A New Graphic Novel Celebrates Beloved Community and the Wisdom of MSC’s Transitions Initiative

Beloved Communities Network Launches Kickstarter for Ten Thousand Beloved Communities Kristen Zimmerman of Root. Rise. Pollinate! (left) and Leila McCabe of Beloved Communities Network (BCN) In the earliest and most precarious days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Leila McCabe of Beloved Communities Network (BCN) and Kristen Zimmerman of Root. Rise. Pollinate! hosted a series of powerful…

The MSC Storytelling Series: Kristen Zimmerman

In this installment we get to know activist, artist and storyteller Kristen Zimmerman — co-founder of Movement Strategy Center (MSC) and Root. Rise. Pollinate!, and illustrator of the new graphic guide Ten Thousand Beloved Communities, a project of  Beloved Communities Network.“It feels important to start to have other ways of thinking about ourselves or our…

Sharing a Cultural Recipe for Resilience

A Project Advisor at Movement Strategy Center Presents a Recipe and a Family History for Southern Black Lives The holiday season is among us — a time to celebrate, reflect, reset, and gather in community. It’s also time to prepare festive meals and share favorite dishes — many from recipes that have bounced around families for generations. The concept…

Judith LeBlanc: A Movement Icon Goes to Harvard

One of Movement Strategy Center’s Board Members Brings Native Organizing to Cambridge Judith LeBlanc isn’t just one of Movement Strategy Center’s board members — she’s a movement icon. LeBlanc, an enrolled member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, probably wouldn’t admit to her icon status. You’d more likely hear her refer to herself as a proud grandmother, a…

Sandbranch, Texas, and the Intersectionality of American Water

Movement Strategy Center Considers Water Equity, the Clean Water Act, and the Repercussions of Sackett v. EPAWater seems fairly innocuous — you open your tap and water comes out. You assume it’s safe, it’s clean, it’s drinkable. Maybe you prefer Poland Spring or Lacroix, or you use a Brita, but you assume you can drink your water. You certainly feel comfortable…

The How of Transformative Change

MSC Board Member, Tomas Garduno, on Getting to the “How,” and Other Insights from the Transitions Labs Originally published on December 2, 2014 A few weeks ago I got to spend two days in Oakland with a tremendous group of wonderful people brought together by the Movement Strategy Center. We came together to explore one big question: how do we transition from a world of domination and…

Changing Funder Habits to Change the Game

Justice Funder’s Co-Director, Dana Kawaoka-Chen on the Habit Shifting Takeaways from the Transitions Labs Originally published on December 12, 2014 We need new habits — philanthropic habits, that is. We need new habits that reflect the state of our country as it is now: a first world nation where young Black men are 21 times more likely than their White peers to be killed by…

A Black-owned Farm Blooms
in Sonoma County

Inspired by Octavia E. Butler, Pandora Thomas Grows Fruit and Community at EARTHseed Farm As climate disasters dominate headlines, and rent hikes, state-sponsored violence, and union-busting billionaires fuel social inequalities, the premise of the Parable Series, sci-fi books by the beloved ancestor and New York Times best-selling writer Octavia E. Butler, can feel more like prophecy than…

Honoring the Legacy of Sandbranch:
Yesterday and Today

In its 142-year history, the town of Sandbranch, Texas, has seen many births and deaths. Today, this unincorporated village outside Dallas is attempting a long overdue rebirth — but residents here, devoted to their community but envisioning a safer, cleaner, and more flourishing version of it — don’t look forward without looking back.  In 1878, an intrepid group of people from…

Everything You Need to Know About 988

Movement Strategy Center Chats with Tansy Hall McNulty, Founder and CEO of One Million Madly Motivated Moms (1M4), About the Launch of 988 On July 16, 2022, 988 is finally going live — a sort of sister service to 911, 988 will replace the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255, which will remain in service after July 16) as a nationwide number for…