The Imani Energy difference.
The “Imani” in Imani Energy means faith and is based on the Kwanzaa principle—Faith in the future and in the desire of most of the people, most of the time, to do that which is fair, honest, just, and healing for our world.
Commitment to base operations in Empowerment and Enterprise Zone communities—addresses the historic and ongoing disinvestment in people of color and low-income communities with the resultant economic disparities.
Community Eco-mobilization integrates 25 years of community organization experience in low-income and community of color communities into a private sector model to generate business and deepen customer education on environmental issues and opportunities for citizen action
Creates Distributed Energy Applications—Contributes to the growth of distributed energy through solar and in the future wind and other forms of renewable energy through installations based in and around population centers utilizing existing spaces.
This approach reduces your communities carbon footprint, environmental impacts, and infrastructure costs and advances energy security by spreading the risk of energy failure over a greater number of power generation centers.
Imani Management Team
Jeffrey L. Richardson President/CEO
Mr. Richardson has over thirty years of experience in organizational management, fundraising/resource acquisition, and strategy development with a primary focus on increasing the accountability of systems to low-income and people of color communities and building effective and equitable partnerships between businesses, nonprofits, communities, and government entities to achieve this end.
Jeffrey served as interim executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation and directed a component of the largest union organizing effort of a predominantly African-American workforce in the nation’s history for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Los Angeles. Jeffrey also served as the District Office Interim Deputy Director for Karen Bass, currently Speaker of the Assembly, State of California. He was the Leadership Development Director for the National Congress for Community Economic Development (NCCED) based in Washington, DC. and has traveled to West Africa, Cuba, Central America, and the Caribbean on fact-finding and cultural missions. He received his BS in Journalism and Masters in Philosophy from Ohio University.
Jennifer Henderson
Jennifer Henderson is CEO/Manager and cofounder of Strategic Decisions, LLC. She is an experienced trainer, facilitator, and technical assistance provider in the areas of strategic planning, organizational transformation, cultural diversity, community development, management assistance, and capacity building.
Before founding Strategic Decisions, LLC, Jennifer spent fifteen years as senior staff in organizational, community, and leadership development at the Center for Community Change in Washington, DC. During that time, Jennifer designed and managed the Community Change Agents Project, a rigorous leadership and management program for senior staff of nonprofit organizations. The program successfully increased the skills and acumen of nearly 100 leaders who continue to use the experience from the program in the community, government, and corporate sectors.
A master trainer, Jennifer is a sought-after expert in curriculum design, fellows programs, organizational redesign, and capacity building. More than 200 tools have been developed directly from work with scores of organizations, businesses, and agencies over three decades.
Jennifer has considerable experience with nongovernmental organizations around the world. She spearheaded the firm’s training and development assistance to NGOs and businesses in South Africa and the Newly Independent States of Eastern Europe.
Since 1996, Jennifer has been a board member of the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Company and served as the chair of the board for seven years. Jennifer is also active in the social venture field and currently serves as the chair of Sweet Beginnings, LLC, a honey-based personal products company that trains and employs ex-felons and marginalized persons. Jennifer has consulted with the Boeing Company and other corporations to identify and support innovative social enterprises.
Jennifer has authored articles that have been published by the Hitachi Foundation, the Presbyterian Church, and the Grassroots Fundraising Journal. Jennifer holds a degree in Politics and Journalism from N.C. State University.
Adrian Hightower, Ph.D.
Adrian is a Materials Scientist who studies and develops metal alloys used in the electrodes of rechargeable batteries and ethanol fuel cells. Adrian strives to engineer nanostructured electrode/electrolyte interfaces for direct ethanol fuel cells and rechargeable lithium batteries.
Adrian also teaches renewable education programs in West Africa. Through partnerships with West African NGOs, universities, and the United States Agency of International Development, Adrian has taught classes on solar panel installation and maintenance. This work has led to the installation of photovoltaic lighting systems on a school, Mosque, and community center in Mali, Africa.
Adrian received a BS, MS, and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. His doctoral work on “Study of Electronic Microscopy and Mossbauer Spectroscopy in Metal Hydrides and Lithium Rechargeable Batteries,” was conducted in Brent Fultz’s Materials Science Laboratory. After graduate school, Adrian worked as a Senior Scientist with Nanostream, Inc. in Pasadena, designing polymer microfluidic systems for the drug discovery and biosciences industries. Adrian returned to academics as a Research Associate with Bruce Koel’s Surface Science laboratory in the Chemistry Department of the University of Southern California, studying chemical bonding on single-crystal Pt-Sn alloys. Adrian has two patents on metal hydride composition for rechargeable battery electrodes and two patents on the design of polymer microfluidic devices.