In this moment we...

As Season 2 of Our WellSpring comes to a close, join us for a powerful recap celebrating the leaders we spoke with and their dynamic, often uncertain, but deeply important moments of change. We're grateful to all our guests who shared the diversity and complexity of their work and leadership learnings. This season began with Krista Tippett on redefining vocation, navigating an "in-between era," and practicing deep listening and curiosity for authentic connection and healing. We heard from Rodney McKenzie Jr. on bringing soulfulness into professional spaces, the necessity of inner healing for collective work, and the power of unshakeable hope rooted in his personal history. Markita Morris-Louis, Esq. explored her commitment to ending asset poverty, rooting her leadership in the Great Migration, and modeling sustainable engagement over burnout. Peter Gonzales, Esq. shared lessons on leadership transition, the art of reinventing oneself, and the critical importance of board governance and organizational maturity cycles. Finally, we gained insights from Rachel Lopez on participatory law scholarship, lending authorship credibility to those impacted by legal systems, and her continuous fight to elevate underrepresented voices.

The Soul of Leadership: Building Spaces with Heart and Hope

In this moving episode of Our WellSpring, we sit with Rodney McKenzie Jr.—faith leader, organizer, and Vice President of Strategic Development at Freedom Together Foundation—to explore how love, hope, and spirit can shape the way we lead, fund, and build community.

Rodney shares how his upbringing taught him the enduring power of hope and instilled a deep calling to honor the people often made invisible. His work in philanthropy invites us to fundraise and lead not just with strategy, but with values rooted in faith, soulfulness, and care.

With wisdom and vulnerability, he reflects on what it means to bring the spirit of our ancestors and loved ones into the rooms we occupy—to design businesses and missions that remember the who and why at their core. We talk about the urgency culture that plagues our systems, the invitation to slow down, and how healing journeys—personal and collective—can become the foundation for social change. This episode is an offering for anyone seeking to reconnect to the heart of their work and lead from a place of wholeness.

Guest/s

Rodney McKenzie Jr., Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

Rodney is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at the Freedom Together Foundation, where he forges bold, values-driven alliances with philanthropic leaders, grassroots organizers, and institutional partners to advance a shared vision of liberation, justice, and belonging. With more than two decades of experience at the nexus of movement building, philanthropy, and spiritual leadership, Rodney is guided by the belief that partnerships rooted in trust, love, and integrity are essential to lasting systemic change. Before joining Freedom Together, Rodney served as Vice President of Ally Development at the Fetzer Institute, where he nurtured transformative relationships with donors and funders committed to the role of faith and spirituality in social change. His leadership journey includes senior roles at Demos, the National LGBTQ Task Force, and Resource Generation—each grounded in the work of deepening democracy, challenging injustice, and building political and spiritual homes for those on the margins. An ordained minister and out person of faith, Rodney’s work is a powerful weaving of radical spirituality, strategic action, and moral imagination. He holds a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary and began his path as a community organizer in Dallas, Texas

Our WellSpring Host

Uva Coles, Chief Learning Officer

Uva Coles serves as Chief Learning Officer for Spring Point Partners. As the organization's external communications and learning steward, Uva’s leadership ensures that inclusion, human-centered leadership, and narrative change are woven through every aspect of SPP’s partner-based learning deliveries. A writer, speaker, inclusive organizational strategist, and lifelong learner, Uva believes every room we step into is a classroom. Sometimes we are teachers; but always, we are students.

How to connect with us

• Spring Point Partners

In this episode of Our WellSpring, we sit down with Rachel López, James E. Beasley Professor of Law at Temple University, to explore what it means to reimagine legal scholarship—and justice itself—through a human rights lens.

Rachel shares her unexpected journey into the legal academy, her early awakening to global injustice, and her belief that the law becomes most powerful when informed by diverse vantage points—including those with lived experience of legal systems’ failures.

She introduces us to Participatory Law Scholarship (PLS), a groundbreaking approach that centers the voices of those without formal legal training but with profound expertise in the law’s inequities. Through her work, Rachel is not only reframing who is seen as a legal thinker but also advocating for a more compassionate and just legal system—one that recognizes people’s capacity for change and affirms the right to redemption.

This conversation invites us to expand our definition of scholarship, leadership, and justice—and to imagine a future where the law reflects both accountability and humanity.

Guest/s
Rachel López is the James E. Beasley Professor of Law at Temple Law. She has also held visiting fellowships at research institutions around the world, including at the Harvard Kennedy School, Yale Law School, University of Cambridge, Princeton University, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and been a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala and Spain.

She is a recognized expert in criminal law, human rights law, and public international law. She is a Special Advisor of the Latin American and Caribbean Law Council for the American Bar Association. From 2015 to 2019, she served as a Commissioner on the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission, as an appointee of then Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Professor López recently joined leading human rights experts as a co-author of the first law school textbook focused on domestic human rights in the United States.

Her most recent research critically examines the carceral state from a human rights perspective.She is also pioneering a new genre of legal scholarship called Participatory Law Scholarship (PLS), which is written in collaboration with authors who have no formal legal training, but rather expertise in law’s injustice through lived experience. One of these works, Redeeming Justice, was awarded the 2022 Law and Society Association Article Prize. In 2024, the Virginia Law Review selected PLS as the theme of their Sixth Annual Symposium.

Our WellSpring Host
Uva Coles, Chief Learning Officer

Uva Coles serves as Chief Learning Officer for Spring Point Partners. As the organization's external communications and learning steward, Uva’s leadership ensures that inclusion, human-centered leadership, and narrative change are woven through every aspect of SPP’s partner-based learning deliveries. A writer, speaker, inclusive organizational strategist, and lifelong learner, Uva believes every room we step into is a classroom. Sometimes we are teachers; but always, we are students.

How to connect with us
Spring Point Partners