Alumna Brittany Sanders is creating positive change in her hometown as the program manager of Challenge Detroit, a nonprofit organization committed to helping revitalize the Motor City by attracting and retaining the nation’s brightest leaders.
The Spelman mathematics major spent 10 years exploring her passions and developing her expertise in many cities across the U.S., but always kept Detroit close to her heart. Sanders moved back home in 2012 to be an active participant in the city's revitalization.
She was selected as an inaugural Challenge Detroit Fellow working at Focus: HOPE, a non-profit civil and human rights organization that unites a multicultural community in common efforts to overcome injustice and build racial harmony. Sanders served as the organization’s business development specialist and led projects in entrepreneurship, commercial corridor revitalization and social enterprise.
Upon completing her year with Challenge Detroit, Sanders launched The Amber Agency, a consulting firm providing management and capacity building services to entrepreneurs and non-profits. Past and present clients and strategic partners include Focus: HOPE, Detroit Food Academy and The Butterfly Effect Detroit. Sanders also worked with Challenge Detroit as a consultant spearheading talent recruitment efforts for the program's third year. If was after this engagement that Sanders joined Challenge Detroit as a program manager, assisting in planning and execution for the program's challenge projects and program events, designing evaluation tools, and supporting general programmatic development.
Question: Why do you enjoy working in the Detroit community?
This city is tough yet vibrant, saddening yet hopeful, and gritty yet gorgeous. This is an intricate, stunning contrast that gives Detroit a character like no other city. I love working here and working to make it m
ore vibrant, more hopeful and more gorgeous!
– 2013 comment on Challenge Detroit.org Blog
In true #GiveDetroit fashion, Sanders is a Winning Futures mentor, historian for the Detroit Chapter of the National Alumnae Association of Spelman College and the Board Leader for Detroit SOUP’s Central Communities SOUP. Sanders received her bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Spelman and her masters of business administration degree from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.