Leadership & Staff Collective

Land in Common is deep in a long process of transforming our organization to center communities directly impacted by land injustice, while building commitment from white folks to show up in solidarity to advance this work.

We’re exploring what it looks like to de-center boards and re-center real relationships of trust and accountability. 

In many ways, our structure has not yet caught up to our relationships, and is evolving and changing as we build deeper trust and collaboration. At the moment, we’re using a dual leadership model where an all-BIPOC Leadership Council directs the course and focus of our work, and our white and predominantly class-privileged Board handles the logistics of carrying out the priorities set by our Leadership Council. This organizational structure was created by our Leadership Council, and will likely shift as we continue our work together.

Land in Common’s core priorities and projects are shaped by our BIPOC leadership council. Our Board of Directors is responsible for supporting these priorities and guiding their implementation. Our Staff Collective moves project forward on the ground, builds relationships and collaborations, and generates financial and other support:

Leadership Council

  • Crystal Cron
  • David Patrick
  • Lokotah Sanborn
  • Mali Obomsawin
  • Marco Soulo
  • René Goddess
  • Sarah Matari
  • Signature MiMi

We honor the work of Nicole Mokeme, whose visionary organizing guided the creation of the leadership council, and who continues to inspire our collective work for land justice. Nicole passed away Juneteenth weekend, 2022. We hold her in our hearts as we care for each other and the land. May she rest in power.

Board of Directors

  • Camille Parrish
  • Daphne Loring
  • Ethan Miller
  • Jonah Fertig-Burd
  • Kate Boverman
  • Katharine Gaillard
  • Nathan Brimmer
  • Sherie Blumenthal

Staff Collective

Autumn Jade Fitch, Co-coordinator

My work at Land in Common is focused on convening our Leadership Council to guide the shape and direction of our work, envisioning and organizing our new affordable housing development program, and coordinating and facilitating many aspects of our land justice and land care work across multiple communities. 

I currently live in Yarmouth with my two sons, Vahn-Russell and Marcus, where we enjoy board games, traveling, movies, and outdoor adventures. Originally, I’m from the Passamaquoddy reservation, Motahkmikuk, and my tribal community and heritage is a fundamental part of my life.  I believe in caring for all people, animals, and the environment holistically and these values guide all aspects of my work and life. I bring over 10 years of leadership experience in business growth, IT, and sustainability to my work with Land in Common. I have a business degree with a sustainability focus and an anthropology minor, and I actively continue my education and have been trained in courses such as: United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change for Indigenous Peoples, Decolonizing Leadership Structures and Systems, Indigenous Creative Innovation and Business Development, and Fashion Marketing and Design. I label myself a Decolonizer and I center equity, integrity, and innovation in all my endeavors.

Jesse Saffeir, Development Co-coordinator

I anchor our development strategy, fundraising, and grant writing. Each year, over half of the money we raise passes through Land in Common in the form of land redistribution. We understand ourselves as one part of a larger movement, and the way we fundraise and use money is an extension of this. In my work, I seek to transform fundraising towards deeper relationships, collaboration, and solidarity. I love connecting with donors who see their donations as an active and crucial part of sustaining a movement. I think fundraising can hold the potential for many forms of liberation – liberation through participating in social change work, spiritual liberation for people letting go of wealth beyond what they need, and liberation for the people and movements on the ground building a more just future. 

Outside of Land in Common, I spend a lot of time in the woods, and with my chosen family. I love yard sales, monster truck rallies, foraging, target shooting, gardening, and cooking big meals with my friends. I organize with Resource Generation Maine, coordinating their community partnerships. I’m passionate about wealth redistribution and building cross-class community grounded in solidarity and mutual aid. I live with my girlfriend Pia in rural Central Maine in Abenaki territory, near the Sandy River.

Ethan Miller, Co-coordinator

My work with Land in Common is focused primarily on movement and relationship-building, supporting our current land commons, and on the legal and logistical sides of gathering, protecting, and redistributing new land. I also focus on solidarity work with Wabanaki Nations and communities—land return, participation on the Conservation Community Delegation to the Wabanaki Commission on Land & Stewardship, and support organizing for the emerging Wabanaki Self-Determination Fund. 

I live, farm, and play at Wild Mountain Cooperative in Greene with my partner, son, and 11 other people (a couple of whom are cute dogs). I’m passionate about building collective livelihoods beyond and against capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy, propagating and growing fruit trees, making music and fermented beverages, and wandering in wild places with my family. I also have a not-so-secret other life as an activist-scholar, researching, writing, and teaching about postcapitalist livelihoods. I’m a member of the Community Economies Institute, and have written, among other things, a grounded theory book called Reimagining Livelihoods: Life beyond Economy, Society, and Environment.

About our Staff Collective structure

Land in Common’s staffing structure attempts to embody the values of collective liberation our organization seeks to advance in the world. 

  • We have a nonhierarchical staffing structure, organized as a worker-managed collective. We do not have bosses; we support and hold each other accountable through horizontal practices of communication and shared decision making.
  • We don’t have an executive director; all staff are co-coordinators, with different areas of focus. We all share administrative work and other “nobody loves doing them” tasks in a balanced way. 
  • Staff pay is based on two factors: a living wage calculation based on family size, and an equity adjustment that increases pay based on experienced impacts of structural injustice. 
  • Our Leadership Council determines the overall vision and focus of our work, and the Staff Collective as a group is responsible for getting the work done. How this work gets done on an everyday basis is decided within the Staff Collective. We split up tasks based on skills and interests, and have multiple structures for meeting and communication that allow us to regularly check in and adjust things as needed.