Empowering our youth. Preventing violence. Building champions.
Our mission
What we do
Practical education and sustained guidance give young people tools to build safer relationships, lead with purpose, and create opportunity.
Workshops on dating and domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking prevention—including online, text, and phone abuse—plus consent, boundaries, healthy communication, conflict resolution, accountability, and where to get help.
Discussion groups and leadership training help young men practice respectful, nonviolent models of manhood and become peer leaders.
Screened, trained adult mentors are matched with youth for sustained one-on-one and small-group guidance.
Financial literacy, business development, branding, marketing, apparel production, and career readiness training.
Youth-designed school presentations, artwork, short videos, branded apparel, and public awareness events on dating violence, consent, and healthy relationships.
Programs in detail
Our core program is a 12-week mentoring cohort built on emotional intelligence — five domains and twenty skill areas, taught one subject at a time and practiced in the room. A young person who can name what they feel, control what they do next, read the people around them, and lead without violence does not need to be rescued from conflict — they resolve it. The course opens with a foundation session and a baseline self-rating, and closes with a capstone and a graduation re-rating, so every participant’s growth is measured against their own starting point.
The work starts here, because a young person cannot manage a feeling they cannot name. They learn to name the feeling before it drives, accept what the feeling is telling them, keep their word tied to their actions, and review their own patterns honestly.
Awareness becomes control. They build the pause between disrespect and response, learn to adjust when plans change without exploding, find a clear yes and a clear no stated calmly, and break problems into steps — because steps create choices, and choices keep them free.
Skills hold when a young person has a reason. They find something real to protect, build the habit of the first unprompted step, learn that the frame they pick for a setback decides the future they walk into, and treat resilience as a trainable skill — how fast they get back.
The lens turns outward. They learn to hear the other person’s side and own harm directly, to listen first as a way of de-escalating, to own the effect their mood has on a room and online, and to argue the issue — never the person.
The skills become leadership. They practice teamwork as a discipline, draw the line between influence and coercion, build the courage to tell a friend the truth before the ride, the fight, or the charge, and close by repairing what they owe and serving people who cannot repay them.
We measure it, and we publish it. Every participant completes a pre/post 25-item emotional-intelligence assessment — a self-rating across the program’s twenty skill areas, scored across the five domains. They take it in Session 2, before the teaching begins, and again in Session 24 at graduation; the gap between the two scores is the program’s own yardstick, read next to mentor observation, school reports, and what families see at home.
Outcomes are verified through independent, university-based evaluation: an independent evaluator reviews assessment data quarterly and produces the Year 1 outcomes report, published openly for participants, families, and partners — including where targets are missed and how the program adapts. These are the targets the program is built and measured against — goals we hold ourselves to, not results we claim. Each target is its own separate measure, tracked on its own for every cohort — they are not parts of one total:
About us
Black Champions of Change was founded to support youth across the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County through prevention education, healthy relationships, mentorship, and leadership.
Our leadership
President & Founder
Commercial fisherman (Kodiak, Alaska) and founder of multiple business ventures, specializing in business management, systems operations, brand building, web development, and marketing. Former Vice President of the GoodEatz Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by a collective of former and current NFL players.
Treasurer
Program Leader of the Champions Emotional Intelligence program, with years of gang-intervention work and mental-health certifications. He has also served as a facilitator with the Success Stories Program, and his credentials include a Certificate in Career Readiness and Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business.
Secretary
Special Education Teacher — Mild/Moderate Support Needs (RSP Teacher) with Pomona Unified School District for 30 years, serving students with learning disabilities, mild autism, and ADHD.
Letters of support
We are grateful to have received letters of support for our youth violence prevention and healthy relationships work from leaders across the Inland Empire:
Options for Youth
Inland Empire
NSG Impact
Never Stop Grinding Impact, Rialto
Guardian Scholars
San Bernardino Valley College
Dr. Susanne Montgomery
Associate Dean for Research, Loma Linda University School of Behavioral Health
Committed in her personal capacity
Thank you to our donors
We are grateful to the businesses whose generosity helps our young people:
Slater's Liquidators
Toys for Tots
Get involved
Bring your time, community connection, or support to a growing youth violence prevention and healthy relationships initiative.
Donate
Every gift goes straight into the work — workbooks and journals in every participant’s hands, trained mentors in every pod, and family nights that bring the household inside the change. Black Champions of Change is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, so your gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and a receipt is provided for every donation.
Start a giftEIN 42-5104394 · Gifts by check, transfer, or card can be arranged directly — reach out and we’ll set it up with you.
Start a conversation
San Bernardino, California
Rialto, San Bernardino, Fontana, San Bernardino County, and Los Angeles County
