Founded by Dr. Raven C. Major, The Folding Chair Collective pays homage to Shirley Chisholm and her empowering call to action: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” At its core, the Collective is grounded in a leadership truth that shapes all of Dr. Major’s work: leadership is not simply granted through position; it is shaped through decision-making, access, and the systems that determine who is supported to lead.
The Folding Chair Collective emerged from Dr. Major’s doctoral research examining how Black women experience leadership, belonging, and organizational life within predominantly white institutions in the United States. Dr. Major’s research demonstrates that access to power, or who has a “seat at the table,” who experiences belonging, and who receives support, tools, resources, and opportunity; is not accidental. These outcomes are shaped by systemic decisions made by institutional leaders, policies, and organizational structures.
Her work shows that leadership is embedded in these decision-making systems and that both individual and organizational decision work simultaneously to create people’s experiences and how they must navigate these experiences.
Across these environments, Dr. Major also observed a consistent pattern: Black women and Black professionals were often expected to demonstrate exceptional performance, resilience, and commitment while navigating limited access to mentorship, sponsorship, affirmation, and structural support. These conditions did not reflect a lack of leadership capacity, but rather uneven systems of development and recognition. This tension surfaced a central question that continues to guide her work:
What does it take to build systems where leadership can actually be sustained?
The answer began not as a program, but as a practice.
On July 14, 2025, Dr. Major extended an open invitation on Threads to Black doctoral students seeking guidance, connection, and resources. Within months, that invitation grew into a network of more than 40 doctoral students engaged in mentorship, support, and leadership development conversations; alongside speaking engagements and organizational partnerships focused on strengthening how institutions cultivate and sustain leaders. What began as an immediate response to a need evolved into a broader framework for leadership development and organizational learning. On October 14, 2025, The Folding Chair Collective became an officially registered LLC, expanding its work with schools, universities, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations across the country. Today, The Folding Chair Collective operates from a simple but defining belief: people are often expected to lead within systems that do not equally provide the tools, support, or access required to do so.
The “folding chair” represents what individuals bring into those spaces anyway; preparation, skill, lived expertise, cultural knowledge, and community wisdom. But it also raises a critical question for institutions: Are we building systems where leadership is something people must individually carry into the room; or something that is collectively cultivated once they arrive?
The mission of The Folding Chair Collective is to equip individuals and institutions with the tools, language, and practices to build environments where leadership is recognized, developed, and sustained; so people are supported not only as contributors, but as whole human beings whose leadership is actively cultivated. Through speaking, facilitation, and leadership learning experiences, the Folding Chair Collective supports institutions in building environments where leadership is recognized, developed, and sustained; not concentrated, assumed, or left to individual effort alone.
In this work, leadership is not treated as a title to be earned, but as a capacity to be cultivated through intentional decisions, supported systems, and shared responsibility. The goal is not only to create access to the table; but to strengthen what makes leadership possible once people are there.
