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Rad Ops - The Podcast
Rad Ops - The Podcast episodes
- Life Cycle of Organizations w/Raquel Laviña
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this closing episode of season one, we take on the tough topic of the Life Cycle of Organizations with our guest, Raquel Laviña, Consultant, most recently with the Grassroots Power Project.
Resources from this episode:
- Transforming Our Organizations, Transforming Ourselves article by Sha Grogan-Brown contains many links to resources that can support organizational culture shifts
- When you are leading with other people, try out this somatic practice called CFEEB (Center, Face, Extend, Enter, Blend) together
- Rad Ops Workbook - try out these activities with your colleagues
- Visit the Rad Ops Resources page
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- Questions for our Organizations
- How does the purpose of this organization need to pivot under the conditions of rising authoritarianism?
- Is this organization we built in previous conditions still the one that is needed in this current moment?
- If many organizations may not make it through this period of rising authoritarianism, how can we clearly assess the unique purpose of this organization?
- What are the new formations we might need for the times ahead, beyond our current organizations?
- How can the Rad Ops principles inform our collective understanding of what our organization can and cannot do?
- How can resilient relationships be baked into organizational structures so we are not relying on individual mastery, or set back due to transitions?
- Questions for Ourselves
- Can I be okay with what my organization can and cannot put in place?
- How can I ensure my relationships outlast current organizational structures?
- How can I use the qualities that I’ve learned of starting, stewarding, pivoting, sunsetting in our movement building, even if my organization doesn’t make it?
- What will I need in order to sustain myself through whatever transitions are ahead?
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
1 hr 10 min - Culture of Care w/Adaku Utah
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Culture of Care with our guest, Adaku Utah, Director of Movement Building Programs at the Building Movement Project.
Resources from this episode:
- Solidarity Lessons from a Year of Crisis and Change
- How to Build Solidarity Infrastructure for the Long Haul by Adaku Utah and Deepa Iyer
- Solidarity Is This podcast
- Social Change Ecosystem Map - Building Movement
- Stories for Power Podcast: Durham | creative interventions
- Communities of Care article by Yashna Maya Padamsee
- Transforming Our Organizations, Transforming Ourselves article by Sha Grogan-Brown
- Book: The Future is Collective: Effective Workplace Strategies for Building a Culture of Care by Niloufar Khonsari
- Starting in 2026, get 25% off with the code RADOPS when you place your order
- here with North Atlantic Books
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- How is your organization defining and directing care?
- Where do you see a gap between what your organization values and cares about publicly and how things actually function internally in your organization, and what would it take to close that gap in practice?
- What boundaries would make care more durable for you and others ?
- What contradictions around care are most alive in your work right now? What does it reveal about where your organization needs to grow?
- What season is your organization in? (Summer, Spring, Autumn or Winter)
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
1 hr 8 min - Culture of Care w/Adaku Utah
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Culture of Care with our guest, Adaku Utah, Director of Movement Building Programs at the Building Movement Project.
Resources from this episode:
- Solidarity Lessons from a Year of Crisis and Change
- How to Build Solidarity Infrastructure for the Long Haul by Adaku Utah and Deepa Iyer
- Solidarity Is This podcast
- Social Change Ecosystem Map - Building Movement
- Stories for Power Podcast: Durham | creative interventions
- Communities of Care article by Yashna Maya Padamsee
- Transforming Our Organizations, Transforming Ourselves article by Sha Grogan-Brown
- Book: The Future is Collective: Effective Workplace Strategies for Building a Culture of Care by Niloufar Khonsari
- Starting in 2026, get 25% off with the code RADOPS when you place your order
- here with North Atlantic Books
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- How is your organization defining and directing care?
- Where do you see a gap between what your organization values and cares about publicly and how things actually function internally in your organization, and what would it take to close that gap in practice?
- What boundaries would make care more durable for you and others ?
- What contradictions around care are most alive in your work right now? What does it reveal about where your organization needs to grow?
- What season is your organization in? (Summer, Spring, Autumn or Winter)
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
1 hr 8 min - Culture of Care w/Adaku Utah
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Culture of Care with our guest, Adaku Utah, Director of Movement Building Programs at the Building Movement Project.
Resources from this episode:
- Solidarity Lessons from a Year of Crisis and Change
- How to Build Solidarity Infrastructure for the Long Haul by Adaku Utah and Deepa Iyer
- Solidarity Is This podcast
- Social Change Ecosystem Map - Building Movement
- Stories for Power Podcast: Durham | creative interventions
- Communities of Care article by Yashna Maya Padamsee
- Book: The Future is Collective: Effective Workplace Strategies for Building a Culture of Care by Niloufar Khonsari
- Starting in 2026, get 25% off with the code RADOPS when you place your order
- here with North Atlantic Books
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- How is your organization defining and directing care?
- Where do you see a gap between what your organization values and cares about publicly and how things actually function internally in your organization, and what would it take to close that gap in practice?
