Hey! I’m Meg and I’m a social justice facilitator, educator, and writer. I am one of the co-creators of The Safe Zone Project. Safe Zone trainings are near and dear to my heart both as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and as the place I started facilitating social justice. I’m a huge facilitation geek. I co-authored a book on facilitation, Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation, and help co-facilitate another free online resource (for facilitators) called FacilitatingXYZ.
When not doing LGBTQ+ work with The Safe Zone Project and trans inclusion education with The Venture Out Project, I support organizations on their inclusion, equity, and social justice initiatives through my organization Same Team. I hibernate in the gorgeous city of Seattle, WA, where I admire mountains and search for a cup of tea in this very coffee town.
How it Started
I first started facilitating social justice workshops sophomore year at Hamilton College after I attending my first Safe Zone workshop, though my curiosity into social justice started much earlier. Perhaps it started when I figured out Santa wasn’t real because I refused to believe anyone that magical would distribute presents so inequitably. Or perhaps when I pleaded with my mom to let me stay up and watch a 5 hour special on Gandhi. Hard to know.
College Years
By the end of college I was completely hooked on social justice and facilitation. Throughout my four years I had written and developed curriculum, facilitated my first train-the-trainer, created my first organization, and began facilitating safe zone workshops professionally. After graduating I didn’t want to stop and while pursuing my goal of facilitating social justice full-time worked as a prep cook at a local restaurant.
In 2013, while cleaning out fry-o-laters by day, I teamed up with Sam Killermann to co-create The Safe Zone Project. We both wanted to create a space for people who were doing LGBTQ awareness + ally trainings could get free resources and curriculum. I don’t know if either of us thought a few years later we’d have 15,000+ downloads from 100+ countries. But probably not.
Post College World
After graduating 2015 with a M.A. in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University, I began working my dream job of as full-time social justice educator and facilitator. If 2015 was about diving deep into social justice work, 2016 was the year of diving deep into facilitation. I co-authored my first book Unlocking the Magic of Facilitation a book about the 11 key concepts facilitators need to know but don’t know they need to know. It was also the year Sam and I created another free resource website, this time for all facilitators called FacilitatingXYZ.
Now
When not creating I really enjoy collaborating. I’ve been able to work with some pretty cool people over the years, including Perry Cohen of the Venture Out Project doing transgender awareness programs and workshops for experiential, outdoor, and wilderness educators. I also serve as an advisor to hues a global justice collective that makes art, tools, and resources with the vision of creating a world where everyone is healthy, understood, educated, and safe. I’m also in the process of creating a new organization to collaborate with organizations who want to walk their social justice talk through trainings, education, and more.
Why I Do This Work
I believe there is breath-taking beauty in the world and heart-breaking suffering. Some suffering we cannot nor should avoid, heartbreak, disappointment, failures. There is also unnecessary suffering. Injustice, inequity, discrimination, misrepresentation, erasure, violence, silencing. I believe at the core, my work is to help end unnecessary suffering and in that process create a more beautiful world.