Mercedes Alvear, a proud product of Chicago’s Southside, emerges as a trailblazer, marking her family’s first college graduate. Leading various nonprofits in Chicago, she specialized in strategic design, partnership cultivation, and initiatives enhancing learning in the city’s public schools. From designing and implementing tailored coaching initiatives across the district to fostering collaboration among key stakeholders, including school partners, district leaders, and network representatives, Alvear has consistently driven innovation and progress. Her contributions include co-authoring the Chicago Public School 9th-12th post-secondary curriculum and leading a district-wide community of practices to enhance accessibility and support for post-secondary initiatives.
Today, Alvear oversees a broad and diverse portfolio of funders, cultivating relationships between philanthropic entities, corporations, and educational institutions, informing a $3 million operating budget. Her role is instrumental in securing pivotal funding to address systemic disparities and drive efforts that advance educational equity. She is a founder of Gamma Phi Omega International Sorority at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and boasts a wealth of board experience, having served on her sorority’s National Board of Directors and currently serving on After School Matters’ Associate Board, where she advocates for local Chicago initiatives influencing teen programming.
Alvear is a 2022 graduate of the Surge Institute, a rigorous leadership development experience aimed at advancing emerging leaders of color committed to education equity, and an inaugural member of the 2024 Academy for Local Leadership (ALL) Chicago fellowship. The ALL Chicago fellowship provides comprehensive training for community leaders invested in curating systemic change within the Chicago Public School district as the city transitions to an elected school board. She has also received recognition as a finalist for the 2019- Schools That Can RFK Urban Education Award.Her unwavering dedication to educational equity, coupled with strategic expertise in executing grassroots initiatives and securing crucial funding for students across Chicago, amplifies her impact and positions her as a dynamic force in shaping an equitable and inclusive educational landscape in the city, solidifying her leadership in the field.
Words of Wisdom: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” – Adrienne Maree Brown
