Glossary - Movement Strategy Center

Glossary of Terms

Language can be used to engage or divide. The language we use relating to challenging intersectional issues of systemic racism, environmental inequities, and economic exploitation allows us to honor, celebrate, and amplify voices of BIPOC, women, GNC, and LGBTQIA movement leaders, activists, and communities working toward a world of interdependence, liberation, and resilience.

This glossary is not intended to be comprehensive but reflects the language MSC uses in conversations regarding social justice, diversity, and allyship. In every context, the meaning of these words may change and evolve. This glossary and its definitions provide a starting point for our community and our new website visitors to engage in open and honest conversation throughout our ecosystem. We hope it will be used as a tool to build a shared language of understanding.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Abolition

A political vision and broad strategy eliminates imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creates lasting alternatives to punishment and incarceration. Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.

Accountability

How individuals and communities hold themselves to their goals and actions and acknowledge the values and the groups for which they are responsible. To be accountable, one must be visible, with a transparent agenda and process.

Afrofuturism

The philosophical intersection of imagination, history, the future, and liberation melds African Diaspora culture with technology.

Ally

A person who makes the commitment and effort to recognize their privilege (based on gender, class, race, sexual identity, etc.). A person who works in solidarity with oppressed groups in the struggle for justice. Allies understand that it is in their interest to end all forms of oppression, even those from which they may benefit in concrete ways.

Anti-black

A two-part formation that both voids the values of Blackness while systematically marginalizing Black people and their issues. The first form of anti-Blackness is overt racism and the covert structural and systemic racism that categorically predetermines the socioeconomic status of Black people in this country. The second form of anti-Blackness is the unethical disregard for anti-Black institutions and policies as a product of class, race, and/or gender privilege that certain individuals experience due to anti-Black institutions and policies. The first form of overt racism protects the second form of anti-Blackness.

Beloved Community

Coined by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the concept describes a society built on economic and social inclusivity, a community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, exploitation, and hate.

Bigotry

Intolerant prejudice that glorifies one group and denigrates members of other groups.

BIPOC

Referring to those who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color.

Black Lives Matter

An ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black humanity, Black contributions to society, and Black resilience in the face of deadly oppression.
A political movement started in 2013 by three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi; it addresses systemic and state violence against African Americans.

Colonization

Invasion, dispossession, and subjugation need not be military; it can begin — or continue — as a geographical intrusion in the form of agricultural, urban, or industrial encroachments. Such incursion is the dispossession of vast amounts of lands from the original inhabitants, often legalized after the fact. The long-term result of such massive dispossession is institutionalized inequality. The colonizer/colonized relationship is, by nature, an unequal one that benefits the colonizer at the expense of the colonized.

Climate Resilience

A future in which ecosystems, human labor, and cultures are integrated into a thriving regenerative web of life.

Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory considers many of the same issues conventional civil rights and ethnic studies take. Still, it places them in a broader perspective, including economics, history, and even emotions and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and principles of constitutional law.

Cultural Appropiation

Theft of cultural elements — including symbols, art, language, customs, etc. — for one’s use, commodification, or profit, often without understanding, acknowledgment, or respect for its value in its original culture. It results from a dominant (i.e., White) culture’s right to appropriate other cultural elements.

Decolonization

The active resistance against colonial powers and a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, cultural, and psychic independence originates from a colonized nation’s own indigenous culture.

Diaspora

The voluntary or forcible movement of peoples from their homelands into new regions. The common element in all forms of the diaspora are people who live outside their natal (or imagined natal) territories and recognize that their traditional homelands are reflected deeply in the languages they speak, the religions they adopt, and the culture they produce.

Discrimination

The unequal treatment of various groups based on race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, and other categories.

Diversity

How people differ, including race, ethnicity, and gender — the groups that most often come to mind when the term "diversity" is used — but also age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, and physical appearance. It can also involve different ideas, perspectives, and values.

Ecosystem

In the pursuit of equity, liberation, inclusion, and justice, the MSC beloved community ecosystem comprises Movement Strategy Center’s board, staff, network partners, sponsored projects, program participants, and supporters.

Embodied Practice

An embodiment practice is a method of using the unique sensations of our body as a tool to develop awareness, stay present, self-regulate, feel whole, find balance, feel connected, know ourselves, love ourselves, and be empowered.

