From Austin to NYC, Teams Strategize and Meet with Partners
As the promise of warmer weather and longer days approached, staff throughout Movement Strategy Center’s (MSC) mostly remote workforce felt an itch to gather in person with teammates and partners to form new bonds and strengthen existing relationships. Internal teams gathered in Austin, Texas, and Queens, N.Y., met with new and existing Fiscally Sponsored Projects (FSPs), and collaborated on setting goals for the year to come.
MSC’s Movement Infrastructure and Innovation Center (MIIC) team gathered in Austin, Texas, for collaboration, team strengthening, workshops, and a surprise visit. Daniel Parada, MSC’s Director of Fiscal Sponsorship, convened the team, Alejandra García Lezama, Karmella Green, and AJ Williams, for the yearly retreat to strengthen their relationships and better support MSC’s growing roster of FSPs. The team, guided by BIPOC leadership coaches Saamiya and Sarah Seraj of A Better Force, focused on relationship building and role defining workshops. A key element of these exercises, establishing what success looks like for MSC’s partners, became a central topic of discussion as the team worked out new ways to support partners and MSC’s vision of a Just Transition.
As a break from the workshops, Parada arranged a special visit from Maxine LaQueene of Qommittee for Qreative Freedom, a new addition to the MSC community of FSPs. The group shared a meal together at Santa Rita Cantina and chatted about Qommittee’s future and their newly released resource, “The Drag Defense Handbook.” LaQueen noted her excitement “for all of us to get to work together” and believes “collaboration is what we need right now.” Delighted by the surprise visit, the MIIC Team ended their retreat on a high note, ready to implement the learnings from their collaborative workshops.
From Austin, Parada travelled to Queens, N.Y., to celebrate pride with MSC’s Communications Team and Love Wins NYC, another MSC FSP. With their own retreat planned in New Jersey and New York City, Frank Gargione, David Malinowski, and Allison Mudge of the Communications Team were thrilled to join Parada and Daniel Puerto of Love Wins NYC for Queens Pride as a great way to kick off their in-person session.
"Dear @msconthemove we wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you for loving us and being here with us."
The theme of this year’s parade was Defiant Joy — fitting considering the recent hostility directed at the trans community. So it was with defiant joy that the team, alongside Love Wins NYC staff and volunteers, marched down 37th Avenue in the Jackson Heights neighborhood to kick off Pride Month 2025, holding signs, passing out flyers, and snapping and appearing in photos. In an Instagram post, Love Wins NYC had this to say about MSC joining them for Queens Pride: “Dear @msconthemove we wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you for loving us and being here with us. From Florida to San Francisco, you stood up for LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities.”
From there, the Communications Team bid farewell to Parada and Love Wins NYC and began two days of coworking and strategizing for the year ahead. Among plants and pups at the New Jersey home of Gargione, MSC’s Director of Communications, the team worked through their communications messaging plan for the next fiscal year, breaking down the themes, key dates, and significant projects in the year to come.
Whether from home offices or in person at retreats around the country, MSC and its staff continue the organization’s decades-long push towards a Just Transition. The interpersonal connections between MSC staff and partners is the driving force of this movement — the more people come together, love, and spread defiant joy in the face of adversity, the closer we are to a world of interdependence, liberation, and resilience.
