Staff
Board
Title: Communications Designer
Email: micah@movementstrategy.org
After 5 years as Operations Director, Micah transitioned into communications design, providing graphic design, writing, editing, and production management for MSC. In the late 90s, he was a founding member of various transgender activist groups, doing cultural work, healthcare advocacy and community building in the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in anti-zionist Palestinian solidarity work for the past ten years, and had the privilege to work with Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley. In Summer 2007 Micah traveled and worked with Birthright Unplugged in the West Bank, during the Israeli attack on Lebanon. He created the zine Timtum and co-edited the Love and Justice Haggadah zine with Dara Silverman. He loves to make art and grow food, and strives to support justice and survival in a way that is creative, holistic, and compassionate.
Title: Development Strategist
Email: jose@movementstrategy.org
Jose joins MSC after working in fund development at People’s Community Organization For Reform And Empowerment in Los Angeles. Prior to fund development, he organized low-income communities around issues of environmental justice, access to quality health care, and diversity in higher education. In 2005, Jose participated as a delegate in an international conference and fact-finding mission on human rights held in Mindanao in the Southern Philippines. He visited conflict areas and documented the stories of the Moro people, the Islamized native inhabitants of Mindanao.
Jose has also worked as a reporter for KPFK 90.7 FM Pacifica radio, writing broadcast features on U.S. military intervention around the world, and interviewing historians, analysts, and civil rights advocates. He is a freelance photographer and uses his photography to capture stories that are often overlooked and to make a thoughtful contribution to social change.
Title: Executive Director and Board President
Email: taj@movementstrategy.org
Before founding MSC in 2001, Taj James was the Director of Youth Policy and Development at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, where he organized youth and parents around a range of community issues. Previously, he worked as the Western Regional Field Organizer for the Black Student Leadership Network, a project of the Children’s Defense Fund.
Taj has served on the boards of many nonprofit and philanthropic institutions such as The Praxis Project, Youth United For Community Action, the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing, the California Fund for Youth Organizing and the Gay Straight Alliance Network. He has written extensively on the topics of movement building, organizational change, and the role of young people in social change. A graduate of Stanford University, Taj was a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellowship and was named a “Local Hero” by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Title: Spirit in Motion Interim Director
Email: neelam@movementstrategy.org
Neelam Pathikonda joins MSC staff after leading community organizing efforts in the Bay Area for the past eight years. Most of her organizing work has been with immigrant women in Oakland and San Jose around issues of reproductive justice, environmental justice, public health, and economic justice. Neelam has an MPH from San Jose State University and currently serves on the board of SOUL, the School of Unity and Liberation, and the Women of Color Resource Center.
Neelam also has a background in political education, curriculum development, and training. Her consultant practice works with progressive grassroots organizations around program planning, curriculum development, and training. Some of the organizations she has worked with include Oakland Kids First, Center for Third World Organizing, Bay Area Environmental Health Collaborative, and California Fund for Youth Organizing.
Neelam currently serves as the Spirit in Motion Interim Director. Through her work as a community organizer, she has developed a strong spiritual practice that she has incorporated into the work of community organizing. She hopes to help infuse the work of community organizing with spirituality, healing, art, and culture. Neelam is studying Ayurvedic medicine and is a visual artist.
Title: Operations Director
Email: agustin@movementstrategy.org
Agustín is an administrative manager with over 17 years of experience. He has worked with professional non-profit arts organizations like the Hollywood Bowl, Cal Performances, and South Coast Repertory. Agustín has also worked with and taught college students in UC Berkeley’s Student Music Activities Department and high school students in Oakland School for the Arts charter school. He has the essentials and fundamentals of arts administration including artist-presenter management, fiscal management, grant writing, and front-of-house/box office management.
Agustín is also an avid salsa dancer and instructor, and is the occasional presenter of salsa events through his company Agustín Luna Presents. He has danced Bomba y Plena with Bay Area Boricuas, assisted them in their initial organizing as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, and briefly served as their Managing Director. Agustin is one of the last beneficiaries of California’s elementary school music program and has played his trumpet continuously since 1982. He hopes that music in the schools does not disappear and supports efforts to keep it alive.
Title: Associate Director
Email: lisa@movementstrategy.org
Lisa Russ has worked in the field of training, experiential education, and program development for over fifteen years. After five years as an educator, trainer and manager in outdoor education, Lisa went to Global Exchange, where she founded and directed Exploring California. This program provided opportunities for young people to learn about issues related to immigration, trade and labor, and how they impact communities around the state.
Since 1999, Lisa has worked with community-based organizations to strengthen their capacity, support young leaders, engage boards of directors, develop and implement strategic plans, design and implement effective leadership transitions, and provide training in fundraising, staff development, program evaluation and planning. Lisa has served on several Advisory Boards and Boards of Directors, and has been involved in the founding of several programs and organizations.
Title: Research & Training Director
Email: kristen@movementstrategy.org
Kristen has over twelve years experience as a coach, trainer, and board member to youth-led organizations and initiatives. She co-founded and directed Youth In Focus, an innovative intermediary that trains young people and adults to support youth leadership in community and organizational development. She is a journalist, photographer and researcher and brings her experience starting and running an organization as a young person to MSC.
Title: Board Secretary and Treasurer
Email: klee@garmentworkercenter.org
Kimi Lee has an extensive history of working with youth and community organizing and has been a campaign organizer against the various attacks on people of color for over ten years. After graduating from UC Davis, Kimi became the Field Organizer for the University of California Student Association (UCSA), a statewide coalition of UC undergraduate, professional and graduate student associations. She was one of the lead student organizers during the UC Regent's attack on affirmative action and worked against Proposition 209. She became the Executive Director of UCSA and helped run a statewide student voter registration and education campaign, which registered over 20,000 new student voters.
In 1997, Kimi moved to Los Angeles to work as a labor researcher with SEIU Local 1877. She then became the Field and Legislative Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California. She was the Southern California Campaign Director for the No on Prop 21 campaign and created Southern Californians for Youth, a network of youth organizing groups in Los Angeles County.
Kimi is now the Executive Director of the Garment Worker Center (GWC). She was the first staff person hired to open and establish the GWC in 2001. Since then, the GWC has successfully organized a national boycott against a major retailer led by garment workers, developed garment worker leaders and helped workers get over $1.5 million in owed wages and penalties. Kimi's family immigrated from Burma and her mother was a garment worker in San Francisco, both of which led to her social justice activism.
Title: Board Member
Email: msqrd@igc.org
Marianne is a grassroots organizer, campaign and media strategist, and author. Her 20-plus year career began with youth organizing for the 21st Century Leadership Project, a program she came up in as a youth leader. Since that time, she has run national campaigns and programs for groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace International. She is the co-founder and former Executive Director of the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education. Under Manilov’s direction, the Center was credited with establishing a bi-partisan coalition of local groups in 22 states, that brought the issue of corporate influence and advertising in schools onto the national agenda, including congressional hearings. Other career highlights include: leadership team for the Campaign to Save Headwaters and staff member of the successful Iowa team for Jesse Jackson in 1988. She serves on the Boards of Directors of the Movement Strategy Center, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and EarthRights International.
Title: Board Member
Email: ayoka@dcyf.org
Ayoka is the Coordinator of Training and Capacity Building for the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and their Families. She is a trainer and organizer who has worked with youth and community development organizations across the country. Previously, Ayoka has been the Youth Empowerment Coordinator at the San Francisco Youth Commission, Executive Director of YouthSpace, Senior Program Advisor at YouthBuild USA, National Training Director of the Campus Outreach Opportunity League and Program Manager for Children of War.