Ethnicity

Refers to identifying a group based on a perceived cultural distinctiveness that makes the group into a “people.” A social construct, Ethnicity divides people into smaller social groups based on ancestral geographical base, history, the shared sense of group membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political and economic interests.

Equity

Recognizing each person has different circumstances and allocating the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equally positive outcome.

GNC

Gender Non-Conforming, referring to those who do not identify with binary gender identity.

Implicit Bias

Negative associations that people unknowingly hold and express automatically, without conscious awareness. Implicit biases affect an individual’s attitudes and actions, thus creating real-world implications, even though they may not even be aware that those biases exist within themselves. This produces behavior that diverges from the explicit attitudes that many people profess. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is often used to measure implicit biases concerning race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, and other topics.

Inclusion

The act of including traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities, and decision-making in a way that shares power with authenticity.

Incubation

Physical spaces for social interaction and development in which socially vulnerable individuals, through the use of cross-sectoral partnerships and community-adapted development services, are empowered to become agents of their social transformation.

Indigeneity

Indigenous peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics: close attachment to ancestral territories and the natural resources in these areas; self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group; an indigenous language, often different from the national language; the presence of customary social and political institutions, and primarily subsistence-oriented production.

Individual Racism

Individual racism refers to the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can be deliberate, or the individual may act to perpetuate or support racism without knowing what they are doing.

Institutional Racism

Institutional racism refers specifically to how institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups. The institutional policies may never mention any racial group. Still, their effect is to create advantages for Whites and oppression and disadvantage for other groups.

Internalized Racism

Internalized racism is the situation that occurs in a racist system when a racial group oppressed by racism supports the supremacy and dominance of the dominating group by maintaining or participating in the set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures, and ideologies that undergird the dominating group’s power.

Intersectionality

Coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, intersectionality can help clarify how a person can simultaneously experience privilege and oppression. For example, a Black woman in America does not experience gender inequalities in the same way as a White woman, nor does she experience racial oppression identical to that experienced by a Black man. Each race and gender intersection produces a qualitatively distinct experience.

Just Transition

A set of unifying principles and practices supporting a just society has shifted from an extractive economy to a waste-free, regenerative economy. It must be equitable and must redress past harms. Its process must be just, or the outcome will not be.

LGBTQIA

Referring to those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer and Questioning, Intersex, Asexual.

Movement Building

The process of organizing and activating the will and capacity of people and organizations to work individually or collectively toward a shared vision.

Power

The ability to influence others and impose one’s beliefs. All power is relational, and different relationships either reinforce or disrupt one another. The importance of the concept of power to anti-racism is evident: racism cannot be understood without understanding that power is an individual relationship and a cultural one. Those power relationships are constantly shifting. Power can be used malignantly and intentionally but need not be, and individuals within a culture may benefit from the power they are unaware of. Cultural power is all-encompassing, economic power is foundational, and political power reflects economics and culture.

Privilege

Society’s formal and informal institutions accord the unearned social power to all members of a dominant group (i.e., white privilege, male privilege, etc.). Privilege is usually invisible to those who have it because we are taught not to see it, but it puts them at an advantage over those who do not.

Prison Industrial Complex

A term used to describe the overlapping interest of governments and industries who use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social, and political problems.

Racial Equity

The condition that would be achieved if racial identity was no longer a statistical predictor of outcomes, including eliminating policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race or that fail to eliminate them.

Racial Healing

To restore to health or soundness; to repair or set right; to restore to spiritual wholeness.

Rematriation

Returning to the ways of life that hold reverence for Nature and are inclusive of many types of knowledge.

Repatriation

Commonly used to describe the rightful return of land, remains, and cultural items to Native communities. Tied to Euro-centric, male-dominant ideas of ownership.

Restorative Justice

A theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime and conflict. It places decisions in the hands of those most affected by wrongdoing and gives equal concern to the victim, the offender, and the surrounding community.

Social Justice

The idea that all people should have equal rights, opportunities, and access to resources.

Systemic Racism

The structure through which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various and often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial inequities among groups.

