We believe that by existing differently individuals, organizations, communities, workplaces, and systems can create thriving cultures, economies, systems, relationships, and practices that facilitate love, sustainability, and well-being. We believe that now is the time to exist differently because our systems are no longer sustainable and pose a threat to our collective well-being.
What we do
Visionary Organizing Lab exists to teach Visionary Organizing, an approach to change that equally emphasizes our material needs and non-material needs. We believe that when we learn to equally emphasize our material and non-material needs, we begin to exist in ways that allow us to create communities, organizations, and institutions that allow us to thrive in partnership with others and the Earth.
How we work
Visionary Organizing Lab exists to teach people how to exist differently so that we can collectively thrive. You can register for our programs as an individual, as well as book programs for your whole organization, workplace, or team. We also offer programs that can be booked for groups of students.
In each of our programs, you are engaged by facilitator-teachers in an environment where your feelings are as important as the work you’re doing. Our facilitator-teachers practice what we call Visionary Teaching, which is rooted in seven assumptions:
1. All people are capable of difficult and complex conversations.
2. All people are capable learning complex ideas and concepts.
3. People learn complex ideas best when they see it has relevance to their lives.
4. People see how complex ideas are relevant to their lives when their personal experiences are put in conversation with larger structures and historical factors
5. Learning is always a holistic experience.
6. Complex ideas and concepts do not get understood in a one-sided relationship.
7. Mutual relationships are created in spaces where people know that their voices, experiences, and personhood matter.
Visionary Teaching allows Visionary Organizing Lab to create educational experiences in which people’s non-material needs become a guiding force in the educational process. To maintain our commitment to Visionary Teaching, we seldom co-create programs with groups or individuals but we do adapt programs to specific needs when necessary.
Our story
Grace Lee Boggs began to use the term Visionary Organizing around 2011 to describe the kind of activism and organizing that people were doing in Detroit to transform themselves and institutions. From 2012 to 2014, a New York City collective called Growing Roots made up of Matt Birkhold, Amaka Okechukwu, Shaun Lin, John Gergely, Akeema Anthony, Joanne Tien, and Casey Edwards emerged to explore what it might look like to practice Visionary Organizing In New York. During a conversation between members of Growing Roots and the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership around 2015, Shea Howell suggested the name Visionary Organizing Lab to describe the work that members of Growing Roots were continuing to do. The name felt right and VOL did its first workshop on MLK Day in 2016. Without the Boggs Center in Detroit and the Brecht Forum in New York, Visionary Organizing Lab would not exist.
Today VOL is a co-directed organization with intentions to evolve into an organizational structure that practices shared leadership. We come to VOL from social movements that treated people poorly, non-profit organizations that overworked us, educational programs that united personal and political transformation, and from a desire to connect business to human thriving.
Matt Birkhold | Co-Director + Connective Energy Organizer/Teacher-Facilitator
Matt (he/him) has been a consistent influence in VOL’s development. He prides himself on creating opportunities for people to contribute their gifts to the world around them both inside and outside of VOL. He believes deeply in people’s capacity to transform and do better, and strives to consistently assume responsibility for nurturing that capacity in himself and others. Matt has been in and around social movements for two decades, has a PhD in historical sociology, and has been committed to deep personal transformation for more than a decade. Lessons he’s learned from these experiences are reflected in Visionary Organizing Lab’s work. He loves house music and irreverence, and lives with his beloved partner in Washington, DC.
Meet the team
Ashley Johns | Co-Director + Connective Financial Organizer
Ashley (she/her) is a dynamic creative strategist and storyteller with a profound passion for business development. With over a decade of experience, she has been dedicated to empowering creatives, entrepreneurs, students, and business professionals. Her expertise lies in guiding them to articulate and enhance their personal stories and brand identities. Whether conducting engaging workshops, crafting effective operational strategies, or providing personalized consultations, Ashley is unwavering in her commitment to amplifying voices and propelling individuals and organizations towards success. Her dedication to community building has led to collaborations with a diverse range of startups and innovative educational institutions, as well as business leaders and creative professionals from across the globe. Ashley earned her MBA from American University, and she artfully combines her business acumen with an innate sense of curiosity and creativity to nurture an environment where imagination and innovation can truly thrive.
Shawn Whitehorn | Director of Design + Information Systems
Shawn (he/him) is a curious systems-thinker, facilitator, artist, designer, lifelong learner, and dot-connector. Having ancestral roots in and an orientation towards justice, creative practice, organizing, and advocacy, Shawn's work is produced by the intersection between Black life, history, art, urbanisms, activism, and social inquiry. His academic and professional journey spans architecture and design, organizing and advocacy, neighborhood leadership development and facilitation, and small business development. Shawn brings those experiences into the support of VOL through managing its internal systems and program operations. Shawn loves music, singing, learning about Afro-diasporic cultures and practices, good food, exploring his home base of New York City by bike, dancing to Afrobeat music, travel, yoga, and nature.
Ebony Williams | Teacher-Facilitator
Ebony (she/her) has created community self-reliance projects like Ancient Beauty, an urban agricultural non-profit in Detroit, and has worked extensively with Feedom Freedom Growers. She values preventative medicine, advocacy, ubuntu philosophy, and problem-posing education as an educator and student. Love-affirming practices fuel her journey towards an interdisciplinary fusing of medicine, urban agriculture, and mentorship principles. She began training with VOL as a teacher-facilitator after attending a VOL workshop in Detroit in 2018 that helped her “connect the dots.” Ebony loves nature, dancing, and dancing in nature. She graduated from the University of Michigan and has a Master’s of Science from Wayne State University.
