We're Hiring: Executive Assistant
Movement Strategy Center is seeking a dynamic professional to provide administrative support to MSC’s Executive Director (ED), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and executive leadership team along with support for special projects that the ED focuses on to advance the organizational mission and work.
Full Job Description
Position Overview
Reporting to the Executive Director, the primary role of the Executive Assistant is to provide administrative support to MSC’s Executive Director (ED), Chief Operating Officer (COO) and executive leadership team along with support for special projects that the ED focuses on to advance organizational mission and work.
Core Responsibilities
Executive Assistance (50%)
- Support for ED, COO and Board of Directors Committees
- Manage calendars, scheduling & executing meetings from start to finish; selecting a date, inviting appropriate attendees, supporting agenda clarification and follow-ups and next steps
- Serve as principal administrative contact for ED and COO; answer and route: phone calls/phone messages, mail and email messages, and handle wide-range information dissemination
- Special projects & project management as needed (e.g. Organizational Development projects)
- Partner with Chief Advancement Officer and Advancement team to support executive voice, communications, development and relationships with internal and external stakeholders
- Support MSC Executive Teams’ partnerships cultivation including initiating meetings and responding to requests from key partners
- Scheduling and implementing the logistics for Board of Director meetings including Committee meetings
- Support preparation of ED presentations and content for executive team and staff meetings
- Manage and reconcile expense accounts for ED and COO
- Schedule and book travel accommodations for the ED and COO
- Provide file management for the ED and COO
- Other administrative duties as assigned
Agency-wide Administrative Support (35%)
- Under the direction of the COO, work in collaboration with MSC’s administrative team members to support agency-wide logistics, operational needs and other administrative duties as may be assigned
Organizational Change Initiatives, Community Stewardship & Emergent Projects (15%)
- Support organizational change management initiatives and special projects at the direction of the ED and COO
- Support Organizational Culture and Community Stewardship activities such as coordinating staff meetings, leadership team meetings, board meetings, retreats, and community building activities that may interface between staff, board members, the larger community and stakeholders in MSC’s network
- Provide project management support to emergent projects that may arise from the Board Executive Committee and Executive Leadership Team
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
Expected hours of work
Standard days and hours of work are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Daily schedule is flexible within the proximity of this time frame, and will be decided in consultation with the supervisor.
Travel
No significant travel expected.
Essential Knowledge, Skills and Experience
- Experience in working with and supporting non-profit social justice organizations and leaders focused on transformative change to make the world more equitable and just;
- Minimum of five years demonstrated experience with executive assistant or special assistant to C-Suite roles, and/or equivalent positions;
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, both verbal and written;
- Ability to switch between detail-intensive data processing and relationship-based interaction with ease;
- Ability to manage and make progress on multiple projects simultaneously;
- Experience in supporting change management and organizational development;
- Ability to handle diverse challenges with a calm demeanor and positive outlook with service excellence;
- Ability to hold confidentiality and discretion re: sensitive information to support Executive Team’s work;
- Highly skilled in managing competing priorities;
- Highly motivated and proficient problem solver who anticipates needs and proactively creates solutions in a timely manner in a fast-paced, emergent environment;
- An orientation towards learning and development; willing to learn from mistakes, receive feedback, and know how to properly give feedback to others;
- Ability to communicate and take initiative in asking for help and clarity, and to propose solutions/options. Adaptability and comfort with emergence (i.e. ideas and systems not yet fully developed that responds to dynamic situations) — to partner and pinch hit on emergent projects that arise for the Executive and Leadership Teams;
- Proficiency and excellent computer skills in utilizing Apple and Mac operating systems and products, as well as virtual communication and meeting platforms, database management systems, expense reconciliation systems and other software applications including Google Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, Zoom, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Canva and other design platforms; and
- Experience with online services such as Egnyte, Docusign, Paycom, Airtable and Asana is preferred but not required
Position Type and Compensation
- Full-time, 100% FTE, exempt position. Annual compensation is offered between $70-90K
- MSC’s 100% FTE benefits package includes:
- 20 vacation days leave accrual per year (15 days in the first year of employment due to a mandatory 3 month waiting period before accrual begins)
- 12 standard holidays, and 2 personal days per year (Personal days are designated as your birthday and hire date anniversary, and need to be used on these dates as required by CA time off laws)
- 12 sick days leave accrual per year
- 1-week paid MSC family and medical leave after one year of service (to be integrated with available state benefits); an additional week of paid leave for each additional year of service, up to 4 weeks
- Medical, vision, dental, life and disability insurance coverage for employees and their dependents (the enrollment eligible date is first of the month following 30 days of employment)
Employee contribution is required and further details will be provided upon hire
- Access to FSA and Commuter Benefits
- Opportunity to participate in an employer sponsored 403b retirement plan
Please include a cover letter with your application.
