A New Chapter for Cardea
Welcoming new leadership while deepening our commitment to equity, community, and collective care.
Welcoming Bri Seoane, MPA, as President & CEO
We’re thrilled to welcome Bri Seoane, MPA, as Cardea’s new President & CEO.
Bri brings a deep commitment to equity-driven systems change, paired with a strong background in public health, nonprofit leadership, and cross-sector collaboration. Her experience supporting communities through data-informed strategy and compassionate leadership makes her a powerful steward of Cardea’s next chapter.
“This work is deeply personal to me. I’m excited to roll up my sleeves and collaborate with our incredible team, board, and partners to create a world where optimal health and well-being are realities for all communities.”
— Bri Seoane, MPA
Honoring Wendy Nakatsukasa-Ono’s Leadership
Since 2017, Wendy Nakatsukasa-Ono has led Cardea through transformative growth, strengthening our equity-driven mission and expanding our impact. As President/CEO, she unified the organization, championed justice and systems change, and elevated the power of community knowledge.
With 26 years of dedication to Cardea and the public health field, Wendy’s vision and unwavering commitment to health, equity, and justice have laid the foundation for our future. We are deeply grateful for her leadership and legacy and wish her a wonderful retirement.
Our History
Decades of
Equity-Centered Impact
Cardea’s roots trace back more than 50 years, beginning with a commitment to ensuring access to quality reproductive and sexual health care across underserved communities. We’ve spent decades building deep relationships with health departments, clinics, school districts, community-based organizations, and Tribal nations across the country. Our expertise in research and evaluation, capacity building, and professional learning is now leveraged in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and beyond to partner with organizations to make our vision of creating a world where health, well-being, equity and justice are a reality for all communities.
Cardea continues to serve as an equity-driven partner grounded in data, driven by community wisdom, and committed to systems change.
Cardea’s Work
Equity in Action
We envision communities where all people—especially those most underserved—experience health, well-being, equity, and justice.
Through capacity building, evaluation, and professional learning, we partner with organizations to center equity, deepen impact, and move systems forward.
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Empowering organizations by investing in their strengths.
Cardea partners with health and human services agencies of all kinds—including federal, Tribal, state, and local public agencies, as well as community-based organizations, health centers, schools, and social service providers—to co-create strategies for growth.
Our work is strengths-based, collaborative, and always tailored—whether we’re facilitating systems change, identifying professional development needs, or supporting essential skills through technical assistance.
We center equity, community wisdom, and structural awareness to ensure capacity building efforts are relevant, sustainable, and transformational.
Equitable, participatory, and grounded in real-world impact.
Cardea’s Social Impact Evaluation team brings a rigorous yet practical mixed-methods approach to help organizations learn, grow, and amplify their effectiveness. Whether we’re evaluating a local youth program or a multi-site public health initiative, we co-design every step of the process with our partners—grounding our work in equity, community voice, and real-time use of data.
We center community-designed data strategies to tell the full story of what’s working, what’s needed, and what’s next—ensuring insights are actionable, not just academic.
Building people power through learning that sticks.
Cardea designs and delivers high-impact, equity-centered learning experiences for professionals across health and human services. From live trainings to custom eLearning platforms, our instructional design is responsive, culturally aware, and deeply aligned with organizational goals.
We offer a total learning solution that supports partners from start to finish—or a la carte support where needed.
Our offerings include:
➞ Learning Needs Assessment – We identify and analyze your organization’s learning needs to ensure training is targeted and effective.
➞ Learning Management System (LMS) – Our robust LMS streamlines administration, tracking, and delivery of training programs.
➞ Instructional Design – We craft engaging learning experiences grounded in best practices that boost learner retention and impact.
➞ Learning Theories & Methodologies – We apply proven, culturally responsive approaches that prioritize practical knowledge transfer.
➞ Project & Program Management – Our experienced team ensures your learning initiatives stay on track—from planning through launch.
➞ Continuing Education Credit Certification – We provide CE certification services to ensure your trainings meet industry standards.
Through Cardea-led initiatives like Health Education Across the Lifespan (HEAL), continuing education programs, and our Learning Management System, we help partners grow their teams’ capacity and sustain their impact.
We also collaborate with long-term partners—like the WISE initiative—who share our commitment to advancing equity and learning at every level.
Areas of Impact
Cardea collaborates with partners across the U.S., its territories, and Tribal nations to advance equity through capacity building, evaluation, and professional learning. Our work is shaped by community voice, grounded in local context, and built for long-term change.
Cardea works in all 50 states–and beyond. Use the interactive map to explore a curated list of where we’ve made an impact, and how our partnerships are helping move systems forward.
