Ponsella Hardaway

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

phardaway@mosesmi.org
313.915.4859

With over two decades of experience in the community organizing field, Ponsella Hardaway has earned a national reputation as a voice for equity, civic engagement, and grassroots leadership. A native Detroiter, Ponsella began her career with Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES) in 1996. Since 2004, she has served as Executive Director of this interracial, interfaith organization of people whose faith compels them to act on social, racial, and economic justice issues. Under her leadership, MOSES has been recognized as one of Michigan's most influential grassroots organizations, capable of mobilizing even the most historically disenfranchised communities to seek policies that reflect their values and needs.

She is also a National Trainer with the Gamaliel Foundation.  Gamaliel is an international organizing institute that provides training and resources to community and congregation leaders to aid in their efforts to build and maintain empowerment-focused organizations like MOSES. She has trained congregations and community leaders across the United States and internationally in South Africa, Swaziland, and the UK.  Ms. Hardaway has traveled to Brazil, Spain, and Mali to study NGOs’ work on political and social issues. In 2011, Ponsella traveled to Mali as part of the State Department Delegation to investigate Muslim-Christian regional cooperation.

Ponsella is a Michigan State University Great Lakes Leadership Academy (GLLA) graduate and an Environmental and Natural Resource Fellow.  She is also a BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) Director’s Training program alumna. As a participant in a two-year Michigan State University program, she later became a board member of GLLA, as well as served on the Detroit Works Project/Detroit Future City Steering Committee and Process Leaders Table; the Population Health Council of Detroit/Wayne County; and the advisory committees to several prominent national foundations. She currently serves on the executive board of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan.

A Black woman raised by a social worker in Detroit, Ponsella’s lived experience reflects that of the communities MOSES seeks to serve. Ponsella considers organizing a calling, giving her the strength to continue leading in a challenging profession. Her vision is of an equitable region where Black residents and other marginalized people have access to the resources they need to self-determine, including concerning their physical, mental, and spiritual health. As a Black woman, she is particularly invested in the development of other Black women leaders, whom she sees as having played a foundational and sustaining role in the movement for social justice in America.