Bilen Mesfin Packwood is the founder and CEO of Change Consulting

Bilen Mesfin Packwood, a Black immigrant, founded Change Consulting to seek justice for communities of color that had low incomes.

Change Consulting is a Black-owned communications agency dedicated to serving changemakers at nonprofits and foundations in California and beyond. Founded in 2008, the multicultural team has partnered with clients like Deliver Birth Justice, African Communities Together, Black Futures Lab, Economic Security Project, AAPI Civic Engagement Fund, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, and more.

Take a look at our discussion with Bilen in a recent interview.

Share with us what sparks your passion for seeking Justice in low-income communities of color.

As a Black immigrant woman, I grew up thinking that a lot of the challenges I faced were because of my own shortcomings. It wasn’t until becoming politically engaged that I realized that there are multiple, interlocking, systemic barriers facing Black communities and communities of color. And that is what fuels my passion for using strategic communications to shift systems and seek justice.

What brought me to communications is that I have always loved writing and storytelling, and have done it in one way or another for almost all my life. After experiences as a journalist at the Associated Press and elsewhere, and as an in-house communications professional, I decided to start a consulting agency that focused on strategic communications for social change. It allowed me to use all the skills I had learned around media communications to help changemakers tell stories about their work to create a more just world. I have been on the path of building a full-service communications agency that serves changemakers ever since. Today, we are a team of 13 folks working on powerful projects with inspiring leaders.

Do you feel that change will ever come for people of color in the Justice system? How can we make a difference?

I believe that it is critical that we do all we can to transform the justice system. Since I started working on criminal justice reform issues more than a decade ago, we have already seen a sea change in the public understanding that the justice system is in fact unjust. That it is inequitable. And that it in fact does not keep us safe. From voters to elected officials, people are waking up to the need to end mass incarceration’s harm on Black communities and communities of color. We must continue to educate ourselves; follow and learn more from groups like Essie Justice Group, Young Women’s Freedom Center, Alliance for Safety and Justice and so many more organizations working on this issue; and push for our elected officials to make criminal justice reform a priority issue.

Tell us more about Change Consulting and how you all are helping in the community. What programs/services do you offer?

Change Consulting is a full-service social change communications agency. We are all about partnering with social and racial justice leaders who are working on some of the most important issues of our time and providing the continuum of communications support they need to make change possible. Our clients bring the vision, mission, and people-power for racial justice, and we bring the experience and expertise in racial justice communications and knowledge of communications best practices. We provide strategy, messaging, and training support, as well as earned media, digital and content services. After the racial justice reckoning of 2020 for example, we supported our clients in collectively raising close to $100 million to Black-led and Black serving organizations. We have also helped to push for policy change, such as the passage of the George Floyd Resolution to get police out of schools in California; support criminal and justice reform in California, including closure of the state youth prison system in California; and raise awareness about critical issues, like birth justice.

There has been much talk over the years on the amount of Black women and the mortality rate in hospitals, how does that make you feel and what can we as a people do to change what’s going on?

I have said before that the birthing journey opened my eyes to a new area of institutional racism. Last year, an amazing organization called Parent Voices Oakland asked me and my consulting agency, Change Consulting, to conduct listening sessions with Black birthing people in the Bay Area. As a Black mom myself, I jumped at the opportunity to work on this project, as I tend to do on any project that centers on Black mothers. Together, we held five listening sessions with nearly 40 Black mothers in the San Francisco Bay Area. We asked participants to speak about the challenges they face; their pre-conception, pregnancy, and post-birthing experiences; and what they need so that, along with their families, they could live full and healthy lives.

During birth and beyond, Black mothers are caught under the weight of countless systemic challenges, including housing insecurity in a region grappling with vast wealth inequality and displacement, lack of access to basic resources such as mental health support, and fear and worry about the safety and security of their kids. When resources are available, participants are often met with biases and hurdles when trying to access them. They talked about the isolation they felt, and the deep lack of community care and support networks. One after the other, they shared personal, harrowing, and raw stories about their birth journey and what they experienced in hospitals – pain many of them have yet to heal from. Their stories reflect what Black mothers in the Bay Area and across the country face.

That’s why campaigns like Deliver Birth Justice, which Change Consulting worked on, are so critical. The campaign used the stories of Black families and mothers as a tool to highlight issues facing Black mothers and babies and the systems responsible for fixing them. At the same time, they aimed to give hope to Black mothers by providing joyful stories of motherhood.

Any upcoming events?

We will be celebrating our 15th anniversary in November 2023.

For more information on Change Consulting, please visit https://change-llc.com/.