Transformative Justice

Transformative Justice (TJ) is a political framework and approach for responding to violence, harm, and abuse. It seeks to respond to violence at its most basic without creating more violence and/or engaging in harm reduction to lessen the violence. TJ can be thought of as a way of “making things right” or creating justice together. TJ is an abolitionist framework that understands that prisons, police, and I.C.E. are sources of enormous amounts of violence and are systems designed to maintain social control through inherent violence.

Transformative Movements

Movements that recognize that we are whole people and whole communities and our issues and problems are interconnected; thus, our systemic solutions and movements must be interconnected.

Transformative Practice

An intentional activity, or set of activities, done regularly over an extended period to ground oneself in purpose and facilitate profound growth, embodiment, and transformation.

White Fragility

A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable for White people, triggering a range of defensive moves. These can include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and/or guilt, and behaviors including argumentation, silence, and/or leaving a stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate White racial equilibrium.

White Privilege

Refers to the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits, and choices bestowed on people solely because they are White. Generally, White people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.

White Supremacy

An ideology that White people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of White people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. White supremacy is ever-present in our institutional and cultural assumptions. It assigns value, morality, goodness, and humanity to the White group while casting others as immoral, evil, inhuman, and undeserving.

White Supremacy Culture

Artificial and historically constructed, White Supremacy Culture is the dominant culture (that of the White middle class) that shapes our institutions, our media, the way we see ourselves, and each other. White Supremacy Culture is unconsciously used as the norms and standards that promote white supremacy thinking, training, internalized attitudes, and behaviors that can show up in any group or organization, and are harmful to people of color and White people. Those characteristics are perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, quantity over quality, worship of the written word, paternalism, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, objectivity, right to comfort, and progress.

A friendly reminder: we’ve done our research, but you should, too! Check our sources against your own, and always exercise sound judgment.

Sources

ABC’s of Social Justice A Glossary of Working Language for Socially Conscious Conversation

Colors of Resistance Archive: Cultural Appropriation

“Glossary.” Racial Equity Tools

Them “Kimberlé Crenshaw and Lady Phyll Talk Intersectionality, Solidarity, and Self-Care.”

Iyer, Deepa “My Role in a Social Change Ecosystem: A Mid-Year Check-In.”

Lundgren, Kristina Lundgren, and Fares Youcefi. “Social Incubators or Social Work?

National Conference for Community and Justice, St. Louis Region Dismantling Racism Institute

Somatic Movement Project

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), “Glossary.”

“What Is the PIC? What Is Abolition?” Critical Resistance

White Supremacy Culture in Organizations

“Rematriation” @IllumiNative

Noble Accounting

Financial and Accounting Services

Noble Accounting is a values-aligned firm providing six years of award-winning client services to local, state, and national nonprofit organizations. Founder and President, Kevin Matthews, FCCA CFE, has more than 15 years of experience as a nonprofit CFO. With expertise, advanced technologies, and a highly personalized approach, Nobel Accounting serves as a fractional CFO supporting MSC’s accounting functions. Noble Accounting is located in Torrance California. Learn more about Noble Accounting.

Victoria Philips

Development Manager

Victoria is an author, researcher, public speaker, and nonprofit development specialist with over 15 years of experience on three continents, including Asia. She recently published “Racial Equity Lens in Nonprofits: Can Mentorship Help?” Victoria joined MSC in July 2021 and holds a Bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of Johannesburg, a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from the University of San Diego, and a certification in Nonprofit Strategy from University of California, Berkeley. Victoria, an African immigrant, lives in San Diego with her three children, where she serves on the board of international affairs. Victoria enjoys cooking, reading, and playing chess.

Lidia Alvarez

Communications Manager

Lidia is a fierce advocate for economic and racial equity, with over ten years of communications and operations experience in the private and nonprofit sectors including at Tommy Hilfiger, Custom Collaborative, and Ms. Foundation for Women. Lidia has led grassroots, multinational campaigns to abolish ICE, support immigrants, and uphold reproductive rights. Lidia joined MSC in September 2021 and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Risk, Resilience, and Integrity Management from Glasgow Caledonian New York College. She was born and raised in East Los Angeles and now lives in Brooklyn with her pup, Mija. She enjoys boxing, dancing, and reading.

