about me
My work has always been, and I hope will always be, rooted in community: working to build collective care into our foundations. I place serious value on questions of how we understand and manage power; how we staff; how resources are prioritized; and how partnerships within and beyond our ecosystems fuel big, shared goals–goals that, to be legitimate ones according to me, must center equity and dignity for all.
Most significantly, I’ve had the honor of serving communities in Jerusalem, Palestine/Israel and Harlem, NY, strengthening threads between peoples across divides through an acute attention to the role of hegemony (“power over”) in creating and sustaining said divides. My academic focus was similarly on deeply divided societies, including evaluating the possibilities for restorative justice in Palestine/Israel and South Africa (BA, Phi Beta Kappa, University of Chicago 2011), and of transboundary water management/governance in the Jordan River Valley (MS in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Columbia 2014). I am a person who feels mixed about listing degrees like this because it endorses institutions that usually don’t deserve to be endorsed, so let me state clearly that I had a pretty magical time at UChicago, a place with plenty of awfulness but many pockets of wonder and epic challenge, and regret every single second and cent to Columbia, a monstrous institution from top to bottom.
I paid dues to the nonprofit industrial complex for the first 15 years of my career, with some accomplishments I’m very proud of, and many scars I am still healing from. While my time in that space came to a somewhat dramatic end and I have plenty of righteous criticism for the industry broadly (seeded long before my ousting), I also believe that the most impactful social change work straddles the “insides” and “outsides” of our existing systems: when forces within and beyond our systems collaborate–or conspire–to build power with a vastness and diversity that necessarily disrupts the status quo. To that end, while I am now a proud “outside agent,” I also honor that there are many beautiful people doing beautiful work from the inside who deserve the space to grow personally, imagine limitlessly, and build strategically. And/or fuck shit up. I’m game for it all.
not quite testimonials/word on the street
Meg at age 3 in a pink dress, standing left of her mom, Ellen, who has her legs up on the couch reading a magazine in their NYC living room (1992)
Some things people say about me enough that something in here is probably true/worthy of consideration:
“Have you thought about going into politics?”
“You’re like a job loss doula”
“Please write a cookbook”
“I’d listen to your podcast”
I am not actively marching towards any of these things (right now), but I do love to think, talk, write, and create. This site–a place to offer some of my sacred gifts–is born in a moment of incredible transition in our world, and certainly for me personally. Thanks for being here in whatever capacity!
my commitments
On “politics”: I have never been shy about my politics, particularly on the internet, which has gotten me into much trouble. I have been nearly fired many times and fired fired once, all for “ideological incompatibilities” (no one in power ever actually admits this, but that’s what it is). It is surely par for the course in the work I am called to do. I share this not as some litmus test for our working together or as something you must buy into in order to retain my services, but instead as transparency, a way of walking in my truth. I consider myself a pretty discerning consumer (especially these days!) and expect many of you who make your way here to be, too. Welcome, I’m glad we’ve found each other.
On financial accessibility: I am committed to serving those who want to be served, accessibly, a principle of great importance to me (and as someone very newly out on my own, also something I’m still figuring out how to manage sustainably). Pricing is always negotiable and aspires towards sliding scale (fun tidbit: my beloved and very special elementary school, Manhattan Country School, pioneered the “sliding scale” tuition model!). My core philosophy is that “the work” is not to make a living, but must include making a living, and in a way that allows anyone who wishes access to be able to access in some form. Please be in touch if my services could be of support but you are worried you can’t afford them.
On whiteness and privilege: As a person of race, class, and other privileges who is now offering my services for personal profit, I dedicate myself to
ensuring that I never make money off stolen work and that others’ work is always credited (and justly compensated);
persistently evaluating my biases and choosing language carefully;
being called in by those I am in righteous community with when I err or require new learning, growth or shift;
resisting rigidity so that I can fully embrace necessary change; and
expanding this list of commitments as I am called to.
And for those with more experience than I have currently at running a one-person show, I welcome wisdom on how to concretely build accountability mechanisms into my paid work.
a poem
A fabric covered wooden structure with colorful sitting pillows around a table at Hosh Yasmin, an outdoor restaurant in the hills of Beit Jala, Palestine (2018)
Things I know, today (2022)
by Meg Sullivan
Radicalism means getting to root causes.
Power is consolidated in times of crisis.
People with power often eschew or willfully repress nuance, in favor of directive clarity, in times of crisis.
Nuance is of critical import in helping us get to root causes.
Nuance is not always available in moments of desperation.
Desperate people who are desperate through no making of their own are responsible for nothing other than getting to safety.
Desperate people are not responsible for nuance.
People of lived experience, including the experience of desperation, are central in helping us get to nuance.
Nuance is of critical import in helping us get to root causes.
Radicalism means getting to root causes.
Inspired by Angela Davis: “Radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’”
