From Mexico to the Salinas Valley, Elizabeth Jiménez advocates for better opportunities.

At the beginning of May, nonprofit Mujeres en Acción hired a new co-executive director, Elizabeth Jiménez, who has more than 20 years of experience in community leadership, communications, advocacy and fund development across both Mexico and the United States.

Mujeres en Acción, founded in 2015, is designed to offer peer-to-peer support, learning opportunities and resources to women across Monterey, Santa Cruz and reaching San Benito counties, with an interest in improving participants’ economic circumstances.

“My focus is centered on strengthening visibility, sustainability, organizational development and long-term capacity building for the organization,” Jiménez says. “At the same time, [founder and executive director] Maria Elena Manzo’s leadership, expertise, lived experience and deep-rooted knowledge of the community remain the driving force behind the work of Mujeres en Acción.”

Jiménez, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, was born in Salinas and raised in Soledad. She eventually moved back to Mexico with her family where she attended high school and then studied business communications at Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes.

Her first job was at the Supreme Court of Aguascalientes, working in its training facility for judges and magistrates. Despite not knowing the Spanish language proficiently, she found her pathway in Mexico.

“Mexico really opened its doors,” Jiménez says.

Later she pursued her master’s degree at the Universidad de Guanajuato in business administration.

Jiménez first learned about Mujeres en Acción five years ago and says the organization is the heart of women who play a huge role in the culture as they bring knowledge, care, solutions and are providers who are raising youth.

This isn’t the first local nonprofit Jiménez has worked at. Prior jobs were at the National Steinbeck Center and Rancho Cielo Youth Campus, where she was the communications manager and development director for five years.

“[These organizations] have really helped me see and feel the youth and their lens,” she adds.

Mujeres en Acción hosts support groups in English, Spanish and the Mestizo dialect. Jiménez wants to expand programs to other dialects and languages, in addition to bringing trust into the community.

“My goal is to take the organization to the next level, tying that to workforce development and reaching more women, where women see themselves in different roles within the area and seeing their potential in different jobs,” she says. “We are seen as a trusted messenger and a trusted agency throughout the community, so trust builds on the programming that we have.”

Recently, Mujeres en Acción was selected as one of only six nonprofits across the state to participate in the Power Accelerators cohort through the Latino Community Foundation. This is intended to support the organization’s focus on educational and health care access, workers’ rights, climate change and disaster preparedness.

“Our motto is the less we are in the office, the better. We are reaching and meeting women where they are, not the other way around," Jiménez says.