Menchu Ituralde

Co-CFO, Noble Accounting, LLC

Menchu is a seasoned accounting and auditing professional with over 25 years of experience in private, government, and nonprofit sectors overseeing compliance, payroll, bookkeeping, audits, grants management, financial reporting, budgeting, implementing internal controls, and developing process efficiencies. Menchu joined MSC in June 2020 and has performed outsourced accounting and finance work for nonprofit organizations in health services, education, social services, arts, and culture. Menchu graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s in Accounting from the University of Santo Tomas and holds a CPA license in California. She loves traveling, hiking, and cooking, and also picked up the hobby of DIY crafting during the pandemic.

Learn more about Noble Accounting, LLC.

Pandora Thomas

Pandora Thomas is a passionate global citizen who works as a caregiver, teacher, writer, designer and speaker. Her work emphasizes the benefits of applying ecological principles to social design.

As a presenter both domestically and internationally, she has given keynotes and lectures on topics ranging from designing mutually beneficially diversity strategies, collaborative design, social justice, youth and women’s leadership, social entrepreneurship, permaculture and sustainability. She has designed curriculum for and taught groups all over the world as diverse as Iraqi and Indonesian youth to men serving in San Quentin and men and women returning home from incarceration.

Pandora’s most recent passions include being a carepartner for her mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimers, co-founding the Black Permaculture Network, working for 6 years with Toyota to design and serving as a coalition member of the Toyota Green Initiative, which supported African Americans in understanding the benefits of adopting sustainable lifestyles; co-designing, teaching with and directing Pathways to Resilience-a permaculture and social entrepreneur training program that worked with men and women returning home after incarceration, and working with the Urban Permaculture Institute in Marin City supporting a People’s Planning Process, which supports community members to assess and design strategies for their own resilience.

She has just been awarded a fellowship with the Movement Strategy Centers National Association of Climate Resiliency Planners. Her fellowship is focused on supporting Community Driven Resiliency Planning.

Thomas has studied four languages and lived and worked in over twelve countries and her other achievements include being featured in the films The Future of Energy and Inhabit, presenting at Tedx Denver and SF, and being awarded internships and fellowships to the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, Green For All, the Bronx Zoo and the Applied Research Center.

Her writing includes a children’s book, various curricula and a manual entitled “Shades of Green” for individuals wanting to teach green building to youth. Pandora studied at Columbia and Tufts University and with several permaculture and ecological design programs.
When she is not working you can find her spending time with her beloved mother and cats or in the redwoods.

Tamira Jones Machado

Director of Operations

Tamira is the Director of Operations, operationalizing program vision and managing the related administrative infrastructure of Climate Innovation. Bringing a strong systems background to the role, Tamira leads on designing and implementing processes to strengthen the program vision and capacity.

A native of Northern California, Tamira spent her childhood running through the redwoods and making mischief. For the last 20 years, Tamira has been working within the environmental nonprofit sector, both in the U.S. and abroad. She most recently led the fiscal sponsorship program at Earth Island Institute for 7 years, supporting the amazing project advisory team and its 80 projects. As the Program Manager, Tamira designed and implemented administrative systems in support of frontline activists and initiatives working to protect people and the planet. Tamira spent the past three years developing capacity-building training and collaborative learning tools in order to seed a community of practice within her activist network.

Tamira previously worked for TransForm, a sustainable transportation and land use advocate, coordinating a pilot program to promote multi-model transportation throughout the Bay Area. Tamira also spent three years planning the largest section of the California Coastal Trail through Mendocino County, resulting in permanent public access to the coastline and protection of critical habitat. In addition, Tamira lived and worked throughout the Caribbean, where she studied coastal ecology, conducted coral reef and marine protected area monitoring, and developed the first place-based environmental curriculum for Jamaica.

Tamira draws on her experience working with nonprofits of all sizes and missions in order to improve, evolve, and experiment with systems and structures that are solution-focused. Much of the last decade of her professional life has been coaching grassroots activists through the founding, scaling, and stabilizing phases of organizational development. She loves putting wings on visionary ideas to see them take flight. She holds a Masters of Arts in Community and Environmental Studies and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management.

