Shakti Rising’s Shannon Thompson voted Most Admired CEO for innovative non-profit leadership by San Diego Business Journal
San Diego, CA - November 25, 2009 — Shannon Thompson, Founder and Visionary Director of San Diego non-profit Shakti Rising, was awarded San Diego Business Journal’s 2009’s Most Admired CEO in the Non-Profit category on November 18th. Shakti Rising is a non-profit organization that creates large scale social change by serving women and girls with holistic and empowerment-based programs. Shakti Rising’s work facilitates individual and community transformation.
Shakti Rising’s success is attributed to Thompson’s leading-edge business practices and inspirational personal leadership. Having spent more than a decade working with women and girls in recovery, leadership, and education programs, Thompson created Shakti to cultivate excellent leaders and contribute to a better society for all. Shakti Rising's empowerment-based model draws on the philosophy that lasting social change begins with individual transformation. Those who transform themselves will initiate change in other individuals, groups, and communities.
The heart of Shakti Rising is the “Transformational Recovery Program.” It is San Diego’s only comprehensive, gender-specific program in San Diego for young women, 15 to 30, with co-existing conditions such as addiction, body image issues, and sexual abuse. To create transformation on a larger scale, Shakti Rising’s “Education and Community Wellness Program” offers classes in personal development, life skills, health education, and leadership to the community.
“Transformation Through Service” is Shakti Rising’s leadership development program designed to create leaders by teaching to people to find their authentic selves. This is based on the idea that authentic individuals take action towards serving others.
Thompson stated, “I am proud of the quality of our leadership team at Shakti… this is an award for all of us, proving that a different way of doing business is possible: restoring possibility, passion, and honoring relationships between people.”
Source: Shakti Rising, www.ShaktiRising.org
