Rhonda J. Broussard

Beloved Community

Biographical Abstracts

Rhonda J. Broussard is an author, entrepreneur, and futurist. She is the founder and CEO of Beloved Community, Awa by Beloved, PBC, and previously founded St. Louis Language Immersion Schools. In her 20 years as a social entrepreneur, Broussard has embedded youth and parent voices, community-engaged research, and local advocacy practices in her work. She has been recognized as a Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Culture, is a Highland Leader, a Tulane Mellon Fellow for Community-Engaged Research, a Pahara-Aspen Fellow, and an Eisenhower Fellow. 

Under Broussard’s leadership, Beloved Community has become one of the few U.S.-based nonprofit organizations approved for its own Institutional Review Board (IRB). Beloved Community has trained 120+ youth and frontline workers in Participatory Action Research and local advocacy. 

In the latest iteration of their research model, Beloved Community is developing the Center for Community-Engaged Research (CCER), a community-based center to increase community-driven democracy. CCER’s goal is to transform research by bridging academic and community expertise, amplifying marginalized voices, and empowering communities to drive advocacy through their own research. She has authored One Good Question: How Countries Prepare Youth to Lead and co-edited a special edition of the Journal of Participatory Research Methods.

Areas of Expertise

• PreK - 12 education
• Youth development
• Community development
• Critical race theory
• Workforce development