Rhiannon Carnes Leads New OWA Team
We are entering the most critical moment in the fight for Reproductive Justice in Ohio history, and Ohio Women’s Alliance is stronger than ever before: Today, we are thrilled to announce our new team led by OWA Co-Founder Rhiannon Carnes, who will serve as the sole Executive Director of Ohio Women’s Alliance and Ohio Women’s Alliance Action Fund moving forward.
Over the past four years, co-founders Rhiannon and Erin Scott worked tirelessly to build the infrastructure, capacity, and relationships necessary to sustain the robust programming that OWA now brings to the Ohio landscape. To prepare for Rhiannon to step into this role upon Erin’s departure—announced last month—OWA hired Deputy Director Jordyn Close and a suite of experienced Directors and Managers to support Rhiannon as she carries our mission into the future. In just four years, we have grown from three to eight full-time employees—with over 40 part-time employees joining us each electoral season. And in 2023, our budget will reach $1.3 million.
With this new team led by Rhiannon, we have never been more confident in our capacity to bring Reproductive Justice power-building, wellness, youth empowerment, civic engagement, advocacy, and electoral programming to our state that so desperately needs Rhiannon’s leadership. We know that we can build an Ohio where all people have what they need to thrive and lead healthy, safe, and prosperous lives—and we know that begins and ends with Reproductive Justice.
We invite you to scroll to read more about the experience and expertise Rhiannon brings to this work, and to meet our new team. (We’ll highlight each team member in the coming weeks, so stay tuned to social media to learn more!)
Thank you for the many ways you support and join us in this work to build an Ohio where all people can truly thrive.
Rhiannon Carnes’ drive to make change and create brave spaces to build community runs deep. As the daughter of a lifelong artist, writer, and advocate—Faye Childs—Rhiannon knew from a young age that if you want to see real change happen, you have to get to work. This philosophy led her mom to eventually become a leader in Black publishing and the founder of BlackBoard, an organization that uplifted Black authors in a publishing landscape characterized by gross underrepresentation of BIPOC communities.
In 2016, Rhiannon became increasingly outraged as the presidential race played out. The same racism and sexism she had experienced throughout her life were playing out on the national stage—eventually leading to the election result that meant America could no longer pretend white supremacy was a thing of the past. As a Black single mother, survivor of gun violence, and military veteran, she could not be silent as extremist conservatives tried to chip away at the freedom, dignity, and humanity of BIPOC communities, especially Black women. Rhiannon turned to her mother for guidance and wisdom, who encouraged her to get to work.
A few days after the election, Rhiannon found the Women’s March via Facebook; the organizers were looking for someone to lead Ohio’s march in January 2017. With a corporate and healthcare background, Rhiannon did not have experience with community organizing, but she said yes anyways. “There are not too many Black women or women of color in this new feminist movement. I knew this was a movement where all women had to come together. I finally felt that women of color could have a voice and be leaders in this movement, so I took it as an opportunity to use my voice.”
And so Rhiannon became the founder and leader of Ohio’s Women’s March. After many long hours collaborating with national leaders and recruiting over 100 volunteers, on January 21, 2017, over 15,000 women, gender-expansive folks, and allies took the Ohio streets with Rhiannon leading the way to the Statehouse. After the success of the Women’s March, she became a field organizer with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, where she worked for two years before beginning to work with Erin Scott to co-found Ohio Women’s Alliance.
In 2019, Rhiannon and Erin began meeting over coffee to share their hopes for an Ohio that prioritizes the well-being, prosperity, and liberation of BIPOC women and gender-expansive folks, especially Black women. They envisioned a year-round organizing group that centers grassroots leaders in Ohio. To get started, they set out on a state-wide listening tour to identify the issues that impact our constituents the most, the challenges we face, and the hopes and priorities we have for the future of our communities. The tour led to our Pillars of Prosperity—the values platform that laid the foundation for the official launch of Ohio Women’s Alliance in late 2019 and the OWA Action Fund in 2020.
Since then, Rhiannon’s accomplishments have been celebrated across Ohio, in Cosmopolitan, and most recently by the Tides’ Foundation, who named her one of five national Reproductive Justice heroes and one of the 2022 Jane Bagley Lehman Award Winners.
“Leading a 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 that both share the value of Black liberation allows us to bring together the perfect formula for change-making: communal care, leadership development, youth empowerment, and advocacy. What brought me to the movement was my own trauma and pain, but what kept me in the movement was community and uplifting women who did not have the same opportunities as me,” Rhiannon says about becoming a leader of Reproductive Justice work in Ohio. “This work is hard. We get tired and burned out from fighting every day for our rights. OWA and the OWA Action Fund are supportive spaces where we can heal and help each other as we keep fighting.”
From left to right: Director of Finance & Operations Sarah Inskeep she/her; Director of Communications Mary Ellen Madden she/her; Manager of Social Impact Lena Collins she/her; Deputy Director Jordyn Close she/her; Executive Director Rhiannon Carnes she/her; Director of Membership Myia Rucker she/her; Member Assistance Program Service Coordinator Colleen Damerell she/her; Senior Campaign Manager Ana Martinez she/her. Click to learn more about the OWA team.