Movement Strategy Center is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion or belief, disability, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation or any other status protected by law. People of color and LGBTQ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Job Type: Full-time, Hybrid
Based in Oakland, CA
Pay: $70,000.00 – $90,000.00 per year
The MSC Storytelling Series: Jacqui Patterson

In this installment we get to know researcher, advocate, and activist Jacqueline “Jacqui” Patterson founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project — former director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program; co-founder of Women of Color United; and proud board member of MSC.
“It wasn’t a coincidence, it wasn’t happenstance.” So says Jacqui Patterson — activist, founder of the Chisholm Legacy Project, and MSC board member — on how she made her way to Movement Strategy Center.
She was introduced to MSC through Movement Generation but if it wasn’t that it would’ve been something else: “the universe … draws like-mission and like-spirited people together.” She knew from the beginning there was alignment in work and in mission and it became clearer as Patterson participated in MSC’s movement support work — the Transitions Labs, the facilitation of conversations and meetings, and the cultivation of projects. “There are so many points of resonance and alignment in everything that MSC does … Whether it is the heart of the people … Or the way that they facilitate conversations about collective organizing toward the world that we want, MSC has been an inspiration, a catalyst, and a facilitator of radical imagination and a radical love in action.”
Patterson hails from the southside of Chicago — a very urban place not far from the other, more suburban side of the tracks. Her neighborhood offered many of the great touchstones of city life — ice cream trucks, block parties, and community. But also some of the worst: there were gangs, the sound of gunshots weren’t uncommon, and concerns about her brother simply existing as a Black boy in America were pervasive.
Her family blended two cultures — her mother came up to Chicago during the Great Migration from Dublin, Mississippi; her dad immigrated there from Jamaica. The result was an upbringing steeped in both Deep South and Jamaican influences: a culture of food (collard greens plus curried chicken) and music (rhythm and blues plus reggae). Patterson’s ancestry is in sub-Saharan Africa; her common history involves those ancestors being stolen from their homelands and brought to unceded territories in both the United States and Jamaica to become the enslaved labor behind the economy and the infrastructure of those respective lands.
She says, “I am who I am out of that history and that story. And, I am who I am in celebration of the rich cultural heritage and in resistance to and in reparations from how the heritage and ties to nation and community were interrupted by colonialism. I do what I do to both celebrate and treasure that cultural heritage.”
There are so many points of resonance and alignment in everything that MSC does … Whether it is the heart of the people … Or the way that they facilitate conversations about collective organizing toward the world that we want, MSC has been an inspiration, a catalyst, and a facilitator of radical imagination and a radical love in action.
Her work reflects this. She is working to restore “linkages in some ways to the motherland,” and “address, redress, and correct the carnage and the aftermath of colonialism and where it has left our communities as a result of the systemic exploitation, extraction, and oppression.” The work centers on Black and BIPOC communities all over the world; and is in partnership with all “the aligned and the allied — anyone who is allied and aligned with the mission of Black liberation.”
For her, liberation ensures “that all people have self determination and have what they need to be whole and thriving.” And it starts with accountability — “my purpose is to be in service to the quest for self determination and liberation of Black frontline communities.”
