Meet Our Team

Lanita Morris

Senior Director of Grantmaking

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Lanita is a Black feminist who brings deep experience as a community organizer, national capacity-building trainer/coach, and strategist for grassroots power building across various movements.

Lanita has directed Groundswell’s Grassroots Organizing Institute since 2017, growing it into a core capacity-building program.

Before joining Groundswell, Lanita served as a program manager at the UCLA Labor Center, where she designed leadership development programs for students and workers and built community-labor partnerships for local economic justice campaigns.

She was a founding staff and board member of the LA Black Worker Center and the National Black Worker Center Project, respectively.

Lanita’s passion for building effective grassroots-led organizations sparked during her time with AGENDA/SCOPE, where she organized her first issue-based campaigns and integrated voter engagement efforts alongside Black and Brown community residents.

She is driven by a commitment to building a world where all people have the tools and resources to define their destiny and live in joy and peace. Lanita is a proud mother of two children and a native of South Los Angeles.