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 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 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.

Lihuan Lai, born in Southern China, is fortunate enough to become a Summer Search student and Posse scholar, supporting her to become a first generation high school and college graduate, and establish herself as a mission-driven leader. Lihuan’s career is grounded in creating a more equitable and just world through equal access to education, for adult immigrants, for racially and socio-economically diverse students, and international students. In the past 4 years, Lihuan has been putting her MS in Nonprofit Development into practice focusing on operations, finance and strategy in smaller nonprofit organizations in the Boston area. Prior, Lihuan traveled to 40 countries working in international admissions at Bentley University and Fordham University. Her work experience also includes chapters at the Asian University For Women in Chittagong Bangladesh, at the Asian American Civic Association, and as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Commonwealth School.

Luana Morales is the Community of Care Weaver and Co-director of the Movement Sustainability Commons (MSC).

Over the last 30 years she has dedicated her life to working in human services in a variety of settings including  residential long term treatment, outpatient, and supportive housing with individuals and families struggling with mental health issues, trauma, addiction, chronic health conditions, and were navigating the carceral system and homelessness. She also spent 11 years offering community based parenting education supporting families affected by substance abuse, mental illness, and trauma.

Intertwined in this work, over the last 20 years she has been a community based (Boston) Birth, Death, and Ancestral healing arts practitioner that has also shared her work nationally. Luana is devoted to reclaiming and reimagining our birth, death, and healing practices.

Her work is led by joy and pleasure, rooted in our ancestral earth based practices within a politicized framework centering healing justice. She co-creates containers that support our individual and collective healing and liberation. In 2017 she founded Seeds of Our Ancestors, a mobile interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and multi lineage healing squad.

At MSC she has been able to bring her experiences as a community based healer, non profit leader, organizer, and artist into her co-director role. She holds and co-holds the work of Circle of Elders/Emerging Elders, Communications, Experiments, and Community Circle.

She weaves the values of the Community of Care for the MSC ecosystem via the creation of the Interdependance Restival, Grief Ritual, and other ways of bringing community together for joy and healing and offering programming that holds our ecosystem in the fullness of their humanity. This is especially important in these times of deep suffering due to the impact of fascism, capitalism, and the attack on our immigrant, Queer, other vulnerable community kin.

Now that her kids are adults she likes to do hoodrat things with her friends like liberate stems to propagate from plants in the wild.

(also known as Jasmine)
Tatianna Montañez is the Co-Director of Finance and Human Resources at Movement Sustainability Commons. A proud Black & Puerto Rican mom/sister/auntie from Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, Tatianna brings over 15 years of experience across HR, finance, operations, and DEI, grounded in a deep commitment to justice, dignity, and collective care. She spent seven years at Year Up in roles spanning human resources, finance, and corporate engagement, and was formerly the co-owner of a small, equity-focused consulting practice. Tatianna also serves as a facilitator for TSNE’s Emerging Consultants of Color Training (ECCT), where she supports BIPOC consultants in building values-driven practices.
She holds an MBA from Simmons University and is a SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP). Tatianna joined MSC because she believes in liberation, collaboration, and the radical work of real people supporting one another to live their fullest, most human lives. She is drawn to being part of something bigger than herself—something rooted in community, care, and the reimagining of what’s possible.
Outside of spreadsheets and handbooks and facilitation, Tatianna is usually chasing sunlight, laughing with her kids, or learning how to rest without guilt (with mixed success). She also enjoys reading, thrifting, collecting quirky vintage electronics and odd treasures, and watching her kids blossom into dope, loving humans.