GET TO KNOW US
We have a powerful team of staff, facilitators, trainers and coaches who bring combined decades of experience organizing for, and winning, power. Our team has worked with groups at the forefront of the fights for housing, public education, healthcare, immigration, and mass liberation. Our team brings experience developing participatory, experiential trainings and can facilitate processes that support groups to make decisions and struggle well together. Take a look below for more details.
STAFF
SHAKIYA CANTY, PROGRAM DIRECTOR
(she/her)
Shakiya is a 4th generation West Philadelphian who enjoys identifying innovative approaches and improved solutions to social movement and organizational challenges. Previously, she spent 5 years serving as an organizer in Brooklyn, NY and Philadelphia, PA, where she helped leaders and coalitions to win policy changes for housing, sanitation, and transportation. She has deep interests in healing justice, the intersection of spirituality and organizing, and economic alternatives and believes that Collective Power, Love, and Imagination are the tools necessary to create the world we wish to see.
CHRISTI CLARK, DIRECTOR
(she/her)
Christi brings over twenty years of community and labor organizing experience where she developed the leadership, organization and coalitions necessary to win. Prior to founding The Organizing Center she built strong unions, won policy changes that decriminalized black and brown high school youth, and led a campaign that won $100M for affordable housing in Philly. She believes people power is the only way to win and that another world is possible.
KRISTIN SCHWAB, WORKSHOP DIRECTOR
(she/her)
Kristin is a dynamic leader and facilitator who supports political education, leadership development, and collective governance within organizations, cooperative businesses, and schools. Her involvement in intergenerational multi-racial cross-class food justice movements as a young person inspires her work today. Kristin loves supporting fellow white people to find their stake and role in our liberation movements and bringing people together around a love-filled meal. She is deeply committed to building a world where we are all free, sharing power, and living joyous lives.
ADVISORY BOARD
We are so grateful for our Advisory Board members who bring years of organizing and facilitation experience to this collective project. Their commitment to liberation for people and planet keeps us grounded and focused on our mission.
Michelle Crentsil (she/her)
Political Director, NYSNA
Estrella Diaz (she/her)
Senior Organizing Manager,
Center for Popular Democracy
Arielle Klagsbrun (she/her)
Deputy Campaign Manager, ACRE
Bryan Mercer (he/him)
Executive Director,
Movement Alliance Project
Alison Stohr (she/her)
Chief of Staff
Councilmember Kendra Brooks
Sunyoung Strait (they/them)
Organizer/ Coach
Eboni Taggart (she/her)
Program Director
Deep Canvass Institute
Sarah Turbow (she/her)
Principal
Sarah Turbow Consulting
Noah T. Winer (he/him)
Senior Partner
Dragonfly Partners, LLC
TRAINERS & COACHES
David Hunt
he/him
For over 30 years David has worked with a diverse and eclectic range of clients – from local and national non-profit community organizations and foundations to colleges, universities, social change and grassroots organizations, religious institutions, and government at all levels. His energetic, charismatic, and fun-loving spirit supports organizations to to reflect, enjoy, learn, and grow together as they resolve conflict, plan strategically and organize powerfully
Eboni Taggart
she/her
With over 15 years of experience in community building, Eboni has maximized the leadership skills of community members, teachers, youth, and parents to advocate for transformative systemic change on issues that impact their lives. She has also supported organizations on outreach, strategy, program management, leadership development and political education.
Diana Waters
she/her
Diana is a social justice educator, trainer and facilitator based in Philadelphia, PA. For over thirty years, Diana has facilitated, trained, and coached individuals and groups in conflict resolution, experiential education, leadership development, mediation, and principled disagreement. She believes that these skills are critical for strong, empowered organizations and communities committed to fighting for justice. Supporting people in rising to mutual power across differences is her superpower and Transformative Education and storytelling are Diana’s two loves.
MJ McClure
they/them
Molly (also known as MJ) has worked with social justice organizations for 20 years doing facilitation, training, and organizational development. They live in Oakland, CA and spent the last 14 years at Causa Justa :: Just Cause, building people-power to challenge gentrification and criminalization. They are passionate about growing movements that can win powerful systemic change and be spaces of connection and joy. MJ loves using leadership development and political education as tools to help groups and movements thrive.
