Founded by Chanel Rhymes and based in Pierce County, Washington, Monarch Social Impact Solutions was built on the belief that meaningful systems change requires the leadership of people who have lived it.

Our Story

Monarch Social Impact Solutions grew out of more than a decade of front-line advocacy, policy work, and direct service. We started with two urgent questions: Why are so many change efforts led by people who have never directly experienced the systems they are trying to change? And why do so many programs and services, even those designed to help, continue to be built around the needs of men, leaving women and girls to navigate systems that were never designed with them in mind?

Those questions were not abstract. They came from Chanel's own experience navigating these systems from the inside and from watching programs that claimed to serve everyone consistently fail the women who showed up. MSIS was founded to close that gap.

We bring deep commitment and an anti-racist, trauma-informed, gender-equitable lens to every engagement. MSIS specializes in criminal legal systems change and brings that same lived experience lens to anti-racist, equity-centered public policy wherever lived experience and community accountability belong at the center. Our knowledge is not drawn from textbooks or built at arm's length from the communities we serve. We have been in the rooms, navigated the systems firsthand, and built the relationships that make real change possible.

Lived. Learned. Leading.

Chanel Rhymes is the founder and principal consultant of Monarch Social Impact Solutions. Her career spans grassroots organizing, policy advising, direct service, and governance, with a sustained focus on the experiences of women and girls impacted by the criminal legal system.

Chanel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Law & Government Policy from Evergreen State College. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Center for Justice Collective Leadership Institute and a member of the inaugural cohort of the Collective Leadership Institute Alumni Network.

Her work has been featured on VICE on Showtime, NPR, and TVW. She holds a gubernatorial appointment to the Washington State Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice (2025 - 2028) and serves as Board Vice President of New Connections in Tacoma.

Before leading MSIS full-time, Chanel served as Director of Advocacy at the Northwest Community Bail Fund and held roles at the Washington Supreme Court Minority and Justice Commission and the Office of Corrections Ombuds. She also served as a Policy Advisor at Drexel University, contributing to the study "Evaluating Firearm Violence After New Jersey's Cash Bail Reform," published in JAMA Network Open, and as a Community Engagement Consultant for the Economic Opportunity Institute.

What We Stand On

  • Lived experience is expertise.

  • Relationships drive change.

  • Women and girls are the center, not an afterthought.

  • Equity is structural, not cosmetic.