About Us
Our Story
The DESIRE+ Collective was born from both research and lived experience, created to affirm, empower, and center Black women—especially plus-size Black women—whose bodies, voices, and leadership have too often been silenced, pathologized, or overlooked. Rooted in the U.S. South and grounded in body justice, the Collective grew from a deep desire to move our communities from invisibility to impact, from exclusion to empowerment, and from mere survival toward wholeness, wellness, and joy.
How We Began
Founder Nijeria Jones, a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Sexologist, and Ms. Voluptuous America 2025/2026, witnessed firsthand how racism, sexism, fatphobia, and medical bias shape how Black women see themselves and are seen by others. Out of this work, and through the development of the DESIRE Framework, she envisioned a nonprofit that would build healing spaces, conduct intersectional research, and advance advocacy and leadership for Black women across the South and beyond.
The DESIRE+ Collective formally launched in 2025 as a Virginia-based nonprofit committed to building transformative communities of healing, advocacy, research, and leadership that challenge stereotypes, promote body justice, and celebrate every body’s inherent worth. Over our first three years, we are focused on expanding core programs—healing circles, movement and wellness, mentorship, advocacy, conferences, and retreats—while laying a strong foundation for long-term community impact.
Founding Board of Directors
Our founding Board of Directors was intentionally assembled to reflect a blend of lived experience, professional expertise, and community leadership in service of Black women’s liberation. Each director helps guide the organization’s vision, governance, and sustainability so that our work remains accountable to the communities we serve.
Nijeria Jones
Director of Strategic Vision & Leadership
Kiana Dillard
Director of Community Partnerships & Engagement
Ronda Thornton
Director of Wellness and Healing Programs
Founding Officers
The founding officers steward the day-to-day mission, operations, and relationships that bring The DESIRE+ Collective’s vision to life. Their roles blend clinical, research, administrative, and community-building expertise to ensure the Collective is both grounded and growing.
Cathy Martin
Non-Profit Administrative Officer
Our Why
The DESIRE+ Collective exists because Black women, especially plus-size Black women in the U.S. South, have carried generations of harm in bodies that are simultaneously hypervisible and invisible. Hypervisible when our curves are scrutinized, sexualized, or judged, and invisible when our pain, wisdom, and leadership are dismissed in exam rooms, classrooms, boardrooms, and movements that claim to be for “all women.”
Across the South, Black women experience some of the highest rates of body-based stigma and health inequities, yet most research, wellness spaces, and body-positivity campaigns were never built with us at the center. Our stories rarely shape the policies that govern our care, the images that define beauty, or the programs funded in our communities and that absence has consequences for our mental health, our access to responsive care, and our sense of worth.
The DESIRE+ Collective was created to interrupt that pattern. Our why is rooted in a commitment to move from invisibility to impact, from shame to self-acceptance, and from tokenization to true leadership for Black women. Through healing circles, embodiment work, research, and advocacy, we reclaim the narrative that Black women’s bodies are not problems to fix but homes to honor sites of wisdom, joy, desire, and power.
We believe that body justice is inseparable from racial, gender, and economic justice: when Black women are free to exist fully in our bodies without punishment or apology, entire communities shift. By centering those who have been pushed to the margins, we are not asking for inclusion in a harmful status quo; we are building something different, where every curve, every story, and every truth is already enough.
Our Core Values
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We believe all bodies are worthy of dignity, respect, and access to equitable healthcare, resources, and opportunities. We challenge weight-based discrimination and medical racism that disproportionately harm plus-size Black women.
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We center the experiences, leadership, and voices of Black women, especially those who have been historically marginalized and overlooked. We work to dismantle systems of racism and sexism.
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We reject fatphobia and diet culture. We affirm that bodies of all sizes deserve respect, representation, and access.
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We create spaces where trauma is acknowledged, healing is collective, and transformation is possible. We honor the intergenerational healing needed in our communities.
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We are accountable to the communities we serve. We make decisions with and for Black women, not about them. We listen, learn, and adapt.
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We develop leaders from within the community. We prioritize lived experience, reject hierarchical power structures, and foster collaborative, equitable decision-making.
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We understand that Black women's experiences are shaped by the intersection of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, and other identities. We address interconnected systems of oppression.