Location: Tamal-liwa (Tomales Bay), CA
Region: California
Founding: 2022
Founders/leadership: Theresa Harlan

The Alliance for Felix Cove is dedicated to preserving and restoring the ancestral homelands of the Felix Family, who were the last Coast Miwok/Támal-ko family to live on the western shores of Tomales Bay at Felix Cove, known as Laird’s Landing. 

At least four generations of the Coast Miwok/Támal-ko Felix Family are known to have lived at the cove, beginning with Domingo and Euphrasia (Támal-ko) Felix in the early 1800s. The Felix Family lived sustainably at the cove for generations, with vegetable gardens, farm animals, and by hunting and fishing. The family’s history includes building homes at Marshall Beach and Laird’s Landing, with extended family members living on other coves on the Marshall side of Tomales Bay. They also worked at Point Reyes Peninsula ranches as ranch hands and cooks. However, in 1956 they were forced to leave their homes due to eviction by ranchers. 

Today, the Alliance aims to re-Indigenize their ancestral homelands and honor the legacy of the Felix Family. Led by Theresa Harlan, the daughter of Elizabeth Campigli Harlan and the niece of Victor Campigli, they advocate for the protection and restoration of the only remaining 19th century Coast Miwok/Támal-ko built home at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Learn more about how volunteers built a tule canoe in honor of the Felix Family and other Támal-ko families whose homelands are now called Point Reyes National Seashore.

Read more about MSC’s visit to Felix Cove on the Move Blog.

Read more about the plants and flowers of Felix Cove on the Move Blog.

Location: Alabama; California; Tennessee
Region: National
Founding: 2018
Founders/leadership: Anasa Troutman, project director, founder

BIG We Foundation (BWF) unleashes the social imagination of those who often go unheard, and supports building a world reimagined from their point of view. It cultivates economic and cultural drivers grounded in Black imagination to foster a culture of belonging for everyone. By following the vision and leadership of those who live in or come from historically undermined communities, BWF values are their north star, guiding them on the journey of embodying the culture shift we are working to create in the world. BWF does its part to generate a thriving culture and healthy communities, where we can all experience sustained safety, joy, abundance, and love.  

BIG We Foundation is a nonprofit arts and culture intermediary built to provide infrastructure and opportunity for high potential, under-resourced communities. The organization employs a culture shift model that leverages storytelling, community building, and real world implementation. It expresses a commitment to co-creating the future by investing in people and communities aligned with and working towards a shared vision. BWF priority areas — womxn and girls, wellness equity, and restorative economics — are designed to work together in Black, Indigenous, and other BIPOC communities, forming a fully integrated, narrative-based, and holistic approach to their work. 

Read more about BWF’s Anasa Troutman’s participation in a Transfromative Movement building event on the Move Blog.

Location: Indianapolis, IN
Region:Indiana and the Black Diaspora
Founding: 2023
Founders/leadership: Denise Abdul-Rahman

Black Sun Light Sustainability (BSLS) is at the forefront of transformative change, connecting communities through a mission that resonates both domestically and abroad. With a focus on equitable energy expertise, training, job creation, and clean energy development, BSLS is driving progress in a culturally competent manner.

With a strong commitment to fostering a diverse and equitable transition, BSLS is dedicated to creating positive impacts both locally and globally. At the core of the BSLS mission is a focus on equitable energy expertise, workforce development, and clean energy innovation.

BSLS’s multifaceted approach includes facilitation services, consultancy (spanning policy, DEI, energy, climate, and global affairs), impactful clean energy demonstration projects, and educational webinars. The team’s diverse expertise, ranging from management to healthcare and informatics, equips them to tackle complex challenges with innovative solutions. They are committed to reducing harmful emissions, advancing energy efficiency, and enhancing community resilience.

Location: Bay Area, CA
Region: California
Founding: 2020
Founders/leadership: Lawrence Ellis, board president; Tania Abdul, board secretary; Javier LaFianza, board member

Breathe understands that comprehensive, accelerated change requires the pressure of a mass movement with historically marginalized people at the center. Breathe exists to support and increase the numbers of people working for racial equity, justice, and resilience, prioritizing BIPOC and young people. 

