ABout Us

Our Mission

ACT 4 SA empowers the San Antonio community through year-round base building, actions of solidarity, public education, policy, and advocacy to create accountable, compassionate, and transparent public safety that preserves and centers the health and well-being of our entire community without a reliance on police and prisons.

Our Vision

We are focused on building the presence of life-giving systems that allow people to thrive and be well while also equipping them with the tools to address harm when it occurs. We choose not to perpetuate trauma-inducing systems rooted in racism and oppression, and know that comprehensive public safety reaches far past the risk management of our current institutions. ACT 4 SA is dedicated to educating our community so that more leaders can emerge to help push us toward freedom from the oppressive carceral system that we currently face.

Our Background

Composed of former organizers and volunteers of the 2021 Prop B ballot initiative, ACT 4 SA is here to answer the community’s calls for accountability through solidarity, education, activism, and advocacy. ACT 4 SA was the first police accountability nonprofit organization established in San Antonio. Although we maintain hyper focus on fighting the over-policing and criminalization of our community, we have since expanded our mission to include broader criminal justice & social justice issues in recognition of the intersectionality of movement work in general.

Our Leadership

Ananda

Founder, Executive Director

Ananda spent her childhood in Texas before moving to New Mexico for high school and her early college years. After attaining her Bachelor’s in Sociology and Social Work, she traveled to New England working for AmeriCorps, where her interest in grassroots organizing and electoral politics began. She spent almost a year in a program called Change Corps, an academy in grassroots organizing, where she worked on both electoral and advocacy campaigns. She then moved to San Antonio where she served as a Regional Field Director for the Bernie 2016 campaign and later organized for Texas Organizing Project.

Ananda graduated with her Master’s in Political Science from UTSA in 2020 at the same time the uprisings from the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor took off. For Ananda, it was the next leg of the Civil Rights Movement. As a Black woman whose sister experienced police violence without the cops ever facing accountability, she felt it was her duty to be a part of it. She’s since dedicated her time to fighting for racial justice and against police brutality in San Antonio, leading her to found ACT 4 SA and ACT 4 SA Action Fund. Ananda is a New Leaders Council 2023 alumni, was voted Valedictorian for her Alexander Briseńo Leadership Development 2022 cohort, was the 2024 winner for Way To Win’s Truth to Power Award, and served on the City of San Antonio MLK Commission from 2023-2025.