Borgenicht Fellowship Program for Community Leaders
Now Accepting Applications For Our 2025-2027 Cohort!
In 2023, the Rights and Religions Forum launched the Borgenicht Fellowship Program for Community Leaders. This first-of-its-kind program connects a diverse cohort of leaders who are challenging religious oppression and supporting the ability of individuals raised in insular religious groups (IRGs) to make personal choices and lead lives that reflect their personal values and beliefs. The fellowship program invests in their work and equips them with tools and resources to strengthen their efforts and maximize their impact.
We are now seeking to recruit our second cohort of Fellows to enroll in our 2025-2027 program, which will begin September 25. Applications are due July 31, 2025.
About the Fellowship Program
- Each Fellow is expected to complete an individual project during the two-year program. The project can be anything that 1) Serves or positively impacts an IRG disaffiliate community and 2) contributes to their development as leaders. Pending availability of funds, Fellows are eligible for up to $4200 in micro grant funding to complete their Fellowship project.
- The cohort works together with RARF staff to determine a group project that will contribute to the broader community of IRG disaffiliates.
- Programming includes: workshops and trainings from experts and fellow practitioners on a wide variety of topics; optional monthly drop-in sessions facilitated by a mental health professional; and meetings with other Fellows to share their work, learn from and support one another
- While funding structures may change based on funding availability and the results of the feedback we receive from our first cohort, Fellows may be eligible for up to $1000 in stipends for their participation in Fellowship meetings
Support the Leaders Doing the Work
Below is our current cohort of eight incredible leaders who are challenging the status quo that makes it difficult for individuals to leave or deviate from IRGs. Drawing from their personal journeys, they are united in their desire to advance the rights of individuals from IRGs through direct service, advocacy, and research.
If you’d like to directly support the leaders doing this vital work, please consider donating to our Fellowship Fund today! All donations are tax-deductible.
The Rights and Religions Forum is a 501c3 non-profit founded to create spaces and curate conversations around these often ignored and complex questions, giving a voice to the oppressed and vulnerable within isolated religious communities. All donations are tax-deductible.
Our Fellows: 2025-2027 cohort
Margaret Bronson
Ex-Theonomy & Christian Reconstructionist / Founder of Deconstruction Doulas
Margaret was born and raised in southeastern Pennsylvania. When she was a child, her family became part of an evangelical, Christian Reconstructionist cult in the area. Child sexual abuse and domestic violence were part and parcel of her world, all approved of or protected by the theological constraints of the theonomist, neo-Calvinist theology of the cult’s leaders.
Margaret married a Southern Baptist pastor when she was 20, providing her a path out of the cult. She and a fellow survivor founded The Deconstruction Doulas in 2021, a non-profit organized around helping people escape high-control, coercive religious groups, cults, and churches. Margaret now works for Deconstruction Doulas as its program director, where she leads peer-support groups, writes educational material, and works with survivor cases behind-the-scenes.
Laura Davis
Ex-Christian Fundamentalist / Founder of All Who Wander
Laura Davis was born and raised in the International Churches of Christ (ICOC), an insular, fundamentalist and evangelical church that was prominent in the United States throughout the 80s and 90s. She disaffiliated from the ICOC at 16 years old, with the support of a healthy Christian community and plenty of therapy. Since 2020 she has supported over 100 individuals and families in their desire to leave their faith communities and/or their faith, rebuild their lives, and integrate into broader society. In 2023, she had the honor of speaking at the International Cultic Studies Association and sharing her story.
With the support of the Borgenicht Fellowship Program, she is building a network of therapists, social workers, educators, and skilled volunteers to support people who have left or are considering leaving insular, fundamentalist Christian communities. With the success of this initiative, she is developing, All Who Wander, a nonprofit social support and human rights organization.
In addition to her volunteer work, she is a consultant at Aropa Consulting, a people-first organizational management consultancy for nonprofit, public sector, and international organizations. She is also a student in the CUNY BA Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary studies pursuing a dual major in Organizational Design and Social Identity Development.
She lives in New York City with her husband and three children, who simultaneously slow her down and keep her moving. In her free time, she loves quiet activities like reading fiction and completing jigsaw puzzles.
Rita Ivy
Ex-JeHovah's Witnesses / Co-Founder & Executive Director of Liberated Consciousness
Vanessa LaRose
Ex-Scientologist/Certified Peer Support Specialist
Vanessa La Rose is a Master of Social Work candidate at Boise State University and a Certified Peer Support Specialist through the California Mental Health Services Administration (CALMSHA). Vanessa received her BA in Psychology from California State University of Long Beach in 2022. She is currently completing her MSW internship with a nonprofit serving veterans experiencing houselessness, where she supports client intake, develops program materials, and advances trauma-informed care practices. Vanessa brings direct experience in mental health and peer support, with a focus on recovery, resilience, and empowering individuals facing systemic barriers.