- What boundaries would make care more durable for you and others ?
- What contradictions around care are most alive in your work right now? What does it reveal about where your organization needs to grow?
- What season is your organization in? (Summer, Spring, Autumn or Winter)
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
1 hr 8 min - Resource Mobilization w/Allison Budschalow
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Resource Mobilization with our guest, Allison Budschalow, Consulting Partner at Dragonfly Partners, Co-facilitator at Securing the Roots, and co-host of the podcast Movement Money.
Resources from this episode:
- The team at Dragonfly Partners takes a 360-degree approach to support the work of resource mobilizers, including assessing our most valuable resources—our relationships with one another through:
- In It Together—a toolkit and workshop that helps movement-building groups navigate conflict, strengthen accountability, and work together in healthier, principled ways.
- When We Fall Apart—a workbook and workshop to provide social justice groups with a vital framework for navigating necessary organizational and group breakups with integrity and intention.
- Movement Money episodes on Organize the Rich Radio
- Peer connection: Radical Fundraisers Network
- Books:
- Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby
- Free the People to Free the Money to Free the People, Edited by: Michael Gast, Marian Moore & Alex T. Tom
- Organizations:
- Securing the Roots
- Wealth Reclamation Academy of Practitioners (WRAP)
- Solidaire Network
- Resource Generation
- Justice Funders
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- What is your 30 year vision—for yourself? For your group, organization, community, people? What will become possible by being honest — with yourself, philanthropy, donors — about what you or your organization or your movement needs to get closer to your vision?
- What is your relationship to the middle class? What do you think the relationship is for the middle class to the millionaires in our communities?
- It's 2051, and a 21 year-old in your life is asking you about the most valuable resource/s in your life. What will you say?
- When you connect with your most honest parts, what do you want to tell
- a) people who have access to land, wealth, and money?
- b) people without access to land, wealth, and money?
- How will what you tell them get you and our collective movements (organizations, coalitions, neighborhoods, communities, families) closer to freedom?
- How does it feel to think about these questions?
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
55 min - Role of Assistants w/Felicia Martinez
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about the Role of Assistants (and so much more) with our guest, Felicia Martinez, freelance consultant and co-founder of Rad Ops social media network.
Resources from this episode:
- Rad Ops Workbook – Putting Rad Ops into Practice activity (pages 16–20)
- Choose and use a tool with teams of two or more people (such as a Director and an Assistant) to discern division of labor and coordination: DARCI/MOCHA/RACI
- Check out descriptions and a comparison of these three models in this guide by Nonprofit Learning Lab
- DARCI: DARCI ACCOUNTABILITY GRID Tool What it is What it can do How it works
- MOCHA: MOCHA Framework: How to Assign Responsibilities - The Management Center
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- What does the Director want and need from the Assistant? What does the organization want and need from the Assistant? Is there alignment between the Director and the organization about what the priorities of the Assistant are? (Principles 4 & 6)
- What access does the Assistant have to professional and political development, especially as it relates to their work for this Director? (Principles 1 & 7)
- What possibilities does the Assistant have for building relationships across the organization? (Principle 2)
- If you don’t have positional power at your organization, do you have positional authority? Do you have a positional view point and discernment that no one else has but could reflect important emerging needs for the organization? (Principle 1)
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
59 min - Human Resources w/Tara Shuai Ellison
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Human Resources with our guest, Tara Shuai Ellison, Founder of Shuai Strategies and co-founder of Rad Ops social media network.
Resources from this episode:
- Shuai Strategies
- The Equitable Hiring Guide & Toolkit
- Webinars:
- Be Strategic, Not Scared webinar with Tara Shuai Ellison and Kehsi Iman Wilson
- Strategies for Equitable Hiring webinar with Tara Shuai Ellison and Kehsi Iman Wilson
- RadHR Community
- Vent Diagrams
- Books: Leading for Justice & Supervision Matters (Rita Sever)
Discussion questions to take to your team from the Rad Ops workbook:
If you find yourself pitting concepts against each other, or believing one is more important than the other, it’s time to pause and consider:
- How are both sides of the binary existing in contradiction to each other?
- How might one side engage with or strengthen the other?
Download Rad Ops workbook (page 21-22) for an activity about False Binaries & Contradictions
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
42 min - Non-Compliance w/Roberto Tijerina
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Non-Compliance with our guest, Roberto Tijerina, Organizer Journeyman/Popular Educator.
Resources from this episode:
- LGBTQI+ CFO Network
- RoadMap Consulting Resources
- Movement CFO
- Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC)
- Alternative Entity Structures Guide (English, Spanish)
- Movement Protection Strategies Guide (English, Spanish)
Discussion questions to take to your team before tackling non-compliance:
- What is the organizational mission/north star?
- Is there political agreement around it?
- Is there political agreement around non-compliance?
- Have you gamed out consequential scenarios and prepped contingencies?
