About

I oversee the grants team for Skoll. I formerly worked on policy and communications at the Skoll Global Threats Fund, which included close involvement with the launch of the Climate Advocacy Lab, and I'm on the Lab's governing board. I'm particularly interested in how to get people engaged on big scary challenges - things they can't see, taste, smell, hear, that happen to someone else, that happen to the next generation. This is climate change, but it's also nuclear nonproliferation, pandemics, and other complex threats. I'm interested in the social science insights that can be brought to bear on climate change.

I am an Ordained Minister, sustainable agriculturalist beekeeper, and yoga instructor. I focus on community health and equity. In my current capacity I serve communities through: 1. Ensuring that decision makers hear policy language that includes Equitable practices and addresses health concerns, 2. Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion work that systematizes the principles of JEDI

As the senior communications officer at the McKnight Foundation, I leverage the power of strategic communications to advance the mission of the Foundation and its program goals.

Organizational development nerd and network weaver working at the intersection of racial justice and climate justice.

Jamila Raqib is a specialist in the study and practice of strategic nonviolent action and the executive director of the Albert Einstein Institution, which works to advance the research and application of nonviolent action worldwide. Since 2002, she has worked with Dr. Gene Sharp, the world’s foremost scholar and founder of the field of strategic nonviolent action.

She oversees the development and distribution of resources on nonviolent action and conducts workshops on strategic planning for human rights organizations, universities, and governments, and for individuals and groups struggling for diverse objectives including to oppose dictatorship, combat corruption, attain political rights, economic justice, environmental protection, and women’s empowerment.

She is currently a Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, where she is exploring how innovations in technology and education, among other fields, can contribute to greater effectiveness in the study and application of nonviolent struggle. Her work includes the development of a curriculum intended to help groups prepare wise strategic plans to conduct struggles for the defense and attainment of their civil and political rights.

Kathryn is part of the Barr Foundation’s Climate Team and is appointed to the Massachusetts Grid Modernization Advisory Council. In previous roles, Kathryn worked in the private-sector at a climate and energy consulting firm and in the nonprofit sector supporting and organizing cities at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network. In her spare time, Kathryn is an active violinist, yogi, dancer and snowboard enthusiast.

Lisa is the Senior Director for Climate Strategy at the National League of Conservation Voters (LCV). She drives campaigns to scale transformative climate solutions, including the implementation of the historic clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act. Before this, she led a student and parent-centered campaign at Sierra Club that successfully moved major school districts around the country to transition to 100% clean energy. Lisa also co-founded Climate Parents, running a campaign that stopped legislatures and state school boards from banning climate science education in K-12 schools in more than ten fossil fuel states.

Lisa has led issue advocacy campaigns in the environmental and labor movements for over three decades with organizations including the BlueGreen Alliance, the national AFL-CIO, SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign, and Greenpeace. As Political Director of a large urban Labor Council, Lisa ran coordinated electoral campaigns to elect progressive local, state, and federal candidates.

She lives with her husband and two teenage boys in San Francisco.

Michael Silberman tackles challenges at the intersection of technology, democracy, and social change. He guides nonprofits, businesses, and foundations to achieve their social missions through activism strategies. Michael founded and led two organizations dedicated to building campaigns for a more just society and livable planet. He has guided dozens of nonprofits and NGOs worldwide, including UNICEF, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International, to design effective advocacy and systems change campaigns for the digital era. At Greenpeace, Michael established the Mobilisation Lab, a center of excellence that transformed the organization's digital advocacy, organizing, and influencing capabilities across 55 countries. In addition to the Climate Advocacy Lab, Michael serves on the boards of Oxfam America and the Story of Stuff Project. His work has been globally recognized by The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Wired.

Michael's research focuses on the impacts of repressive technologies, such as digital surveillance and disinformation, on human rights and democracy. His graduate work on rights in the digital age is published in the Georgetown Law Technology Review and Tech Policy Press. Michael's prior writing has been featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Mother Jones, Yes! Magazine, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Mashable, and OpenDemocracy. He also developed and taught a graduate course on digital-era advocacy at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. Michael started his career leading the first successful digital grassroots organizing program in U.S. politics for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

Refugio is a bilingual public relations and digital campaigner for progressive advocacy organizations online and in the field. At Resource Media, Refugio manages the organization’s work supporting advocacy groups that engage Latine and Indigenous audiences online on climate justice, and other critical social issues. Prior to Resource Media, he served as the Communications Director for Service Employees Union International, United Service Workers West, where he oversaw the organization’s broad sweep of internal and external communications. He also served as an online campaign manager for Presente.org, the nation’s largest national Latine online organization advancing social justice with technology, media, and culture; and as a press secretary for the Sierra Club’s Southwest Region, where he developed and managed bilingual communications strategy and implementation for the Beyond Coal campaign and other clean energy initiatives. He was also part of Heal the Bay, a local nonprofit dedicated to restoring the San Monica Bay and the L.A. River in Southern California.

I am a political psychologist that researches political activism related to climate change and legislators' responsiveness to political activism and polls.

Sarah Shanley Hope is the Managing Director of Narrative Strategies at The Solutions Project following seven years as the organization’s first Executive Director. Under Sarah’s leadership as ED, the organization transformed its mission and culture to center racial and gender equity, launched the field’s first and only award-winning collaborative climate justice solutions fund, and grew a celebratory, collaborative and inclusive movement for 100% clean energy. She now leads the dynamic team of staff and program delivery partners amplifying the climate justice solutions and growing the capacity of frontline grantee partners to scale their influence and impact. This team has generated hundreds of media hits for grassroots climate justice solutions, including a TIME Magazine cover story for TSP and Today Show feature for grantee Soulardarity. The strategy she developed and led has influenced a 10-fold increase in equitable clean energy news coverage. Sarah has held executive or leadership roles at Action for the Climate Emergency (formerly the Alliance for Climate Education), Green For All, Cargill and Best Buy over her 20 years of experience in brand strategy, philanthropy and social change. She has raised and helped deploy more than $75 million in support of a racial equity and climate solutions agenda over her tenure in the field.

Shanley Hope graduated with an MBA in Marketing from the University of Minnesota and a BA in political science from Vassar College. She grew up in Buffalo, NY and lives with her husband, daughters and dogs in Oakland, CA. She sits on the boards of Native Renewables, the Kairos Fellowship and the Digital Climate Coalition. Sarah’s work has been featured in a range of outlets including the NY Times, People Magazine, TIME Magazine, and the Daily Show. She has spoken about the vision, strategies and stories of change at the intersection of climate solutions and racial justice as part of TEDxMidAtlantic, Climate One, the Social Venture Network, Climate Week NYC, Collective Impact Forum, and Bioneers.

Sophia is the climate justice campaign director at People's Action. People’s Action builds the power of poor and working people in urban, rural, and suburban areas to win change through issue fights and elections. We are a national network of 44 state and local grassroots power-building organizations in 30 states–united in the work of building a bigger “we.” Before joining People's Action Institute, Sophia organized Latino and Asian immigrant workers and community members in California for over a decade, and taught Ethnic Studies at the University of California Los Angeles.