Work Experience
When we design centering equity, healing, and liberation we create a new path forward. I work with client partners to build spaces focused on meaningful connections, possibility, curiosity, and joy.
Sample Projects
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Europe Study Tour Trip Facilitation
June 2022 - October 2022
Working with the Energy Foundation, Summit Foundation, and Tamika L. Butler Consulting, we traveled to Amsterdam and London to learn about transportation, mode-shift, and electrification. I supported the group of funders and equity advocates through facilitated discussions to process their learnings and create a vision to implement new possibilities in their work.
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Leadership Coaching
January 2022 - June 2022
I have coached various leaders who are leading work across the non-profit and corporate sectors. Our 1:1 coaching focused on building awareness, connecting to their power, and making changes that are aligned with who they are becoming.
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Design & Facilitate Learning Community Cohort Experience
January 2021 - October 2022
I partnered with Tamika L. Butler and the Energy Foundation to design, build, and implement a participatory grantmaking process grounded in equity and transparency. I co-designed and co-facilitated the MMNT Learning Community (LC) space to bring together 13 grantee and funding organizations focused on transportation, mobility, and climate justice. The LC met monthly for 11 months and worked to build meaningful relationships between those working at community-based organizations and in philanthropy.
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Design & Facilitate Watts Community Engagement Meetings
October 2020 - May 2021
In partnership with Primestor Development and Rios (architecture), I designed and facilitated monthly Core Coalition [virtual] meetings composed of 15+ leaders from the Watts community in Los Angeles. The space we created allowed community leaders to feel comfortable sharing their input and vision for a new community center being built in their neighborhood. As the lead facilitator, it was my role to navigate complex emotions, viewpoints, and processes to ensure the community voice was heard and centered by the developers and architects involved in the project.
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Training on Designing & Facilitating Meetings for Engagement & Inclusion
Two 2-Hour Live Training Sessions
I designed two trainings for the Wilderness Society Community-led Conservation team. The trainings focused on how to design and facilitate meetings grounded in practices of engagement, inclusion, and joy.
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Training on Creating Belonging & Trust in Community Engagement
3-Hour Live Training Session
I partnered with Tamika L. Butler and Angela Mooney D’Arcy to design and facilitate a training with 50+ staff of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9 around practices of creating belonging and trust to disrupt power dynamics between the EPA and communities.
Highlights from Client Partners:
“Marisa has a talent in working with community members to express their needs and aspirations in an authentic and meaningful way. She cares deeply about community.”
— Leandro Tyberg, Co-Founder Primestor Development
“Marisa beautifully facilitated a cohort of non-profit leaders and funders working together to confront systemic power imbalances and guided us to a transformative - decolonizing philanthropy and nonprofit network to create a more equitable future relationship. Her facilitation is some of the best I have experienced.”
— Jean Kayano, People’s Collective for Environmental Justice
“Marisa brings so many great qualities to any project. A few that are top of mind are her thoughtfulness, her intelligence, her warmth, and her commitment to bringing equity and people's lived experiences to the front of every discussion and decision.”
— Jessica Cohn, Founder + Principal, Jessica Cohn Consulting