from it, right? Careers are born to die because folks look for the day that they come to an end. I think that with vocation, a sense of purpose and calling, not only do you come to the work with a deeper sense of commitment, but you come to the work drawn from a deeper sense of wisdom that you didn’t just get trained up. You didn’t just go to school. You didn’t just go through some cohorts to be prepared, but you were sent to do this work.
Part of being able to really fulfill that is self-study. Self-study is tapping into the strength and wisdom and insight that not only come with you, but have been passed on by your ancestors or a Creator—there’s a different way to come to this work that gets reflected in how you show up. And the self-study piece, for me, is as deep as this: If you don’t know yourself, you can’t love yourself. Studying yourself is the only way you get to really know who you are and to know how to embrace yourself. And so as an elder, part of what I try to help folks do is tap into you, tap into your gifts beyond occupation, beyond career paths.
There are at least three ways folks tend to come into this work:
Someone noticed something deep inside them a long time ago and cultivated it. And they, in turn, try to live into it—they act a certain way, they begin to think a certain way, they begin to practice a certain way, and they may even get some training and supports that help to enhance that.
The other is very market-driven: you learn early on what’s popular, what’s in demand, and you spend your time shaping yourself to respond to that.
The third starts from within. Early on, you really begin to recognize that you have a gift, that you have a purpose and a calling, and you may not even have the language for it. You may not even fully understand it, but it’s there and it keeps plugging at you. It keeps tugging at you. And over time, as you have experiences with others, part of what they do is help to pull that out. And as a result, there are things like your jobs, your position…my position as President and CEO of Nexus Community Partners is a platform for me to live out purpose.
I’ve never pursued a career. I’ve never pursued an occupation. I’ve always listened for the calling. And that calling, I understand to be much bigger than me. So the way we enter into this work now is going to be extremely important. It goes back to not only being able to live in the gray, but to hear in the gray: to hear messaging, to hear what people are saying, even when they’re not using their mouth. To see people in ways that have nothing to do with your eyes. I think that’s the kind of leadership we’re being called to do—it is rooted in culture, it is rooted in wisdom, in values around rest and self-care and all those things that are going to be important to the work as we go forward, especially if we become more and more intentional and raise the tension of the work that we’re engaged in. I think where we’ve been just won’t do it anymore.
“When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Out of the Long Night,” The Gospel Messenger Periodical, 1958
As we celebrate Dr. King, we ground ourselves in his unwavering hope for a better future. Together, we can be that creative force building just, powerful, and joyful communities. May his courage, dedication, strength, insight, and relentless pursuit for justice guide us today and every day!
Happy New Year!
During the quiet moments as one year ends and another begins, we hope you found time to rest—body, mind, and spirit.
I am walking into the new year guided by my ancestors and anchored in our mission. The road ahead may not be easy, but I feel hope when I look to my community. When we come together, we have the power to create new futures. It isn’t simple or quick, but transformation never is. We take the long view. We join with folks to build community power and fight for self-determination for all of us through sharing knowledge, resources, and relationships.
Last year, we were busy—we launched first-of-their-kind programs, we helped people build generational wealth, we grew our communities of practice. Throughout 2025, we will be offering opportunities for you to join us for online learning and in-person celebrations of all we have accomplished and all that is to come.
Nexus is working hard to move power and resources in ways that heal, inspire, and affirm our communities.
Here’s to a year of joy, abundance, and transformation. I look forward to working alongside you.
Warmly,
Repa Mekha, Nexus President & CEO
Together, we are building Community Wealth for a just and liberated future.
Over the last 20 years, Nexus has worked to usher out the rigged rules, attitudes, and practices that concentrate wealth and power in fewer and whiter hands. For folks who have been intentionally shut out of mainstream economies, cooperatives present a tried-and-true alternative.
Cooperatives embody the idea that wealth is more than the success of any one individual—that wealth is owning what we produce. To us, wealth is building and inventing for our families and community, not only in crisis, but also in the pursuit of our dreams.
Meet Denise Butler
For more than a decade, Nexus Community Partners and African Career, Education, & Resource Inc. (ACER) have been partners in organizing, funding, and community wealth building. When Denise Butler, Associate Director at ACER, approached Nexus to work with an emerging collective of 24 Black immigrant women and business owners, we jumped at the opportunity.