So much of that begins with being very “intentional about who is not even being thought of by those sitting at the table — much less are they even at the table.” In terms of climate justice, Patterson wants everyone to have a seat. Thus, a focus on chronically ignored Freedman’s Settlements — communities, many unincorporated, established by those “just emancipated from enslavement.”
One, a community of only about 100 people outside Dallas, is Sanbranch, Texas. Stunningly, this unincorporated village adjacent to one of our country’s wealthiest cities has never had running water. Their well water was contaminated in the 1980s, and today, residents rely mainly on donated bottled water — not just for drinking, but for cooking and bathing. Stories like these are at the center of the Patterson-founded Chisholm Legacy Project — an organization that connects Black communities on the frontlines with the resources necessary to implement transformation.
It isn’t easy work. And that’s why Patterson so valued the aforementioned Transitions Labs — these safe spaces offered community and reflection. A way to, at least metaphorically, refill your cup. These gatherings also made it clear that “all the work around social justice and systems change is intersectional.” A priceless opportunity “to explicitly be engaged with folks who are doing work from gender justice to education justice to general economic justice and so forth, and to really come together and talk about this notion of Just Transition and this ideal that we want as a society.” She acknowledges the concept “might sound utopian,” but for the frontliners in attendance that discussion and that space is “a necessity in order to survive and thrive as people.”
All the work around social justice and systems change is intersectional.
It can be hard for outsiders to understand what these retreats and workshops were like. Patterson describes them as a chance to step “away from the day to day, the list of deliverables … The nonprofit industrial complex.” Crucially, they offered an opportunity to discuss the roles and purpose of both the individuals and the organizations across various movements in “a space of ideating … Set up to accommodate all learning and being styles.”
Attendees showed up with “a selfless sense of mission, so there was a level of trust and safety there.” And the work — deep conversation and reflection, “the practices: tai chi, somatics, embodiment … Various exercises that got you out of your head and into the culture” — fostered intimate connection. “We can go whole days, weeks, or months without thinking about that larger arc,” so the safe space to simply “think and be” was invaluable and unlike so many other gatherings and workshops.
It was at one of these Transitions Labs in the Redwood Forest — “a generative environment” — that Patterson felt everything sort of gel: her work, her goals, her collaborations with MSC. The activity at hand involved focusing on “developing a seed of an idea and being with people who were like-minded, like-focused, and like-spirited who were also growing their own seeds.” The seed that “began to truly blossom” for Patterson that day — while laying on the floor with her peers and remembering the iconic book the Bridge Called My Back, a collection of radical writings by Black women — involved “work specifically focused on supporting the wellbeing of Black femmes.”
That “unformed dream” turned “into an action plan … That birthed the fourth element of focus of the Chisholm Legacy Project — the focus on Black femme support.” Patterson explained that she had observed the “level of weight on Black femmes in terms of holding so much, our families, our organizations, the movement, in the case of Alabama and Georgia — actual democracy. Yet so often you see our sisters in the struggle are so weighed down by that.”
Sighting stress, premature deaths, and all the ways these weights can negatively manifest in the health of her peers inspired the project’s steadfast support of wellbeing. She believes this concept of “community care, organizational care, movement care — instead of just preaching self care to someone who is always going to put themselves last” is crucial to the future of the movement.
Today, Patterson feels honored to continue to support MSC as a board member, calling the work “a blessing.” Likewise, she values “the opportunity to continue to be in relationship with the innovations team that is doing amazing work,” citing her participation as a founding member of the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners. She looks forward to “continuing to support Climate Innovation’s (soon to be renamed People’s Climate Innovation Center (PCIC)) team” and ensuring “that the communities that we work with — including the Black femme climate justice leaders — are able to connect with and be nurtured by the rich range of offerings that MSC has,” especially in terms of climate resilience planning and training and Black youth leadership development.
