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CIWO believes that the leaders who are on the front lines fighting for economic, racial, and gender justice know the solutions needed to push our movements forward. The Seeding Holistic Innovation For Transformation (SHIFT) Program gives space, resources, and support to leaders who are interested in moving their solutions from an idea into reality. Through funding from the Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundation, we are able to provide support (financial, programmatic, administrative) to new cutting-edge programs in the social, racial, economic, gender, and worker justice movement.
SHIFT Principles
1) CIWO is a "think and do" tank - we believe that we need to try new things to learn new things.
2) When we authentically share learnings (not just the wins, but the challenges, tensions, and surprises) from the innovative work that we're doing with the broader movement community - we have the opportunity to learn from each other's missteps, successes, and creativity.
3) Innovation requires a strong network, ongoing support, and resources.
4) Normalize failures. Normalize mistakes.
5) Those most impacted by systems of oppression have the strongest insights on strategic approaches and the pathway forward. Centering those voices & lifting up their leadership is what's needed for true innovation.
6) The purpose of innovative projects is to create a labor movement that centers racial, economic, and gender justice
7) When movement leaders and organizations have real time to reflect on their work - they can better assess what their future work can and should be.
CIWO Fellowship Cohort Closes out with WINS Shareouts!
In May 2025, CIWO launched a one-year fellowship cohort to support leaders making needed interventions in racial, gender, & worker justice movements. Fellows were provided curated connections, resources, and administrative support with compassionate accountability and accompaniment to take their innovative idea from vision to reality. Innovation requires a high level of nimbleness which each fellow demonstrated as they advanced their projects in accordance with stated needs of movement leaders in this current moment.
CIWO Fellows conclude their fellowship by sharing their learnings with the CIWO network of over 2,000 leaders through the WINS [Workers Innovative New Strategies Series] Webinar Series. Go to the WINS YouTube page and you can circulate the learnings with your networks!
The CIWO Fellows Cohort was, itself, an innovation. We experimented with what might happen when fellows from across CIWO programs and new innovation fellows are in a supportive learning community with one another. We learned that cohorts across programs are not only generative and connective, but also instrumental to the success of each fellow’s project. More CIWO fellows cohorts to come!
Below are project highlights from each CIWO Fellow:
Focus: Training & Education
- Jessica Angus shared the learnings from distributed leadership experiments among members & staff at SEIU Healthcare IL/IN/MO/KS with the Unions Build the Bench Advisory Council. If you are a union that is interested in talking more about how to bring together union chief of staffs in a community of practice, reach out to ciwo@smlr.rutgers.edu.
- Jean Tāng jìn Tong piloted the Afternoon Tea with Chinese Organizers series which brings together a multi-racial group of movement practitioners to learn from Chinese Labor & community Organizers. As part of their fellowship, Tāng jìn created a proposal for a Chinese Organizer Summer Camp & has created more opportunities for Afternoon tea. RSVP for the next session here.
- Angeles Solis launched a database that is building the bench of movement trainers who are ready to be dispatched to support mass disobedience & action. Check out the webinar recording here and if you are a movement trainer who would like to join the training bench, click here to fill out the survey!
- Norma Martinez-Hosang shared 5 years of learnings from CT for All’s work building a broad coalition of over 60 labor, community, faith, & advocacy organizations in Connecticut. Watch the webinar recording and click here to support CT for All’s 5 year anniversary!
- Angela Bonilla shared the systems-based work that the Portland Association of Teachers has been doing to foster and track member engagement as a pipeline for identifying new and diverse leaders in their union. Check out the webinar recording here.
- Erica Iheme created an expansive training and education curriculum for Black Worker Centers that is grounded in her decades of experience as a labor organizer, Black Strategist, & an expert on organizing in the South.
- Ligaya Domingo continued to write a book about her learnings as Racial & Education Justice Director at SEIU 1199NW. She was provided feedback on her writing from a group of movement leaders with decades of experience in the labor movement.
- Naomi R Williams successfully co-organized the Tony Mazzochi Conference housed at the Rutgers Labor Education Center June 4 & 5th, 2026. This conference launched the Tony Mazzochi Archives and the NJ Workers Oral History Project that will be housed at Rutgers. Support the future of the archives here.
- Malcolm Shanks led a webinar for the CIWO network examining the challenges and opportunities of gender justice education for worker justice movements. This work was informed by their role as Senior Fellow of the WILL Empower Emerging Leader program.
Focus: Resilience, Respite, & Reflection as Strategy
- Aisha Chavers-Satterwhite, Madeleine Kennedy-Macfoy, & Chalene Jones have been in deep accompaniment with one another’s work - dreaming into reality what resilience looks like across the Diaspora for Black Women and Gender Expansive Leaders. Find their share out video linked here and click here to support the future of their work.
