April Yvonne Garrett
Founder & President

A thoughtful organic intellectual, April Yvonne Garrett is a social entrepreneur, activist, and strategist. After carving out a space in the most revered black intellectual and civil rights arenas, April made the radical decision to chart her own path, committing her talents to empowering others by using art and intellectual work encourage civic engagement about pressing social issues in diverse communities across the nation.

A native of Baltimore and the first in her family to attend college, April excelled in the education and non-profit arenas, often as the only black woman making major decisions that shaped intellectual and campus life at Columbia, Emory and Harvard Universities, as well as the civil rights agenda of the NAACP. Earning degrees in Islamic studies from Kenyon College, higher and adult education from Teachers College Columbia University, and African American Religious History from Harvard Divinity School, provided her with a broad interdisciplinary foundation of knowledge to apply in her work.

She has served as the Resident Program Assistant of the Intercultural Resource Center at Columbia University and as Director of New Student Orientation and Assistant Director of Student Activities at Emory University. April was a Harvard University Presidential Administrative Fellow and she served as the Fellows Officer of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, a Freshman Proctor for the Freshmen Deans Office, as the Visiting Scholars Coordinator for the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute and the American Repertory Theatre, and as a Teaching Fellow in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She also served on the senior staff of the national NAACP as the first Director of Administration and Strategic Planning.

April has provided executive, editorial, and research expertise on such notable publications as the Encarta Africana, The Harvard Guide to African American History, Transition Magazine, and the Microsoft/Black Entertainment Television 19th century online African American art exhibit. She was also the special guest editor of the first Afro Chronicles of the Afro-American Newspapers Commemorative Edition of the NAACP 91st Annual Convention, which earned her the National Newspapers Publishers Associations Leon H. Washington Award for Best Special Edition and is a contributing essayist in the anthology Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts edited by Ayana Byrd and Akiba Solomon. April served as the guest editor for a year-long series on race and ethnicity entitled, DiverCity: The Changing Face of Baltimore that appeared in Baltimore Magazine monthly during the year 2006.

She has made an impact on every environment she has inhabited and her accolades include the E. Malcolm Anderson Cup for outstanding student leadership from Kenyon College, appointment to the Columbia University Student Senate, and election by her peers to represent Harvard Divinity School as class marshal. April has also received awards from Sigma Nu Fraternity, the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Affairs at Emory University, the Southern Regional Orientation Workshop and the National Orientation Directors Association. The Daily Record named her one of Maryland's Top 100 Women in 2005 and one of Maryland's Leading Women in 2010. She was also inducted in the inaugural Who's Who in Black Baltimore in 2010.

April is co-chair of the Kenyon College Alumni of Color Collective, past member of the Kenyon College Alumni Council, and past president of the Harvard Divinity School Alumni/ae of African Descent. She serves on the advisory board of the Justice Project of Philander Smith College, Bon Secours Family Support Center and both the National Black Pre-Law Admissions and Preparation Conference and Law Fair and the National Black Pre-MBA Conference and Business Fair.

Though she has been shaped greatly by her educational background and being mentored by some of the greatest voices in black intellectual and political life, April firmly believes in the importance of having a healthy connection to one's community of origin, making peace with one's past, and being an informed agent of change.

With her symbiotic blend of common sense and powerful intellect, she has inspired people ranging from college professors and students, politicians and activists to star athletes and entertainers many of whom she counts as trusted confidants and valued friends.

Armed with those qualities, April serves as founder and president of Civic Frame, a national, nonprofit, organization that uses art and intellectual work to encourage civic engagement about pressing social issues such as affirmative action, the death penalty, child protective services, domestic violence, immigration, offender reentry, poverty, and mental health. In 2010, she launched Amplify Baltimore, a quarterly series of conversations about the future of her hometown. Amplify Baltimore is now a weekly, 30-minute television show on TV25 produced, written and hosted by April that examines the issues the city faces and highlights the people and organizations working to make Baltimore better.

With the same enthusiasm and drive that she applies to her lifework, April shares her gift of inspiring others through speaking. Drawing on the trials she faced establishing herself in the educational, non-profit, and freelance consulting arenas, she is an impassioned voice on the role of African Americans and women in society, 21st activism, personal empowerment and altruism.