New Seneca Village
Year Four Update
New Seneca Village is an offering and a practice for progressive change leaders and healers. We invite those who are leading the resistance and shaping visions for our collective just future to pause, to reclaim their humanity and reconnect with their inner divinity, so that they lead from an integrated self grounded in values and vision.
In an era of escalating chaos and crisis,
the Village remains committed to creating intentional community where these crucial leaders can access restoration, deep connection and visionary practice—essential foundations for resilient and brilliant leadership.
Table of Contents
Refining the Restorative Residency Experience
New Seneca Village is designed to immediately iterate on Villager feedback as we receive it, ongoingly throughout the year.
In 2025, we added another element to our restorative residency experience,
a virtual closing Integration Circle held roughly two weeks after our in-person gathering.
This final element of the restorative residency offering creates an opportunity for Villagers
to re-connect, to share and to talk through the winding path of integrating
restoration, connection and visioning into their ongoing leadership journey.
The Restorative Residency experience is now made up of five gatherings including:
-
3 online Restorative Vision Circles;
-
1 week in person Restorative Connection Gathering; and
-
1 online Restorative Integration Circle
Restorative Vision
Circle Session #1
Restorative Vision
Circle Session #2
Restorative Vision
Circle Session #3
Restorative Connection Gathering (in-person)
Restorative Integration Circle
Villager Testimonials
This experience is a fantastic opportunity to place yourself on a healthier more considerate trajectory. Believe me when I say, the rest, the offerings, the people that you will meet will give you so much beautiful medicine that can help to remind you that you are not a motor or a machine or a beast of burden, though you may want to bring all your strength and abilities and all this amazing work to your community, YOU MUST also operate from a position of wholeness and rest or you will burn out and be of no use to yourself and others. NSV was right on time in my life and my cohort, we are connected and ready to keep on after just an amazing set of on line sessions and a week in person. Thank you, the reminders and new information was/ is invaluable and appreciated so tremendously.
— Sayeeda Carter; Act Out Ensemble, Social Justice, decolonization, equity and youth advocacy using theater. St. Croix USVI
Upon completion of the restorative residency experience,
Villagers become a part of the New Seneca Village Ecosystem which hosts
ongoing opportunities for virtual and in-person gatherings centering
restoration, connection and visioning within our intentional community.
Villagers Spring 2025
Expanding the Village Ecosystem
Gather Together
This year, we launched our Gather Together Offering for all Villagers.
Gather Together is a grant fund designed to enable Villagers from across residencies to meet up to continue to center restoration, connection and visioning.
As a Village team, we hosted two Village Gather Togethers as a way for Villagers across cohorts to meet one another.
A summer Gather Together luncheon in the Bay Area and a Gather Together happy hour in Minneapolis in the fall.
Villagers Gather Together out in the world
Villager Testimonials
.png)
The experience allowed me to pause. Through that pause, I was able to recognize some patterns in life and work that I would not have otherwise recognized. And as a result of that recognition, I was able to both envision some shifts, and also offer myself and others grace for the way that things may or may not have worked out up to that point.
— Rosita Lucas Spreyer, Justice Funders, Philanthropy, Oakland, CA
2025 Villagers
New Seneca Villagers join our intentional community from across the US, Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico, united in their commitment to actualizing a just future for all of us.
Villagers lead important work across sectors and systems,
within and for communities and families, in place and across borders.
New Seneca Village is honored to accompany them in their restorative leadership journeys. Learn more about 2025 Villagers.
New Seneca Village is
multicultural,
multi-gender and
multi-generational.
This is necessary! The burnout is real. The trauma is real. There aren't enough safe spaces to restore and be in community. This was also an intergenerational space and that was a gift in itself! Being able to look to the wisdom of women/femmes older than me and younger than me was truly a blessing!
— Estella Owoimaha-Church,
Advocacy, Los Angeles, CA
The Village is
cross-income,
cross-sector and
cross borders
of the US, Caribbean, Canada and Mexico
(for now).
This is a program that is needed, and it is not only supporting the participant but the entire community she is part of. We need more of these spaces to heal and create a vision for a better world.
— Claudia Jimenez,
Richmond, CA
City Council D6
2025 Villagers advance the future through the following Projects...
-
18 Million Rising
-
Abide Women's Health Services
-
Act Out Ensemble
-
African American Roundtable
-
Black Earth Kollektiv
-
Center for Social Justice Youth Development Research
-
City Council Richmond California
-
Close Rikers Campaign
-
Collective Abundance
-
The Democracy Collaborative
-
Durham Beyond Policing
-
Empowering Pacific Islander Communities
-
Food in my Kiez
-
Justice Funders
-
Louisiana Center for Children's Rights
-
Momentum Community
-
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline
-
National Association of Climate Resilience Planners
-
National Youth Justice Network
-
New Economy Coalition
-
Our Family Coalition
-
Palestinian Feminist Collective + Chicago
-
Proyecto Faro/Project Lighthouse
-
Riders Alliance
-
The National Black Worker Center
-
Third Plateau Dyke March
-
Wealth Reclamation Academy of Practitioners (WRAP)
-
Save Section 9
-
Working Families Party
-
VietLead
We welcome Villagers from across organizational hierarchy as we believe that centering leadership within a context of restoration is core to everyone's leadership.