Bianca Pilar Verbera

Movement Strategy Center’s Transitions Initiative Program Assistant

In addition to being Movement Strategy Center’s Transitions Initiative Program Assistant, Bianca is the owner and founder of a growing jewelry shop called Bianquis’ Designs in which she creates commemorative vessels to her matriarchal ancestors and the women in her family. She bridges past, present, and future as she honors their stories, sacrifices, and celebrates their resiliency through her craft. You might find her selling jewelry at Lake Merritt, outdoor markets, or at art galleries across the Bay Area. The East Bay is very dear to her, because not only is she from here, but her life has been surrounded by the beautifully diverse, community-driven movements that have manifested ground-breaking outcomes. Much of her family was involved in the movimiento during the seventies and eighties across the Bay Area, largely in labor union organizing across Oakland, Stanford, and in the Central Valley. Duty to community service and breaking institutional barriers run through her veins.

Prior to joining MSC, Bianca was on two fund development teams at Girl Scouts of Northern California and Hispanics in Philanthropy, from which she brings ample event planning and fundraising experience. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in the Humanities from San Francisco State University. A current goal of hers is to invest in opening/holding two equitable spaces for entrepreneurs and artists of color, situated in the East Bay and in Mexico. Bianca’s hope is to rid the fear of displacement and to welcome artists to comfortably create and flourish in these spaces.

Sarah Quiroga

Learning & Data Systems Manager

In her role as Learning & Data Systems Manager, Sarah seeks to support a culture of learning; connect data and insights with decision-making; and support the strategic learning and evaluation needs for the Transitions Initiative through developmental evaluation for social innovation. Sarah hopes to shift away from extractive ways of traditional evaluation toward learning that embodies and supports regeneration, resilience, and interdependence.

Sarah has 5 years of experience in event production and management, database management, and administrative management. Supporting the ecosystem in this way, she experiences joy in knowing that her work is part of a greater purpose and vision. Prior to working at MSC, Sarah worked as a fast food worker. In those difficult two years, Sarah learned the value of herself and the importance of seeing the humanity of others.

In 2012, Sarah became the first in her family to graduate college. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political, Legal, & Economic Analysis with an emphasis in Economic Analysis and a minor in Environmental Studies from Mills College.

In recent years, Sarah’s (dis)connection with her heritage has been given strength and love by the Seven Generations and Forward Stance work at MSC. As a 4th generation Mexican-American, her people are forgotten in memory but remembered in her body. Her ancestors come from León, Guanajuato; Phoenix, Arizona; El Paso, Texas; & Pomona, California. Sarah lives in her breath; which lives in her body; which lives in Oakland, CA – with her partner Efren.

Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish

Climate Innovation Program Manager

As the Climate Innovation Program Manager, Michelle helps MSC to transform our larger cultural, political and physical infrastructure in ways that enhance health, the environment, social justice, culture, and beauty.

Michelle brings over 20 years of experience uniting the fields of sustainability, justice, culture, nature, and art. Michelle comes to MSC from University of Colorado Boulder’s Environmental Center where she was the Assistant Director for Energy and Climate Justice. There she managed student and staff-run programming, founded the “FLOWS” program, advocated for equitable policies and engagement within the climate sphere and with local governments, co-founded the Just Transition Collaborative, and taught permaculture design. She is a former US State Department BoldFood fellow (Uganda) focused on sustainable urban agriculture, and served as a delegate for the Colorado River in San Luis del Rio Colorado, Mexico. She is the founder of Candelas Glows, raising awareness about the dangers of Rocky Flats—a local nuclear superfund site turned “wildlife refuge.”

Michelle serves on the leadership council for Frontline Farming, a food justice organization in Denver, CO. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology (with additional concentrations in International Development and Urban Studies) from Colorado College. Seeking eco-cultural regeneration, she is a facilitator and alternative educator, project instigator, multi-ethnic poet, wife, and mother of three.

Corrine Van Hook-Turner

Director of Climate Innovation

As the Director of Climate Innovation, Corrine leads the vision and strategy for MSC’s climate innovation and governance portfolios, bringing a lens of racial equity and transformative movement building. Corrine convenes and cultivates creative leadership within climate justice and deep democracy ecosystems toward a shared vision for a Just Transition to a world of interdependence, resilience, and regeneration.

