Butterfly Lab: Phase 1

From July 2020 - October 2021, the Butterfly Lab brought together a select cohort of 16 leaders from work in advocacy, the law, organizing, policy, human rights, the arts, and popular culture. Cohort members developed, tested and scaled immigration narratives to meet our current political moment. Their projects were supported with research and impact evaluation, and the cohort’s learnings will be broadly disseminated to build capacity, skills, and knowledge within the pro-immigrant movement during Year 2 of the Lab. 

The Butterfly Lab is funded by Unbound Philanthropy, Luminate, the Open Society Foundations and the Oak Foundation.

For more information, see Race Forward’s announcement of the Butterfly Lab.


Cohort Members: 

Aisha Shillingford | Artistic Director, Intelligent Mischief
Anshantia Oso | Senior Communications Strategist, Action Center on Race and the Economy
Becca Heller | Co-Founder and Executive Director, International Refugee Assistance Project
Carly Pérez Fernández | Communications Director, Detention Watch Network
Cecillia Wang | Deputy Legal Director, ACLU 
ChristinaMaria Patiño-Houle | Lead Visionary and Strategist, Las Imaginistas
Cristina Jiménez Moreta | Co-Founder & Executive Director, United We Dream
Elizabeth Grizzle Voorhees | Formerly of Define American
Juanita Cabrera Lopez, Maya Mam Nation | Executive Director, International Mayan League
Lorella Praeli | President, Community Change Action & Vice President, Community Change
Marielena Hincapié | Executive Director, National Immigration Law Center (NILC) And NILC Immigrant Justice Fund
Mark Gonzales (M.Ed) | Chair, Department Of The Future
Mónica Ramírez | Founder and President, Justice For Migrant Women
Omar Offendum | Rapper and Spoken Word Artist
Paola Mendoza | Film Director, Activist, Author, Co-founder, The Women’s March
Saket Soni | Founder And Director, Resilience Force