A person holds a poster board sign that reads #Black Lives Matter. They are surrounded by people holding candles in the dark of the night.

#BlackLivesMatter: “It’s About How We Are Together”

With Great Love, MSC Offers This Excerpt From Love With Power: Practicing Transformation for Social Justice by Julie Quiroz and Kristen ZimmermanOriginally published on February 12, 2015. In early October 2014, Alicia Garza arrived in Ferguson, Missouri. Less than two months after Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael…

Young activists hold their fists in the air while holding a variety of poster board signs.

It’s Time for Healing-centered Youth Organizing

How Personal Healing and Social Change can be Aligned for Transformative Movement Building by Nicole LeeOriginally published on April 15, 2015. As an activist and youth organizer who deeply values the power of healing and transformation, I have come to see that too often, within our movement, “healing” and “social change” occupy two separate spaces that have…

Calling for Love With Power

With Great Love, MSC Offers This Excerpt From Love With Power: Practicing Transformation for Social Justice by Julie Quiroz and Kristen ZimmermanOriginally Published on February 12, 2015. We, humanity, need a movement, a really big movement.  A movement big and bold enough to get us out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into, and one that will get us to a…

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 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 conversations with ecosystem buddies including Aisha Shillingford of Intelligent…

The MSC Storytelling Series: Kristen Zimmerman

Our Storytelling Series Features the Folks Most Associated With MSC's History: Meet 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…

Sharing a Cultural Recipe for Resilience

A Project Advisor at Movement Strategy Center Presents a Recipe and a Family History for Southern Black LivesThe 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 of sharing…

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 Tomás Garduño on Getting to the “How,” and Other Insights From the Transitions LabsOriginally 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…

Changing Funder Habits to Change the Game

Justice Funder’s Co-Director Dana Kawaoka-Chen on the Habit Shifting Takeaways From the Transitions LabsOriginally 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…