Corrine’s 15+ years of experience are deeply immersed in movements for social, economic, and racial equity. As a former IDEAL Scholar (Initiative for Diversity in Education and Leadership), she witnessed and continues to nurture the compelling impact of investing in youth and disenfranchised communities of color so that leadership reflects the diversity it seeks to serve. Since then she has continued to develop her leadership working with the Rockwood Leadership Institute, Greater New Beginnings Youth Services, Oakland Climate Action Coalition, and contracting with various organizations. Corrine was the former Co-Director of Rooted in Resilience (formerly Bay Localize) where she led organizational management, development, communications, and outreach.

She currently serves on the steering committee of the California Trade Justice Coalition, Oakland Climate Action Coalition and the Resilient Oakland Initiative. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Family is what drives Corrine’s commitment to justice and thriving communities.

Yvette Atlas

People Operations Coordinator

Yvette is a human resources coordinator with over 20 years of customer service experience. Yvette has been with MSC since April 2019, graduated from California State University, East Bay with a Bachelor’s in Liberal Studies, and has an aPHR certification from the Human Resources Certification Institute. She grew up in Oakland and currently resides in Stockton with Kobe, her teacup Yorkie. In her spare time, she enjoys shopping, watching her favorite TV programs, and spending quality time with family and friends.

Kristy Haber

Grants and Contract Senior Coordinator

Kristy is a social worker with ten years of experience in community education and outreach. She interned with UN Women, Asia Pacific Region and went on to work with women-led organizations including the Women’s Health Specialists of Northern California. For the last three years, she managed a capital campaign to raise funds to build a regional animal shelter and disaster evacuation center in Butte County, California — home of the historic 2018 Camp Fire. Kristy has worked with MSC since 2014 and is pursuing professional education at UC San Diego and Portland State University in the field of project management and grant writing. She is also a yoga teacher and is passionate about bridging the practice with social justice work. Kristy loves water, cats, coffee, and is a dedicated dancer.

Marie-Louise Joseph

Compliance Manager

Marie-Louise is a first-generation American with over 18 years of experience in operations, human resources, and compliance for organizations including CBRE, Grubb and Ellis, and Metropole Staffing. Marie-Louise joined MSC in September 2018 and has a Bachelor’s in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She lives in Playa del Rey with her two rambunctious Boston terriers, six fish, and three aquatic frogs. Marie-Louise loves to spend her free time baking, arranging flowers, traveling, and crafting.

Jamillah Renard

MIIC Project Advisor

Jamillah is a project advisor with over 15 years of experience in financial reporting, budgeting, strategic planning, and team building. She has worked in various industries including public relations, internet technology, banking, and government contracting, including with MS&L Worldwide and JP Morgan Chase & Co. Jamillah has been with MSC since April 2021 and has a BS in Accounting from Morgan State University. She lives in New Jersey with her two children and enjoys sewing, word games, music, DIY projects, and spending time with her family and friends.

Daniel Parada

Operations Manager, MIIC

Daniel Parada joined MSC in April 2021 with a background in operations, employee experience, and as a learning and development specialist. One of Daniel’s many social imperatives is to empower and give voice to people who are marginalized, leading him to help establish DEI, Pride+Allies, Embajadores [email protected], and Women in Culinary mentorship committees throughout his career. Daniel and his husband are proud owners of a home in East Oakland where they play an active role in the neighborhood watch. Daniel loves working on construction projects at home, tending to his urban farm and chickens, and is always down for some good grub!

Saman Naquvi

Communications & Strategic Engagements Manager

An activist first and foremost, Saman is a people connector and amplifier, who joined MSC in March 2021 with 20 years of community organizing experience. Since 9/11, she has been active in the New York Metro area on issues concerning American Muslims, most recently as director of development for the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility Project at the CUNY School of Law. She also worked within Institutional Advancement at LaGuardia Community College and in grassroots advocacy at Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain. She has a Bachelor’s in Philosophy from Rutgers University, lives in New York City, and comes from a family of activists, teachers and writers.

Ginger Mills

Administrative Operations Manager

Ginger joined MSC in April 2020 and brings with her over 20 years of administrative experience. She has held many office support roles in various industries. Her goal is to incorporate the wealth of administrative knowledge and customer service that she has acquired to equip the MSC team to best serve the community. Ginger is very passionate about nonprofit work and doing her part to contribute to the greater good. The Bay Area has been home to Ginger for her entire life; she currently resides in El Cerrito with her two sons. In her spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her village, planning events, and watching true crime documentaries.

