Author

Caitlin Quigley helped launch the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance. She is a member of Mariposa Food Co-op, The Energy Co-op, and Philadelphia Federal Credit Union. She also writes a monthly column about Philly co-ops for Generocity.org. While living in Bellingham, WA, Caitlin co-founded the Whatcom Investing Network, a forum to facilitate investments between local investors and local businesses.

Noel Ortega is the coordinator of the New Economy Working Group (NEWGroup), which is an informal partnership between YES! Magazine, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Living Economies Forum, and the Democracy Collaborative, the Institute for Local Self-reliance, and the New Economy Coalition.

The distinctive role of NEWGroup is to serve as a virtual policy think tank and communications resource for the growing number of civil society groups concerned with economic justice, environmental sustainability, and peace that are forming alliances and coalitions under a New Economy banner to put forward a bold vision and implementing strategy for a New Economy that works for all of Earth’s people and the living systems on which their well-being depends.

Joe Guinan is a Senior Fellow at The Democracy Collaborative and Executive Director of the Next System Project. Born in England with dual Irish and British citizenship, he grew up in British labor movement circles and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He writes regularly for progressive outlets in the UK, including openDemocracy and the journal Renewal.

Paul Glover is founder of Ithaca HOURS local currency, Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), League of Uninsured Voters (LUV), Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, Patch Adams Free clinic, Ithaca Health Alliance and a dozen more groups that transfer power to America's grassroots.  You can send him an email here.

Matthew Slater builds and implements open source software for social & complementary currencies. As a full nomad, he knows first hand many people and projects in his field. In 2009 he co-founded with Tim Anderson the Swiss association Community Forge which freely hosts web sites for LETS and timebanks. He is also active in thinking and educating about money. In 2013 He co-created the 'trading floor game' with Sybille Saint Girons. In 2015 he co-authored the Money and Society MOOC with Professor Jem Bendell. In 2016 he co-authored the Credit Commons white paper with Tim Jenkin.

Sarah Taub, Ph.D is a cultural activist whose passion is creating events where people transform. She teaches the skills of peaceful, sustainable community, self-awareness, honesty, clear boundaries, and facilitates group processes of many sorts, including consensus decision-making, business meetings and retreats, ZEGG Forum, and conflict resolution sessions. Sarah co-founded the first cohousing community in Washington, DC, and for the past 12 years has lived at Chrysalis, a small urban intentional community in Arlington, VA whose mission is to support activists and healers (www.chrysalis-va.org). Since 2004, she has been a major organizer of Network for a New Culture's East Coast Summer Camp (www.cfnc.us) and other events aimed at creating a culture based on awareness, compassion, and freedom rather than on fear and judgment. In 2006, she left her tenured professorship in Cognitive Linguistics at Gallaudet University to focus full-time on events, community-building, and cultural change. Since 2011, she has been the financial and programs manager for Abrams Creek Center (www.abramscreekcenter.com), a retreat center and community in the mountains of West Virginia.

Sarah has been facilitating ZEGG Forum at New Culture events since 2004. She participated in and assisted at three Forum trainings with Teryani Riggs and has completed several Forum trainings with Ina Meyer-Stoll and Achim Ecker of ZEGG, including a 16-day facilitation training at Ganas Community in New York. She coordinated or co-coordinated the Forum team at New Culture Summer Camp West from 2008 to 2011, coordinated the Forum team at New Culture Summer Camp Central Oregon in 2011 and 2012, and has been on the Forum team at New Culture Summer Camp East since 2008. She has been teaching Forum facilitation with Debby Sugarman since 2011, and is deeply committed to Forum as a tool of large-group transparency and transformation.

Teryani writes at the Living Awareness Institute Blog

John Zippert is the Director of Program Operations for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund at their Rural Training and Research Center in Epes, Alabama. He has over 45 years experience in community organizing, cooperative and credit union development, community based economic development and rural development in distressed communities. Prior to working for the Federation, he was a fieldworker for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Louisiana. He has a BA degree in history from the City College of New York; and has participated in numerous training sessions and courses to enhance his skills in rural development.

Zippert has worked with the Federation on the development of affordable housing for low income people in Alabama, including development, loan packaging and construction of over 250 units of single family housing, self-help housing and four rural multi-family projects with 126 units.

Zippert and his wife Carol are co-publishers of the Greene County Democrat, the weekly newspaper in their home rural community. They have published the newspaper since it was acquired in December 1984 by a community group in the county. The Zippert’s have three children and 11 grandchildren.    

John Zippert serves on the boards of many national, regional, state, and local organizations to support rural development activities. Among these boards are: The Rural Coalition, Association for Community Based Education, Rural Development Leadership Network, Alabama Black Belt Commission, Alabama Council on Human Relations, Alabama Organizing Project, Alabama New South Coalition, Greene County Industrial Board, Greene County Hospital and Nursing Home, and Greene-Sumter Enterprise Community.