Toya Carmichael is a California girl in a DC World where she works to increase the financial health of small Black owned businesses and non-profit organizations. A native of California, she is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Georgetown University Law Center. After decades of volunteer community and board service, Toya created Carmichael Community Connections (CCC) as a mechanism to offer her persuasive writing skills to community organizations to ensure they had the monetary resources necessary to deliver their quality programs. Since 2017, she has secured over $100,000 in grant funding for her clients and guided several other organizations through the non-profit formation process.
In 2019, Toya expanded her services and created the DC Black Business Crawl, a curated customer experience highlighted small specialty boutiques, galleries, and eateries. In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, CCC created the DC Black Business Pop Up Shop, a COVID safe environment that provides a market place for DC based small businesses to sell their unique goods and services, performing artists an opportunity to display their musical talents, and allows individuals to enjoy each other while supporting and celebrating local talent and businesses.
An attorney and former Administrative Law Judge, she is a past Chair of the Washington Bar Association, Young Lawyers Division where she significantly increased the division’s membership and spearheaded several community service projects. She served as Co-Chair for the National Bar Association’s, Clemency Project; coordinating volunteer attorneys to assist federal prisoners apply for clemency from President Obama and served as a Social Justice Co-Chair planning panels focused on criminally unjust systems of incarceration and racial inequity. Community Servant Devoted to improving the lives of children and families; Toya served as the SE Coordinator for YoungLives DC providing bi-weekly mentoring, activities, and resources, for teen mothers.
Toya also shared her time and talents with parents in Alexandria, Virginia as a facilitator for the Parent Leadership Training Institute teaching civic engagement and a Board Member for homeless service organization Thrive DC. In addition to her professional service to the District of Columbia, she volunteered as a Commissioner for The DC Commission for Long Term Health, a Friend of Live It Learn It, and Committee Chair for the Hillcrest Civic Association in Ward 7.
As a single mother who understands the power of education and the performing arts, she is currently serves as President of the Toni P. Farmer Scholarship Committee at Allen Chapel AME Church, a Board Member for the DC Federation of Citizens Associations, an Ambassador for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and Member of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Toya is an active member of The Federal City Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. She is an avid reader, world traveler, and fashion addict.