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

Advisory Board

Trainers & Coaches

STAFF

Christi Clark

Co-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. When she is not nerding- out about organizing, she likes to hike in the woods, ride her bike and build Legos with her kids.

Clarise McCants

Co-Director

(she/her)

Clarise is a proud Philadelphia native who has been in a commitment to radical movement building for over 10 years. She’s worn a few hats, including rapid-response campaigning, narrative strategy, org building, and facilitation. Moved by her own family experience with the carceral system, in 2014 Clarise started mobilizing campaigns in defense of criminalized survivors & victims of police violence. She cut her teeth as a national campaign director working with local community organizations across the country to win campaigns to free unjustly incarcerated folks, hold prosecutors accountable, and end cash bail. In that work, she fell in love with the extension of possibility that happens when organizations come together to do something bigger than any one org ever could. Her interest in coalition-building brought her to return to her hometown in 2020 where, prior to joining the Organizing Center, she was Director of Strategic Alliances at the Movement Alliance Project—working to build coalition infrastructure that can sustain Philly's movement ecosystem. She’s interested in how we collectively build the organizational resilience and capacities to revitalize our movements’ ability to galvanize the leadership of everyday people at the scale necessary to build power.

Shakiya Canty

Resilience and Movement Ecosystems 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.

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.

Omi Masika

Movement Technologist

(they/them)

Omi is an educator who started their community education practice in 2010. They come from a strong youth work and facilitation background, and their work spans many realms - working with groups such as the Trans Youth Support Network, the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition, Neighborhood Bike Works, Training for Change, as well as in academic settings and with various organizing groups. Prior to joining The Organizing Center, they served as a coach for organizers and facilitators eager to increase their confidence and their skills, worked in health care as an EMT in a Critical Care setting from 2018-2021, and most recently served as the Director of Member Technology for the community sustained fishery (CSF), Fishadelphia. Additionally, they currently coach soccer with the Kensington Soccer Club. They balance their "doing the most" energy by spending time in nature, connecting to music, eating, and hanging with their pup.

ADVISORY BOARD

We are evaluating our current Advisory Board structure and recruiting new members. If you would like to serve on our Advisory Board, please see a description here and email us at info@theorganizingcenter.org

MORE INFO COMING SOON

TRAINERS & COACHES

Marisol Ocampo

she/her

Marisol has over 20 years of experience helping to build and develop various types of grassroots organizations fighting for change. Marisol is the daughter and granddaughter of revolutionaries native to Abya Yala ( aka The Americas) from whom she inherited the commitment to fight to see the colonized and oppressed peoples of this continent emancipated, in solidarity with oppressed peoples all over the world, and in right relation with the natural world.

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.

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.

Sara Yukimoto-Saltman

she/they

Sara is a queer, Asian-American, nisei Japanese and Anti-Zionist Jewish facilitator, educator, and artist. Sara supports non-hierarchical collectives, worker-owned cooperatives, and movement organizations align their internal practices and structures with their commitments to justice and liberation. Sara is also a member of an anti-carceral peer counseling collective and a core team member of Hawai’i’s JVP chapter. Sara enjoys puttering around on her stoop garden, cooking meals for loved ones, and making art. For more on Sara’s work, please visit sarayukimi.org

SunyoungStrait

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 based in Philadelphia, PA and remain passionate advocates of workers rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ issues, and mental health.

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.

Christi Clark

she/her

Tierra Ragland

she/her

Tierra has 10-plus years of experience in facilitation, coaching, organizing, leadership development, electoral politics, and holding space for cultural shifts and complex social-political conversations. She currently works at State Voices, supporting organizations to fight for a strong, multiracial democracy. She lives in Richmond, VA.

Clarise McCants

she/her

Clarise has been in movement work for over 10 years playing many roles including campaigner, digital organizer, narrative strategist, and facilitator. Being moved by her own family experiences with the carceral system, Clarise started with mobilizing campaigns in defense of criminalized survivors & victims of police violence. She cut her teeth working with community organizations across the country on campaigns around prosecutor accountability and ending cash bail; rooted in a commitment to an abolition. In that work, she fell in love with the extension of possibility that happens when organizations come together to do something bigger than any one org ever could. She currently lives in her hometown of Philadelphia and works as a facilitator and strategist at the Movement Alliance Project to build infrastructure that can support & sustain Philly's movement ecosystem.