California
➞ Partnered with state, regional, and local leaders across health and education agencies of all kinds to promote an integrated approach to health education and services statewide.
➞ Lead training, evaluation, and strategic planning across educational and clinical settings in support of sexual health education and services, school-based health and wellness, youth opioid prevention and harm reduction, trauma-informed and healing-centered care, gender inclusive and affirming practices, and more.
Colorado
➞ Worked with a local health center to assess the impact of new approaches to STI testing services and identify process improvements.
Connecticut
➞ Facilitated trainings to build the capacity of local HIV prevention programs throughout the state to design and implement meaningful evaluations.
Georgia
➞ Partnered with CDC Division of Adolescent and School Health and ICF to provide ongoing, tailored professional development for local education agency leaders to promote effective and equitable implementation of sexual health education, sexual health services, and safe and supportive environments for approximately 2 million students across the country.
Idaho
➞ Trained all Disease Investigation Specialists in culturally responsive service delivery.
Louisiana
➞ Co-created an assessment of public health workforce training needs to support infection prevention and control in community settings.
Maryland
➞ Supported state-level assessments and evaluations for sexual and reproductive health initiatives.
Michigan
➞ Presented at NACCHO 360, National Association of County & City Health Officials' annual conference on our multi-year efforts to assess the essential skills strengths and needs of Infection Prevention Control staff and develop a tailored, hybrid learning pathway and ongoing virtual learning community to develop the organizational and workforce capacity of local health departments across the country.
Minnesota
➞ Trained sex educators serving youth in foster care and juvenile justice systems across a five-state region.
Missouri
➞ Partnered with local health agencies and community partners to assess maternal and child health outcomes and services for Black birthing people with the goal of promoting quality healthcare and services for Black mothers, women, and babies.
Nevada
➞ Facilitated strategic planning with state leaders to support implementation of new health education policies.
New Jersey
➞ Developed national core skills training for sex educators and conducted research centering BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled communities.
New York
➞ Transformed evaluation strategy for youth-serving nonprofit to elevate lived experience and funder storytelling.
North Carolina
➞ Partnered with Fact Forward to support evaluation, technical assistance, and strategic planning for adolescent sexual health education programming in counties across the Carolinas, including implementation in schools, community-based organizations, houses of worship, and juvenile detention facilities.
Ohio
➞ Partnered with a local community-based organization to evaluate programs that support maternal and infant health equity and community connectedness.
Oklahoma
➞ Created custom sexual health training and eLearning for metro-area youth educators.
➞ Provided epidemiological and evaluation support to a Tribal health system to strengthen disease care.
Oregon
➞ Coached instructional leaders to improve sex education delivery across a major school district.
➞ Partnered with Indigenous communities to evaluate peer support network impacts.
South Carolina
➞ Partnered with Fact Forward to support evaluation, technical assistance, and strategic planning for adolescent sexual health education programming in counties across the Carolinas, including implementation in schools, community-based organizations, houses of worship, and juvenile detention facilities.
➞ Trained community health workers on trauma informed practices.
Texas
➞ Adapted healthy masculinity curriculum to support gender identity and healthy relationship development.
➞ Assessed school-based programs for their impact on student outcomes with a local nonprofit partner.
➞ Trained and provided technical assistance to the state's HIV/STI prevention workforce to implement a High-Impact Prevention (HIP) approach to reducing new HIV infections and increased the capacity of sexual health clinics to deliver high quality STD/HIV prevention strategies and clinical services to their local communities.
Vermont
➞ Facilitated action planning to advance adolescent health statewide.
Washington
➞ Partnered with Department of Health to implement sexual health education and services across a range of school districts, school-based health centers, juvenile detention facilities, community-based organizations, and more.
➞ Lead training programs for Department of Commerce homelessness services staff and grantees statewide to promote trauma-informed, healing-centered, and LGBTQ-affirming practices through a lens of equity and harm reduction.
➞ Conducted community-based evaluations and built local capacity with family-focused service agencies to improve early childhood health outcomes.
➞ Partnered with public agencies and community-based organizations to co-create and implement deep-dive evaluations for early childhood programs.
Washington D.C.
➞ Developed reproductive justice models and co-created a racial justice index to support equity in HIV services.
West Virginia
➞ Worked with a local coalition to conduct a needs and assets assessment to better understand community strengths, attitudes, services, and opportunities for growth to advance substance use disorder programs.
Puerto Rico
➞ Developed culturally sustaining curriculum and training for sex ed implementation across Puerto Rico.