With the help of Nexus and ACER, these women formed a cooperative: The Ignite Business Women’s Investment Group. Last year, Ignite purchased their first property: Shingle Creek Center in Brooklyn Center.
At the beginning, the Shared Ownership Center at Nexus (SOC@N) helped Ignite determine their cooperative structure, articles of incorporation, and bylaws. As the project developed, SOC@N worked closely with ACER, Ignite, their legal team, and project manager to provide flexible support wherever necessary, from weaving together knowledge, resources, and connections to successfully acquiring the 18-unit shopping center.
“Nexus was instrumental in supporting ACER’s work in building the first Black women’s cooperative in Minnesota. The infrastructural support provided by Nexus speaks to their expertise in the cooperative development landscape.” – Denise Butler, ACER
This milestone was years in the making. It has been an honor to walk alongside Ignite and ACER as they expand their work to meet the needs of their community. Join us in scaling up BIPOC-led cooperative development!
Have you participated in one of our fellowships? Been a longtime partner? However you’ve crossed paths with Nexus, we want to hear from you!
When we founded Nexus Community Partners 20 years ago, we did something simple yet powerful—we turned to community to reclaim our strength and to reimagine what power looks like when it is rooted in truth and relationships. We are unique because of how we’re positioned and how we work: We take the long view, and everything we do is focused on creating lasting impacts.
At Nexus, we are igniting BIPOC leadership for transformational change.
When we established the Boards & Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) 10 years ago, there was nothing like it in our region. But we believe that when we make decisions that affect all of our lives—across race, place, gender, and more—we must share the power in making those decisions. BCLI helps Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) and other historically oppressed people get seats at the table and serve at all levels of government.
Today, of our 157 diverse alumni, many have gone on to high-profile roles including U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Voice Executive Director HwaJeong Kim, and MN First District Judge Luis Rangel Morales.
Meet HwaJeong
Eight years ago, HwaJeong Kim was volunteering at her local library and serving on her neighborhood district council. She loved her community, and she was motivated to do more to give back. That’s when she found BCLI.
“I tell everyone the BCLI changed my life. It was a turning-point training that helped me understand how to navigate power and place with people. This completely catalyzed my professional and personal trajectory.”
The leadership skills and professional connections with like-minded people helped HwaJeong build confidence and take her next steps. She went on to serve on The Saint Paul Planning Commission and work as the Legislative Aide for Saint Paul’s Ward 5 City Councilmember before being elected to the role herself in 2024.
“My greatest takeaway [from BCLI] continues to be how to actualize values in our work and deliver community-driven solutions. Since graduating, I have nominated one person per cohort and will continue to do so—the BCLI produces highly skilled, connected, and values-driving community changemakers. Now more than ever, we need more of us in this fight!“
Join us in helping historically marginalized and oppressed people have a seat at the table. Whether you can contribute $20 or a story about what Nexus means to you, you will continue to make our work possible!
As we reflect on the last two decades and look toward the years to come, we want to know: What does Nexus mean to you? Whether you were part of Payne-Lake Community Partners at the beginning or discovered Nexus this year, we want to hear from you!
Life moves fast. Let’s take time to reflect and appreciate where we have been! From cohorts to conferences, we worked together to build engaged and powerful communities of color this year.
All people deserve joyful and abundant lives filled with the rest that our bodies, minds, and spirits need. We hosted four Reimagine Rest events, two Heal the Healers workshops, and a first-of-its-kind Continuous Sabbatical Fellowship, welcoming 10 new fellows!
Distributed $5 million to 100 Black families across Minnesota and the Dakotas
We celebrated Juneteenth by opening our second round of applications for the Open Road Fund!
“I am so excited that we have 100 more Black families that will be receiving $50,000 Black-wealth gifts by the end of 2024. This second round will bring the total Open Road gifts to $10 million! Having 200 Open Road Black families across MN, ND, and SD is a good thing for all of us. During these horrific and dark times it brings me some peace knowing that these gifts can be transformative in helping our communities to continue to stay strong!” — Danielle Mkali, Senior Director of Community Wealth Building
Introduced the LOCAL Fund
This spring, the Shared Ownership Center @ Nexus (SOC@N) launched the LOCAL Fund in partnership with the City of Saint Paul. The LOCAL Fund aims to build community wealth, anchor jobs locally, grow the local economy and tax base, and center a cooperative ownership culture that uplifts St. Paul residents now and for generations to come. Applications are still open!
