About Josh
Hi. I’m Josh Sonnenfeld. I’m an organizer, a campaigner, non-profit leader, and a dad.
I started organizing when I was 17 and haven’t stopped. Developing and leading dozens of campaigns - from stopping plans to build a new city of 30,000 people in San Francisco Bay, to partnering with oil refinery workers and environmental justice communities to secure the nation’s strongest refinery safety standards - creating change isn’t just my profession, it’s my passion.
Growing up the son of two union teachers who deeply loved the outdoors, the picket-line and the wilderness feel equally like home to me. As a result, over the past 15+ years as a union organizer, an environmental campaigner, and non-profit leader, I’ve always leaned into the intersections - pushing back on the false-narratives that suggest that having good jobs and vibrant communities is somehow at odds with having a healthy planet. And I’ve put my energy into building campaigns, coalitions and organizations that recognize these core connections - building movements to create truly transformative* change.
After a decade of leadership in both regional and national environmental non-profits (most recently at the Sierra Club), running campaigns, overseeing programs, and building inclusive and high-impact organizations, I launched my consulting business in 2019 in order to partner with a wide range of environmental, labor and social justice groups to support this critical work of building a just world. I’m deeply rooted in the San Francisco Bay Area, but support clients throughout California and the United States.
As a parent of two young children, I feel more urgency in our work than ever before. And I know how hard it can be to balance so many competing interests; the desires of funders and members, the constant ‘rapid response’ of policy developments and world events, managing and inspiring staff and volunteers - and trying to run values-centered and highly-effective organizations. While also trying to be present for our families and communities at the same time. It’s a lot. And yet, every night as I get my kids ready for bed - as I give them their baths, put on their pajamas, and read them their bedtime stories - I know exactly why I work so hard to create change. Our kids deserve to live on a planet that is beautiful and full of life. A planet that can sustain and inspire them, and communities that will nurture and support them. Communities that are just, that recognize the basic rights of all people and all living things. We can build that world. We will build that world. But to do that, we will need everyone involved.
I’m here to help.
Learn more & CONNECT:
Services - Explore some of the ways we may be able to partner.
Testimonials - See what others have had to say about working with me.
Contact - Let’s chat. The first consultation is always free.
* What do I mean by transformative change?
As articulated by Manuel Pastor, Jennifer Ito and Rachel Rosner in “Transactions, Transformations, Translations: Metrics that Matter for Building, Scaling and Funding Social Movements,” transformation goes beyond the equally important “transactional” metrics in our work (numbers of members, number of policy victories, acres preserved, etc.) and asks the long-term questions that get to the core of measuring our success as a movement: Are we changing people’s minds and building new leaders? Are we growing and strengthening our organizations through this work? Are we shifting the very values and structures of society - so that future generations don’t have to have the very same fights we are having today?