| MOIRA BOWMAN does research and outreach
for the Money in Politics Research Action Project. The Project exposes
the role of money in politics and works to increase access to electoral
power. Moira has ten years of experience in a range of social change work. |
| BREE CARLSON is the Exchange
Project Trainer for the Peace Development
Fund, which provides training in Organizational Development and Dismantling
Racism. Bree began DR training a year and a half ago while working for
the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. |
| AMY CASSO is currently Development Coordinator
for Oregon's immigrant rights coalition, CAUSA. A Chicana, Amy has devoted
her energies over the last six years to social justice work within her community
and for CAUSA. |
| KIM COOK is Western Regional
Director of District 925 - SEIU based
in Seattle. She has over ten years of experience working with trade union
staff and leaders. 925 and SEIU are organizing child care employees in
many parts of the West. |
| STACI COTLER is director of Open Hand Self-Defense
school, has been teaching self-defense and doing anti-sexual/domestic violence
work since 1987. Staci has collaborated with Sisters in Action for Power
for the last fiveyears and believes that self-defense is integral to social
justice organizing. |
| WULA DAWSON is an organizer
with Sex Worker Action Group (SWAG) which mobilizes women in the sex industry.
WuLa is also a women’s Self-Defense instructor certified by Movements in
Change, an artist and a gardener. |
| LIBERO DELLA PIANA is Senior Research
Associate at the Applied Reseach Center
and media coordinator for the ERASE (Expose Racism and Advance School Excellence)
Initiative. He edited ARC’s "RaceFile" and won the '97 Bannerman Fellowship
for young organizers of color. |
| LIZ DUEKER is Associate
Director of Project Underground, an
environmental and human rights organization dedicated to supporting communities
threatened by mining and oil corporations. A 29-year-old butch trans/dyke,
she’s been doing dismantling racism, organizational development, and organizing
work for over 6 years. |
| TRANG DUONG works for the Alaskan
AIDS Assistance Association. A member of the Community Funding Panel
of Astraea Foundation based in New York, Trang has also been active with
queer community activism at the local and state level in Anchorage, Alaska. |
| ENVIRONMENTAL & ECONOMIC
JUSTICE PROJECT (EEJP) is based at AGENDA, a grassroots community organization
in Los Angeles, and works to build the long-term capacity of environmental
and economic justice organizations and networks nationally by providing
community organizing training and strategic facilitation. |
| JIM FLEISCHMANN has been a community
organizer for the last twenty-five years. He’s currently executive director
of Oregon Action, development
director for Montana People's Action, and on the board of the Northwest
Federation of Community Organizations. |
| LEE FLINN is an organizer
for the Idaho Women's Network. She has worked on many issues?fighting anti-gay
initiatives, supporting reproductive rights, working for economic justice?and
is part of Western States Center's dismantling racism regional training
team. |
| ANDREW (GINOOZHE) GOKEE - Bear Clan, Red
Cliff Anishinaabe - was was born on the Red Cliff Chippewa Reservation
(Wisconsin) into a family tradition of grass-roots activism. Transcending
considerable barriers to pursue higher education, he served his community
in various capacities including tribal court judge, economic planner, and
executive director. Currently, he is a graduate student at the University
of Wisconsin, pursuing a long-term commitment to help preserve and retain
native languages among the Ojibwe communities of the upper Great Lakes
area. |
| TOM GOLDTOOTH is Director
of the Indigenous Environmental
Network (IEN), a grassroots organization that addresses environmental
and economic justice issues impacting Indigenous Peoples and their environment.
He chairs the Indigenous Peoples Sub-Committee of the EPA’s National Environmental
Justice Advisory Council. |
| ZOLTAN GROSSMAN is co-founder of the
Midwest
Treaty Network, which has helped organize a strong multiracial rural
coalition of Native Americans, grassroots environmentalists, and white
sportsmen to protect Wisconsin’s fishery from the threat of metallic sulfide
mining. He is also a geographer/cartographer, studying Indigenous rights
and ethnic conflict management. |
| NANCY HAQUE is an organizer
with Portland Jobs with Justice.