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |
The Village as Organization
Philanthropy translates as
"love of humanity."
New Seneca Village is a love offering to leaders and healers grounded in the original meaning of this word.
Learn more about our organization and the ways that we collectively engage in philanthropy as a Village community.
Ain and Taina are deeply loving tenders of New Seneca. The vision of the village they are helping to co-create with all of its other ecosystems is shifting the vibration of our spirit. This work is immensely valuable and necessary during this time. Thank you for supporting their vision. So many of us are being transformed by the experience.
— Berenice Dimas,
Founder of Hood Herbalism
Collective Abundance Practice
Villager Grants for Transportation and Back Home needs
The Village offers Transportation and Back Home grants to all Villagers to insure that everyone, regardless of financial means, are able to be a part of our community.
These grants enable our collective ability to claim space from our day to day concerns and responsibilities so that while we gather, particularly in - person, we can focus on being present to our individual and collective rhythms and flow.
Villagers choose their individual grant amounts based on their need while intentionally considering the needs of the collective.
How do you practice collective abundance?
Briefly describe your degree and any other highlights about your studies you want to share. Be sure to include relevant skills you gained, accomplishments you achieved or milestones you reached during your education.
Restorative Practice Sessions
How We Re-Engage our Humanity and Re-Center our Divinity
What practices restore, nourish and sustain your leadership?
Restorative practices are core to our restorative residency experience and to nourishing and sustaining our individual and collective leadership.
Our restorative practice sessions invite Villagers to engage and reflect, to move and to play in ways that call forth>>> .
This year, Village Healers and the Village team hosted 138 restorative practice sessions and gatherings.
138
restorative practice sessions in 2025
We are truly grateful for our donors who provide general operating support grants and either do not require any reporting or request minimal reporting.
Their commitment and their funding stance allow us to focus
on our mission and to be in service to the work of the Village.
Gratitude
Funders Open Call
Each year we invite Villagers to speak directly to funders about the impact and need for
continued resource for this Village work. Their words are below.
We invite aligned funders, who understand that people are power,
to reach out to us to support our Village offering.
.jpg)
Yes I think there is a great need for funders and donors to invest in individuals. The culture of giving has mostly been towards organization but the investment in individual and collective restoration is crucial especially now. Burnout is prevalent in a moment when anxiety and stress is at an all time high for women and nonbinary leaders so we need to support at the individual level to sustain our movements.
— Susana Cáceres, CipotaVoz Strategies,
Philanthropy/Donor Advising & Coaching,
Oakland, CA/Nationally
The work that New Seneca Village is leading is necessary, especially in the current uncertain times. With individuals and communities responding and reacting to ongoing needs and crises BIPOC leaders need support creating spaces that support their well being. New Seneca Village provides intentional wrap around support to break away from the noise, the work, the to do lists, and supports leaders in findings ways to undo what systems have shaped them to be. We deserve these collective, restorative, connection visioning spaces. These opportunities remind us that rest and our largest visions are possible and within reach.
— Markasa Tucker-Harris,
African American Roundtable, Midwest
Funders and donors often underestimate the political power we are capable of building if movement leaders are given the spaciousness to explore the contours of their leadership. Our movements are fractured, and leaders are often struggling to find BIPOC spaces that are authentically challenging the wellness industrial complex and recentering the land and collectivism. This restorative residency allows leaders to see how their inner work can inform the greater scale of the work ahead of us -- and funding these important village gatherings can plant important seeds for the longevity of our movements.
— Sharmin Hossain, 18 Million Rising, Philadelphia
.jpg)
The social change sector and all sectors need restorative spaces like New Seneca Village. While multiple crises are happening, leaders are burning out, impacting the effectiveness of organizations but also the wellness of whole teams. Leaders deserve spaces to reconnect to themselves in different ways. Access to nature and spaciousness is critically important as healing companions. My residency was so transformative in my journey. I feel a renewed sense of commitment to myself and the work for the long haul.
- Lan Dinh, Organizing and Advocacy, Philadelphia
_JPG.jpg)
Villager Testimonials
Part of creating what's next, visioning new futures characterized by all of us flourishing, requires slowing down to attune. In times that demand constant reaction, opportunities like this become a radical act of care, discernment, and strategy. If we are to build movements that last, this kind of work cannot simply be maintained; it must be expanded, resourced, and made accessible to more people. This residency feels like a prevention strategy in the truest sense...one that strengthens our capacity before exhaustion sets in, fortifies our connections before isolation takes hold, and nourishes our joy so it can withstand the weight of the work ahead (and honestly right now). In a landscape where urgency often overshadows sustainability, experiences like this remind us that tending to our inner lives is not a detour from movement work, but the very foundation that allows it to endure and transform.
- Health Justice, Los Angeles, CA
It is an honor to attend to the sacred humanity of the folks who are leading us towards a just future. We are committed to those who are dedicated to shaping inclusive and progressive societies, in particular amidst this current and escalating chaos moment.
New Seneca Village looks forward to
celebrating our 5th year in 2026!
Join us by funding this work or participating in
this experiential offering.
Coming in 2026!
We Outside Podcast: Season One
Grounded in spirit and centering generative conversations with Villagers who orient themselves outside of the dominant imagination, the We Outside podcast is a space that invites us to re-engage our humanity, remember our divinity and continue to illuminate all of the complex richness that lies between.