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Aaron is a Boston-based community organizer, economic development practitioner, philanthropic advisor, and impact investor. As the founder of CED, Aaron stewards funding and capacity building programs to social movement collaboratives that advance alternatives to capitalist economics in the US. Previously, Aaron served as the startup manager for the Boston Impact Initiative, Boston’s first place-based impact fund investing in Boston’s working class communities of color. Until 2012, Aaron was co-founder and executive director of the Boston Workers Alliance, a grassroots organization nationally regarded for its statewide Ban the Box policy victory in 2010.
Aaron is a former fellow with BALLE, Echoing Green, Green For All, and Tufts Department of Urban Planning, and serves on the boards of the Foundation for Civic Leadership, Neighborhood Funders Group and the New Economy Coalition. He is a graduate of Harvard College.
The recuperated factories movement in Argentina in the early 2000's, where regular people took over their failing workplaces and began to run them cooperatively. In Japan, millions of seniors use a "timebank" to mutually volunteer their time to meet their daily physical and social needs. Susu's in West Africa, where people pool their money and lend to each other at 0% interest. And as an older movement millennial, the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil, which have remained beacons of resistance and creation in the face of armed neoliberalism.
There's a lot of pain and injustice in the world: "patriarchy + slavery + colonialism = racial capitalism = neo feudalism" has not been great for a lot of people or our planet. But as bad as things get, I also see the daily acts of courage, kindness and cooperation that so many of us practice. These ways are embedded in our bones, and have allowed us to survive and sometimes thrive until today. I think we're fighting between our lizard brains (fear, feed, fight, flight) and the human heart (love, care, compassion), which manifests societally as the fight between Capitalism vs. Democracy. At CED, I feel lucky to be doing heartful work on the side of the people (though no disrespect to lizards).
Boston Ujima Project, our pilot community assembly / investment day (Solidarity Summit) in August 2016!
Alex has lived in the Boston area 30+ years, organizing locally since high school. His areas of focus have ranged from political repression to immigrant rights to tenant organizing–with the common goal of addressing structural causes of injustice. He has worked with grassroots community, environmental and labor groups statewide towards ‘energy democracy’, including community-controlled energy microgrids and an accessible green economy.
As the Director of Regional Economies at CED, he is helping coalesce a broad set of partners to develop collective strategy and build out infrastructure for a democratic and ecologically viable economy rooted in justice.
The immense contributions of the Zapatista struggle in Indigenous Mayan communities, and more recently, the 'democratic confederalism' experiment in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan). Both emerged from highly oppressed communities, offering striking alternatives to the regressive politics enveloping them and convergence points for much of the global Left. Their inspiring eloquence, innovations with democratic decision-making and militant confrontation of illegitimate power are shining examples of what we can achieve collectively.
We are facing a tangled crisis of multiple failing systems, but arguably the most damaging of these has been the system whose logic governs the global political economy: capitalism. It's no exaggeration then that developing viable alternatives is an urgent goal for all concerned with the survival of human civilization. This will require a collective process of mental decolonizing, and strategic effort to build out the infrastructure for our democratically determined vision.
While critiquing the rapacious fossil fuel industry isn't hard, building out scalable alternatives is challenging in an economy oriented to profit and in communities unfamiliar with democratic governance of energy systems. This is why I'm so proud to be on the team developing the RUN-GJC community microgrid project, piloting clean energy networks that are controlled by local communities, respect workers and can be replicated and get us to scale quickly.
Farhad Ebrahimi is an organizer, trainer, and story-based strategist active primarily in the philanthropic sector. For the past 16 years, his principal role has been as the Founder and President of the Chorus Foundation, which works for a just transition to a regenerative economy in the United States. In addition to his work at Chorus, Farhad is a member of the Center for Story-based Strategy’s trainer network, a Co-founder of Solidaire, and sits on the boards of Solidaire, the Center for Economic Democracy, the National Committee For Responsive Philanthropy, and The Forge.
Farhad identifies first and foremost as an abolitionist with respect to the concept of private philanthropy. As such, he’s most interested in the question of how extracted and consolidated wealth can be redistributed in ways that directly support a Just Transition to a world in which such wealth is no longer extracted and consolidated in the first place. It’s in this context that the Chorus Foundation itself has been structured as a transitional form, and will have spent down its entire endowment by the end of 2023.
