Monique Salinas, Ph.D.

The Empowerment Institute
Brilliant Social Change Agent

Monique Salinas is passionately working for West Michigan social justice. The daughter of a Mexican migrant worker, she received her degrees in music and business administration from Aquinas College and her doctorate in music education from Michigan State University. The first nonprofit organization she founded, Girls Choral Academy, raised self-esteem and self-confidence in girls with specific outreach to Latina girls in GRPS elementary schools. Her second nonprofit, Mind Meets Music, focused on literacy and academic achievement through music in marginalized preschool through third-grade students. Monique raised over $4 million dollars spanning her 23+ years in the nonprofit world. She served as President of the Boards of Ebony Road Players, STEM Greenhouse and Grand Rapids Community Arts. She continues to mentor numerous women of color in leadership roles and is more recently the founder and president of a new nonprofit, The Empowerment Institute, working to solve the problems of inequity in nonprofits of color and helping to achieve radical systems change.