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Kim Fellner

Former Executive Director
National Organizers Alliance

Kim Fellner will soon be leaving her current position as executive director of the National Organizers Alliance (NOA), an organization she helped found 10 years ago. NOA is a beloved community of progressive community, labor and issues organizers around the country, wildly diverse by race, generation, sexual orientation, region, organizing tradition and more - and is rooted in the belief that only by building such challenging and dynamic formations will we ever be able to move a national and, dare we say, global agenda guided by principles of justice, human rights and dignity for all. Kim, who is 54, started out as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War era in those falsely fabled but wonderful '60s, evolved into a community organizer in Pittsburgh during her graduate school years and then spent 17 years in the labor movement. She worked at the Service Employees International Union, the Screen Actors Guild during the presidency of Edward Asner (where Charlton Heston repeatedly tried to get her fired) and then served as first ED of the National Writers Union, now part of the UAW. As she notes, each job took her a little farther toward the edge of union life, and the anarchistic tendencies of actors and writers prepared her for the job of organizing organizers. Kim has always done some writing, both in her work and on the side, chronicling the challenges and contradictions of an organizing life left of center; you can probably find some examples by throwing her name into your browser. She is known to have a soft spot for chocolate.

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