Samara Crawford Herrera

Samara (she/her/ella) has spent her career working to convene, connect, leverage, and drive communities to support and demand opportunities that lead to the liberation of marginalized members by centering equity and self-defined success. She believes that a robust, engaged and broad constituency of stakeholders, positioned as a constant and unyielding voice for practical, system-wide changes, can foster sustained and widespread improvement. Before joining the team at TheCaseMade, Samara launched and led Kansas City Action Fund, a 501c4 public education policy and advocacy organization utilizing a collective impact model to (re)vision the promise of public education. Previous professional endeavors have found Samara engaging in everything from leading the strategic and operational planning of family and community outreach efforts at a local school district to building trust-based community grantmaking at a philanthropic organization. A social worker and early education specialist by training, Samara has a Master of Social Work from the University of Oklahoma, a Master of Education from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts from Spelman College. She is a U.S. Navy veteran, a wife, and a mother to a ‘spirited’ teenage daughter. On Saturday mornings, you can find Samara curled up on the couch in her Kansas City home; a good book in one hand, coffee in the other and a trashy Lifetime movie on the TV.