As a first-generation college student, Lina Cañon, BA ’13, knows that being first isn’t always easy. That’s why she’s made a career of providing other trailblazing women of color—be they the first to become US citizens, attend college, come out to their families, or launch a new business—with resources they need to thrive and succeed.
Cañon is the director of finance and operations at Chica Project, whose mission is to close the opportunity divide for young Latinas and other women of color with school- and community-based workshops and mentorship and leadership programs. Under Cañon’s leadership, the Massachusetts-based organization has grown its budget from $190,000 to over $1 million.
“All my work has been creating or building on things that I wish I had when I was younger,” she says.
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Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
FEATURES
| Fall 2022
By Beth Brosnan with reporting by Morgan Baker
Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
FEATURES
By Beth Brosnan with reporting by Morgan Baker
Originally from Colombia, Cañon felt out of place in high school in a predominantly white, wealthy Worcester suburb, where few students looked like her or shared her experience. Suffolk felt more like home, a place where she could learn not only from her sociology and government classes but also from the University’s Center for Community Engagement.
There, she took on major leadership roles and helped expand its popular Alternative Spring Break—a semester-long, student-led program with a social-justice curriculum that culminates in a weeklong service-learning trip. Working with organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Cradles to Crayons, she discovered the nonprofit sector was a place she could create access for those struggling to get a foothold.
“Access creation” runs through all her work today. Cañon, who went on to earn an MBA from Boston University, is the co-founder (with BU classmate Sajda Ali) of Nur Ventures, a venture capital firm that supports women of color who are launching their own businesses, providing support and resources for a community long overlooked by traditional investors.
Cañon’s work with both Nur Ventures and Chica Project earned her a Suffolk 10 Under 10 alumni award this spring; she also delivered the keynote address at May’s 1913 Celebration, a joyous Commencement week event that honors the diversity of Suffolk graduates. She is also vice president of the College of Arts & Sciences Alumni Board.
“There’s nothing like seeing things you dreamt of come to fruition,” she says.
Last spring, Cañon’s work earned her Suffolk’s 10 Under 10 Alumni Award.