David Hunt has been an organizer for over 30 years. He started as student organizer at Howard University where he attended from 1975-1979. David has also taught others to become powerful through organizing as an associate professor at a number of higher education institutions teaching organizing and affordable housing community development; University of Illinois in Chicago, Marygrove college in Detroit, MI, and Rutgers University in Newark, NJ.

As well as being a trainer with Midwest Academy for 20 years David has been keynote speaker both here in the US and internationally. As a leader and strategist, David has worked on a number of political campaigns at the city state and national level.

He was Executive director of Chicago Rehab network, a city-wide coalition of affordable housing. organizations where he organized a two-year long campaign to win $750 million dollars for affordable housing.

David worked with Food and Water Watch as a consultant and staff for 10 years.In addition, he was a lead staff strategist and organizer for US Action for four years.

David has won many organizing battles including a Multi-Billion-dollar Affordable Housing Bond in California in 2000, and housing land trust and housing trust funds in Philadelphia. In 2023 he was the lead strategist in a campaign that won a $110 million annual increase in state funding for education in Connecticut.

David Presently resides in Charlotte NC.

Elyzabeth Peredo Beltrán is a social psychologist, writer and activist on water and human rights issues. Elyzabeth was the co-founder of TAHIPAMU, a women's history research workshop during the 1980s, which produced women in history research and feminist writing. She is the author of several books, articles and video scripts about social, economic and cultural rights related to water, women, racism and environmental crises.

Between 1999 and 2003, Elyzabeth was the Coordinator of the National Committee for the Solidarity with Domestic Workers in Bolivia. She belongs to the Women’s Net for Transforming the Economy in Latin America (REMTE). Since 2006, she has promoted and coordinated the “Blue October” campaign in Bolivia, a large annual social mobilization for the right to water as a common good. Elyzabeth lives in La Paz, Bolivia and currently is the Executive Director of the Solon Foundation.

Lisa Schubert has spent most of her career either directing, developing, or coordinating projects.  She recently stepped down as VP, Cathedral Programming & External Relations at the Cathedral of St John the Divine (2008 – 2023) in New York, where she was charged with creating an institutional framework for funding, staffing, and implementing a multi-disciplinary arts program and an ongoing menu of events and projects of civic engagement in the humanities. 

Prior to joining the Cathedral, Lisa worked for the Rubin Museum of Art, which she joined as the first staff member at the inception in 1998. She worked closely with the founders to refine and develop the original concept and put together the “start-up” team. Her career has involved most aspects of cultural administration including policy, strategic planning, public education, programming, operations, administration, communications, and development. 

Lisa also serves on the boards of The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, committed to preserving and disseminating Buddhist literature; and the Early Music Foundation, which fosters public understanding and appreciation of western culture through historically-informed performances of music from the 11th through the 18th centuries.

Rudolf is a prominent lawyer and civil society figure in Ghana, and is the Executive Director of GrassRootsAfrica. He previously worked for the Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC) as the Director of Advocacy and Campaigns. The program was established as a response to the impact of International Monetary Fund and World Bank polices with the poor and disadvantaged in Ghana. As an active student leader during the repressive Rawlings regime, Rudolf fought to restore democracy. He was jailed without prosecution several times during Rawlings' rule in the 1980s for voicing the concerns of Ghanaian citizens.

The Integrated Social Development Centre works closely with the National Coalition Against the Privatization of Water, where Rudolf serves as the National Campaign Coordinator for the Coalition. The coalition is a broad consortium of organizations including health professionals, academia, trade unions, students, and disabled and women’s groups. They have been instrumental in raising public awareness about the water policies set by the World Bank. World Bank involvement led to a 95 percent increase in water rates in 2001 in Ghana. Rudolf fears privatization will reduce access to clean and affordable water. The Integrated Social Development Centre works to inform players in both government and civil society of the consequences of a globalized economy.

Russell Greene is a poet, singer/songwriter, political strategist, climate campaigner and legislative lobbyist. Over a 32-year career at the Cheesecake Factory Restaurants he rose from the position of server to Executive Vice President of Operations Services and Sustainability.  In 2016, he left the company to bring his full attention to the climate emergency.

As part of this effort, Russell worked on the Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign, spearheading the social media efforts, Climate Decision 2016 and Climate Charge 2020 where focused on electing Senator Sanders and shifting the climatenarrative from “climate change” to “climate emergency.” As a delegate to the 2016 Democratic Convention, Russell was appointed to the Democratic Party Platform Committee, where he successfully amended the 2016 Democratic Party platform, putting the party on record calling for a World War II-scale climate emergency mobilization. This helped lay the foundation for the first ever congressional climate emergency resolution introduced in the 116th Congress, and for the bicameral Climate Emergency Act introduced in the 117th Congress. Greene worked closely with the offices of Sen. Sanders, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to help draft, and recruit congressional co-sponsors for, both pieces of legislation.

Russell served terms in the California Democratic Party (CDP) as an elected and appointed delegate, and an elected member of the party’s Executive Board. He also served successive terms as Vice Chair of Legislation for the CDP’s Environmental Caucus. From 2007-2023 Greeneworked as Senior Adviser of Strategy and Climate Policy for The Progressive Democrats of America. He was a Co-Founder and Senior Adviser to the Justice Action Mobilization Network (JAMN), where in partnership with the Hip Hop Caucus and NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts, he conceived and co-produced a groundbreaking art-centered Climate Action Conference. He also played an active role as Advisory Board Chair for The Climate Mobilization and served as Advisory Board Chair for iMatter Kids vs. Global Warming.

Shawn is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, an interdisciplinary academic center at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. With a diverse portfolio of research, education, and practice activities the Center addresses some of the most pressing issues in food systems affecting public health and the environment. Shawn has extensive experience in the development of public health programs and previously served in several leadership capacities at the Center.

He joined the Bloomberg School in 1999 as a program officer, and in 2006 joined the faculty in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. His public health career began in the field with UNICEF, where he managed projects supporting United Nations programs in Central and Southeast Asia. Shawn holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and a Master of Public Health from the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Zephyr Teachout is a Law Professor at Fordham Law School, and a nationally recognized scholar in anticorruption and antitrust. She received a B.A. from Yale and an MA and JD from Duke University. She has held various leadership positions in national nonprofits, and was a critical innovator in bringing internet organizing to political campaigns as the Director of Online Organizing for Howard Dean's 2003 campaign for President. She has litigated death penalty cases in North Carolina and was part of the legal team that sued Trump for violating the emoluments clause in 2016. 

She has run for Governor and Attorney General in New York, and has published in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Nation, the American Prospect, among many other places.