“Ms. Taveras is an amazingly strategic and supportive partner. She is adept at quickly and accurately assessing the assumptions and strengths of innovations and models for change, and helping to identify and address any potential weaknesses. She cares deeply both about people in communities and the issues and challenges that they face, as well as about the individuals in organizations working to help address those challenges and create a better world. Her knowledge, experience and passion about the intersection of philanthropy and nonprofit work to improve our social condition make her uniquely qualified to help both sectors achieve high performance in furtherance of societal good.”
“Luisa Taveras is one of the most knowledgeable, competent and energetic people I know. She’s a fantastic facilitator and a source of sage wisdom about justice issues. In addition, she’s a true expert on all aspects of non-profit governance, fundraising, and finances. I highly recommend her.”
“Knowing and working with Luisa Taveras for the last six years has been a professional and personal blessing. Luisa has been a critical sounding board for organizational strategic decision-making. She’s incredibly skilled at asking the tough questions that must be asked, and in helping individuals identify internal and external barriers that keep them from moving forward or unleashing their potential. Her frankness, neutral guidance, coupled with her caring, and loving disposition create a safe space where difficult life and work situations can be discussed openly. Her friendship, coaching, and sound advice have been critical to my success and I highly recommend her.”
“Luisa was the single most important mentor, navigator, and guide who helped us take an idea and grow it into a sustainable and impactful model for change to transform justice in America. Without her, today we would just be an organization with an idea that no one would have ever heard about.
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Luisa, because of her experience and expertise, was able to give us an understanding of the landscape and context of our organization’s work so that we could move intentionally and with effective purpose. She gave us a roadmap forward. Luisa was the source of wisdom that allowed us to strategize about broader, national implementation, and she was always able to see around the corner to advise us on what opportunities and vulnerabilities we should be looking out for as we grew.
It was like having a future-teller in our camp. And ultimately, Luisa was the advisor we trusted, not only because of her effectiveness as a coach and consultant, but also because her insights were matched to her values and beliefs, which always shined through in how she worked with us.”
“Luisa is fiercely dedicated to both the people she serves and getting the work done. She provides an effective blend of big picture framing and project specific strategy that work to serve each other. Importantly, she is not afraid to engage stakeholders with varied perspectives in order to find common ground, gain traction, and move campaigns, work, and organizations forward.”
“Luisa has an incredible ability to listen, assess, and chime in with both insightful questions and probing insights She looks through the haze and sees connections, challenges, and opportunities, and brings clarity to confusion.”
“Luisa is a creative, strategic thinker who won’t stop until she gets results. Having collaborated with her in the past, I have benefited from the breadth of expertise, passion, focus, and sense of humor she brings to her work, no matter how big the challenge. Simply put, she’s someone you’ll want on your team.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Luisa Taveras very closely over the past two years in her capacity as a Program Officer at the Open Society Foundations. Her intelligence, commitment to excellence, and her passion for social justice have impressed me from day one. She is one of the most disciplined and diligent people I have ever observed, and this diligence comes from her strong sense of duty to opening the path to justice for people of color and other disenfranchised groups. Luisa is also a faithful mentor and thought partner to whomever requests her guidance, and I am excited to see the fruits of her future labor.”
“As my social justice work has allowed me to work with numerous strategic planners over the years, Luisa Taveras is hands down the best strategic planner I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. She is a brilliant and creative architect of ideas who will take your work to advanced levels you didn’t know were possible.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Luisa Taveras as a fellow program officer at the Open Society Foundations. Luisa brings rigor and integrity to the work she does. She has provided an excellent example of how to transition advocacy skills into philanthropy. Especially for new grant makers, Luisa will provide a critical eye and helpful direction for you to be the best grant maker possible.”
“For nearly four years, I worked with Luisa to develop a strategy to reform youth Justice in the US. As my superior, Luisa never talked down to me or made me feel less than. Instead, she truly listened to my input, and challenged me to rise to my potential by modeling behavior and strategic thinking skills that will inform my work throughout my entire career.
Luisa pushed me to take on work that was outside of my comfort zone, and these ended up being transformative learning experiences. She never gave me assignments for the sake of just getting work done; instead, she infused a pedagogical angle in everything, and really prioritized my learning throughout each exercise. On a personal level, Luisa is a mentor and a coach, constantly demonstrating and talking through ways in which to successfully navigate complicated institutions and situations, as a woman, as an ambitious young person, as an intellectual.
The lessons I learned from Luisa will carry me through the next steps in my career, and I will continue to seek her wisdom no matter where I go. Perhaps most importantly, Luisa has a unique ability to instill confidence and see latent talent in individuals that others may miss, and it is this attribute that makes her especially equipped to manage teams and achieve amazing results by allowing everyone to actualize his or her potential.”