Our Team

Kathy Asuncion (she/her)

Kathy Asuncion became involved in community organizing during the DREAM Act legislative fight of 2010 when she was an undocumented high school senior. Since then, she’s held fundraising roles such as grant writing, event coordinator, and major donor cultivator at the Stories Inspiring Movement and Grassroots International. Kathy’s role in the commons is to lead the training and capacity building program of the Resource Organizing Project offering, which supports grassroots fundraisers implement new fundraising tactics and move sustainable funds to their organizations. In her time off, Kathy enjoys cooking, biking, and spending time with loved ones.

Liza Behrendt (she/her)

Liza grew up in Seacoast New Hampshire and has organized and fundraised in Boston for a decade. She learned to organize from Palestine liberation activists and takes inspiration from movements for wealth redistribution, housing justice, queer liberation, and the Jewish left. She has previously worked for Jewish Voice for Peace, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, and GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, and is a member of Boston Workers Circle for Jewish Culture and Social Justice, Muslim Justice League, and Resource Generation. She has a dog named Rivvy but also pets every dog she meets.

Yani Burgos (she/they)

Yani’s path has been informed by a desire to see those around her thrive. After being introduced to community organizing as a teenager, Yani has committed her life to community-led social change. For the last 10 years, she has explored how might different communities work together to build power and shift from surviving to thriving, particularly among folks of color and LGBQTI+ communities. When not supporting the work of Movement Sustainability Commons, she enjoys finding innovative ways to use a slow cooker, chanting on the beach at sunrise, and searching for the latest and greatest in sneaker fashion trends.

Gabriella Gilbert (she/her)

Gabriella Gilbert has served Movement Sustainability Commons as the Finance Manager since 2021. With no prior finance experience, she was introduced to this work through one of the experiments of the Commons, aimed at training folks in the community to be bookkeepers for mission led organizations. Gabriella’s affinity for problem solving has made for an asset in leading systems building initiatives for the growing organization while also managing its finance and operations demands. While not processing check requests and onboarding new hires, she enjoys finding new and innovative ways of gathering folks especially in celebration.

Seth Kirshenbaum (he/him)

Seth Kirshenbaum is a Boston-based cultural trickster hiding out as a nonprofit executive. As the co-founder and co-director of Movement Sustainability Commons, Seth is co-creating pathways out of the “control” of the non-profit industrial complex by nourishing a sustainable ecosystem rooted in interdependence, abundance, joy and care. Prior to his work at the Commons, Seth spent eight years as Co-Director of Resist, a foundation that supports peoples’ movements for justice and liberation. Previous to that, he worked as a youth worker and youth organizer for eighteen years at The City School and Beantown Society in Boston and Quilombo NYC in New York City. Seth’s gifts include visioning the future by weaving connections in the present, financial sustainability conjuring, healing with white people and finding rockstar parking anywhere. Seth’s compass points toward feeling alive, seeing the world, listening to music and nourishing wholeness in self, community and all things.

Luana Morales (she/her/ella)

Luana Morales is Community of Care Weaver and Co-director of the Movement Sustainability Commons (MSC), holding and co-holding the work of Space Council, Circle of Elders, and weaving the values of the Community of Care for the MSC ecosystem. She is also an Afro-Boricua Birth, Death, and Ancestral healing arts practitioner devoted to reclaiming and reimagining our birth, death, and healing practices. All her work is led by joy and pleasure, rooted in our ancestral earth based practices. She co-creates containers that support our individual and collective healing and liberation. Now that her kids are adults she likes to do hoodrat things with her friends.

Patricha Paul (she/her)

Patricha Paul (she/hers) is a sharp, driven professional with more than fourteen years of proven experience in banking, accounting and business operations, and a specialized ability to design tools for greater efficiency and profitability. She has earned a reputation as a perceptive and practical troubleshooter with a unique ability to solve large-scale problems often deemed too challenging for others. What’s something that inspires you and helps you sustain hope? My Faith & Spirituality. What’s a surprising or interesting fact about you?
I was a cheerleader in high school. What are a few of the issues that you’re most passionate about and why? Human rights, government oppression and economic equality. Favorite TV Show/Movie:
Transformers!

Erika Rodriguez (she/her/ella)

Erika Rodriguez is the Fiscal Sponsorship Co-Director at Movement Sustainability Commons supporting fiscally sponsored projects’ capacity to continue their work towards justice, economic democracy, and liberation.Erika was the Executive Director of Chica Project, an organization with the mission of closing the opportunity divide for Latinas and other Women of Color by empowering them with the skills, confidence, and network necessary to thrive personally and professionally. Before leading Chica Project, Erika worked for Beantown Society and The City School. She is a proud first-generation Dominican, born and raised in Boston. She attended Boston Public Schools and later was part of the METCO Program attending Concord-Carlisle Regional High School. Erika holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Africana Studies from Simmons College. She is a recipient of the distinguished Boston Neighborhood Fellow Award issued by The Philanthropic Initiative and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh.

General Circle