She works on international solidarity issues and global economic issues
including the fight against sweatshops and the WTO. She has also worked
on the Portland Living Wage campaign. |
| KAREN HESS has over 20 years experience as
an educator and trainer in the public and private sectors and is a founding
member of the Idaho Women's Network (IWN). She is also a member of the
Western States Center’s dismantling racism regional training team. |
| MIMI HO is co-director of Californians
for Justice (CFJ), and has extensive experience as a volunteer and
organizer against anti-affirmative action, anti-bilingual education, anti-union,
anti-youth, and anti-gay/ lesbian ballot initiatives. |
| DAN HOROWITZ is the Program Director with
Project
South. For the last 10 years he has worked as a labor and community
organizer with a special focus on human rights education. |
| SHANEVA JACKSON is
14 years old and a graduate of Sisters in Action for Power’s leadership
development program. Sisters’ mission is to empower low income girls and
girls of color ages 11-19 to take leadership in their communities; work
intergenerationally with low income women and women of color to build a
community based organization; and develop community driven campaigns to
address social and economic injustice. Sheneva is an intern at the organization
and co-teacher at Open Hand. |
| KIM JANEY is an organizer with Parents
United for Child Care. PUCC is a Boston based, statewide membership
organization of low and moderate income parents working to increase access
and supply of affordable, quality child care. |
| TAMMY JOHNSON is the
National Organizer of the Applied Research
Center’s ERASE Initiative (Expose Racism and Advance School Excellence).
She formerly served as a community organizer with Wisconsin Citizen Action
and Progressive Milwaukee. |
| CLIFF JONES is senior associate with Technical
Assistance for Community Services and specializes in organizational
development, workplace diversity, unlearning racism & building multicultural
alliances. |
| WALDA KATZ-FISHMAN
is professor of sociology at Howard University and Board Chair of Project
South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide. She
serves on the board of Ecumenical Program on Central America & the
Caribbean and has helped to develop popular education tools that help transform
society. |
| TERRY KELEHER is Program Director of the
Applied
Research Center’s ERASE (Expose Racism and Advance School Excellence)
Initiative. He has 20 years’ experience as a community organizer and co-founded
the National Organizers Alliance. |
| JEN KERN directs ACORN’sNational
Living Wage Resource Center, providing organizing strategy and material
support to labor, religious organizations, and community coalitions that
are building the living wage movement. She has over three years experience
working on the living wage issue and has worked in ACORN’s national office
since 1993. |
| LABOR/COMMUNITY
STRATEGY CENTER, a multi-racial "think tank/act tank," organizes to
address all aspects of urban life through class-conscious labor organizing,
fighting for environmental justice, immigrant rights and mass transportation,
as well as actively confronting the growing criminalization, racialization,
and feminization of poverty. LCSC synthesizes grassroots organizing, education
and policy development, publications, the National School for Strategic
Organizing, and gatherings of activists and scholars to generate a creative
and aggressive response to the growing power of the corporate-led political
Right. |
| GREG LeROY won the Stern
Family Fund’s Public Interest Pioneer Award to launch Good
Jobs First (GJF), a project of the Institute
on Taxation and Economic Policy. GJF is a national clearinghouse helping
constituency-based organizations & policy makers hold corporations
accountable. For over 20 years Greg has focused on economic development
issues such as plant closings and the effective use of development incentives. |
| LAKITA LOGAN is 20 years old and an organizer
at Sister in Action for Power. Sisters’ mission is to empower low income
girls and girls of color ages 11-19 to take leadership in their communities;
work intergenerationally with low income women and women of color to build
a community based organization; and develop community driven campaigns
to address social and economic injustice. |
| DARLENE LOMBOS is 25
years old and an organizer at Sister in Action for Power. Sisters’ mission
is to empower low income girls and girls of color ages 11-19 to take leadership
in their communities; work intergenerationally with low income women and
