Who We Are

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Brit Blalock brings 15 years of experience in brand development, nonprofit marketing/communications, and electoral campaigning across the advocacy, healthcare, and tech sectors. They previously served in strategic leadership roles for Southern Research, Innovation Depot, and the UAB Heersink School of Medicine. Brit is a longtime grassroots organizer and is the founder of two LGBTQ community support orgs. In 2022, they were a candidate for Alabama’s state house in district 54. They received a B.A. in Literature from Samford University and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Brit is based in Alabama with their wife and their menagerie of rescue pets.

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Melinda Gibson is Managing Director of The Capacity Shop, where she supports nonprofits and campaigns working toward equity and social change. With over 20 years of experience in organizing, advocacy, and political strategy, she’s contributed to a wide range of efforts—from local field work to national legislative wins.

Most recently, Melinda helped lead a ballot initiative in Los Angeles County to address housing and homelessness, coordinating teams and partners to collect nearly half a million signatures. She has also supported independent expenditure campaigns focused on protecting democracy and uplifting underrepresented communities.

Earlier in her career, Melinda served as Deputy Director at the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, working with state and local partners to expand voting rights and help election departments respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

Melinda’s work focuses on collaboration, thoughtful strategy, and building long-term power with communities across the country.

Toby is a nonprofit consultant with a focus on executive leadership coaching for startup non-profit executives and leaders of innovative program initiatives. She is also the Founder of UpStart, an accelerator for early stage nonprofits. During her 10 year tenure as CEO, she built a team of leaders that brought UpStart from an idea to start-up to a high-impact, paradigm-shifting national organization. Prior to founding UpStart, Toby spent 7 years at the BJE-San Francisco filling a variety of roles, including an executive leadership role. Toby holds an undergraduate degree in Political Sociology from UC-Santa Barbara and a J.D. from the University of San Diego. She currently lives in Marin County to feed her hiking habit, and enjoys nature with husband, Robert Rubin, and visits from their three amazing young adult daughters.

Paul Rivera is a Democratic activist and strategist from New York, with more than 20 years of experience in government, elections, and public advocacy. Paul got his start in politics at the 1992 Democratic Convention held in New York City, and served in the Clinton White House from 1994 through 2000, before moving back to New York. Paul is a veteran of four presidential elections (1992-2004), six national party conventions, two gubernatorial elections in New York (2002 and 2006), and five election cycles for the New York State Senate Democratic Conference (2008-2016). As an independent consultant since 2013, Paul has worked on impactful campaigns and independent expenditure efforts across the United States. Paul also served as Communications Director and Senior Advisor to the New York Senate Democratic Conference from 2009-2012, helping close record budget deficits and working to pass critical progressive and reform legislation.

Alicin has spent her career finding new and better ways to lift up the voices that haven’t yet been heard. As the head of Raben’s NYC office, she draws on her diverse experience conceiving and managing large-scale initiatives in government affairs, media strategy, employee engagement, brand reputation, and communications. Prior to joining Raben, Alicin served as a Senior VP at MTV Networks and Viacom where she created the company’s Corporate Responsibility and Public Affairs Department, oversaw Employee Engagement and worked closely with the Office of Global Inclusion to increase company visibility in diverse communities and aid diversity recruitment efforts. Alicin lives in Washington, D.C.

With over 30 years’ experience helping leaders address pressing business and organizational challenges, Joel is known for his ability to help leaders dramatically improve performance by leveraging the human side of the enterprise. With start-ups, where founders and leaders need to take smart action under highly complex and uncertain conditions, his work focuses on building the capacity for rapid learning and improvement – particularly when dealing with high conflict/high-stakes situations. Joel has served on a number of corporate and non-profit Boards. Recent director roles have included The African Food and Peace Foundation, CorStone, and Upstart.

Brigette Rouson, co-founder of the Insight-Incite consulting collective, brings over 25 years’ experience building nonprofit effectiveness toward a just society. She serves on RoadMap Consulting’s Operations and Racial Justice Action Teams and has designed and led numerous capacity-building initiatives. Former roles include Program Director of Alliance for Nonprofit Management, consultant on staff with Management Assistance Group, Mosaica, and Maryland Nonprofits. As a senior program officer at Ms. Foundation for Women she directed a $4 million girls/young women’s leadership initiative.

Brigette is part of communities of practice such as The Art of Transformational Consulting, Standards for Excellence Licensed Consultants, Gestalt Center for Organization Systems Development, and Shannon Leadership Institute. Community work includes co-founder of a social justice grassroots grantmaker, the Diverse City Fund; resource organizer and member of community organizing groups; and elected member of her congregation’s Board of Social Action. Brigette is a graduate of Howard University (B.A.), Georgetown (J.D.), and University of Pennsylvania (M.A.) She is a member of the DC Bar since 1983.

Eve is the principal of Fox Strategies, a one-woman campaigns consultancy that helps progressive nonprofit organizations harness the power of the internet to advance their missions, recruit supporters and raise money. After working in women’s reproductive health and environmental advocacy, Eve joined M+R Strategic Services in 2002. In her 12 years on staff, she helped to grow the firm’s digital division from a fledgling offering with three staff to a leader in the field of online fundraising and advocacy with a staff of 60 talented individuals across the country. While at M+R, Eve helped leading national nonprofits including the Clinton Foundation, Oxfam America, the American Diabetes Association, Defenders of Wildlife, Consumers Union, the U.N. Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Save Darfur Coalition, and many more raise tens of millions of dollars online and recruit millions of supporters to their causes.

Aliza Dichter has worked with social justice, nonprofit, and community groups for more than twenty years. She brings the stories, examples, ideas, and tools she’s learned into collaborations with leaders and groups to help them produce strategic plans, partnerships, and materials. Liza has developed particular experience working with social justice startup groups, coalitions, and projects, particularly over six years as Co-Founder and Co-Director of CIMA: Center for International Media Action, which cultivated coalitions, networks and alliances; five years as a Senior Strategist with the incubation and acceleration program at Citizen Engagement Lab; and as an independent consultant providing coaching, research, technical assistance, and hands-on collaboration to leaders and small teams navigating the nonprofit system. Aliza has helped to build national and international networks and movements for communications rights and media justice and has produced publications and workshops on the intersection of media, technology and social progress. She has been a Rockwood Leadership Fellow, a delegate to the World Social Forum and the UN World Summit on the Information Society, and a “Visionary In Residence” at Dartmouth's Center for Women and Gender.