And, circling back to the Freedman’s Settlements and towns like Sandbranch, she looks forward to growing “the ways that MSC’s fiscal sponsorship and regranting programs can benefit some of the most marginalized Black communities in the United States.” She continued, “the hope is that MSC and the Chisholm Legacy Project can together support the self determination and liberation of these communities all over the nation.”
She also hopes that others — new friends of MSC, new members of the collective movement ecosystem — get the chance to experience something like MSC’s Transitions Labs. They so deeply and positively affected Patterson and she recalled — with a lot of laughter and a little bit of embarrassment — one opportunity where participants were invited to write letters of appreciation to each other. “Other people maybe wrote one or two and I literally sat there and wrote super sappy love letters to everyone. I was just feeling literally just full of so much love for everyone who participated.”
We're Hiring: Director of Development
Movement Strategy Center is seeking an organized, innovative, ambitious leader and communicator who is amiable and self-motivated, with experience in fundraising to join our team.
Full Job Description
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
Job Description
POSITION OVERVIEW
MSC is seeking an organized, innovative, ambitious leader and communicator who is amiable and self-motivated, with experience in fundraising, to join our team. The Director will grow and sustain robust relationships with institutional donors and work to significantly increase MSC’s operations revenue and overall impact.
This is a full time and remote-based (US-only) role that has room for professional growth in an evolving organization. The position reports to the Chief Advancement Officer.
ABOUT MOVEMENT STRATEGY CENTER
Founded in 2001, Movement Strategy Center over the last two decades has been a social and environmental justice incubator, serving as a movement hub for both housing visionaries and emergent networks, and providing core intermediary functions to advance ecosystem-wide impact: resourcing a robust and maturing ecosystem of leaders, networks, and projects, and offering core infrastructure support through fiscal sponsorship and philanthropic services.
In recent years, MSC’s in-house incubation efforts have focused on cross-sector movement building to cultivate the power necessary to accelerate a just transition from a world of domination, extraction, and violence, where the few live at the expense of the many – to a world of interdependence, liberation and resilience, where the many govern for the benefit of all. MSC centers Black, Indigenous, and people of color intergenerational systems leaders and networks that are committed to transformation and boldly leaning into the future and whose communities are most impacted by extraction, domination, and violence.
MSC understands that transformative movements change the way we think, our structures and systems, the way we live, and even who we are. We recognize that we are whole people, and whole communities, and because the issues and problems we face are interconnected, our systemic solutions and movements must be interconnected as well. The way we achieve our goals and with whom are just as important as our outcomes.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Responsible for identifying, engaging, soliciting, and closing grants and gifts from foundations and individuals to support $7+ million organizational budget
- Identify prospective donors and funders and develop strategies to cultivate those relationships
- Provide leadership to and collaborate on additional partnership efforts that have fundraising aspects. Work closely with the grants management and contracts team.
- Execute grant writing including: LOIs, budgets, concepts, proposals, distribution schedules and grant research
- Facilitate and optimize the CAO’s fundraising efforts: arrange meetings and provide information about funders and prospective funders
- Participate in meetings, including presenting updates when necessary
- Provide occasional thought partnership and fundraising strategy support to the organizations in the Movement Strategy Network
- Manage all aspects prospecting, grants and tasks management, and grant reporting for
Development
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:
- 4 – 7 years of experience with individual giving and grant writing, ideally experience with high-value grants
- A record of success in identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding nonprofit donors
- Extremely well-organized; a creative self-starter, capable of handling multiple tasks, establishing priorities, and meeting deadlines.
- Passion for the organization’s mission with a desire to be an ambassador
- Commitment to continuous learning about and sensitivity to DEIA values
- Proven leadership and team management skills
- Expert written and verbal communication skills
- Excellent interpersonal skills and able to collaborate effectively
- Comfort with remote work software and a tech-centric approach to work. We use Google Drive, Airtable, and Slack
- Experience with Database Management
- Experience with Grant Management
- Experience with community-based organizations, such as CDCs, and/or donor advised fund programs is a plus.
COMPENSATION
This is a full-time, 100% FTE, exempt position. Annual compensation is $90,000-$100,000.