Co-hosted the National Conference on Black Cooperative Agenda
In June, Black cooperators from around the country gathered to learn and discuss the power of Black cooperative enterprises. Several Nexus staff members spoke at the conference, including CEO Repa Mekha, who reflected, “If we don’t ground ourselves in our own sense of culture and cooperation, then we will teach people in the wrong way.”
Graduated North Star Cohort 7 This Spring…
And launched Cohort 8 this fall! Our North Star Black Cooperative Fellowship is a place for Black-led cooperatives, collectives, housing, commercial and land trusts to learn and reclaim the history of Black cooperative economics through seven months of co-learning, storytelling, and skill-building. We love getting to know new cooperators each cohort, and have been honored to work alongside our 112 alumni (and counting)!
Graduated BCLI Cohort 11 and Started Recruiting for Cohort 12
Our Boards & Commissions Leadership Institute took a half-year pause to look back on how far we’ve come, celebrate all we have achieved together, and reflect on our future programming. We are so proud of our 157 alumni we have supported these past 11 years, and we’re feeling refreshed and ready for our 2025 cohort!
Co-hosted the St. Paul Shared Ownership Equity Summit
This fall, SOC@N and North Star co-hosted the Saint Paul Shared Ownership Equity Summit with the City of Saint Paul, Project Equity, and Living Cities. About 65 people attended, Mayor Carter and Living Cities President Joe Scantlebury had an engaging “fireside chat,” and Council President Mitra Jalali made it to the summit at the end of the day!
Talked Philanthropy with NDN Collective
At the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and Minnesota Council on Foundations Joint Conference in October, Repa had a thought-provoking conversation with Nick Tilsen, CEO of NDN Collective. They laid bare the hard work ahead and revealed what is possible when philanthropy takes risks and trusts in the authority and expertise of community-centered organizations.
And Hit a Milestone Anniversary!
Nexus turned 20 this year! Throughout 2025, we will be offering opportunities for you to join us for online learning and in-person celebrations of all that you have helped make possible as part of Nexus. We can’t wait to celebrate with you!
Our vision is for each and every person to flourish in a joyful and abundant life. All the creative and innovative work we do reflects the brilliance gifted to us by our people—our staff, fellows, partners, and supporters like you.
To help us usher in nourishing ways of living, owning, and working, our friends at Voqal Partners are matching year-end donations up to $20,000 in honor of Nexus’ 20th anniversary. Starting today, we hope to raise $20,000 and unlock the full potential of their match offer! Any gift you make between now and the end of the year will be doubled thanks to their generosity!
We have never asked for donations before, and $20,000 feels like a big goal. But we feel inspired by this opportunity and hope you do, too! Thank you for walking alongside us on this journey.
Applications for the Boards & Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) are open now through Jan. 20! We are excited to recruit our next cohort of equity champions who want to be effective members on boards, committees, commissions and task forces at all levels of government. Apply and learn how to get a seat on a decision-making table!
How It Works
For too long, systems of governing have rigged the rules to concentrate power and wealth in fewer and whiter hands. They’ve put up barriers to shut out Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color (BIPOC) from decision-making, as well as women, queer folks, disabled folks, low-wealth folks, and other historically marginalized and oppressed people. BCLI is a seven-month leadership program working to change this. We support, train, and help place BIPOC and other underrepresented community members on city and county publicly appointed boards and commissions.
Fellows commit to making governing decisions from the inside to nourish communities for this generation and generations to come. At a time when civic participation and democracy-building is most preciously needed, we must be engaged at every level of decision-making that affects all our communities. And that starts with boards and commissions!
Time Commitment
April – October 2025
Attend three, hour-long meetings per month on Zoom, plus our launch event and graduation
Work outside of sessions includes readings, online discussions, webinars, and commission meetings
Total time (including trainings and assignments) is approximately 80 hours
Fellows receive a small stipend of $500 to honor their time and commitment