In the summer of 2020, a group of people with a wide range of experience began a synergistic process to arrive at Breathe’s unique formula for change. Everyone serving on the team is a lifelong activist, devoted to building a just, equitable, resilient world. Breathe’s current leadership includes: a concert/event producer, a teacher/community builder, an AGILE business coach/multinational venture designer, a tenants’ rights lawyer, a nonprofit executive director, the CFO of a global advertising firm, an actor/coach, and a web designer/immersive experience producer.

Breathe believes that intersectional solitary is the only way forward. An anti-racism organization at its core, Breathe utilizes media, events, interactive technology, the arts, and activist development to amplify, unify, and support impacted communities’ work for racial, environmental, and climate justice. Breathe is a network and platform that draws supporters with compelling media by and about community leaders and artists to educate and motivate audiences to act. Breathe’s web network for learning, action, and community-building provides a sense of solidarity and empowerment, with tools for recruitment and ongoing engagement. These catalytic events and action campaigns build relationships based on shared knowledge, effort, and resources, and offer constituents support networks, leadership and organizer training, and production and accelerator assistance for development and funding.

Read more about Breathe’s podcast, Sandblasted at the Shipyard, on the Move Blog.

Location: Bowie, MD
Region: National, Mid-Atlantic focus
Founding: 2022
Founders/leadership: Sacoby Wilson

Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH) is advancing environmental justice through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), community science, Community-Owned and Managed Research (COMR) principles, and the Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) Model, with a focus on equitable planning, healthy zoning, and sustainable community development.

CEEJH’s objectives encompass leading nationally and globally in addressing environmental injustice and health inequities using CBPR, citizen science, and collaborative problem-solving principles to empower underserved populations through education, outreach, capacity-building, research, and technological solutions. They bridge gaps between communities, advocacy groups, professionals, researchers, and policymakers, primarily focusing on the Mid-Atlantic region.

The My Block Counts Environmental Justice podcast, hosted by Dr. Sacoby Wilson in partnership with WYPR Baltimore radio station, is integral to CEEJH’s outreach efforts. The podcast explores crucial topics such as air quality, climate change, redlining, and environmental hazards. It offers a platform for conversations with experts and grassroots groups, highlighting ways individuals can contribute to advancing environmental justice in their communities.

Location: Washington, D.C.
Founding: 2023
Founders/leadership: Sam Draisen, Dean Ilyas, co-founders

Democracy at Home enhances the political engagement of young leaders by promoting greater accessibility to the decision making process. 

Democracy, at its most basic level, is direct involvement in decision making. Throughout its history, American democracy has fallen short of this most basic benchmark. Increasing accessibility to politics allows us all to claim power and influence decisions made by those we elect.

Democracy at Home works on projects that put decision making at the fingertips of the youngest segments of the electorate. The organization is committed to promoting intersectionality and anti-racism in all of its endeavors.

Location: Bay Area, CA
Founding: 2021
Founders/leadership: Pandora Thomas, founder 

EARTHseed Farm is a 14-acre solar-powered organic farm and orchard located on the ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo Peoples in Sonoma County, CA — the only all-Black owned permaculture farm in the county, where only 2% of land is Black-owned. It aims to heal generations of historical harm through educational programs that prioritize people of African descent and other communities of color.

EARTHseed honors all beings and their role in stewarding their communities and looks to nonhuman kin for guidance. With the permission and blessings of Graton Rancheria Tribe, EARTHseed is operated and rooted in Afro-Indigenous permaculture principles and built on the long legacy of earth wisdom traditions of people of African descent. Permaculture is a relationship-based ecological design system embedded in Indigenous wisdom that elevates ecosystem health while meeting human needs. 

EARTHseed is managed by a group of likeminded practitioners and is home to a variety of apples, pears, persimmons, plums, pluots, guavas, and mixed berries. In addition to a wholesale program, the farm is open to the public from May to November for berry and fruit-picking. EARTHseed has been featured in several media outlets, including Made Local magazine, Sonoma magazine, the Podship Earth podcast, and KQED.  

The Sebastopol, CA farm is a part of Thomas’ new nonprofit Sankofa Project — an FSP and member of the Movement Strategy Network. Sankofa will include Thomas’ work with Marin City and Urban  Permaculture Institute. 

Read more about MSC’s visit to EARTHSeed Farm on the Move Blog.

