June 2021 Chapter Meeting

Our June meeting guest speaker is LaVanda Brown. Ms. Brown joined YWCA Greater Charleston as executive director in February 2016. Her experience,leadership, and passion for serving others spans 30 years.

During her decades of on-the-ground experience in socialservices focused on underserved populations, she has ledand advised multiple nonprofit and for-profit organizations,including Family Promise of Greater Savannah, UnionMission, Greenbriar Children’s Center, Gang Alternatives ofMiami, Clarke Community Services in New Orleans, andothers in the behavioral health, employment, and communityservices arenas.

A passionate advocate for causes including gender equality,diversity, and racial equity, and a strong ally of under-resourced teens and homeless populations, she envisions aworld where differences are not just tolerated but celebrated.

During her career, LaVanda has developed strategic plans resulting in more positive community interventions, createda homeless case management system, developed a life skills curriculum, designed an after-care program to help the homeless transition to independence, and instituted
permanent supportive housing for homeless adults and families.

 LaVanda Brown, M.Ed.

Her work has garnered awards including the 2021 Trident Literacy Founder’s Award, U.S. Housing and UrbanDevelopment Best Practices Award for Transitional Housing and Case Management, and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Magnolia Award for Excellence inHousing. She was also the 2018 recipient of the MartinLuther King, Jr. Picture Award for outstanding community service, presented by Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg and South Carolina Rep. Wendell Gilliard and was named to Charleston Business magazine’s 2020 Top 50 most Influential list.

LaVanda currently serves on the advisory board forCommunity Solutions, a global organization providing community leaders across around the world with anintensive, US-based professional development exchange program, the board of Enough Pie, an organization dedicated to improving Charleston’s upper peninsula, and the leadership council of the Social Justice Racial Equity Collaborative in Charleston. She has also served as the housing subcommittee chair for the Mayor’s Commission onHomelessness and Affordable Housing.LaVanda holds a dual bachelo's degree in psychology and sociology from Wesleyan College and a master's degree in counseling from Georgia Southern University.