About Us

What we do

Rooting Movements is a consulting firm dedicated to strengthening social and political movements by helping organizations connect with the history, values, and approaches of their respective movements.

All social and political movement organizations are susceptible to engaging in practices that are inconsistent with their movement’s values.

Here are a few examples:

  • Many organizations that intend to address the negative impacts of capitalism and classism in our society have adopted policies and practices developed by for-profit institutions to extract maximum output from their employees.

  • We’ve seen organizations that seek to prevent gender-based violence neglect Black, Indigenous, queer, and disabled survivors of color.

  • It’s common for organizations that seek to end violence to respond to employee discrimination through litigation and legal agreements that silence victims and avoid accountability.

  • Often in response to competitive funding landscapes and the scarcity-driven Non-Profit Industrial Complex, many organizations have siloed themselves and avoid collaboration with other movement organizations,

We understand that organizations need to adapt, change, and evolve over time. Rooting Movements helps organizations be intentional about ensuring that the changes they make reflect the values that drive the change they intend to make in our society.

This may involve an assessment of organizational culture, policies. and practices in an effort to develop a people-centered workplace. It could include strategic planning, to ensure that an organization’s path forward is consistent with its values and mission. It might be facilitating an organizational retreat where staff can strengthen their connections to each other and their respective movements.

Schedule a consultation to begin the process of finding out how Rooting Movements can help your organization.

Our Team

 
 

  • Principal/Founder

    Darin leads Rooting Movements with an extensive background in social change work. He holds expertise in violence prevention, policy advocacy, and organizational change management. He’s passionate about holding organizations accountable to their missions and values.

    He started community organizing early, serving as a Co-President of the Riverside chapter of California Young Democrats and working on local and national campaigns, including Barack Obama’s historic 2008 victory.

    While he grew up with a desire to be an elected representative, he found that he fit in better within grassroots social movements and transitioned to sexual assault prevention work. During his college years, Darin immersed himself in the movement to end gender-based violence, volunteering and working for the local sexual assault advocacy center while studying gender studies and feminist theory.

    Darin has worked in the movement for over a decade, across multiple regions that include California, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. He has served in several roles, including as a survivor advocate, a prevention educator, policy advocate, and within organizational leadership. He is well versed in public health approaches to violence prevention, Darin has implemented and provided training and technical assistance for CDC-funded primary prevention programs.

    During the consequential 2020 election, Darin felt a calling to contribute to the progressive political movement. He supported candidates and ballot initiatives locally in San Diego, California. However, he found that similarly to the movement to end gender-based violence, many organizations within the progressive movement had work to do when it came to their internal culture and policies.

    Outside of this work, he spends most of his time with his partner, Cecily, and their toddler-aged son.

 

 

  • Director of Operations & Client Engagement/Founder

    From a young age Cecily has been passionate about advocacy. In her early years, Cecily worked with a peer education group to teach highschool and middle school students about the harm of sexism and homophobia, as well as healthy interpersonal relationships.

    Cecily carried this passion throughout college and her personal life. While attending University of Oregon, Cecily interned at a sexual assault victims advocacy organization, helping survivors navigate medical and legal systems as well as providing crisis intervention and support. During this internship, Cecily discovered her love of back-end operations of organizations. She found that this part of her job served as a kind of self-care and debrief of the direct service she was immersed in on a daily basis.

    As Cecily explored the movement of ending gender-based violence, she began to witness gaps in how non-profit organizations’ provided services as well as policy and procedure. While she was managing an emergency domestic violence shelter, she found that a key part of her job was advocating within her organization for a more inclusive and equitable space for survivors to receive services. She also noticed that there was a lot of room for improvement when it came to making the organization a safe workplace for all people.

    After being met with resistance to change in this organization, Cecily began to think about how she could contribute to broader social change while utilizing her extensive knowledge of the non-profit industry. This is how she found herself in her current role with Rooting Movements.

    Cecily is a full-time parent to her and Darin’s one year old son. Her role at Rooting Movements allows her to utilize her passions and knowledge to create organizational change while still giving her plenty of time to be a parent.