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence Magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
Guest Speaker
Roberto Tijerina is a queer, Latino, first-generation child of immigrants, organizer and keeper of the heart-space. Since becoming politicized in his early adolescence, Roberto has worked as an organizer connecting his queer, immigrant, multilingual experience to broader racial, economic, and gender justice movements. His experience includes working for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Highlander Research and Education Center, the Audre Lorde Project, and Southerners on New Ground (SONG). Learning at the feet of many and by doing the work, he has helped develop a Language Justice framework and lens that are informing current movement work. His political north star has always been the question: “Are you willing to be transformed in the service of the work?”
49 min - Who We Are: History, Framework, and Origin Stories w/Denise Perry
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this origins episode, we flipped the script, and guest Denise Perry interviews co-hosts Yashna Maya Padamsee and Sha Grogan-Brown!
Resources from this episode:
- Rad Ops Workbook
- Rad Ops Principles
- Rad Ops Resources Page
- Sanctuary Embodied for embodiment and somatics resources (like the centering activity within this episode)
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- What lineages do you draw from in your operations work?
- Who is a figure who you see as a political and/or operations ancestor?
- What is an event in history that you see as a pivotal moment of movement operations? Feel free to reach for the well-known figures and events, or (even better) the lesser known!
- What Rad Ops principle do you resonate with the most, and why?
- How often do you practice this principle in your work? What is one thing you could do to practice this principle more of the time?
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence Magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
Guest Speaker
Denise Perry has spent more than 35 years in labor and community organizing work, dedicated to developing strong grassroots leaders, democratic organizations, and progressive social movements. She co-founded Power U Center for Social Change, rooted in Miami’s historically Black community of Overtown in 1999. She has served on a variety of Boards to support the process and development of organizations. She currently is a Co-Director and co-founder of BOLD Training Institute which is developing Black leadership for transformative organizing and building Black power across the country.
42 min - Safety & Security w/Che Johnson-Long
The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.
In this episode we talk about Safety and Security with our guest, Che Johnson-Long, Community Safety Director at Vision Change Win.
Resources from this episode:
- Vision Change Win offers many resources on community safety, including:
- Get in Formation Training Series is an intro level training for basic community safety skills around verbal deescalation, event safety and organizational safety.
- Organizational Safety Planning Risk Assessment Tool will guide your group through building a risk assessment, the first step in organizational safety planning.
- Fascism Barometer podcast by Ejeris Dixon, helps us understand the current political moment which can inform our assessments.
- Power and Protect Safety Resource Library - prevention and preparedness resources, and recommendations to help build organizational practices and resilience
Discussion questions to take to your team:
- To get a sense of how to make a fear assessment rather than a risk assessment, you can start by asking yourself and your group these two questions:
- What is the likelihood of this happening?
- What is the impact it might have?
- To help discern the likelihood of something happening to your particular organization or community, talk with partners and ask questions like these:
- I’m worried about this scary thing happening. Has it happened to you?
- I’ve heard about this thing in the news. Have you heard about it at our local level or in our communities/sector?
- As you are making assessments around safety and security, regularly pulse check within your group: Are our assessments making us move away from or toward organizations we are in partnership with?
Subscribe & Support Rad Ops and Convergence Magazine
- Subscribe to Rad Ops substack to get notified when we post new content
- Follow RadOps on Instagram
- Donate to Rad Ops
- Support Convergence Magazine producing this show and movement media like it
Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence magazine. Design support from Kimmie Davids. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.
Guest Speaker
Che Johnson-Long is an abolitionist security practitioner and community organizer who can’t leave well enough alone. She is currently the Community Safety Director at Vision Change Win and serves as a board member of Third Wave's Accountable Futures Fund Advisory Council. Before this, Che organized with the Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative of the Racial Justice Action Center, the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative, and the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project. She holds a Juris Doctorate, comes from a long line of Blues singers, and calls Atlanta, GA home.
50 min
About Rad Ops - The Podcast
From the publisher's feed
In a time where social justice organizations are under attack, we bring you Rad Ops (that stands for Radical Operations), a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice.
Many organizations are in turmoil as they pivot to meet this moment. Rad Ops is a multimedia series offering principles, guiding questions, and tools that organizations can use to identify ways they can and cannot practice liberatory values in this unjust world.
The Rad Ops podcast is one component of a project designed for social justice organizations looking to strengthen their resilience. This project seeks to inspire people in Left movement organizations to get real with each other about what their organization can and can’t do, and make collective agreements about how they will act together when unable to fully practice their liberatory values. If people in movement organizations regularly dialogue with each other in courageous, creative, and collaborative ways, then their relationships and political visions will strengthen existing organizations and outlast both internal conflict and external opposition.
Podcast co-hosts Yashna Maya Padamsee and Sha Grogan-Brown together bring over 40 years of movement operations experience they draw from to facilitate these conversations.