“I don’t look at it as activism so much as that we are all put here for a reason, and if we have a gift, we need to utilize that gift to create good in the world,” says SSND associate Heather Thomas Flores. “For me, it’s much more a calling and being a servant leader. That piece of it, that component really resonated with me being at Mount Mary University (MMU) because of the charism of the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) and the strong values instilled in the students towards servant leadership and towards doing good in whatever community you find yourself in.”

Heather initially attended MMU to pursue a degree in education with the goal of working with indigenous communities in Latin America. By her second year, she realized that being licensed as a teacher in Wisconsin would not quite get her to where she wanted to be, so she changed her degree to international studies, still planning on ultimately working in education for indigenous communities.

In 2017, just two years after completing her undergraduate studies and with her Peacebuilding Certificate in hand, someone suggested that she might be a good fit for the nonprofit organization Life After Hate. She was soon brought on as the organization’s first paid employee, joining a team of volunteers and the group’s six co-founders.

Life After Hate (LAH) is internationally recognized as the national leader in the violence intervention community, as the first nonprofit founded by former violent extremists. Its unique, award-winning work and evidence-based programming are dedicated to helping individuals disengage from hate-fueled violence and extremism. According to their mission statement, “Life After Hate builds a safer society by making it possible for people to break free from lives of violent hate and extremism through evidence-based interventions.”

As of last month, the organization is fully women-led, with Heather’s appointment as co-executive director. Her new role focuses on education and outreach, helping people understand what hate-fueled violence is under the larger umbrella of violent extremism. She is also tasked with fundraising and grant writing to keep the organization’s work moving forward in a time of political polarity.

“Right now, people are looking for answers,” says Heather. “Asking questions such as, ‘Who is going to take care of this problem, or what can we do to help make the country a safer place for everyone?’ The answer I share with people is supporting organizations like ours.”

The primary focus for 2025 is becoming better known as an organization that helps individuals successfully disengage from violent extremist groups and online hate spaces. Life After Hate has been in operation since 2011, yet its reach outside the violence prevention community is somewhat limited. That means meeting the growing demand for prevention care programming, while offering resources that participants need to disengage from violent extremism successfully.

Heather shares that while they sometimes work with court-mandated individuals, the majority of Life After Hate’s participants reach out on their own – as people must genuinely want to change.

“People find us and say, ‘I noticed these tendencies or I have done or said things that caused harm and I want to change,’” she says. “Some people come with questions, they are contemplating things they said online, or someone is calling them out that they need to change. They come to us for assistance, and we walk with them through that process.”

The organization also works with concerned friends and family members who are looking for ways to approach someone they care about who may be expressing extremist viewpoints. Life After Hate can help offer solutions on how to talk with them instead of shunning or excluding them in response to their behavior.

“I think it’s important to highlight that we are on the frontlines, and we are the only organization that does this work at this scale and ethical level,” says Heather. “There is a solution, there is an answer, these are not throw-away individuals. We should not be judged by our worst day or actions. It is important for us as a society to believe in compassion with accountability. To believe in redemption and give people a second chance, and then help them through that process to become integrated members of society.”

Reflecting on the series of events that have set her on this trajectory, Heather says her early career was heavily focused on “Hispanic and immigrant populations, and the services I could provide to empower them to achieve their goals; I had to grapple with that when I first joined Life After Hate. I had to come to terms with the idea that now I am working with perpetrators who harm minorities and immigrants, and how do I reconcile the two? After a year or two, I realized if I am working to prevent that violence upstream, that violence is not going to affect these communities as often– that’s where I am today.”

When asked about her thoughts on the future, she says, “I definitely see hope. I am hopeful. There is a large group of impassioned and empowered change-makers who want to work through this and are actively making significant changes. People who ask, what can we do individually, what can we do as a collective – that needs to be expanded on at a national level to make the change in the world that we want to see.”

“I did not set out to be a leader of an organization,” says Heather.  “I am a servant leader; it has never been my favorite thing to be at the front and center of anything. It takes courage to assume a leadership position, and that’s something MMU instilled in me – to be courageous when asked to step into a leadership role when it’s made available – to not hesitate to say “yes” to the call.”

Read more about the organization Life After Hate.