Hiram Rivera
he/him
Hiram has over 15 years of community organizing experience as a lead organizer and trainer working on issues of education justice, criminal and juvenile justice across the country. He currently serves as the founding director of the Community Resource Hub for Safety & Accountability. The Hub is a resource for local advocates and organizers working to address the harms of policing in the U.S. and seeking to cultivate community safety and accountability outside of the criminal legal system.
Andrew Willis Garcés
he/him
Andrew is a lifelong Southerner shaped and inspired by the Southern grassroots organizing tradition and also by the communities of resistance from his maternal homeland of Colombia. He founded and led Siembra NC under the Trump Administration, and has worked with dozens of unions and grassroots community organizations over the last two decades as an organizer, strategist, communications consultant and trainer. He also hosts Training for Change's Craft of Campaigns podcast. You can read some of his writing at The Forge, Truthout, Waging Nonviolence, Convergence, In These Times.
Marta Vizueta Bohórquez
she/her
Marta de los Ángeles Vizueta Bohórquez is a popular educator and community organizer in Washington, DC, as well as the principal and founder of Movement Matters. She brings extensive experience in working in multiracial, multi-ethnic, and multilingual contexts with grassroots communities of color, and in supporting the development of social justice organizations with deep core values and strong administrative capacities. Originally from an Ecuadorian family grounded in liberation theology, Marta began organizing in Black and first and second-generation immigrant communities in Washington in 1997.
David Haiman
he/him
David S. Haiman is a principal and co-founder of Movement Matters. His 25+ years of experience in movement work has led to a deep understanding of racial and economic justice, transformative facilitation techniques, and the mechanics of popular education and movement-based community organizing. David has worked with grassroots organizations like Detroit Action, ROC-DC, and Young People for Progress to develop their member engagement structures, support strategic campaign development, and build movement oriented organizing cultures. This work combines deep relationship building and accompaniment of individual staff members along with an understanding of how to build needed organizational infrastructure and capacity.
Sunyoung Strait
they/them
Sunyoung was born in the Oakland, CA area after their parents immigrated from South Korea. After obtaining their Master’s Degree in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, and Peacebuilding, Sunyoung spent 12 years leading thousands of union members in campaigns all across the country to fight for better wages and working conditions. During their time in labor they led dozens of campaigns - including multiple successful strike campaigns. The pinnacle of their career was leading the largest successful nursing home strike campaign in PA history. They are currently working with leaders of the AANHPI community supporting organizations with organizing training, facilitation, leadership development, and coaching. They are currently based in Philadelphia, PA and remain passionate advocates of workers rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ issues, and mental health.
Nico Amador
he/him
Nico is a writer, popular educator and community organizer from San Diego, currently living in rural Vermont. His prior work has included efforts to fight mass incarceration, win a living wage and end a public transportation system policy that discriminated against trans and non-binary passengers in Philadelphia. As a trainer and facilitator, he’s led hundreds of workshops to promote skills and analysis among people using direct action and other grassroots strategies to create social change in the U.S. and abroad.
Camilo Sol
he/him
Camilo is the managing director at Seed the Vote (STV). Prior to joining STV he was the deputy director of programs at Causa Justa :: Just Cause where he was trained as a transformative organizer and played a key role in building local, regional, and statewide coalitions with a local base of working class Black and Latinx tenants in order to build power and create positive change for tenants. He served on the steering committees of multiple coalitions, including the Right to the City national alliance. He’s proud of his trans, queer, and first generation immigrant identities, and appreciative of his adopted home of Oakland and his SF Nicoya roots. You can find him rooting for the Warriors from his new home in the South.
Roksana Mun
she/her
Roksana organized with DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving since 2003 when members of her family and community were detained and deported through Special Registration. Since then, Roksana has been a youth organizer, organizing working-class, immigrant Desi youth in NYC public high schools fighting to end the School-to-Prison-Deportation and Low-Wage-Jobs-Pipeline and later served as DRUM’s Director of Strategy and Training, leading racial, immigrant and education justice campaigns and the political education and organizing trainings of organizers, leaders and members. She firmly believes it is the responsibility of our movements to center the leadership of impacted, frontline communities to direct and lead change. Roksana is a Bangladeshi-born immigrant raised in NYC and the proud daughter of a domestic worker and a taxi driver.
