“… charismatic … a gifted storyteller …”
The Washington Post
Tiniest Bio
Twanna A. Hines, M.S. is a reproductive justice advocate, communications strategist, and AI-accountability / digital-safeguarding consultant. Her career spans more than 20 years, three continents, and audiences from corporate boardrooms to international policy convenings.
Tinier Bio
Twanna A. Hines, M.S. (she/her) is a reproductive justice advocate, communications strategist, and AI-accountability / digital-safeguarding consultant. As a practitioner with a track record spanning 20+ years and three continents, she counters democratic backsliding through her work in sexual and reproductive health, anti-racism, and civic-space protection. In 2005, she founded her social impact consultancy, FUNKY BROWN CHICK, Inc. Her firm helps nonprofits, foundations, CSOs, and other organizations build their narrative muscles, counter coordinated disinformation, and hold AI and data systems accountable to the people they affect.
Tiny Bio
Twanna A. Hines, M.S. is a reproductive justice advocate, communications strategist, and AI-accountability / digital-safeguarding consultant who counters democratic backsliding. Her career in reproductive justice, anti-racism, and civic-space protection spans more than 20 years and three continents.
Previous roles include staff positions at the University of Chicago, Planned Parenthood, Newsweek, the U.S. Department of State at the American Embassy in The Hague, and Fortune 500 companies. She’s the founder of FUNKY BROWN CHICK, Inc., a social impact consultancy that supports nonprofits, foundations, CSOs, and other organizations by offering narrative strategy, AI-accountability and digital-safeguarding strategy, and support on countering coordinated disinformation campaigns.
Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, NBC News, Al Jazeera, Fast Company, and 25+ other outlets; she has been covered by The New York Times, CNN, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Vox, and 50+ additional media outlets. She has been called “a gifted storyteller” by The Washington Post. She speaks, writes, facilitates, and consults from Lisbon, Portugal, and Washington, D.C.
Full Bio
Twanna A. Hines, M.S. (she/her) is a reproductive justice advocate, communications strategist, and AI-accountability / digital-safeguarding consultant. She has spent more than 20 years working in behavioral science, storytelling, and culture, including hand-coding her first website in 1996.
As the first Black American woman with a nationally syndicated sex column, she reached 1.7 million readers through her column at Metro international newspapers. She has also written and performed two sold-out, critically acclaimed one-woman theater shows, plus a third, livestreamed production, Sex Panic and the Pandemic, which donated half its proceeds to Tuskegee University, her grandmother’s alma mater. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, NBC News, Al Jazeera, HEALTH magazine, Fast Company, and more than 25 other outlets.
She worked as a marketing communications professional at Newsweek, where she supported the magazine’s global editorial relationships. At Planned Parenthood, her award-winning adolescent sexual and reproductive health & teen pregnancy prevention programs were recognized for Outstanding Efforts Serving Teens.
In 2005, she founded FUNKY BROWN CHICK, Inc. Having grown to an 11-person social impact consultancy, it helps nonprofits, foundations, CSOs, and other organizations build their narrative capabilities, counter disinformation, and hold AI and data systems accountable to the communities they directly affect.
Working across sexual and reproductive health, climate justice, anti-racism, immigration, civic engagement, and AI accountability, the firm’s clients collectively manage over $655 million in programming budgets. Campaigns have moved over 900,000+ people, delivered 4X fundraising return on investment, and achieved newsletter open rates of 60–77% against a 15–25% sector average. With staff across the US and EU, FUNKY BROWN CHICK, Inc. has been fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas for more than a decade.
Her co-authored white paper Three Acts of Justice, developed with Harvard University Fellow Rachel Florman, predicted threats to 14th Amendment protections, including birthright citizenship and marriage equality, years before they materialized. Published in 2024, it directly references the same democratic backsliding she now tracks. It’s the same rights-based lens she extends to AI and data systems.
A sought-after speaker, she has spoken at Harvard University, SXSW, Northwestern University, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, the Museum of Sex, Soho House, and elsewhere across the United States, Europe, and Latin America. She has been featured in CNN, Cosmopolitan, Paris Première, Essence, Vox, and more than 50 other media outlets.
Committed to combatting violence, she is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
She holds an M.S. in Sociology from Florida State University, a B.S. from Illinois State University, where she was inducted into the Steve and Sandi Adams Legacy Hall of Fame. She completed post-graduate studies at New York University and Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Her volunteering includes Tribeca Film Festival, Democrats Abroad, and the Amnesty International Film Festival.
Having previously lived in New York City, London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, The Hague, and Washington, D.C., she is fluent in English and Dutch, with working proficiency in Portuguese. She currently lives in Lisbon, Portugal.
Twanna Angela Hines is named after American Civil Rights activist Angela Davis. Born in Chicago and raised in rural Mississippi and the cornfields of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, she penned her first op-ed at age 17. Written for her hometown newspaper, The Daily Pantagraph, it was a letter to the editor about why sports are good for girls.
(See also: resume)