Herschelle Milford

Herschelle Milford has 30 years of professional career and personal experience in an ethnically diverse society in South Africa, leading organizations and managing projects. She is a graduate from the University of the Western Cape, where she also completed a Higher Education diploma. As a teaching professional, she worked for eight years in the field of education, both in a governmental and non-profit setting. The last 18 years of her career have been dedicated to leadership in a land justice non-profit, leading the organization through several changes and strategic processes. As its first black director/director of color, Herschelle was instrumental in leading a process of workplace transformation around race, inclusivity, equity and diversity. Her personal lived experience of racial divide and injustice informs her quest for abandoning all forms of exclusion and dignity. Working with disadvantaged and politically, socially and economically excluded communities in a post-Apartheid period provided valuable insights that Herschelle is able to share, especially on the non-profit boards she serves. She brings this collective learning and re-learning, dialogue and advocacy, exchange and solidarity to her board role. Herschelle is a member of the Thousand Currents Board and a board member of the Environmental Monitoring Group. She previously served on the Social and Ethics Committee of the mothers2mothers South Africa board and as one of the first advisory board members of the Agroecology Fund. She believes in the power of collectivism, community and solidarity and the ability to establish and maintain relationships and solidarity with community partners, stakeholders and international alliances. She currently resides in Santa Barbara, California, where she has just started at PATH, a statewide organization working to address homelessness, an issue she strongly feels connected to both personally and as an activist for social change.