Tiffany Munoz, Mark Ledbetter and Yusra Dawood

By Mark Ledbetter

According to the national bestselling author Mark Sanborn, “[leadership is] an invitation to greatness we extend to other”. What started out as a mere interview turned into me receiving and accepting such an invitation. It was a rather dark night for late May; although, it was nearing 10:00 pm. I dialed the number my Death and Dying professor, Megan McDrew, gave me and nervously awaited the answer. A warm and distinct voice answered and introduced himself as Ivan Kilgore. He was the last interviewee of my undergraduate thesis. His intellect and ambition struck me and I was drawn into every word he spoke. Less than one month later I received another call from Ivan in which he asked me to help him raise funds for the 100 Books Project, a project in which 100 prisoner written works will be published. The project is a tool for prisoners to take control of the narrative around crime and incarceration, which has been hijacked by the very institutions that have conspired to put them there in the first place. The premise of the project was very intriguing to me and I agreed without hesitation; and in doing so accepting Ivan’s invitation for greatness. Little did I know that I was going to be building the organization, United Black Family Scholarship Foundation with him.

The vision and true leadership Ivan displays from behind bars is awe-inspiring and allows me the space to grow my potential for leadership. This idea is the basis of our organization’s success: fostering greatness in the social justice advocates of the future. Each and every individual in the organization has the capacity and opportunity to practice and expand upon their own leadership because of Ivan’s ability to see the leader in each team member and intern. The vision of our organization: Rebuilding the community from within the community; will be realized because of the culture of leadership and subsequent greatness that inevitably follows.