Victoria Martinez

Executive Team Assistant

Victoria, a senior executive administrator for over 15 years, comes with experience in operations, human resources, compliance, and marketing for organizations including Mom’s Project, Uber, Paul Blanco Good Car Company, Square Peg Design, and Tavistock Group, Clorox. She joined MSC in March 2021. Victoria resides in Oakland, where she was born and raised. As much as she loves cooking and afternoons enjoying her new found love of gardening, there is nothing she is more passionate about than being a mother to her six children.

Eli Isaacs

People Operations Generalist

Eli was born in the Bay Area but lived in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Flagstaff before returning. Before joining MSC in May 2018, Eli was at Reem’s California, serving up delicious man’oushe to the community, both at the Fruitvale bakery and at farmer’s markets. Before that, he was a social worker for unhoused populations for eight years at the Housing Authority of the County of Alameda and Compass Family Services. In his free time, he enjoys hanging out with his toddler or playing soccer with Left Wing Futbol Club, founded in Oakland in 2003 by a group of lefties and activists who wanted to stay in shape to run from the cops. Fun fact: Eli won third place in a national yoyo championship when he was eight.

Sophie Hou

Innovation and Design Lead

Sophie is a design strategist, facilitator, and artist who works to transform challenges into opportunities for design and social innovation. Rooted in Buddhist practice and with over 20 years of experience in community empowerment, organizational development, and socially engaged performing and visual arts, Sophie has worked on projects with the United Nations Department of Public Information, and the Magnum Foundation’s Expanded Media, as well as an educational initiative for first-generation Chinese students. She joined MSC in February 2020 and has a Master’s in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons the New School for Design. She lives in Oakland and enjoys delicious meals, time with nature, and art making.

Frank Gargione

Communications Director

Frank is a social justice and sustainability-focused storyteller with over 15 years of experience in writing, visual storytelling, product design, and marketing strategy for lifestyle brands, publications, agencies, and nonprofits including The Boston Globe, Tommy Hilfiger, Warby Parker, and Racked.com. Frank joined MSC in February 2021 and has a Master’s in Sustainability and Social Impact in Business from Glasgow Caledonian New York College and a Bachelor’s in graphic design and journalism from Northeastern University. He lives at the Jersey Shore with his two rescue dogs and is passionate about community gardening, birdwatching, cooking, and live music.

Mohini Tadikonda

Chief Advancement Officer

Mo has over 20 years of combined strategic business leadership experience in design, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector, leading corporate philanthropy programs at PVH, and at NGOs including Custom Collaborative and North American Passive House Network, where her focus was BIPOC, immigrant, and women workers as well as environmental interventions. She also serves on the board of Her Future Coalition, an anti-human trafficking nonprofit. Mo joined MSC in January 2021 and has a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an Advanced Diploma in Coaching from NYU. She is based in New York City and is an artist and art activist with a passion for storytelling, animals, pebble beaches, and remote adventure travel.

Chrystal Ellis Sweazey

Chief Human Resources Officer

Chrystal serves as the chief human resources officer at MSC with over ten years of leadership and organizational development experience. Chrystal served as director of human resources for Hanna Boys Center, as executive director for Grattan After School Program, and was recognized for her commitment to education and leadership development by the California Department of Education in 2016. Chrystal joined MSC in April 2021 and is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary. She resides in the Bay Area, where she and her husband enjoy the great outdoors and spending time with friends and family.

Anya de Marie

Chief Fiscal Sponsorship Program Officer

Anya is an educator and strategic advisor with over 23 years of experience in organizational development, transformative education, finance, operations, and communications for organizations addressing violence, culture, and healing including MISSSEY, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and the city of Oakland. Anya has been with MSC since October 2019, has a Master’s in Women’s Spirituality from New College, and holds a CORe credential from Harvard Business School Online. She lives in Oakland where she performs in and directs Oakland Flamenco Sessions and is currently writing Potato Candy, a book about her family’s Texan Wendish heritage, cultural assimilation, memory, rituals, and textiles.