women of color to build a community based organization; and develop community
driven campaigns to address social and economic injustice. |
| NORMA MARTINEZ is L.A. Lead Organizer
for Californians for Justice (CFJ),
with extensive experience organizing against anti-affirmative action, anti-bilingual
education, anti-union, anti-youth, and anti-gay/lesbian ballot initiatives. |
| DEBI MCNUTT is co-founder
of the Midwest Treaty Network,
a Native and non-Native grassroots alliance founded in 1989 when Wisconsin
Ojibwe (Chippewa) were under attack for exercising their treaty-backed
spearfishing rights. She is also on the Committee on Women, Population
and the Environment steering committee. |
| HOLLY MINCH is Media Trainer & Strategist
for the SPIN Project, assisting
groups nationwide with media skills training and strategic support. SPIN
helps grow the capacity of grassroots groups to shape public opinion and
win positive media attention. |
| SCOT NAKAGAWA is a civil
and human rights organizer involved in the Hawaiian movement, queer rights
activism, and anti-fascist research and education. He’s on the sponsoring
committee of the Western Prison Project, and the board of the World Council
of Churches U.S. Urban-Rural Mission. |
| KATIE NUNEZ-ADLER |
| TEMA OKUN has worked for
20 years providing fundraising, long-range strategic planning, leadership
and staff development help for grassroots social justice organizations.
She has been co-leading dismantling racism workshops for over 6 years. |
| JOAN OLSSON has been a social change activist
and educator for three decades. She is the founder and director of cultural
bridges, offering training programs to dismantle oppression and forge justice
in organizations and communities. |
| YVONNE PAUL is currently
an organizer for Californians for
Justice. Although now based in Los Angeles, her political organizing
roots lie in Salt Lake City. She is a member of Western States Center’s
dismantling racism regional training team. |
| AMARA HAYDÉE PÉREZ is
29 years old and director of Sisters in Action for Power. Sisters’ mission
is to empower low income girls and girls of color ages 11-19 to take leadership
in their communities; work intergenerationally with low income women and
women of color to build a community based organization; and develop community
driven campaigns to address social and economic injustice. |
| LAURA PIERCE lives in
Seattle and consults with community organizations on board training &
development, strategic planning and fundraising. Before launching her consulting
business she was Outreach Director for the Pride
Foundation. |
| JOHN POMERANZ is the Nonprofit Advocacy
Counsel at the Alliance for Justice
and has many years of legal expertise. He works with non-profit groups
around the country to enhance their capacity to participate in the policy
process. |
| JOHN POWELL is executive
director for the Institute on Race &
Poverty, which conducts research and promotes progressive public policy
on a range of issues, including: urban problems associated with sprawl;
gentrification; concentrated poverty; and welfare reform. He is former
national legal director for the ACLU, current professor of law at the University
of Minnesota Law School and author of several books. |
| RAMON RAMIREZ has worked on immigrant rights/farmworker
issues for over 25 years. He is President of PCUN,
Oregon’s farmworker union, serves on the Board of Directors of the Farmworker
Housing Development Corporation, Mano a Mano Family Center and is also
a member of CAUSA, a state-wide immigrant rights coalition. Ramon is also
President of Western States Center’s board of directors. |
| JEN RAY resides in Boise, Idaho
and is Executive Director of the Idaho Women’s Network, a statewide network
of women’s organizations. In 1994 she served as co-chair of a coalition
that defeated Idaho’s anti-gay initiative. Jen serves on Western States
Center’s board of directors. |
| MARTA REPOLLET is an instructor at Portland
Community College’s Middle College High School. She is part of a National
Social History Curriculum Project designed to teach history with a critical
analysis of class, race, gender and the impact of social movements on working
class communities in the U.S. |
| VALERIE REUTHER has
been training activists to raise money since 1986. She has a firm base
of experience with grassroots major donor fundraising and believes that
anyone can learn to do successful fundraising. |
| MARK RITCHIE is President of the Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy and has 25 years of experience in