Alexa Malishchak
she/her
Alexa Malishchak (she/her) is a facilitator, Spanish-English interpreter, and labor organizer with experience in both worker center and union organizing. She's organized alongside low-wage workers to successfully recover unpaid wages; alongside hospitality workers to win union recognition and good union contracts; and in coalitions which have won public policy changes for employed and unemployed workers. She believes in solidarity and people power. She grew up in New Jersey and now happily calls Philadelphia home.
TRAINING COHORT
To support the growing demand for our public workshops we are piloting a Training Cohort program in 2023. Members of the cohort are responsible for co-facilitating our 2023 workshop series in organizing conversations, leadership development, campaign strategy, and coalition building. These trainers are rooted in organizing and are ready to share their hard-earned wisdom, grow their training skills and deepen their ability to teach the organizing skills that help us win and shift power.
Eleanor Liu
she/her
Eleanor has over a decade of experience as a facilitator and educator, working in schools, grassroots organizations and collectives. For seven years she focused on housing rights, working directly with tenants fighting to stay in their homes and developing stronger systems to train and support tenant counselors. Whether she is facilitating workshops on creative writing or tenants rights, self defense or transformative justice, Eleanor loves holding space for others to connect, play, and step into their own power. She lives in Oakland, CA.
Jennifer Maldonado (J-Mo)
she/her
J-Mo, as her community calls her, was born and raised in East Los Angeles. She got involved in organizing at the age 16 with InnerCity Struggle(ICS)–organizing her peers in the Eastside for educational justice. She got her first job at ICS as a fellow from the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) and began organizing young people in her community. She's found it rewarding to witness the growth of young people and all they bring to the movement. She then started working with parents to fight for tenant rights. Housing justice is her current interest, passion, mission to create transformative change. Currently, she works as the Program Manager at FCYO supporting organizations across the country in grounding assessments to sharpen our collective movement building approach.
Aurora Muñoz
she/her
Aurora is a Texas Chicana with a deep love for South Philadelphia. She has a decade of experience in reproductive health, migrant health, and community and labor organizing. Alongside immigrants and youth, she worked to uphold language justice laws, increase spending in youth health programs, and implement policy change in health education in DC Public Schools. She currently leads leadership development and political education programming for domestic workers in Philadelphia. She believes that movement work needs profound joy and beauty, along with fruitful tension and conflict.
Lily Rorick
she/her
Lily is an organizer who has spent the last five years organizing with the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration and Amistad Law Project to end life without parole sentences in PA. She focuses on leadership development and base building. She grew up in Seattle in a family of seven, where she quickly learned facilitation and organizing skills. Lily’s politicization began at her public high school when students walked out to protest cuts to state education funding, and continued in college as she watched the Ferguson uprisings from afar and got involved with the local chapter of the NAACP. Lily’s commitment to abolition is rooted in her understanding that a world being built through Black-led abolitionist movements is a world with less violence and exploitation, where everyone can get the resources they need to thrive, where people are seen as people and not consumers or things.
Cara Tratner
they/them, she/her
Cara brings a decade of experience as a facilitator, organizer, and harm reduction practitioner. They live in Philadelphia where they organize at the intersection of housing justice and mass liberation. They have been working towards prison abolition in Philly for the past seven years through campaigns to shut down jails and end pretrial detention. They also like working with other white people to unlearn the trauma of supremacy and find their stake in collective liberation. Cara dreams of a world without prisons or police and a world of interdependence where we keep each other safe. They strive to embody the radical imagination, rigor, and rebellious joy it will take to get there. They love bringing music and song into movement spaces!
Diana Waters
she/her
Diana is a social justice educator, trainer and facilitator based in Philadelphia, PA. For over thirty years, Diana has facilitated, trained, and coached individuals and groups in conflict resolution, experiential education, leadership development, mediation, and principled disagreement. She believes that these skills are critical for strong, empowered organizations and communities committed to fighting for justice. Supporting people in rising to mutual power across differences is her superpower and Transformative Education and storytelling are Diana’s two loves.
We don't work alone
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