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Charlene Turner Johnson

Charlene Turner Johnson is the Executive Director of Michigan Nonprofit Association’s Metro Detroit office. Charlene and the Metro Detroit office increases MNA’s ability to provide services to nonprofit organizations in southeast Michigan. The office provides leadership, management, and technology capacity building, resources and public policy advocacy to over 4000 nonprofits in the region.

Prior to joining MNA, Charlene served as the founding President of the Michigan Neighborhood Partnership, a nonprofit corporation that has helped thousands of people living in low-income communities through numerous partnerships between government, universities, business, neighborhood and faith-based organizations. Turner Johnson was the founding President of REACH, Inc. and the Director of Weekday Ministries at Twelfth Street Baptist Church in Detroit. She also achieved distinction as an educator for the Detroit Public Schools.

She has served as Chair of the Neighborhoods Committee on Detroit’s Land Task Force where she initiated a new collaborative city planning process. As a consultant for the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington, DC, she designed curricula and trained neighborhood leaders. She has been a presenter at numerous conferences and workshops. Among her many other consulting services, she has provided training for the White House Faith-based and Community Initiative.

As a member of the Comerica Bank Community Advisory Committee, her recommendation that the bank start a division for services to non-profit organizations was accepted and within the first year produced new business for the bank. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards and advisory committees, including serving as the founding board chair of University Preparatory Academy in Detroit.

Among many tributes, Turner Johnson received a national President George Bush Point of Light Award, a Salute to Black Women Who Make Things Happen Award, from the National Council of Negro Women, and was included in the List of Detroit’s Most Influential Black Women. Her work is featured in a “Harvard Case Study”, and the following books: The Making of a Drug Free America, Detroit Lives, and Restoring Broken Places and Rebuilding Communities: A Casebook on African American Church Involvement in Community Economic Development.

Turner Johnson is a minister, a licensed residential builder in the State of Michigan, holds a M. A. Degree (Summa Cum Laude) from Ashland Theological Seminary and a M.Ed. Degree (Magna Cum Laude) from Wayne State University, where she was selected as its Distinguished Alumnus of 2003. She has also received a continuing education certificate from the Harvard Divinity School.