Lai Wa Wu

she/her

Lai Wa Wu is a leader and coach dedicated to creating transformative spaces that center healing, justice, and community empowerment. Born in Hong Kong and raised in the Midwest, Lai Wa’s work focuses on empowering BIPOC communities through community organizing, leadership development, organizational support and coaching that fosters levity, joy, and ease. Most recently, Lai Wa served as the Policy and Alliance Director at the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). During her tenure at CPA, she led their Our Healing in Our Hands campaign, securing $1.5 million to expand access to culturally competent mental health services for youth of color in San Francisco. This victory was part of a broader vision to create schools that are safe, supportive and welcoming for all students. Prior to her work at CPA, Lai Wa worked with Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), AFSCME, and the Student Immigrant Movement, where she deepened her commitment to advancing racial and social justice through base-building organizing. She remains dedicated to building organizational capacity and coaching spaces that empower working-class BIPOC communities to thrive and lead.

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.

Cara Tratner

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.

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.

David Haiman

he/him

David Haiman (he-him) 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. These skills and perspectives have helped to develop Movement Matters into an effective and dynamic capacity building organization. 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. As part of this organizational infrastructure building, David has also initiated and led programs to recruit and train board members for grassroots organizing groups. His extensive work at the organizational level has led to David’s strength in working with coalitions. He has anchored training, planning, and strategy development processes for local, state-wide, and national coalition groups, ranging from the DC Cancel Rent Coalition to Virginia's Climate and Equity Working Group to the national Communities for Public Education Reform network. In these roles, David has brought visionary thinking grounded in practical application to allow coalitions to connect immediate, implementable steps with a long-term vision of radical transformation. In addition to working with grassroots organizations, David has also led work to strengthen the way foundations and philanthropy support work grounded in racial equity and systems change. Through one-on-one consulting, training, and the development of reports, he has worked with small family funds and larger endowed foundations to shape both what they fund and how they fund it. As part of this work, and alongside other members of the Movement Matters team, David co-created a “Community Organizing for Funders” training designed to give philanthropic staff the knowledge and understanding they need to better support and grow organizing work. David has also co-led the establishment of Movement Matters’ nationally recognized training program. He has co-developed the curriculum and led the training of hundreds of participants in Movement Matters' weeklong Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute and Advanced Trainings in Facilitation Skills for Organizers, Strategic Communications and Media Development, and Advanced Popular Education. In addition, David has adapted Movement Matters’ training curriculum into a weeklong Immigrant Youth Organizing Institute.

Jennine Miller

she/her

Jennine has over 25 years of experience organizing with affordable housing, economic justice, and voter rights movements. Jennine’s coalition-building skills support campaigns to strengthen their reach and amplify the voices of those most impacted by discriminatory laws and policies. Jennine is a co-founder of the Training For Change Organizing Skills Institute. As a gleaner and gardener, she finds joy sharing food with neighbors and friends.

Janelle Lapointe

she/her

Janelle Lapointe is an Afro-Indigenous climate justice and Indigenous rights organizer from Stellat’en First Nation, a small Indigenous community in so-called Canada. With years of experience in grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, and political education, she is deeply committed to building strong, leaderful movements that challenge the status quo. Janelle’s work centers on the power of multi-racial and multi-national solidarity, ensuring that climate and Indigenous rights movements are intersectional, justice-driven, and impossible to ignore. She brings a wealth of experience in campaign strategy, coalition building, climate policy, Indigenous rights, and community-led resistance, always with a focus on power-building and collective action. As a trainer and facilitator, she is passionate about equipping communities with the tools they need to fight for a just future. She is currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Estrella Diaz

she/they

Estrella is a dedicated organizer and leader with over a decade of experience in grassroots organizing, community engagement, and leadership development. As the Deputy Director of Organizing at the Center for Popular Democracy, she shapes organizing strategies, supports large-scale outreach efforts, and creates tailored training programs to boost organizational strength. Estrella has trained hundreds of organizers and leaders nationwide, focusing on building strong people’s organizations and leading impactful campaigns that challenge existing power structures. Her commitment to social justice and racial equity is deeply personal, driving her passion for empowering people and fostering transformative leadership.

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. Roksana is a Bangladeshi-born immigrant raised in NYC and the proud daughter of a domestic worker and a taxi driver.

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.

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.

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

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.

Camilo Sol

he/him

Camilo Sol is the national organizer of membership at The Rising Majority, a national coalition of cross sectoral, multi-class and multi-racial organizations building collective power and alignment across our movements. Prior to this role, he was at Seed the Vote helping grassroots organizations build their base, win elections, and build political power in battleground states. His formative years were spent as a housing rights organizer 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 immigrant tenants. He held roles in steering committees of multiple coalitions, including the Right to the City national alliance. He served as the deputy director of programs before transitioning out. Camilo helped lead and win two key ballot initiative campaigns that brought the strongest tenant protections yet to Oakland, and played leadership roles in San Francisco Rising Action and Oakland Rising Action Funds helping elect local community champions. He’s proud of his trans, queer, first generation immigrant, and SF Nicoya identities. Some of his passions are coaching and helping other organizers reach their full potential - and making playlists and kayaking! You can find him on a porch in his new home in the South.

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