MSC’s 100% FTE benefits package includes: o 20 days vacation leave per year; o 12 standard holidays and 2 personal days per year; o 12 sick days per year; o 1 week paid MSC family and medical leave after one year of service; an additional week of paid leave for each additional year of service, up to 4 weeks; o Medical, vision, dental for employees and dependents (requires 30 day waiting period and a per paycheck employee contribution); o 100% employer sponsored basic life, short-term and long-term disability insurance coverage; o Access to a 403b retirement plan. o Access to FSA and Commuter Benefits.
Movement Strategy Center is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion or belief, disability, gender, nationality, ethnicity, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation or any other status protected by law. People of color and LGBTQ candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Supervisory Responsibility
Will manage any grant writing consultants as necessary.
Expected hours of work
Standard days and hours of work are Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm PST. Daily schedule is flexible within the proximity of this time frame, and will be decided in consultation with the supervisor.
Travel
No significant travel expected.
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $100,000.00 – $110,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
Schedule:
- 8 hour shift
Application Question(s):
- A cover letter is required with your resume. Applications won’t be considered without one.
Experience:
- Fundraising & Grant Writing, 3 years (Preferred)
Work Location: Remote
Women’s History Made Today
Movement Strategy Center Chats with Corrine Van Hook-Turner, Director at Climate Innovation (Soon to be People’s Climate Innovation Center)

It is said that “you can’t be what you can’t see.”
The conversation around representation is often concentrated on the silver screen or the board room. But Movement Strategy Center (MSC) wants to recognize the achievements of women and femmes we work with every day, people we see directly investing in our futures — showing up behind the scenes, serving their communities through youth development and community outreach. They are the ones who will influence the way we live and how future generations live.
We (virtually) sat down with Corrine Van Hook-Turner, a seasoned facilitator and fundraiser who leads the vision and strategy for Climate Innovation (soon-to-be-called People’s Climate Innovation Center) — an MSC anchor project and member of the Movement Strategy Network (MSN). As director, Corinne leads through a lens of racial equity and transformative movement building. We chatted about the women who inspire us, past and present; the fight for climate justice; what she’s learning from today’s youth; and building support for Climate Innovation’s call for an initial investment of $100 million in philanthropic support by Earth Day 2022. Read on for more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MSC: In your email signature, you quote Angela Davis: “you have to act as if it were possible to transform the world radically. And you have to do it all the time.” Safe to say she is a woman you admire — who are some women and femme leaders you look to for guidance, past and present? And what have you learned to be essential leadership qualities from them?
CVHT: Yes! Ms. Angela Davis, for sure. But it’s a long list for me, both in the past and present.
Sometimes when I am asked about Sankofa, which is the West African (Akan people of Ghana) word associated with the proverb “se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates to “go back and fetch,” I think about how you must know where you came from to know where you are going. Reaching to the past to bring forward into the present and future. It is a part of my ancestry.
I’ll start with my grandmothers. On the paternal side, because I grew up with her, and learned from her before she passed, was Ms. Mildred Gardner, the matriarch of our family. Growing up, she provided not just love but so many lessons, and she was able to translate that through her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She met all of my children except for my last daughter … Even just seeing that generational connection was potent, and a lot of that is brought into my leadership … She has left legacies that still exist in the present world, and she was a maker! … My grandmother was known as Lillian Roche as a designer. She designed clothes, and that was her passion as a maker, so in a fundamental sense … We are inherently designers.
Another person is my work-wife, Pandora Thomas, founder of EARTHseed Permaculture Center and Farm and senior fellow at Climate Innovation. Just learning with her about nature-based practice and the connection between all of the beings, human and non-human, has been super powerful. As well as the rest of my team. Jamie Love is new. Tamara Jones, who I have known for a good ten years. And Biana Pillar Verbera, and Sarah Quiroga, who I met through MSC. And Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish, who I met through Pandora … These women who are just brilliant, amazing and powerful, and strong and actively embody fierce leadership in their lives every day …
I would also add ancestor Octavia Butler. Before we started talking about dreaming, Afrofuturism, liberation, joy, radical imagination — Black people needed to be able to do that for us to manifest it; Octavia’s Butler’s teachings are a superpower and beyond her time, look at EARTHseed!
