our story
“Together, we don’t just stitch up a tattered social fabric; we dare to dream, to weave a new one — bold, beautiful, and unbreakable.”
RENATA SOTO, FOUNDER
DEEP DOWN HERE
Weaving a Better South — Our Unwavering True North
What we’re about
Mosaic is rooted in Nashville, but our mission stretches across the region: to weave a better South by uplifting, growing, and connecting changemakers of color driving community transformation.
We’re about people — the changemakers of color, whether they’re behind the scenes or on the front lines, pushing for progress; place — the South, our beautifully complicated home that we love, learn, and lead; and possibility — the vibrant, multicultural society we’re building toward, together.
What we do
We champion changemakers of color across the South—from Alabama to Florida, Georgia to Mississippi, and North Carolina to Tennessee.
We design pathways for leaders to grow, sharpen tools for change, and build power to lead boldly and collaboratively — all while supporting one another in the shared pursuit of meaningful community transformation.
These pathways include the Mosaic Fellowship, our signature yearlong program, and the Mosaic Collective, a lifelong network of changemakers who keep showing up — for their communities and for each other. Additionally, the Future Changemaker Residency is an opportunity for recent college graduates who aspire to a professional life of community impact.
“Mosaic changed my life and my leadership forever.”
This sentiment is echoed time and again by both the established and emerging changemakers in our community. Nearly 90% rank the Mosaic Fellowship among the top three most transformative professional experiences of their lives.
Why it matters
In 2026, the U.S. will mark its 250th anniversary. We will arrive at that milestone as a more vibrant mosaic of peoples and places — but also as a more unequal and fractured country.
Mosaic Changemakers exists to center Black, Brown, and Gold leaders as the architects of a renewed nation — and the weavers of a resilient social fabric that will bind us in webs of solidarity and interdependence.
Where we belong
From courts to classrooms, from boardrooms to barber shops, from kitchen tables to theater stages, our growing community of changemakers is fortifying the fragile American democracy project — fighting for a future where all people thrive and belong, starting deep in the heart of the South.
"The name ‘Mosaic’ couldn't be any more appropriate. Mosaic Fellows share our very different life experiences to begin to understand how we create a whole people…community.”
MOSAIC CHANGEMAKER
A SINGLE AIM
Mosaic’s Story: Many Moments in The Making
Mosaic Changemakers founder Renata Soto (middle), with John Simpkins, founding board member and Mosaic Fellowship moderator, and Phyllis Hildreth, Mosaic Fellowship moderator | Mosaic Fellowship inaugural retreat, East Tennessee, December 2017
“Mosaic Changemakers has a single aim: to weave a better South —and therefore, a better nation.
How? By wholeheartedly trusting, encouraging, and supporting leaders of color in the background and on the front lines of the pursuit of justice. By offering a space where our wholeness is honored, our hard work celebrated, and our wellbeing prioritized. By interlocking our individual stories and creating a community of mutuality that uplifts one another. By engaging more critically with the world we have inherited and the new one we are striving to build.
We are inspired by the philosophy and legacy of Ella Baker, the behind-the-scenes civil rights leader and strategist who mentored, trained, and developed other grassroots leaders for the movement.
Like the South itself, this work is complicated, and beautiful — and also necessary, for our own sake, and for the sake of our country’s future.”— Renata Soto, Founder