the sustainable farming and organic food industry, ranging from poultry
and fresh produce production, wholesaling and retailing, to policy analysis
and public education. |
| ANDY ROBINSON is the
author of Grassroots Grants: An Activist's Guide to Proposal Writing. He's
worked with social change organizations for 20 years in more than 30 states
and has raised more than $4 million in grants and donations. His forthcoming
book is Selling Social Change: How to Earn Money from Your Mission. |
| DAVID ROGERS is a trainer and field organizer
for Western States Center. Among his responsibilities are coordination
and development of the Centers’ Dismantling Racism Project. He has over
8 years of training and organizing experience. |
| RENÉE SÁNCHEZ
is a 26-year-old queer chicana community organizer, most recently working
with the Community Alliance of Tenants
and Western States Center. Renée is a Self-Defense instructor, anti-oppressions
and anti-domestic violence trainer, and queer activist. |
| BRIGETTE SARABI is the Director of the
Western Prison Project, a regional organization supporting progressive
grassroots activism or prison issues. She is a former Co-Director of the
McKenzie River Gathering Foundation, and is also on staff at the Western
States Center. |
| STEVE SCHNAPP is education
coordinator for United for a Fair Economy
(UFE)
and has over 30 years experience as a community organizer in the Bronx,
Boston, and Lowell, Mass. He has studied popular education and was an adjunct
professor of Community Organizing and Social Change at Boston University. |
| JEROME SCOTT is Director of Project
South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide. He
is a recipient of the Bannerman Fellowship recognizing organizers of color
and was a labor and community organizer in Detroit and Chicago before relocating
to Atlanta. |
| JOHN SELLERS is Director
of the Ruckus Society. He worked with
Greenpeace from 1990 to 1996 on grassroots organizing, environmental justice
and direct action and has supported and coordinated actions throughout
North America for a wide range of campaigns and movements. |
| HAN SHAN is Program Coordinator at the Ruckus
Society and has been involved in activism for ten years. He has worked
for and coordinated actions for such organizations as Milarepa Fund, In
Defense of Animals, Greenpeace, International Campaign for Tibet and Adbusters. |
| NOEMI SOHN is a Filipino
American feminist with cerebral palsy who works as an activist for disability
rights, racial equality, and the end to violence against women. She has
been involved extensively in education and community outreach, and also
has a background in film and media. |
| DANIEL TRUJILLO works for the Ohio
Domestic Violence Network providing technical assistance to projects
that receive funding from the Violence Against Women’s Act. He also works
as a batterers intervention specialist for the Abuse and Rape Crisis Shelter,
teaches batterer’s intervention at the University of Cincinnati and conducts
workshops on anti-oppression. |
| MARCY WESTERLING is
Co-Director of the Rural Organizing Project
in
Oregon. She is an organizer, educator, administrator and leader specializing
in working in rural communities on challenging bigotry and promoting democracy. |
| JAMES WILLIAMS is founder of the IntroSpect
Development Group and Director of the Center for Progressive Leadership,
which teaches personal and organizational leadership development nationwide.
He has been involved in community struggles for police accountability,
equitable jobs, civil rights and environmental control for more than twenty
years. |
| CHRIS WOODS |
| SALLY YEE has 19 years experience working in
the social justice movement as an organizer and educator on reproductive
rights, women's health and education issues. She is a dismantling racism
trainer and has worked with the Western States, Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones. |
| FELICE YESKEL, Ed.D.
is a Founder and Co-Director of United
for a Fair Economy (UFE), in Boston. UFE puts a spotlight on the dangers
of growing income, wage and wealth inequality in the U.S.; provides popular
education resources; works with grassroots organizations; and supports
creative and legislative action to reduce economic inequality. Felice is
the co-author of Economic Apartheid in America, forthcoming. |
| THALIA ZEPATOS is a veteran organizer,
campaign manager and trainer with over 20 years experience in fighting
the Right. Author of Women for Change: A Grassroots Guide to Activism and
Politics, she is currently Communications Director for River
Network. |
