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Martha Collins

      

Martha Collins has dedicated her career to working for social justice organizations that focus on building power within marginalized communities.  Martha most recently serves as the program manager with Hunger Task Force where her responsibilities are to address food insecurity and increase access to healthy, nutritious food by managing outreach efforts for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  In her previous work experiences, she has excelled in empowering, organizing, and mobilizing people from diverse economic, social and cultural backgrounds to work together for positive change. As the former state director with the Center for Progressive Leadership, Martha developed the next generation of progressive future candidates, political leaders, organizers, and community activists from across the state.  Martha is a former state director with 9to5, which is one of the largest, most respected national membership organizations of working women in the U.S., dedicated to putting working women’s issues on the public agenda. In 2015, Martha led a coalition of statewide members and organizations to preserve the Wisconsin Family Medical Leave Act from being repealed by the state legislature.  In 2013, she received the “Organizer of the Year” award from Citizen Action of Wisconsin recognizing her leadership within the Raise Up MKE fast-food workers campaign, in which she led a coalition of community leaders, workers and organizations that introduced and passed the living wage ordinance for low wage workers throughout Milwaukee county.   Beginning in 2018, Martha decided to bridge her passions for community organizing and leadership development with her sense of humor by becoming an independent consultant.  She has started LEAD180, a consultancy firm dedicated to advancing public interest and building collaborative communities to improve the quality of life for those in need.   Martha is a proud graduate of Milwaukee Public Schools with a primary study of Information Technology at George Washington High School. She attended Cardinal Stritch University and received her Bachelor of Science in Business Management. She is currently pursuing a Master of Business Administration in Nonprofit Management and Leadership at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.  Martha is passionate about advocacy. She has served on several local and national nonprofit boards. In 2018, Martha was appointed to the Equal Rights Commission with City of Milwaukee. Previously, she served for three years on the City of Milwaukee Ethics Board. Also, Martha has become one of the founding board directors with the Nonprofit Academy of Wisconsin, a local group aimed at helping nonprofits deliver their mission better.