I work with groups to steward processes
that map ways toward collective visions.
I bring twenty years of experience with justice organizing, infrastructure development, cooperative economics, participatory planning, evaluation, and collective learning through a popular education praxis.
Some of my work is paid through organizational contracts, and much is unpaid and conducted in the spirit of mutual aid and having my people's backs (including work not listed below).
Some Ideas that Guide My Work
(These ideas were co-written with a facilitator with whom I regularly partner, Mandisa Moore-O'Neal. I have intentionally left the ideas in the plural form of "we.")
◈ We believe in the importance of visioning our work from a place of imagining what it means to be fully and naturally human, with abundant availability of the resources we need to actualize our visions.
◈ When navigating conflict, we look beyond dichotomies of “good/bad”, “right/wrong” and make room for nuances (including opposing truths).
◈ It is essential to not pretend to be neutral.
◈ Leaders who are committed to transparent and accountable authority lean into bravely embracing tensions as spaces that are generative rather than punitive.
◈ The transformative power of vulnerability becomes possible with principled boundaries.
◈ Hierarchy is not inherently oppressive.
◈ All groups function with an arrangement of power. To grow equity, it is necessary to assess how disparities show up in the ways power is distributed and "held."
◈ Healthy power-holding leans into imagination, including what we can learn from experimental models of leadership that have worked to subvert oppressive hierarchies.
◈ Healthy power-holding involves questioning how the needs and priorities of Black and Indigenous people of color, queer people, working-class and poor people, disabled people, immigrants, women, trans, and gender non-conforming people are impacted by decisions, policies, and ways of operating.
◈ Building strong systems of governance and infrastructure within movement organizations is essential to support our communities in gathering, strategizing, and organizing for our collective survival and capacity to thrive.