Cemeré (see-mēr-ray) James

The Mary Elizabeth House stands as a beacon of hope and support for women and families facing adversity. Founded with a vision to empower and uplift, we offer a comprehensive range of programs and services, that make a tangible difference in the community, and enable individuals to build a brighter future for themselves and their children. Using a Two-generation (2Gen) approach that builds family well-being by intentionally and simultaneously working with children and the adults in their lives, The Mary Elizabeth House provides a safe and nurturing environment where women and families can find solace, support, and the resources they need to overcome challenges. As a transitional housing program, our organization offers temporary safe, and stable accommodation to young mothers aging out of foster care or facing housing instability.

Intangible Treasures’ products inspire and connect our customers with life’s treasures of wisdom, healing, love and joy. We specialize in crafting bespoke legacy products to evoke deep family and community connections. Our collection includes children’s books, family yearbooks, and biographical journeys that delicately capture the essence of love, laughter, and life lessons. Cemeré James is a leading advocate for early childhood development and care. Her passion for cultural advancement drives her to create meaningful and enriching avenues and products to support our youth at the most critical stages of evolution. Cemeré acknowledges that family (biological, adopted or chosen) is the sounding board for every child’s future. Chronicling one’s line of descent to pass on through generations to come is a power move. This revolutionary act of facilitating strong roots through literacy is highlighted in her legacy products.

Develops policy and systems change strategies designed to address and eradicate institutional racism in partnership with non- profits, public agencies and philanthropic organizations leveraging expertise in large-scale systems reform and early childhood education policy. Provides coaching at the intersection of child and family policy and leadership development. JBC also provides project and event management, administrative/operations support to organization and individuals specializing in support of social justice organizations and initiatives.

Provide executive leadership, guiding the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) through periods of transition while maintaining focus on its mission to advance policy solutions for low-income individuals and families. Work in close partnership with Board of Directors to oversee daily operations, managing senior leadership, and ensuring alignment with the organization's goals. Represents CLASP in key external relationships, engaging with policymakers, funders, and other partners to advocate for policy changes and secure resources that support the organization's work in advancing social justice and economic opportunity.

Develop a multi-year power-building strategy and workplans to support a child-centered, racial equity-informed public policy agenda. Work with Vice President of Strategy and Program to inform program planning across multiple sites. Integrate community organizing with long-term, community-driven policy change and direct service efforts. Identify and build coalitions with key partners and constituencies. Manage protocols and policies for leadership development and mobilization in targeted constituencies. Remain current and serve as in-house expert on leading and promising practices for power-building.

Work Support Strategies Initiative: WSS is a multi-state initiative led by CLASP in partnership with the Urban Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It provides a select group of states with the opportunity to design, test, and implement more effective, streamlined, and integrated approaches to delivering key supports for low-income working families, including health coverage, nutrition benefits, and child care subsidies. The Ford Foundation, the project’s lead funder, has committed $21 million over five years, and the Open Society Foundations, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation have provided crucial additional support. More information on WSS can be found at: http://www.urban.org/worksupport/ . Leadership: Provide strategic leadership (with general guidance from Olivia Golden, WSS Director) to ensure that the day-to-day operations of WSS are on-track with longer term goals and that the project’s many components, participants, and partners are on the same page. Policy Analysis: Identify policy and system reform lessons as they emerge from WSS and oversee or conduct syntheses and analyses that distill these lessons. Relationship Management: Maintain strong relationships with cabinet-level state leaders, state team members, national team members, funders, and federal officials. Program Development: Identify new opportunities for policy advocacy at the state or federal level based on insights gained from WSS, and work with partners at CLASP (and potentially other organizations) to develop those areas of work, through research, writing, convening, developing proposals, or other next steps. Manage funder relationships, including writing proposals and reports and developing fundraising plans for next steps in conjunction with others on the leadership team.

Business Process Re-design: Work with human services offices to improve service delivery and increase access to food and medical assistance programs. Responsibilities include documenting procedures, process mapping, tracking and analyzing performance data and facilitating dialogues on process and policy improvement with office staff and administrators. In two years, my team directly supported business process redesign in five human services offices that serve over 300,000 households, about 20 % of the total households served in the state. Business Process Improvement Manual: Wrote an “operations manual” for human services offices that identifies best practices, strategies to implement new business processes and sample office procedures. Other states have used the manual as a reference for business process re-design in their human services agencies. Recruited and hired a team of three business process specialist in Chicago. Direct management responsibilities include coordinating activities, staff assessment and development in addition to supporting the work of two business process specialists located in Springfield and East Alton. ACA Business Process Lead: Assist in identifying operations practices required to implement a new eligibility system, as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and ensure that eighty five human services offices are prepared for implementation.

Program Development: Provided support to child care centers in implementing Bilingual Immersion Curriculum and presented at state and national conferences, including National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), on how policy changes and research can positively impact language development programs in early care and education. Organizational Development: Supported the Vice President of Strategic Planning and Implementation by developing and maintaining a performance measure system in Microsoft Access. Designed a leadership development program to increase leadership capacity and create formal avenues for succession planning within the organization. Policy Analysis: Researched and assessed current programs and legislation to make recommendations for policy change; Served as a staff member for the Illinois Commission on the Elimination of Poverty and assisted in writing policy recommendations for the Commission’s final report.