1078: What It’s Like to Be Executive Director of an Education Non-Profit With Toya Fick, Stand for Children [Main T4C Episode]

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Toya Fick is the Oregon executive director* of Stand for Children, a nonprofit education advocacy organization.  SFC is dedicated to making quality education accessible for all children, especially those facing difficulties due to their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability or economic status. Toya grew up in a small town in Louisiana and became the first member of her entire extended family to graduate from college. She then worked as a middle school teacher in Baton Rouge with Teach for America and after that, as an education policy staffer for former Senator Hillary Clinton. Her next career move involved becoming a senior legislative associate with the Alliance for Excellence in Education.  Toya graduated from the Univesity of Chicago with a B.A. in political science. 

*Since Toya did this Time4Coffee interview she’s become the President of the Meyer Memorial Trust in Oregon.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE:

• How Toya and her family have been affected by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black citizens (8:43)
• What agenda and policy changes have been implemented in light of national recognition of countrywide systemic racism (9:58)
• How Toya has navigated through the educational field as a Black woman (12:02)
• Why your unique life experience matters (13:33)
• How ballot measure-98 came to be (16:23)
• How Toya and her team gained support for measure-98 (20:08/22:32)
• What Toya does as Stand for Children’s Oregon executive director (25:48)
• How Toya’s childhood experience prepared her for a career in children’s education (29:24)
• How former President Barack Obama influenced Toya to give back to her community (31:10)
• How Toya got started with Teach for America (34:36)
• If you want to learn how to break into the non-profit education advocacy field check out Toya’s T4C Espresso Shots episode #673