Location: Oakland, CA
Founding: 2021
Founders/leadership: Leila McCabe, executive director

The Beloved Communities Network (BCN) is a continuation of the years of work and wisdom that went into building the Transitions Initiative. As we continue on this journey of transitioning to a world of love, interdependence, and resilience, the Beloved Communities Network will build from the foundation that has been laid, while also strengthening, reinforcing, and designing new ways to leap into the world we imagine. 

Beloved Community is not ours in conception. The concept is rooted in the legacy of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Grace Lee Boggs, and others, and is carried forward through many people investing in the idea that we can live in a world of economic and social justice. With the imagination we bring to this work, we envision a holistic approach that includes leading with bold vision and values, embodied practice, radical connection, and strategic navigation.

We know that now is a time of great transition and change. Around the globe 
we see unprecedented climate disruption and upheaval across economic, political, and cultural systems. We are all facing uncertainty and seeking paths to a future we can believe in. In this time we also feel a calling, an invitation, a possibility, beyond what we can presently see.

We have the capacity to answer this call. We have the capacity to bring forth a future that is kicking to be born. We have the capacity to be that future, to be the power and strength of our vision, our purpose, and our relationships. 

Our communities are calling on us to recognize our undeniable interdependence and make a courageous commitment to love. Our mutual future depends on generating new solutions that reflect this recognition and commitment.  

This is the calling of the Beloved Communities Network.

Leila McCabe

Leila (she/her), executive director of the Beloved Communities Network and founder of JoyLabs, is a mama, artist, strategist, movement maker, and builder. She brings over 15 years of experience in community and campus organizing, electoral organizing, movement building, and facilitation. She is dedicated to creating spaces for deep and authentic relationships to emerge across diverse constituencies and coalitions. 

In 2010, Leila was a founding member of the successful minimum wage campaign in San Jose, California that helped kick-start the national minimum wage movement. In the 2012 election cycle, Leila led a team of 20 people to register 14,000 new voters in Santa Clara County going on to be the deputy field director for a progressive mayoral candidate in San Jose, the 10th largest city in the country. She has also worked in many nonprofit organizations and partnered with multiple colleges, churches, community members, and other organizations in developing curriculum and facilitating workshops. 

Leila completed a certificate in leadership and social change at DeAnza College and Bachelor’s in sociology with a concentration in community change from San Jose State University. She is currently studying to complete her certificate as a certified personal trainer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. 

In 2021, Leila founded JoyLabs, a space where physical movement meets emotional resilience in a beloved community. JoyLabs trains the resistance through embodied resistance training. 

Leila lives in Oakland California with her husband Calvin and son Malik. She serves on the advisory board to In Lak’ech dance academy and, to bring balance and healing to her life, Leila trains capoeira, lifts weights, and dances. 

Read more about BCN’s involvement in the Queer Afro Latin Dance Fest in San Jose, CA on the Move Blog.

Read more about BCN’s graphic guide, Ten Thousand Beloved Communities, on the Move Blog.

Check out part 1 of the fireside chats cohosted by BCN and MSC at the Transformative Movement building event on the Move Blog.

Check out part 2 of the fireside chats cohosted by BCN and MSC at the Transformative Movement building event 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: 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; Brooklyn, NY 
Region: National
Founding: 2009 
Founders/leadership: Terry Marshall, founder/creative director; Aisha Shillingford, artistic director; Kira Joy Williams, creative project manager

Intelligent Mischief is a creative studio and design lab whose purpose is to unleash Black imagination to shape a future based on liberation, resilience, regeneration, and interdependence. Their vision is of a global, autonomous, interconnected archipelago of Black liberated zones or beloved communities that practice sacred governance at a scale necessary to transform systems. By boosting innovation and imagination, Intelligent Mischief aims to realign action logic and experiment with new forms of culture and civil society, creating atmospheres of change.

Intelligent Mischief invites creative collaboration with groups and coalitions seeking ways to align their mission, strategy, and policies with a vision of beautiful futures for all Black people. Their work is centered at the intersection of art, design, and popular culture to create spaces — such as publications, multi-platform worldbuilding and story experiences, hackathons and art installations — where Black folks can imagine and co-create beautiful futures. Their Creative Studio has nurtured many projects, including a massive multi-platform immersive story world called NationX.

Read more about the relationship between funders and movement leaders including Intelligent Mischief’s Terry Marshall on the Move Blog.

Read more about Intelligent Mischief’s Aisha Shillingford and Terry Marshall’s participation in a Transformative Movement building event on the Move Blog.

Watch MSC’s 73 Questions-style interview with Aisha Shillingford, Intellient Mischief’s artistic director, on the Move Blog.

Read what Aisha Shillingford, Intellient Mischief’s artistic director, had to say about about the passing of ibrahim abdul-matin on the Move Blog.

Location: Puerto Rico 
Founding: 2020
Founders/leadership: Julie Quiroz

New Moon Collaborations is a home for innovation that centers the spirit, strength, vision, and creativity of Black and Indigenous people and communities of color. New Moon’s purpose is to nurture leaps in culture that transform systems and structures for generations to come, cultivating collaborations to generate strategy grounded in embodied community wisdom and story. 

New Moon recognizes that achieving a future of regeneration, resilience, and love will require a vibrant ecosystem of diverse, interrelated efforts that are:

• Deeply rooted in place,
• Nourished by conscious practice of relationships in beloved community,
• Animated by personally held narrative of past, present, and future that is not defined by white supremacy,
• And grounded in practical, specific, and audacious community wealth development strategy.

