Team

Michelle Fowle, Founder and Chair of The Resistance - Northridge, Indivisible, is a regular person who woke up on November 8, 2016. So much so that she left corporate America and has dedicated herself to full time activism.

The day before the 2016 election she knew nothing about politics or government structure. In fact, when she would vote, she’d often ask her husband who was who. For example, “Dianne Feinstein, she’s one of ours, right? What does she do again?” Even worse, when her husband told her that California had it’s own Congress, Michelle thought he was kidding and questioned him profusely. Yes. It was that bad. To his horror, he said “God, don’t tell anyone that you don’t know that!” So, she tells everyone, primarily because she believes there are a lot of people just like her and hopes it gives them permission to be honest about not knowing and makes it easier for them to ask questions and get involved. If Michelle can go from that amount of ignorance, implicit bias, and really not one iota of knowledge of anything remotely political and how it directly impacts daily lives to where she is now, anyone can do it. You just have to be willing.

Michelle is not idle and if something is in her crosshairs, not only will she give it 300% but she won’t stop until the job is done, not just for her, but for everyone. So, with that thinking, she’s well aware that she will be doing this work for the rest of her life. Luckily there were many women before her who did the work to move us forward and built a foundation from which Michelle can build. She is a firm believer of leading from behind and giving a platform to many that have been ignored; that includes people of color, immigrants, young women and girls, literally anyone who isn’t white. If she’s going to have white privilege by default, she’s going to use it to give voice to the voiceless. She hopes that work will continue long after she is gone. White people need to understand their privilege and hold other white people accountable to create a better world.

After joining millions of people at the Women’s March in Washington DC in January 2017, she came home and started The Resistance - Northridge, Indivisible. She leads a team of many first-time activists (including herself, obviously) in her neighborhood by enthusiastically challenging them to move out of their comfort zone to drive real change. Examples include, face to face voter contact, lobbying state and federal representatives, making just one more call, taking up a local cause, like, education and more. She has created solid partnerships with other grassroots groups across California that include the ACLU, March for Our Lives LA, CHIRLA (Coalition of Humane Immigrant Rights), Indivisible CA State Strong, Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California (SCLC), CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), Code Blue, Swing Left, Field Team 6, and many more. 

Michelle is an elected Delegate for Assembly District 45 for the California Democratic Party, Field Team 6 State Digital Director for CA, ME, and TX, Convenor, PRILA (Protect the Results in LA) Action Council; she also works closely with students in and around Los Angeles by offering herself as a resource for student led organizing, youth empowerment, and voter education. 

Michelle holds a degree in Business Marketing from Vanguard University.

@mmanire on Twitter

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For Patti, redefinition is the driving force behind a career spanning more than three decades. As the National Endowment for the Arts’ first-ever intern, Patti was introduced at an early age to the basics of strong nonprofit marketing and fundraising. She couldn’t help but mentally apply those principles to the college campuses she visited across the country as part of her role. At almost every turn, though, Patti saw dissonance between the status quo of educational marketing and fundraising and a much better, much more transformative approach.

Nearly 20 years would unfold between those early revelations and the founding of CRANE in 1996, but Patti never stopped learning, never stopped pushing the envelope, and never stopped questioning the established way of doing something in search of a more effective, more efficient, more visionary approach.

Always an innovator, Patti is also an unusually skilled and careful architect of process—thoughtfully journeying through new possibilities, but never plunging into haphazard improvisation. The result is a resilient, well-woven web of internal best practices and program procedures that will steadfastly support CRANE’s work, through every transformation to come.

Where some see roadblocks to bypass, Patti has always seen opportunities to confront directly. Over the years, she’s helped hundreds of mission-driven organizations—from independent schools and colleges and universities to religious denominations, state bars, and civil justice foundations—think newly about themselves, reach best-fit audiences, and plot their course to revenue-enhancing practices and sustained future success. She also has a remarkable eye for seeing the possibilities within people. Over the years, Patti has built a thriving business and a track record of proven success—all while simultaneously helping dozens of writers, designers, project managers, administrative talents, and marketing specialists build upon their own professional potential. Some CRANEs followed their developing strengths into other professions and fields, while others remained at Patti’s side in roles she ensured could expand and evolve in step with their burgeoning proficiencies and passions. Many of Patti Crane’s most enduring achievements have spun out of her endeavors as a mentor/teacher—a role in which she has always offered seasoned support as needed, given credit where credit is due, and tirelessly opened doors to individual development, independent thought, and personal mastery.

Patti sees past the expected horizon and arrives at solutions that turn conventional approaches on their head. She has done this for countless clients, who found in her native optimism and earned expertise the courage to re-envision their institutions. We, too, derive strength from Patti’s vision. As we look ahead to a new iteration of CRANE, we are steadied by her confidence in us—and reassured to know that we will continue to have both her intricate professional insights and her wide-ranging human wisdom to draw from.