How to Share Power
Pre-Order Yours available september 2026

Most institutions say they want to be inclusive. Few know how to actually get there and even fewer survive the attempt.

In How To Share Power: A Practical Guide to Building and Sustaining Multiracial, Multicultural Institutions, Karla Monterroso draws on decades of experience building and advising multiracial, multicultural institutions to offer something rare: a practical guide that doesn’t flinch from the real work of redistributing power.

Part
01

It's time for a conversation about power.

How to Share Power distills the collective experiences of leaders in multiracial, multicultural institutions. After a decade of advising organizations across sectors, Karla Monterroso names the patterns that show up in every MRMC: trust ruptures, hidden pain, decision-making dysfunction, and the shame and secrecy that keeps us from solving any of it.

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This book is for every leader who has felt isolated by these struggles, and for every American who wants to live in a multiracial democracy that actually works. It offers the frameworks, language, and practices to build institutions that can hold the future we say we want.

Part
02

Who this book is for

Made for leaders who know there has to be a better way

01

Leaders of Color in Social Justice Organizations.

You live the gap between values and structure, and you're tired. This gives you language, frameworks, and permission to name power.

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02

Institutions Training the Next Generation of Leaders.

You're equipping tomorrow's leaders. This gives them the frameworks, language, and tools to build institutions that actually hold.

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03

Leaders Ready to Do Something Different.

You sense your institution's grip on power is broken. The frameworks give you a practical way forward.

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04

Leaders Who Hold Positional Power.

You hold power and want to share it. This book meets you where you are and moves you toward structural change.

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from Chapter 1 | Power As a Ghost
Building a Multi-racial multi-cultural organization is a radical challenge. We need a robust, juicy, practical power analysis to understand the dynamics ofpower in our daily interactions.”
—Karla Monterroso
Part
03

The INSIGHTS inside

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01
Security Spectrum

How the lived experience of power shapes our assumptions, our risks, and our reactions.

02
Triangle of Tradeoffs

Every leader is balancing impact, culture, and money. The bets we make and the costs we name.

03
Inclusion Paradox

Old power wants exclusion and deference. New power wants inclusion and certainty. Can we balance both?

04
Power Pyramid

Where risk lives, where resources flow, and what an emotionally honest power analysis can reveal.

05
The Seven Levers of Power

Naming the seven different ways power operates across organizations.

06
Distributing Power Through Decision Making

A practical method for naming where decisions live, and who is accountable for them.

And More
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Early Praise for How to share power

Karla offers us a set of gifts grounded in lived experience as a leader, a board member, and a trusted partner to organizations across sectors. She is offering a path toward building institutions that can actually hold the future we say we want.”

carmen rojas, phd

President & CEO, Marguerite Casey Foundation

Part
05

Meet the Author

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Karla Monterroso is the founder of Brava Leaders and a consultant to organizations building multiracial, multicultural institutions across the country. She is first-generation everything: first-generation college student, first-generation salaried worker, first-generation CEO, first-generation entrepreneur. Her mother is from Mexico, her father from Guatemala, and she grew up in a low-income community just outside Los Angeles.

She has been part of scaling four social change institutions and has advised dozens of nonprofit organizations and hundreds of leaders on building diverse, gender-inclusive teams. After living through long COVID and a year in bed, she wrote a viral Medium piece on the quiet civil wars happening inside progressive organizations. This book grew out of the flood of responses that followed.

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