10-15-2023 Women to Watch - Flipbook - Page 23
Iya Dammons
Founder and executive director,
Baltimore Safe Haven
When Iya Dammons, 38, isn’t on the front lines advocating for people like herself, a Black trans woman, she’s
running the transitional housing nonprofit she founded.
She knows it’s a lot, but she also knows “someone has
to do it.”
Members of the LGBTQ+ community are increasingly seeking sanctuary in Maryland, and Dammons has
“no other choice” but to help house them, she said. She
founded Baltimore Safe Haven in 2018 to do just that for
queer people across the state. Safe Haven is “building
people from the ground up, from survival, so that they
can thrive,” Dammons said, by providing necessities like
bus passes and clothes alongside access to workforce
development and rent deposit checks.
In Baltimore, there’s a drop-in center and six Safe
Haven-operated homes, which house 37 people and are
at capacity. In July, Dammons opened a D.C. drop-in
center. Looking to the future, Dammons — who said she
is focused on having a “listening ear and not a running
mouth” — uses Safe Haven to build new leaders in a
process she calls “crowning queens.”
“Trans leadership might be in the back of the acronym.
But we’re in the forefront of the work,” Dammons said.
— Maya Lora
AMY DAVIS
Chrissy Thornton
President and CEO, Associated Black Charities
Chrissy Thornton grew up watching her mother break barriers as the first Black
woman to work in security at the United Nations. Later, Thornton would help eliminate
barriers for other women through entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and economic
education and development.
“My very first and continued source of inspiration was my mother. She has always
been the measurement of success for me and a strong example of the kind of person I
want to be,” Thornton said.
As the president and CEO of Associated Black Charities, Thornton, 47, has supported
nonprofits through rebuilding, the onboarding of board and committee members, fundraising plan creation and marketing. She has written six books that provide economic
education for individuals and nonprofits.
Thornton also founded My Girl Power Hour, a discussion and event series empowering women to overcome obstacles, creating a safe space for a sisterhood.
“I would tell other young women who look up to me that the pathway to success isn’t
straight and narrow,” Thornton said. “Instead, it is filled with curves and bumps and
detours that you have to be both ready and flexible enough to navigate.”
— Tony Roberts
KIM HAIRSTON
WOMEN TO WATCH | 2023 | 23