I would also say all of the women I’ve learned from and get to be in relationship with, like Colette Pichon Battle … Growing up, I was going to be a lawyer, and I shared that with her, and she is always like “whenever you want to light that fire, it is never too late.” One of Colette’s many superpowers is to make me feel grounded, inspired, and supported.
I appreciate Rosa Gonzalez from Facilitating Power. I can facilitate the way I do by learning from her. And we get to work so closely together. Seceda Grant, who I just met through Solutions Project, is powerful, amazing, and brilliant.
I am thinking about Desire Reggie Williams, who has become a brilliant, bold strategy leader. She is smart, concise, succinct, observant, and aware … And Jessica Tovar from Local Clean Energy Alliance. The reason I know about energy justice and energy democracy is partly because of her fierce leadership …
Ms. Margaret Gordon, cofounder, and co-director of West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project … She saw leadership in me even when others did not. She shows up and commands respect, and I love that. I’ve learned so much from her because she taught me that no one gives us permission; we can assert that for ourselves. She is still dropping the gems in this life to share that with Young Black Climate Leaders.
Among a list of so many others!
MSC: You are surrounded by so many strong women and femmes — ancestors and people in the present. You mentioned that many of these women were powerful, how do they show their power, and what does it feel like?
CVHT: They show it through their deep care and love for who they are, what they do, and the communities they represent: communities of color, Black people, Latin people, which is also part of my ancestry. And Indigenous people across the diaspora — my Indigenous ancestry is Blackfoot and Taino. So in bringing in the culture of who they are, they create a connection that is so inspiring. The expertise they bring is off the charts for this work in terms of solutions, and what liberation, economic justice, and energy justice should look like. When we think about what would be if we were able to achieve a Just Transition, they live it and act in it every day even though we are navigating systems to get there. They make no compromises in their stance and how they show up. There are no apologies needed because of their transparency and authenticity. They are not trying to say all of the right things. They show up in their power with such pride and love in their heart … A quality not everyone has. They are humble, supportive, special, and creative. You can tell it connects to their deep history and story, and they bring that with them … They are all designers and visionaries.
MSC: Thinking about tomorrow’s leaders — has your work in youth development and education influenced the way you think about your time as a young adult? And what have they taught you?
CVHT: The Young Black Climate Leaders refer to us as “yelders” — not relatively young, not quite elders. And they inspired the reference there. I think the pedagogy of practice for how I facilitate is that it is cyclical, iterative, interdependent, and intergenerational. We all have something to teach each other … I’ve been doing youth development work for over 20 years, starting as a young person being a part of youth programming. That constant learning — the learning stance, listening stance, and curiosity are super essential — and being in a space with young people allows for that.
… I am no longer a young person … but there is often an assumption that I am young because I am a vertically challenged person. When it comes from young people, it’s good. When it comes from older people, it can come off as condescending. But the powerful thing of having those experiences allows me to show up better and allows me to look within and around my experience with youth work, so I am not replicating those same things. And it allows me to create that space where young people can feel seen and trusted. Everyone is deserving of respect.
MSC: Shifting a little, What kind of opportunities can we expect from the National Building Performance Standards Coalition?
CVHT: We have been doing deep design work with Facilitating Power and Kapwa Consulting, on how we accelerate government and community collaboration. Each of us was doing work in capacity building as those closest to climate impact are communities of color, and low-income, disabled, and elderly people … We need to build capacity at a community level so communities can show up as partners to the table on policies that will affect them. They should be able to benefit from it … Communities should be our decision-makers. We all approach the work in different roles — philanthropy, facilitating government as actors — we have to be better aligned on how we are doing the work. Often we get disconnected from each other, so how can we come together and how can we as people in the movement show up in better alignment, solidarity, and community with each other? … I always say it is so much more about alignment than agreement for me.