Carla Dartis

Executive Director

Carla has spent over 30 years in nonprofit management and economic development, providing support to vital community building efforts. Prior to joining MSC in October 2020, Carla was senior vice president at Tides Network, as well as vice president of Community Investment for the East Bay Community Foundation, and program officer for Children, Families, and Communities at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Carla has a BS in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and an MS in Public Policy from California State University, Long Beach. Carla enjoys Creole cooking, traveling with her teenage son and her jazz musician husband, and playing with her dog, Foo Foo Strawberry Jack BeBop.

Anasa Troutman

Board Chair

A writer, producer, and entrepreneur, Anasa has dedicated her work to the importance of culture and the power of love. As CEO of Culture Shift Creative, Anasa works to build and execute strategies for artists and organizations that are aligned with her belief in creativity as a pathway to personal, community, and global transformation. Best known for her work as strategic advisor and executive producer for long time friend India.Arie, Anasa awakened to her life’s work during her time in Atlanta, Georgia, attending Spelman College and founding Groovement/EarthSeed Music, a successful record label and collective of cutting edge, visionary musicians, performers, and writers.

Jacqueline Patterson

Board Member

Jacqui is the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Since 2007, she has served as coordinator and co-founder of Women of Color United. Jacqui has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate, and activist working on women‘s rights, HIV and AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. She also served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica. Jacqui holds a Master’s in Social Work from the University of Maryland and a Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the International Committee of the US Social Forum, and the Steering Committee for Interfaith Moral Action on Climate.

Judith LeBlanc

Board Member

Judith is a member of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma, and director of the Native Organizers Alliance, a national Native training and organizing network. She worked within MSC for four years as a member of the Transitions Lab community. At the core of her work is the belief that organizing a grassroots, durable ecosystem of Native leaders and organizers, who share a common theory of change rooted in traditional values and sacred practices, is necessary to achieve tribal sovereignty and racial equity for all. Since 2016, she has partnered with others to reestablish the right of Oceti Sakowin tribes in the Missouri River Basin to regain co-management of the bio-region. Judith is a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow.

Tomás Garduño

Board Member

Tomás works as a social justice strategist, most recently as the national field director for Mijente, an independent political home for Chicanx/Latinx organizing. He has over 20 years experience in political strategy and campaign development and worked as a community organizer, campaign manager, and strategic advisor for 22 grassroots social justice organizations, four candidate campaigns and five institutes and universities. His most formative experiences were his time as co-director of the SouthWest Organizing Project and organizer of the People’s Climate March. Tomás is a Native New Mexican Chicano, born and raised in Albuquerque. He currently lives in Brooklyn.

Sihle Dinani

Board Member, Secretary

Sihle is currently the chief financial officer at Tides Advocacy, and was previously the finance director and interim deputy director of operations at MSC. She is passionate about supporting highly impactful nonprofit infrastructure, with over 20 years of finance and operations experience. Sihle currently serves as board treasurer for Urban Tilth and has previously worked with the YMCA of San Diego County, the Garment Worker Center and other grassroots organizations. A mother, consummate volunteer and novice gardener, Sihle is dedicated to efficiency and accountability within social justice organizations. A California native, Sihle holds a degree in Economics and Accounting from Claremont McKenna College.

Taj James

Board President, Co-Founder

Taj is a father, poet, strategist, designer, and philanthropic and capital advisor. He is the founder and current board president of MSC, founding partner at Full Spectrum Capital Partners, and co-founder with Kat Taylor of The Good Life Pledge. Taj thrives on connecting community stewards and capital stewards to bring financial value into alignment with sacred values in ways that build community wealth. A graduate of Stanford University, Taj was a recipient of a Next Generation Leadership fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation and was named a “Local Hero” by The San Francisco Bay Guardian. Taj currently lives with his family in Oakland.

Kimi Lee

Board Member, Treasurer

Kimi is the lead organizer of the United Workers Congress, a new strategic alliance to build power for excluded workers and their national independent worker alliances. Her MSC work has included serving as the national coordinator for the Alliance for Educational Justice, an organization that she helped to build and shape. Kimi has been organizing and working for social justice over the past 20 years, and currently serves on the board of the Chinese Progressive Association San Francisco. She is the mother of two little girls and lives in the Bay Area.