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aqeela sherrills
Co-Founder at Community Based Public Safety Collective | Social Justice Leader | Spirit-Centered Activist | Building Neighborhood Leadership to Advance Safety
Professional Background
Aqeela Sherrills is a spirit-centered organizer and activist with over three decades of experience dedicated to promoting community ownership of public safety and facilitating healing from violence within marginalized communities. A nationally recognized expert in victim services and community-based public safety initiatives, Aqeela has effectively created and led multi-million-dollar nonprofit organizations aimed at reducing violence and enhancing safety in urban environments. His comprehensive approach has not only transformed individual lives but has also influenced systemic change in public safety paradigms across the nation.
Currently, Aqeela serves as the Co-Founder and leader of the Community-Based Public Safety Collective. In this pivotal role, he applies his extensive experience and innovative strategies developed during his tenure with the Newark Community Street Team, a community-based violence reduction initiative he co-created and directed at the request of Newark, NJ’s Mayor Ras Baraka in 2014. Under Aqeela’s leadership, the Newark Community Street Team effectively reduced the city's homicide rate from 104 in 2015 to 51 in 2019, a testament to his expertise in gang violence intervention and crime victim advocacy.
Aqeela’s commitment to restorative justice and trauma healing has made him a sought-after speaker, trainer, and facilitator. His skills in life coaching, mediation, and organizational development have allowed him to build robust programs that empower communities, foster safety, and promote healing in the aftermath of violence. Aqeela’s impact is felt not only in the communities he serves but also in broader criminal justice policy reform efforts at the national level, where he has advised organizations such as The International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Education and Achievements
Aqeela Sherrills cultivated his passion for social justice and community empowerment through his academic pursuits at West Los Angeles College and California State University, Northridge. These formative educational experiences laid the groundwork for his later initiatives in public safety and community well-being. Aqeela’s notable roles include serving as the Co-Founder and Board Chair of the Newark Community Street Team, where he spearheaded efforts that significantly decreased violence in Newark during his leadership.
His contributions to community safety have been recognized through various prestigious positions, including former National Training Director for the Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice Initiative and the lead strategist and organizer at Californians for Safety and Justice. In these capacities, Aqeela has worked tirelessly to create training programs and resources for crime survivors, fostering a community-led approach to public safety.
As the Founder and Executive Director at multiple nonprofits, including The Reverence Project and the Amer-I-Can Foundation for Social Change, Aqeela has demonstrated exceptional organizational skills in program design, development, fundraising, and capacity building. His ability to bring together resources and community members has proven vital in creating sustainable change across urban landscapes.
Additional Contributions
Aqeela has also made significant contributions as a board member of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, where he continues to advocate for innovative, community-centered approaches to public safety reform. His work with various organizations including the Gang Cease Fire program, the Community Self-Determination Institute, and the Amer-I-Can Program, Inc. has cemented his reputation as a leading figure in community activism and public safety advocacy.
Overall, Aqeela Sherrills stands as a beacon of transformation within the field of public safety, demonstrating that community empowerment and ownership can lead to tangible reductions in violence and enhanced safety in urban settings.
Achievements
- Community-Based Public Safety Collective Co-Founder: Actively leads initiatives aimed at enhancing public safety through community involvement.
- Newark Community Street Team Director: Achieved a significant reduction in the homicide rate by nearly 51% during his tenure.
- Expert in Violence Reduction Strategies: Developed and implemented comprehensive programs geared towards gang violence intervention and crime victim services.
- Recognized National Leader: Provided expert advice and training nationwide, influencing police departments and community organizations in public safety policies.
- Committed Advocate for Change: Worked in various roles to elevate the voices of underserved communities in matters of safety and justice.
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
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Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.