Our Mission
MSC is a movement support organization that weaves, builds, and amplifies power to accelerate a Just Transition through our fiscal sponsorship, philanthropic services, and capacity-building offerings. We are unique in that we do not operate as a singular organization, but as a collective ecosystem incubating and accelerating the work of our partner projects, which speaks to our values of radical interdependence and love.
Our Vision
We believe in a Just Transition from a world of domination, extraction, and violence — where the few live at the expense of the many — to a world of interdependence, liberation, and resilience. A future where the many govern for the benefit of all. We understand that a Just Transition is only possible when all voices are not merely tolerated, but are honored, celebrated, and amplified.
Our Founding
Movement Strategy Center (MSC) was founded in Oakland, California, in 2001 by Taj James of Full Spectrum Labs, Kristin Zimmerman of Root. Rise. Pollinate!, and Lisa Russ, a social justice consultant, with the understanding that grassroots transformative movements intending to change structures and systems must also change the way we think, the way we live, and even who we are. Transformative movements recognize that our issues are interconnected; our solutions must be, too. We have supported movement makers on a local and national level as they effect change — movement by movement and person by person, from the roots up — for over 20 years.
MSC was inspired by and grounded in the 60/40 Stance, a mind-body transformative practice that fosters powerful change. Developed by MSC mentor Norma Wong, the practice explores individual and collective purpose and the unconscious habits that can limit or feed our capacity as movement builders.
Elements of Movement Building
MSC has built on significant learnings over two decades exploring how best to support a Just Transition to a world of regenerative relationships between people and planet. MSC’s approach is grounded in four elements that we believe are the core of Transformative Movement Building: Audacious Vision, Deep Embodiment, Radical Connection, Strategic Navigation.
A core component of MSC’s work has been the Transitions Initiative, an inquiry-based approach to discovering shared purpose and vision, cultivating a 100-year vision, building beloved community, and co-generating the strategies needed to transform our world. MSC facilitated these discussions through a series of strategic Transitions Labs that aimed to nurture transformation as a spiritual commitment, build communities of practice, and strengthen leaders as they set out to do the radical work of transformative movement building in the face of systemic injustices.
Over years of applied practice and exploration, the Transitions Initiative evolved into a robust ecosystem of leaders and initiatives implementing the practices of transformative movement building with their respective communities. Continuing to grow alongside them, MSC no longer formally encompasses these works, but the purpose, vision, and ethos of the Transitions Initiative still inform and infuse every MSC partnership — helping ground leaders in their purpose, inspiring them to believe in their vision, and offering them the space and the tools to practice, experiment, and thrive.
These labs, practices, and communities of purpose continue to expand within our Movement Strategy Network (MSN) — a Transitions Community focusing on MSC’s core commitment to interconnected transformative movements in the spheres of Social Justice, Racial Equity, and Movement Building.
Anchored by Beloved Communities Network and People’s Climate Innovation Center, two foundational projects that represent the essence of this work, these guideposts inform all of our partnerships.
Leadership Demographics
Our partner organizations are led by a diverse coalition of movement makers who represent our rejection of the systemic racism and sexism inherent in philanthropy and society as a whole.