New Moon’s work reflects practices and knowledge across all four elements, with a keen focus on shaping and nurturing purpose-driven narrative. New Moon’s work takes many forms including designing and facilitating powerful cross-sector communities of learning and action, producing strategic community-centered video storytelling, conducting qualitative narrative strategy research, and guiding efforts to communicate verbally and visually with clear purpose and vision.

Read more from Julie Quiroz of New Moon Collaborations about MSC’s Transitions Labs on the Move Blog.

Read more from Julie Quiroz of New Moon Collaborations about #BlackLivesMatter on the Move Blog.

Read more from Julie Quiroz of New Moon Collaborations about Love With Power on the Move Blog.

Location: Oakland, CA
Region: National
Founders/leadership: Corrine Van Hook-Turner, Director

People’s Climate Innovation Center (PCIC) (formally Climate Innovation) has been a powerhouse supporting vibrant movements across the country using a community-driven approach to lift up grassroots communities as leading solution makers on the frontlines, in government, philanthropy, and beyond. PCIC brings a whole systems approach to movement building, cultivating a strong culture of designing transformative solutions that restore and regenerate healthy earth systems and built environments for all. Their approach emphasizes the need for solutions that are community-driven, interconnected, and intervene at multiple levels.

Read more about Corine Van Hook-Turner, Director at PCIC, on the Move Blog.

Read more about the support PCIC recieves from MSC board member Jacqui Patterson on the Move Blog.

Read more about the relationship between funders and movement leaders including PCIC’s Young Black Climate Leaders on the Move Blog.

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

Read what Tamira Jones, PCIC’s Director of Capacity Building, had to say about about the passing of ibrahim abdul-matin on the Move Blog.

Another world is possible. PCIC supports governments, institutions, and funders in becoming more effective game-changers by centering equity and justice in their climate, resilience, and sustainability work. Simultaneously, they support grassroots and frontline communities and organizations to build capacity and networks to support leadership and a vision for a more beautiful, just, and sustainable world. PCIC facilitates planning processes that ultimately make climate efforts more successful and seamless, with deeper community partnerships and frontline leadership for the immediate and long-term.  

The PCIC team is Black-led and made up of a diverse group of leaders who have first hand experience of their voices and expertise being sidelined in planning processes. Their leadership possesses decades of experience in design and facilitation across the country drawing from permaculture, ancestral wisdom, and community organizing pedagogy. Their approach to community-driven processes and decision making is all about increasing capacity and relinquishing control in order for power to be shifted to communities so they may be the designers of their own community and future.

Location: Oakland, CA
Founding: 2014
Founders/leadership: Rufaro Gwarada; Aparna Shah

The reSet Project cultivates imagination and builds power toward inclusive and participatory governance that centers people and the natural world. Working with tribal, community and state leaders, artists, cultural workers, organizers, communicators, academics, and advocates, they seed cultural shifts and intentionally integrate arts and cultural organizing to ensure that decision making power and influence reside within communities and tribes. Rooted in their unwavering love and collective strength, the reSet Project activates whole people, thriving families, and interconnected communities from a place of expansive vision. Together, they’re rebuilding a world of care, joy, and belonging.

Launching in Summer 2021, reSet and the Resonance Network are working with organizational partners across the country in a collaborative learning community to deepen their understanding and practice of collective governance, guided by the WeGovern agreements. 

Resources:

The reSet Project builds on many years of experience and partnerships, as described in these reports which articulate their grounding ideas:
Cultural Strategy: An Introduction and Primer, 2019
The what, why, and how of Cultural Strategy. Commissioned from Art/Work Practice with the support of Unbound Philanthropy. 
Until We Are All Free: A Case Study in Cultural Strategy, 2019
A summary of Until We Are All Free, our culture-led racial justice initiative with CultureStrike in partnership with Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Commissioned from Art/Work Practice with the support of Unbound Philanthropy.

Location: Oakland, CA
Founding: 2019
Founders/leadership: Calvin Williams

Wakanda Dream Lab is a collective fan-driven project that bridges the worlds of Black fandom and #Blacktivism for Black Liberation. It functions according to a value emergence and celebrates the organic self-organizing nature of fandom. The intention is to build on the aesthetics and pop-culture appeal of Wakanda to develop a vision, principles, values, and frameworks for prefigurative organizing with a new base of activists, artists, and fans for Black Liberation. This project is rooted in the belief Black Liberation begets liberation of all peoples.

Wakanda Dream Lab catalyzes and co-creates vision-led, future-facing world-building resources like toolkits, curricula, podcasts, webinars, Twitter town halls, and events rooted in the Black Panther universe and Wakanda. Participants are invited to immerse themselves in world building and visionary solution making through design labs, hackathons, and workshops.

In October 2019, Wakanda Dream Labs published Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Reimagining Gender in Wakanda, an anthology of revolutionary social justice-oriented art, poetry, and fiction from all across the gender spectrum. In August 2021, the Oakland Museum of Art exhibit “Mothership: Voyage Into Afrofuturism” featured work from Wakanda Dream Lab’s Calvin Williams. In a continued exploration of Afrofuturism, Williams collaborated on a film entitled Space to Dream, and it was selected as a 2021 Docs in Action Film Fund recipient.

Read what Calvin Williams, founder of Wakanda Dream Lab, had to say about about the passing of ibrahim abdul-matin on the Move Blog.