Sondra Samuels - 2024 Woman of Power
Sondra Samuels is the President & CEO of the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), a place-based nonprofit she co-founded in 2009. In partnership with parents, students, non-profits, schools, and staff, Sondra is leading a revolutionary culture shift in North Minneapolis that is focused on ending multigenerational poverty through education, family stability and racial equity.
The NAZ collaborative, made up of more than 30 partner nonprofits and schools, is working toward a single goal—to support and prepare low-income North Minneapolis children of color to succeed in high school, college, career and life. NAZ has scaled up to support more than 1,000 parents and 2,000 students annually as they turn the social service model on its head and lead the creation of a college-bound culture throughout the community. Ms. Samuels is a 26-year resident of North Minneapolis and a national leader committed to anti-racist results-based accountability. She and her team work tirelessly to ensure the integration of effective cradle-to-career solutions across the NAZ collaborative; to scale and sustain results across North Minneapolis; and to change racist systems and policies needed for NAZ families and scholars to truly share in the prosperity of the Twin Cities. Under her leadership, NAZ was named a federal Promise Neighborhood in 2011; joined the Strive Together Network in 2022; and has become a nationally recognized model for comprehensive place-based solutions for community transformation and systems change.
Sondra also co-founded the Education Partnership Coalition which is composed of seven place-based, cradle-to-career organizations across the state of Minnesota, which secured $23M in funding over a 7-year period from the state to collectively support more than 100,000 students in achieving academic and life success. She also serves on the Minneapolis Federal Reserve’s Inclusion Advisory board, the Leadership Team of Generation Next, and as a Board member for Health Partners and Great Minnesota Schools.
Sondra graduated from two historically Black Universities receiving a B.S. degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD, and an MBA from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, GA. She and her husband Don have four amazing adult children and one spoiled Sheep-a-doodle.