carla is a founding member of cultivate strategies. carla has extensive experience working with progressive organizations, unions and candidates from local school board elections to campaigns for president. their expertise is in digital, field, creative actions, branding, and strategic communications.

previously the senior vice president of strategy at revolution messaging, carla has led large teams, hundreds of clients, and managed full service cross- department work. carla has led work with clients like 350, abortion af, aclu, bernie sanders for president 2016, color of change, democracy for america, democratic senatorial campaign committee, elizabeth warren for senate 2018, giffords, justice for flint, movement for black lives, moveon, presente, showing up for racial justice, standing rock sioux tribe, and working families party.

carla was the lead mobile strategist for bernie sanders for president 2016 which won two reed awards and a pollie award for mobile. carla helped conceptualize and launch daily action, which uses mobile and calling to make civic engagement easy and effective by having one call action per day. daily action has been recognized with 2 reed awards, a gold pollie award, and a mobile marketing association award for social impact. carla worked with black out for human rights to use mobile tools to raise $150,000 in 24 hours for communities affected by the flint water crisis.

carla is from miami, fl and graduated from colby college in waterville, me with degrees in environmental policy and film. In maine, they found their other passion; competitive timber sports, partaking in events like axe throwing, fire building, and chopping. carla is on the board of directors of werk for peace, an organization that holds trans and queer dance protests, notably in front of mike pence and ivanka trump’s houses. carla currently lives in the petworth neighborhood of washington, dc with their cat, leo.

firas is a founding member of cultivate strategies. they are a queer, genderqueer, arab activist and organizer. In the wake of the pulse nightclub shooting, firas founded werk for peace, a queer and trans grassroots movement that uses all forms of dance to promote peace. You may have seen them twerking on a car in front of mike pence's house or ivanka trump's house. werk has gone viral and has been featured in the washington post, bbc, cnn, vice, buzzfeed, huffington post, time, reuters, ap, cspan, nowthis, npr, newsweek, and more.

While firas is best known for their dance activism, they have also worked within the womxn’s rights, environmental justice, anti-trafficking, police and criminal justice reform, gun violence prevention, immigrant and refugee rights, sex workers rights, reproductive justice, and sexual violence prevention spaces.

firas was an independent scholar in human rights at middlebury college in vermont and also studied as a visiting student at columbia university in new york. later, they completed a full-stack web development bootcamp at the george washington university.

firas' passion for design and development emerges from wanting to create a world where the intersectional, sustainable, and creative work of the movement can be reflected in the digital space.

now back in the washington, dc area where they grew up, you can find firas meditating or coding at a local dc cafe or in their car taking a road trip to fill the weekend with exploration. firas is inspired by snow-covered, deep green grass; the sound of a heartbeat; a perfectly brewed cup of green tea; modern art; self and community care practices; effective communication skills; and emotional intelligence.