Gabrielle Wyatt on investing in the future of Black women

A Q&A with the founder of The Highland Project

Nov 01, 2024

Gabrielle Wyatt is the Founder and CEO of The Highland Project, a nonprofit that invests in Black women leading structural change in communities across the country. Before The Highland Project, Gabrielle led significant change initiatives in our nation’s largest and most complex school systems and shaped the investment strategy of leading national philanthropic initiatives. Most recently, she was a Partner at The City Fund, founded by leading national philanthropists to support local education leaders in building local movements for systemic change in education. Gabrielle supported local education leaders nationwide to expand opportunities for students in public schools through strategic advising, board service, and philanthropic investments. Before joining The City Fund, Gabrielle was the Chief Strategy Officer at Civic Builders, the former Executive Director of Strategy for Newark Public Schools—New Jersey's largest school district and the Associate Director of Portfolio Planning at the NYCDOE. Gabrielle is a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the Harvard Kennedy School. Gabrielle Wyatt is the proud daughter of two Baltimore educators, Mary Alice Thomas and Quentin Wyatt.

Tell us about The Highland Project's work.

At The Highland Project, we invest in Black women leaders by giving them the space and dream capital to rest, dream, and build. We believe that in order to invest in a more sustainable, just, and equitable world, we need to recognize and treat Black women as leaders and, as such, invest in supporting and sustaining them in their work.

Specifically, we provide them with three important resources: an 18-month experience of curated gatherings anchored in rest, creativity, and imagination; flexible dream capital to scale their visions for thriving Black communities; and access to a thoughtful community of Black women leaders across generations, sectors, and seats of power.

To date, we have raised over $12 million for investment in leaders and solutions centering Black women in structural change.

For generations, Black women have led the greatest acts of social change for our country, and yet are only given little resources and support to do the work. In what ways do they need to be invested in?

Every one of us has a role to play to sustain Black women as human beings and leaders of social progress. And every day is filled with opportunities for us to take action, if we choose to take a second look.

First, see us in our full humanity—ignoring this, even subconsciously, is a harm unto itself. Particularly in the last few years, Black women have been used as symbolic diversity, a catch-all figure on diversity and inclusion matters. We are boxed into “superhero” and extroverted stereotypes that are more than just a cultural trope–especially in white-dominated workplaces, with a set expectation of how we must act, live, and be.

Deviating from the expected stereotype can have damaging effects in our career, from work relationships to promotions and raises, preventing us from being able to show up as our full and authentic selves. It’s past time that we acknowledge and embrace that Black women hold a range of human needs and possibilities, and it is in our right to have full access to it.

Second, as news headlines continue to report on the issues impacting Black communities—from the wage gap to maternal mortality rates—resist adopting a single narrative of despair about our experiences and communities, and recognize that Black women are so much more than what these stories contain.

In our love letter to Black women, we explain that Black women carry a legacy of rising, surviving, thriving through the pain. In fact, history has shown us that we are architects. Strategists. Leaders. Creators. Visionaries. Oppression often puts a ceiling on how the world sees our potential. It’s time that we associate Black women not with the pain and struggle that we often hear in mainstream narratives, but of our proven power and brilliance to effect multi-generational change.

And finally, advocate for Black women and our leadership—even if it’s uncomfortable. The fight for injustice is designed to be a struggle, and not a sanctuary. It requires us to hold the line, and double down on commitments.

You recently released the findings of a groundbreaking poll that showed that Black women voters feel that this election is the most important election of their lifetime. What do you think is driving that belief?

We’re at a pivotal moment in our country, and there are significant and life-altering rollbacks that are happening right now that are putting our collective future at stake. We saw these concerns in our poll, specifically in protecting and strengthening social safety nets; protecting communities against attacks on rights; reforming the Supreme Court; pursuing gun control to make communities safer; fighting for women’s health, maternal health and reproductive freedoms; creating equitable funding for education; and bringing down costs on everyday goods. For Black women and Black communities, the implications of this moment extend far beyond electoral politics and it’s about more than the dollars we have in our pockets—it’s about shaping the very trajectory of democracy and investing in a future that works for everyone.

You're surrounded by incredible women who have been knee deep in building the solutions that will put us on a path to collective healing. What advice of theirs do you lean into, as we move through the chaos of the world today?

I continue to lean into the advice from my Board chair and former coach Shawna Wells to prioritize legacy visioning. A legacy is a vision just beyond your reach for how you want your life today to spark multi-generational change seven generations from now. Moving with your legacy or stepping into your purpose is the result of a set of intentional actions, specifically, how you make choices and trade-offs with how and where you spend your time and money personally and professionally. Right now, I would say the most powerful strategy I’m leveraging and iterating on to center hope is moving in alignment with my legacy vision (or my purpose) to create deep, joyful, healing, and sustainable investments in the brilliance of Black communities. But it took a lot of reflection, tough love, healing, and shedding to get there, much less to be able to articulate that sentence. My tipping point was 2019- I was burnt out, jaded, and unwell. When I looked around, I saw that many of my peers, mentors, and sheroes were at similar and worse tipping points. This all was against the backdrop of cities beginning to shift into shutdowns. For the first time since I could remember, like so many people that year and in the years that would follow, I was forced to be still. For such a devastating time, the stillness was a gift for me to get back on my legacy path.

My recipe for doing that was hiring a coach—Shawna Wells; getting out of my comfort zone to explore my own well-being so that I, too, could thrive and imagine what thriving Black communities could really look like; and creating circles of trusted friends and mentors to vision with. The vision I saw was one of groups of Black women across sectors and generations experiencing joy and healing. I saw them having access to abundant resources—time, space, and capital—to imagine and build communities where they could truly thrive.

The process of visioning helped me to see where my life was, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs about the legacy I aspired to leave behind. They were a trail of examples of creating investments in actualizing Black brilliance. But it also revealed to me that the trail I was on would not be sustainable if I had not been sustained.

What is one practice you've cultivated to strengthen your sense of hope?

My mentor and Highland’s rest coach, Octavia Raheem, once told me, “Weary eyes see a weary world.” Those seven words unlocked my own rest, restoration, and imagination journey. Rest allows us to feel and release and eventually remember our dreams, hopes, and deepest desires to live purposeful and joyful lives. Right now, I’m leaning into the practice of centering, bending time, and resting in the mornings. I prioritize waking up before my family so that I can keep sacred my morning rituals centered around rest. My resting rituals, depending on the season, include a walk in the park in silence (aka no headphones!), yin yoga, or painting. I am always anchored in the morning by drinking two cups of water before coffee (#HydrationIsRest!) and journaling.

To learn more, connect with Gabrielle on Instagram, and connect with The Highland Project on Instagram.