Dany Sigwalt

I’m a strategist, organizer, and network builder working at the intersection of climate, racial justice, governance, and power.

A lot of my work happens behind the scenes. I help organizations make clearer decisions, move resources with more intention, and build systems that can actually hold the weight of the work.

Right now, I’m Managing Director at Green Leadership Trust. Over the last decade, I’ve helped build and support national networks across the climate justice ecosystem.

Get in touch

What I think about

I spend a lot of time thinking about:

racial justice as the starting point, not the add-on
climate change as an outcome of inequality, not a separate crisis
how movements build power without burning people out
who controls resources, and how those flows can change
governance as a living practice, not a box to check
tools that help people work together without extracting from them

Most of my work lives somewhere in that overlap.

What I’m working on

Circle

I’m building Circle to help movement organizations take more control over their data, relationships, and ways of working.

The goal is practical: help people organize better, fundraise better, collaborate better, and win more often.

This work comes out of years of supporting organizations as they navigate growth, governance, fundraising, leadership transitions, and all the messy infrastructure that sits underneath movement work.

Circle is for people who:

feel like existing tools don’t reflect how relationships actually work
want to move away from feeding the extractive tech landscape
are navigating philanthropy while trying to stay accountable to community
need systems that support the work instead of creating more work

Governance and board work

I work with organizations that want boards to be more than a compliance structure.

That can mean helping them:

build boards that reflect their values and communities
make decisions with more clarity and shared understanding
move from performative accountability toward actual accountability
name what power the board holds, and how it should be used

I’ve supported board development and governance strategy for early-stage groups, national networks, and organizations in moments of growth, transition, or reset.

Writing and thought

I write about climate, racial justice, and power.

My work has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, and I’m the author of This Book Will Save the Planet, part of the Empower the Future series.

The through line is simple: climate change is not separate from inequality. It is one of its outcomes.

Network building

Through Green Leadership Trust and other work, I spend a lot of time building connective tissue.

That looks like:

connecting leaders of the global majority to positions of influence
building trust across organizations, sectors, and movements
creating spaces where people can move from relationship to strategy
helping networks make decisions, move resources, and act with more clarity

Green Leadership Trust includes more than 200 members working across climate, philanthropy, governance, and racial justice.

A note on tech, climate, and power

Most conversations about climate and technology are happening at the wrong level.

People talk about better tools. Better data. Better models. Better dashboards.

But the climate crisis did not happen because we lacked technology. It came out of systems designed to concentrate power and extract from people and land.

If those systems stay intact, better tools just help them move faster.

The questions I care about are more basic:

who controls the tools
who benefits from them
who gets harmed by them
whether they help people build collective power or just reinforce what already exists

Where I come from

I grew up in Washington, DC, watching gentrification, displacement, and the racial wealth gap reshape the city in real time.

I came into this work through organizing: anti-war work, housing justice, and community-based support systems.

That grounding still shapes how I think about power, responsibility, and what people owe each other.

What I’m thinking about right now

the physical, environmental, and colonial costs of the digital systems we rely on
how climate infrastructure gets built, and who gets to shape it
what it would mean for movements to own more of their own technology
how people move resources in ways that build power, not dependency

Outside of work

Outside of work, I like to make things.

I’m usually somewhere in the middle of:

figuring out home repair, slowly and sometimes incorrectly

woodworking projects that get more complicated than they need to be

gardening, especially food connected to memory and place

fiber arts, because slow repetitive work gives my brain somewhere to land

I like understanding how things are built, whether that’s a house, a system, a board, or an organization.

Work with me

I take on a small number of projects, usually focused on:

recruitment and onboarding
fundraising systems and strategy
governance and board development
early-stage infrastructure design
network strategy
organizational transitions

I usually work with organizations at key transition points: growth, leadership change, strategic reset, or the moment when the old systems stop working and people need to build something stronger.

Most of that work is with organizations working toward climate and racial justice.

Selected experience

Managing Director, Green Leadership Trust
Former Co-Executive Director / Operations Director, Power Shift Network
Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity
Author, This Book Will Save the Planet (Empower the Future series)
Writing featured in The New York Times and other national outlets

Contact dany@danysigwalt.com