Read more about how Pandora Thomas, founder of EARTHSeed Farm, inspires others on the Move Blog.

Read more about EARTHSeed’s actions on climate change on the Move Blog.

Location: California 
Founding: 2020
Founders/leadership:  Rosa E. Gonzales, project director 

Facilitating Power works to create a thriving culture of participation in which communities work together to solve social, economic, and environmental challenges; and provides essential tools, techniques, and strategy to educators, organizers, service-providers, managers, and community leaders looking to revolutionize engagement and deepen their own facilitative leadership. They are building a network of facilitative leaders with the tools, knowledge, and skills to foster authentic participation, collaborative governance, and community-driven leadership for a living democracy.

Facilitating Power cultivates collective leaps towards a living democracy, a thriving culture of participation, belonging, and transformative power, rooted in place-based knowledge and natural wisdom. Through the practices and pedagogy of a living democracy, Facilitating Power is transforming how we think about and wield power, and building the capacity of facilitative leaders to support their communities to reorganize for community ownership.

Read more about Facilitating Power’s actions on climate change on the Move Blog.

Read more about how Rosa González of Facilitating Power inspires others on the Move Blog.

Location: Oakland, CA
Founding: 2020
Founders/leadership: Taj James, co-founder & curator; Sihle Dinani, co-founder & advisor; Rachel Burrows, co-founder & operational anchor 

Full Spectrum Capital Labs (FSL) is ​​an incubator-accelerator that brings people, ideas, and capital together to grow regenerative economies powered by impactful solutions. Vibrant solutions need capacity building and partnerships to thrive. Gaps in the capital ecosystem mean opportunities for impact are missed every day. FSL fills the gaps between communities and capital by listening to communities and offering capital strategies to achieve their vision. FSL believes the more nature and community we have, the less money we need. The challenge we face is not scarcity and its deepening relationship and flow — it’s creating the beloved community that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned. In relationship and flow, there is fundamental abundance. Through this lens, FSL connects investors to solutions with powerful impact. 

Full Spectrum Labs listens to the ideas and interests of community and capital stewards all across the capital ecosystem, helping them develop an investment vision that aligns with community values. Community Stewards include; Birth Center Equity — Black and Indigenous midwives who imagine a birth center in every community; Return to the Heart Foundation which supports Indigenous women by investing in undercapitalized women-led initiatives on reservations and cities; Justice Capital — formerly incarcerated community leaders proving that divesting from prison systems and investing in worker and community-owned enterprises transform communities. As Black organizers in Memphis know: when communities own land and buildings, they cannot be displaced. Through relationships and collaborations between community and capital, stewards can navigate and strategize with the full potential of every capital tool and achieve the highest impact. 

Location: Oakland, CA
Region: National
Founding: 2014
Founders/leadership: Nevinna Khann, co-founder/executive director  

The Health, Environment, Agriculture and Labor Food Alliance (HEAL) is a national multi-sector, multi-racial coalition of 55 organizations led by members who represent over two million rural and urban farmers, ranchers, fishers, farm and food chain workers, Indigenous groups, scientists, public health advocates, policy experts, community organizers, and activists. HEAL’S mission is to build collective power to create food and farm systems that are healthy for families, accessible and affordable to all communities, and fair to the working people who grow, distribute, prepare, and serve our food — while protecting the air, water, and land we all depend on. 

In 2016, HEAL launched the Plate of the Union in partnership with Food Policy Action, the Food Policy Action Education Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, to uplift the voices of Americans who care about food and farm issues. The #ProtectFoodWorkers campaign delivered over 100,000 petition signatures calling on the next President to take bold action for a food system that rewards farmers and farming practices that protect our environment, that provides dignity and fair wages to workers, and ensures that everyone living in the United States has access to healthy food that they can afford.

Anchored by the Food Chain Workers Alliance, the National Black Food and Justice Alliance, Real Food Generation, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, HEAL co-drafted the 10-plank Platform for Real Food, and, in 2017, they publicly launched the platform as their strategic compass. Together, these groups are building a movement to transform our food and farm systems from the current extractive economic model towards community control, care for the land, local economies, meaningful labor, and healthful communities nationwide — while supporting the sovereignty of all living beings.  

Read more about the relationship between funders and movement leaders including HEAL’s Candace Clark on the Move Blog.