As an educator, organizer and solidarity economy practitioner, Amrita, situates themself in the interstices between individual and collective liberation. This focus has led to projects as diverse as cultural campaigns promoting healthy relationships in LGBTQIA communities, collectivization of resources for hyper local grant making, building multiple cooperative businesses, working to support youth both inside and outside schools with their creative and political desires, and creating spaces and economic opportunities for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
As an educator and economic alternatives builder, they are constantly honing their craft with an ever expanding repertoire of tools as well as networks of learning communities. Amrita holds an Economics and International Relations degree from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, GA and a Masters in Community-based Education from the George Washington University in Washington, DC. They enjoy biking, camping, poetry and porch sitting.
I trace my curiosity about economic democracy to the Boycott of British goods and owning our own means of production as part of the South Asian freedom struggle against Colonialism. So many examples of attempting economic democracy inspire me from participatory budgeting in Brazil, trade and barter bazaar system in Equatorial Guinea, worker governance of corporate boards in Germany, sex worker cooperatives, public banking initiatives, time banking experiments, communal land ownership in Barbados, and the chore charts in collective activist homes that makes sure we take turns turning the compost.
Strengthening our collective muscle to show up for one another, build our power and embolden one another to attempt the unimaginable.
Khalida is the Organizing Director for the Right to the City (RTTC) Alliance, which encompasses over 90 community-based racial, economic, gender, and environmental justice organizations located in 26 states and 45 cities. Representing true grassroots power and leadership of the most impacted, RTTC’s member organizations weave together local on-the-ground organizing, policy, and advocacy campaigns to build a robust and unstoppable national movement for inclusive, healthy housing and community development.
Born, raised, and based in Boston, Khalida is a queer Black woman of African and Caribbean descent. She’s also mom to young adult activist, Ziquelle G Smalls who was active in the youth justice movement in Boston before moving to Miami Florida and joining Power U the Center for Social Change as their organizing director – organizing runs in the family!
Khalida began organizing in 1997 with the community-based environmental justice organization ACE in Roxbury, MA where she helped form Boston’s first public transit riders’ union. She has experience in labor, having developed and coordinated the Community Support and Strategic Partnership Program at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ New England District 615 in Boston, MA, and been Organizing Director for the 10,000 member strong Boston Teachers Union (BTU),and also served as the Director of Organizing at Community Labor United (CLU) in Boston.
Khalida attended Springfield College School of Human Services, (Boston Campus) completing a bachelor’s degree in science in Human Services. She hopes to soon return to Tufts University’s Urban Environmental Policy and Planning program (UEP) to complete her master’s degree in public policy.
Penn is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Master of Public Policy Program and Community Practice at Tufts University’s Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. From 1996 to 2009, he served in various roles, including Executive Director at Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE), a Roxbury-based environmental justice group. Before joining ACE, he was Research Associate at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California and a Research Analyst at the Tellus Institute for Resource and Environmental Strategies in Boston.
He holds an M.S. in environmental science and policy from Energy and Resources Group of the University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in electrical engineering from MIT. He has published broadly on environmental and social justice issues and is currently a trustee of the Hyams Foundation.
Sarah Jimenez is a Senior Researcher with Community Labor United (CLU) and lead organizer for the Care That Works coalition, a multiracial feminist labor and community coalition fighting for an empowered, community-based child care workforce and an equitable child care future in Greater Boston and Massachusetts.
Since the coalition’s formation in 2017 Sarah has provided the research for key initiatives such as strengthening child care requirements in Boston’s zoning code, launching the Pilot to organize early-hour child care for low-income BIPOC parents in Boston to access unionized construction careers, and launching a campaign to organize family, friend, and neighbor caregivers to fight for greater recognition and resources in Massachusetts. She has also contributed research to support campaigns on wage theft, community-controlled energy, public transportation, and short-term rentals.
Outside of CLU, Sarah was a co-founding organizer and action researcher for the Boston Ujima Project and co-authored a report on solidarity economy organizing in low-income communities of color across Massachusetts. She is interested in leveraging practices from contemplative traditions to strengthen social justice organizing.
Tiffany worked in the non-profit sector for over a decade before transitioning into her work in finance. Her career has ranged from being Co-Director at YES!, Board member at Common Fire Foundation, founding advisor to Kindle Project Foundation, to directing national leadership retreats at Resource Generation, and serving on the Finance Committee for Haymarket People’s Fund. Most of her work has been focused on working with young people with wealth. She currently serves on the board of Pie Ranch, and Resource Generation.
Her entry into social justice work was through learning about race and racism in the US, and interning with the SE Regional NAACP’s Prison Project in Atlanta, GA. Tiffany cultivated her zest for justice at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she graduated in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in Community Studies.
Tiffany loves hosting dinner parties, dancing and homemaking. She enjoys karaoke with friends, where she can allow her inner performer to run wild.
