In Memoriam:
ibrahim abdul-matin

Movement Strategy Center Remembers ibrahim abdul-matin, Environmental Activist, Urban Strategist, and Dear Friend of the MSC EcosystemIt is with heavy hearts that we mourn the loss of ibrahim abdul-matin, a bright, playful spirit who made a lasting impact as an environmental activist, urban strategist, and beloved friend. At 46, he leaves behind his devoted wife…

Our Family, Our Future: My Global Migration Pledge

How the Right to Migrate, Climate Justice, and Global Interdependence are all Interwoven by Taj JamesOriginally published on August 28, 2015. As I write this, the bodies of hundreds of people are being pulled from the water off the coast of Libya after two boats sank, drowning women, men, and children migrating in desperation from places like Syria, Bangladesh…

Parenting for Liberation: My Practice and the MSC Transitions Labs

How Liberation, Freedom, and Self Love Form the Foundation of Parenting in White Supremacy by Trina Greene BrownOriginally published on August 19, 2015. I am raising a young Black boy in a society that is set up to set him up for failure. This means I am often in protection mode: protection against educational inequity, unfair discipline practices,…

A group of people holding their extended arms out to either side of their body in front of towering windows with trees outside.

Navigating With Vision: Transitions Lab Nurtures Leaps Into the Unknown

MSC’s Transition Labs Offer a New Perspective on Transformative Movement Building by Julie QuirozOriginally published on April 16, 2015. “Reality is not destiny,” wrote Eduardo Galeano, the extraordinary Uruguayan writer who inspired social justice activists around the globe with his unflinching commitment to truth. Galeano, who lived through imprisonment and…

Calling for Love With Power

With Great Love, MSC Offers This Excerpt From Love With Power: Practicing Transformation for Social Justice by Julie Quiroz and Kristen ZimmermanOriginally Published on February 12, 2015. We, humanity, need a movement, a really big movement.  A movement big and bold enough to get us out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into, and one that will get us to a…

A New Graphic Novel Celebrates Beloved Community and the Wisdom of MSC’s Transitions Initiative

Beloved Communities Network Launches Kickstarter for Ten Thousand Beloved Communities In the earliest and most precarious days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Leila McCabe of Beloved Communities Network (BCN) and Kristen Zimmerman of Root. Rise. Pollinate! hosted a series of powerful conversations with ecosystem buddies including Aisha Shillingford of Intelligent…

The MSC Storytelling Series: Kristen Zimmerman

Our Storytelling Series Features the Folks Most Associated With MSC's History: Meet Kristen Zimmerman In this installment we get to know activist, artist and storyteller Kristen Zimmerman — co-founder of Movement Strategy Center (MSC) and Root. Rise. Pollinate!, and illustrator of the new graphic guide Ten Thousand Beloved Communities, a project of  Beloved…

Judith LeBlanc: A Movement Icon Goes to Harvard

One of Movement Strategy Center’s Board Members Brings Native Organizing to Cambridge Judith LeBlanc isn’t just one of Movement Strategy Center’s board members — she’s a movement icon. LeBlanc, an enrolled member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, probably wouldn’t admit to her icon status. You’d more likely hear her refer to herself as a proud grandmother, a…

The How of Transformative Change

MSC Board Member Tomás Garduño on Getting to the “How,” and Other Insights From the Transitions LabsOriginally published on December 2, 2014. A few weeks ago I got to spend two days in Oakland with a tremendous group of wonderful people brought together by the Movement Strategy Center. We came together to explore one big question: how do we transition from a…

Changing Funder Habits to Change the Game

Justice Funder’s Co-Director Dana Kawaoka-Chen on the Habit Shifting Takeaways From the Transitions LabsOriginally published on December 12, 2014. We need new habits — philanthropic habits, that is. We need new habits that reflect the state of our country as it is now: a first world nation where young Black men are 21 times more likely than their White peers to…