MSC: What is the difference between alignment and agreement?
CVHT: Agreement is about having a dialogue and discussion to arrive at a place that is the same. To feel like you and I are in exchange and we can agree on something … That is something that we can arrive at on our own that a body of people can agree on and not feel like they are compromising their values. In this work, we feel pressured to agree. Because when we think of our decision-making practices and who holds power in our capitalist system, we need to agree with the folks in power to make a change. If that is not something that naturally agrees to your terms … then I don’t think that agreement serves us. It serves as a construct to maintain power and a system to keep the many oppressed. It’s not liberatory for me. That’s why consensus building as a practice is so important.
“Consensus building is like arriving at a place that doesn’t compromise the guiding principles. It allows us to say — as long as it is not disrupting me, my work, who I am accountable to, and I can still see myself where we’ve arrived, even if it’s not how I would do something”
We are so used to these practices of forcing people to agree … We do not dig into why they feel a certain way. Even a unanimous decision pushes your boundaries to get you to agree and not check if that’s part of your belief. In contrast, consensus building is like arriving at a place that doesn’t compromise the guiding principles. It allows us to say — as long as it is not disrupting me, my work, who I am accountable to, and I can still see myself where we’ve arrived, even if it’s not how I would do something — that is consensus building and alignment. It can represent the whole. Conscious building unlocks the dialogue, and that’s how we learn through dialogue and discussion! We do not learn by forced agreement … We are not all the same, and disagreement is inevitable. And that’s okay. I can disagree with someone and align with them at the same time … We as people are different, so it is embracing that difference.
MSC: Kresge’s Environment Program has recognized People’s Climate Innovation Center as a grantee partner with the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT). How do Climate Innovation and IMT share in responsibility and credit in leading the formation of a robust support network to fulfill the Coalition’s commitments?
CVHT: It was about bringing climate equity and justice practitioners together to dial in on our movement’s needs and what we are navigating. We are navigating the flow of resources and making sure that these communities direct them, so they can build their self-determined, community-owned infrastructures to be libratory. How are our movements accountable? That includes intermediaries providing resources to the communities doing the work on the front lines. We need to be better aligned with that in terms of policymaking. So when Climate Innovation got introduced to Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) through a partnership with Upright Consulting, Jermey Hayes, who we work with, asked me if I would be interested in this work. But Climate Innovation is not the building standards expert — IMT is. IMT is on its journey to be movement accountable, so we serve as the equity partner … To create a table for community-led policymaking.
Building performance standards are part of the solution, not the only solution. At the heart of Climate Innovation, we acknowledge the expertise of the climate movement is deep, broad, and fast, and we need to expand where we can to share that expertise. Our contribution is to facilitate and have a practice governed by a community-led organization. IMT gathers the technical partners, and our responsibility is to make sure we are frontline and grassroots accountable …
Climate is not just about buildings — it’s about disability justice, economic systems. I want to think about how building performance helps with employment development and getting off a dirty grid. But we understand that when we insert a solution, we need to ask how that solution impacts those not traditionally brought to the table. We look at the needs then translate that to build performance standards.
If we think about how capital flows across borders, no one bats an eye … But when we think about justice work and philanthropy, we have to beg for funds that belong to us. That is our money. Do not call us to tables without resourcing. We need to move toward that. We know it’s possible.
When we are accountable to our communities from the beginning, we are subverting the top-down paradigm. Communities need to have agency, decision-making power, and resources.
If we think about how capital flows across borders, no one bats an eye. When a concept hasn’t been tested, and people need millions of dollars to learn about something — we don’t ask any questions. But when we think about justice work and philanthropy, we have to beg for funds that belong to us. That is our money. Do not call us to tables without resourcing. We need to move toward that. We know it’s possible. We see millions flying out the door …
We are so busy fighting the bad, but we need people to have the time for world-building and what we are transitioning to. So we can be better prepared and aligned in our power to protect our communities in the best way we know how.