She is also the creator of Recovering from Scientology, a digital platform dedicated to exploring life after leaving high-demand religious groups. Through educational content, storytelling, and community dialogue, she raises awareness about coercive control, complex trauma, and the challenges of rebuilding one’s identity after religious disaffiliation. Her perspective is informed by her own background of being born into Scientology – which she now frames as a lived experience that motivates her advocacy and leadership.
In addition to her work with people, Vanessa has spent 15 years in animal rescue, fostering and rehabilitating many dogs and pairing them with their forever homes. She envisions bridging her dual passions by developing social work interventions that integrate animal-assisted support for trauma recovery and social reintegration.
Her long-term goals include advancing policy and practice around cult recovery, homelessness, and integrative healing approaches, building pathways of justice, safety, and connection for individuals and communities who have been silenced or marginalized. Vanessa currently lives with her 3 dogs Stella, Bruno & Lexi.
Dhyana Levey
GREW UP ON A THEOSOPHIST COMMUNE / JOURNALIST, MEDIA CONSULTANT & CULT RECOVERY SPECIALIST
Dhyana Levey was born into a small theosophical commune in Southern California that had its own charismatic leader and left when she was 18 to pursue a career in journalism. She now lives in San Francisco and works as a writer, podcaster and consultant on various projects helping others recover after leaving insular religious groups.
Since 2018, she’s produced and hosted the podcast Generation Cult, an interview show about people who grew up in high-demand groups and how they adjusted to mainstream society after they left. Dhyana has a master’s degree in the psychology of coercive control from the University of Salford in England. Her master’s thesis studied how media coverage of controlling groups impacts those who have left them. It was published in the International Journal of Coercion, Abuse and Manipulation (IJCAM).
She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and worked as a newspaper reporter in California for Bay Area News Group, McClatchy Newspapers and the San Francisco Daily Journal, as well in Southeast Asia for The Cambodia Daily. She’s been a freelance writer, editor and copywriter for the past decade at a range of publications and websites in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dhyana uses her experience as a member of the media to help people who have left insular religious groups better tell their stories. Part of that work includes giving regular presentations in the US and internationally.
Sammy
Ex-Muslim Atheist / Haram Doodles & Ex-Muslims International
Jeremy Schumacher
Ex-evangelical (WELS) / Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist / Podcaster
Jeremy Schumacher is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist with over 15 years of experience in the mental health field. Jeremy has expertise in relationship counseling, religious trauma, late diagnosed neurodivergence, and sports performance. He has worked for non-profits, in higher ed, and currently is the owner and operator of Wellness with Jer, a private practice in Milwaukee, WI.
Jeremy has given local and national talks on topics related to healthy boundaries, neurodivergence, team building, and religious trauma. He actively works to destigmatize seeking help for mental health and is the host of the Your Therapist Needs Therapy podcast.
Outside of work, Jeremy likes to spend time outdoors with his wife and two boys, particularly paddleboarding the many bodies of water in the Midwest. Jeremy is passionate about working with his rescue dogs, and has been known to have strong opinions about music, coffee, and the psychology of superheroes.
John Verner
Ex-Evangelical / Investigative Journalist / Podcaster
John Verner (he/him) is an investigative journalist whose work confronts the hidden power structures and cultural forces shaping modern faith and politics. Raised in white evangelical Christianity, he began questioning the narratives he was taught and eventually left the tradition behind. In 2019, while living out of a van, he wrote The Cult of Christianity: How Churches Control, Contain, and Convert, launching a career devoted to exposing systems of control and the human cost they carry.
Through The Cult of Christianity podcast, as well as projects like Amateur Religious Trauma Therapy, Parsing Propaganda, and Lisa Joins a Cult, John has cultivated spaces for open dialogue and critical reflection. His reporting and essays have appeared in The Click News and on his Substack, where he investigates issues ranging from leadership abuses within Hillsong to Title IX violations at Christian colleges.
In addition to his independent journalism, John serves as Publishing Editor at VOX ATL, mentoring Atlanta teens as they produce uncensored, professional-level content in digital and print media. Whether through his own investigations or by empowering others to tell their stories, John is committed to making complex truths accessible and sparking conversations that challenge entrenched systems.
Beyond his professional work, John values authenticity over idealization, is candid about his mental health journey, and finds joy in football, music, and time spent with his cat, Louis.