Kellee Coleman

 Kellee Coleman has over 20 years of equity and social justice training experience integrating media and popular education as strategies for social change. 

Kellee has been organizing in her community since she was a young person. Throughout her life, she has worked to bring people together for systemic change. Kellee has worked to shed light on foodstamp discrimination in Texas, to improve maternal and infant outcomes for Black and Latinx families in Travis County, and cofounded the organization that would lead the work to develop the City of Austin’s Equity Office.

Kellee has trained nationally and locally, including organizations like the Brooklyn Museum, Dell Medical School, and the Government Finance Officers Association. Utilizing popular education tools to create shared concepts and language, Kellee works to implement equity competencies needed to become an equity competent organization.

In Kellee’s work as a public servant in local government, she led the training and development portion for departments and community members during their equity assessments. She made sure that trainees had an understanding of racial equity and how everyday decisions materially impact peoples’ lives. Kellee was able to get staff to be more honest about their departments’ imperfections and the gap between their values and their reality. This was critical work with the departments as they developed and implemented their equity action plans.

Kellee was also a facilitator for the City of Austin Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce. This taskforce was made up of long time community organizations like the NAACP, department directors, executive staff, and grassroots organizations. The Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce challenged traditional ideas of policing and public safety, and provided recommendations to make the city safer, particularly for those most impacted by violence.

Kellee graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from St. Edwards University. Kellee serves as Director of Learning and Engagement.