Closer Than You Think is a
collective
our story
During the year of the 2020 pandemic:
We co-created a joyful and caring existence where we could discover our new selves and manifest a momentum that served our passions and purpose in life.
We set our course for unlearning harmful practices and playing with more regenerative styles of working together.
Together over zooms calls, whatsapps, instagram, and miroboards, we wove together a universe filled with energy and space, orbiting with other people we admire and wanted to learn from.
This site is a collection of who we are, who we've collaborated with, what we've done so far, what we're currently thinking about, and where we're hoping to go.
We share our contributions as individuals and as a collective, moving fluidly with ourselves and others.
It will be an evolution as we continue to understand how we can add our strengths to different worlds of activism, philanthropy, and art.
our origins
Closer came from a place of care and connection during a time of multiple transitions. These conversation began with:
Swatee Deepak
Swatee has significant experience in supporting movements, starting and leading organisations through growth and transitions across philanthropy, investments, development agencies, socially minded businesses and the arts. Swatee currently works with private and public foundations in strategy development and design, with individuals and families of wealth on their redistribution strategies and oversees a portfolio of businesses and start-ups.
Devi Leiper O’Malley
Devi uses her love of artistic expression and feminist strategies to help funders and activists design their initiatives in a creative way. Focused on resource justice with a feminist lens, Devi spent the past decade working with global and regional women’s funds. Half-Cambodian, half-American, Devi is currently based in Morocco.
Ruby Johnson
Ruby is fiercely committed to redistributing resources and power to feminist movements, centring girls and young women in all she does. A researcher, storyteller, strategist and experienced facilitator, Ruby is currently working as an independent consultant with a wide range of funders and organisations. She brings experience as a co-executive director, board member and founder of feminist organisations, with specific expertise in participatory practices and sparking cultures of care.
closer solar system
Over time, the Closer community has grown with more collaborators. Some of these people have begun to regularly orbit this community:
Beatriz Nuñez
Bea has significant experience collaborating with Non-Governmental, Non-Profit and International Organizations. She works as a consultant with women’s funds and other organizations working with rural and indigenous communities, gender justice and community-driven approaches for social change. Bea recently joined the Meso-American Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) and was Chief of Finance in FRIDA The Young Feminist Fund for the last 7 years.
Georgia Booth
Georgia is a feminist activist and strategist from Ireland bringing over 10 years’ experience in programming, strategy design and influencing, specialising in girl and young feminist organising. She provides tailored support to organisations, UN agencies and funders, bringing technical expertise in girls’ rights, meaningful participation and gender justice.
Nida Mushtaq
Nida is a feminist organizer and arts practitioner from Pakistan bringing over seventeen years of experience working at the intersections of social justice, feminist movement building, and public art.
closer constellations
Closer is part of a larger constellation of collaborators that support Closer’s solar system. These constellations appear regularly and include the following people:
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Trimita is a feminist activist/ researcher from the Indigenous Chakma community in Bangladesh. She has worked with hundreds of grassroots activists from the Global South, training them on using Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) for social justice. She is a co-founder of the online feminist pedagogical platform FPAR Academy.
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Naomi is a coach and facilitator with a focus on increasing the inner sense of belonging, confidence and authentic leadership of ambitious and purpose-driven organisations. She also works with organisations to help create cultures of belonging so they can thrive.
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As a feminist strategist, queer gardener and former dancer, Amanda is convinced that art, activism and compost are key to disrupting and transforming unjust power systems worldwide. Her varied consulting offerings build on her knack for crafting creative systems out of chaos and inspiring change where there is stagnation.
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A South African feminist researcher, organiser and mover with eight years’ experience supporting justice-driven organisations. Politically, Christy approaches contexts of her work through an intersectional feminist lens and ethics, and infuses embodied practices of co-creation, collective care and play into her collaborations. She is based in South Africa and Brazil.
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Shreya is an independent visual artist from India with a keen interest in crafting design systems and developing immersive digital experiences. Her work helps amplify impact through creative storytelling for global non-profits, social enterprises, and volunteer-led movements. She lives for art, aesthetics & Adobe.
