Bloom Where You’re Planted with Claire Downing

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“Understanding your place in the ecosystem is one of the things that’s taught me, right? ….I’m not a frontline activist organizer person.

I’m just not… it’s not who I am. It’s not my personality. It’s not where my skillset is….doing the exploration to understand where your skillset is and then owning that and growing into it. It’s not to say you can’t change over time. Lots of people have career changes or even within the same sector.

But like they’re all valuable, right? And I think sometimes, a lot of times in social justice, we think of the sexy organizer, policy, you know, advocacy person, this and that. And we disregard the people who are working in finance or administration who are keeping these things going, right?

For me, it’s been more of the behind the scenes, right? As a program officer or as a consultant, right? I’m not in the halls of Congress, right? But I’m helping maybe get the funding or some of the ideas, or I’m bringing a group together who don’t know each other, right? Playing a connector role, that kind of thing.

I think really valuing and not discounting whatever your work is cause we need all of those people, and no one is higher in the hierarchy, right? All these personalities we read about in history, all the people who changed the world, there were systems behind them to be able to do that.

And so even if you’re not the person, you’re part of that system, and that’s really important.”

—Claire Downing

Claire Downing, Founder and Principal at The Moonlight Collaborative, shares a story of how witnessing her parents’ activism and the ways they navigated differences as an interfaith family shaped her own commitment to activism; paving the way for her to be able to develop a commitment to continually understand and embrace the complexities of her identities and relationship to privilege and oppression later in life as a white Muslim woman who converted to Islam. Claire also recalls how experiences in toxic workplaces ultimately led her to establish The Moonlight Collaborative, where she partners with organizations that are invested in “creating the conditions for marginalized folks not only to survive, but thrive.”

Her storytelling invites listeners to reflect on their own identities and strengths and to identify their unique place within the social justice ecosystem to drive lasting change.

Meet Claire

Claire Downing, Founder and Principal at The Moonlight Collaborative, has spent the last 8 years of her career in the racial equity and DEI space, first as a Program Associate and then Program Officer at the RISE Together Fund (RTF), and then subsequently as a Consultant with Frontline Solutions and now as an independent consultant. Claire is a community builder, connector, educator, advocate, and conflict resolver whose work centers empathy, healing, and creativity.

Claire’s particular expertise is in working with faith communities such as the Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (BAMEMSA) field served by RTF and other funders. In her consulting work and current PhD candidacy work in conflict resolution, Claire has employed critical race theory, gender theory, and equitable evaluation theory and practice. She is a skilled and culturally-competent researcher, evaluator, and facilitator. Finally and critically, Claire is a Muslim convert whose lived experience helps her better understand, empathize, and connect with marginalized communities and frontline advocates.

Name Drops, References, and Resources from Claire

Sahar Aziz – The Racial Muslim; Mariame Kaba – transformative justice; Khaled Beydoun – intersectionality, racial identity, CRT, and Islamophobia; Deepa Iyer – social change ecosystem; religious leaders and leaders in other sectors who sacrificed in the name of social and racial justice such as Malcom X, Muhammad Ali; John Paul Lederach – the moral imagination

More from Claire

“Find your place in the ecosystem but also don’t be afraid to try different things. balance making space and taking up space. love your unique self and identity, and your unique experiences and contributions — they’re valuable, and needed. Social and racial justice take all forms but sometimes we treat these things like exclusive clubs.”