Kairos emerged from the awareness of the unacceptable racial, gender, and power gap in digital campaigning; their concern that nonprofit and organizing tech were adopting similar approaches to Silicon Valley; their alarm that tech companies were allowing communities of color to be targeted under the guise of “neutral tech”; and their frustration at the growing inability to influence legislative changes that affect these communities. Kairos’ founders realized that they needed to transform our organizing practices. With a strong belief that leadership development is essential to organizing, the Kairos Fellowship was launched on the heels of the Ferguson uprisings, which were a response to Michael Brown’s murder at the hands of the police.