- Sybill Hyppolite created a healing space to support Black Women and Non-Binary leaders across sectors -- labor, small business, public and non-profit -- in the Seattle area. Find how to support the continuation of this work here.
- Tasha Braggs Wilson has created a proposal to bring labor & faith communities together to provide respite & education for primarily Black & Brown careworkers in the South who are also caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's or Dementia. If you would like to connect with Tasha around this work, please reach out to ciwo@smlr.rutgers.edu
Doing Racial Justice in Labor Cohort
The Doing Racial Justice in Labor cohort is a space held by CIWO and supported by the Open Society Foundation. This cohort of leaders are moving and leading transformative racial justice work within their unions and community organizations. This cohort is designed for leaders to build cross-organizational relationships, support each other in the challenges that come with moving racial justice work in their organizations and communities, and innovate around responding to emerging needs in their work.
The cohort emerged because while there have been historic RJ wins in recent years, there are ongoing efforts to create new barriers while undoing historic protections are happening all around us. At CIWO, we envision a future where All Black Lives Matter and where good stewardship of land and labor enables all working people to thrive. We believe that through community-building we can break out of silos and liberate ourselves from “divide and conquer” strategies. Transformative (rather than transactional) relationships allow activists/organizers to care for and ready ourselves for ever shifting crises and hard conversations; knowing we are not alone.
To learn about the cohort participants, click here.
Supporting Domestic Workers to Lead Policy Implementation in Latin America
Adriana Paz Ramirez joined CIWO as an Innovation Fellow from March 2022-June 2023. Adriana is leading a project titled Supporting Domestic Workers to Lead Policy Implementation in Latin America. Partnered Organizations Include: the International Domestic Workers Federation, the Latin American & Caribbean Domestic Workers Confederation, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), & Open Society Foundation. To find out more about Adriana, click here.
Amazon's Policing Power
CIWO is continuing to provide support for Dr. Tamara Lee (Rutgers SMLR) and Dr. Maite Tapia (University of Michigan) to analyze, in a series of public reports and academic publications, the policing and surveillance of Black and Workers' at Amazon facilities. To learn the Amazon Policing Power Project, click here.
Always Essential Worker Cohort
CIWO has partnered with United for Respect to run a virtual cohort for 15 essential workers across the country who are interested in deepening their mobilizing and negotiation skills. Participating organizations in the fellowship are the following: Green Workers Alliance, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Missouri Workers Center, Step up Louisiana, United for Respect, & Workers Defense Project. To find out more about the 2022 Always Essential Fellows, click here.
Clergy for the Common Good
KB Brower and Catherine Rice have joined CIWO as Innovative Fellows to pilot a common good campaign training for students at Union Theological Seminary. This project will train future clergy and chaplains in basic mobilization skills such as having one-on-one conversations and will introduce them to some of the most visionary ‘bargaining for the common good’ campaigns happening around the country. The training will be offered in Spring 2023 and will connect students with labor and social movement organizations when they graduate and begin work. We imagine that this training will prepare clergy and chaplains to deeply engage their congregations in coalitional campaigns for economic and racial justice. We hope that this training can be replicated for future and current clergy and chaplains at seminaries and in cities around the country. To find out more about KB and Catherine, click here.
Political Directors Convening
CIWO piloted a convening in May 2022 that brought together 15+ majority Women of Color Political Directors from across the economic justice movement. This event was co-sponsored by the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. The intention of the convening was to understand how to better support political directors' unique needs and identify pathways to expand their leadership, including into executive leadership. Ongoing webinars and support will be provided to these leaders as they increase the political power of workers across the country. To read more about this convening, click here.
Grief and Resilience in Our Movements
CIWO partnered with the STOKE Collective to offer workshops on Grief & Vicarious Trauma in our Movements. This workshop opens up a conversation about the individual and collective impacts of grief and vicarious trauma. Workshop participants are introduced to terminology around different types of grief & how systemic violence and oppression affects how much different communities are forced to grieve. Additionally, participants begin to think through ways that they can integrate practices that acknowledge grief into their organizations. Following the session - everyone receives a Creating Cultures of Care Resource Guide that gives examples of how to create cultures of care on the individual, community, organizational, and systemic levels.
This workshop was offered to the CIWO community at the Emerging Cohort Retreat (April 2022), to staff and fellows (July 2022), and to Build the Bench participants (September 2022). More workshops will be available to those in the CIWO network in 2023.
New Jersey Future of Work Accelerator
This 9-month program supports “innovations that advance New Jersey’s workers’ health and safety, improve access to benefits, strengthen training opportunities, and bolster worker's voices.” Select CIWO staff participated in the accelerator and connected with like-minded organizations across New Jersey that are working to execute innovative ideas and strategies.
