The OANM Team
Mike Strode
Lead Instructor
Chicago, USA
Mike (he/him) is a writer, urban cyclist, facilitator, and solidarity economy organizer with the Kola Nut Collaborative: Chicago’s only time-based service and skills exchange (otherwise known as a timebank) providing an open platform for mutual aid, community organizing, and network weaving. He is a past participant in Nexus Community Partners’ Cooperative Developer Fellowship and LIFT Economy’s Next Economy MBA. He participated in Post Growth Institute’s Fellowship and AORTA’s (Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance) Headwaters Facilitation Apprenticeship. He is a Program Manager at Open Collective Foundation and serves on the boards of the US Solidarity Economy Network, New Economy Coalition, South Deering Manor Community Association, and Dill Pickle Food Co-op.
Mike has been one of the Lead Instructors for the OANM Facilitator Trainings since 2021, and joined the OANM Team at the Post Growth Institute in 2024.
dani leonardo
Interim OANM Manager & Communications Lead
West Coast, USA
dani (they/she) is a facilitator, organizer and musician, with a background in Permaculture Design and youth mentoring. dani brings a grounding in ecological wisdom, perspectives from the margins, and a centering in Anti-Oppressive Practice. dani’s work centers around collaboration, co-liberation, creativity and justice. In their free time you can find dani at the piano or exploring wild places. Amongst many other things, dani is an emergent strategist, lover of the color purple, and a nerd for plants, polyrhythms, and Hayao Miyazaki movies.
dani joined the Offers and Needs Market team in 2020, and has been running OANMs, hosting most of the Post Growth Institute’s OANM Facilitator Trainings, and supporting the OANM program in a variety of other ways, ever since.
Charmaine Blaize
Outreach & Accessibility Associate
Scotland
Charmaine (she/her) is a solutions driven professional with wide-range of experience in Health, Telecommunications, Education, Publishing and Charity sectors. She is skilled in research, improvement and innovation, data analysis, business redesign, facilitation, and performance. She is an advocate for disability justice, and passionate about creating inclusive events. She is a certified OANM facilitator.
Charmaine is a Certified OANM Facilitator and has been a member of the OANM team at the Post Growth Institute since 2021.
Gabriela Safay
Community Steward
Gabriela is the Director of Wellbeing at the PGI. She is passionate about regenerative economies, embodied social justice, and using grief as a tool for connection and transformation. She wants to help shape a world where economies and social systems work within natural systems and limits. When she’s not working she enjoys laying in the sun, walking in the forest, and sharing food with friends.
Ryan Swick
Business Strategist
USA
Ryan (he/him) is a seasoned business management professional, with multiple years of experience building software and services products at Fortune 500 companies, where he began questioning the idea of endless growth on a finite planet. He is now excited about demonstrating post-growth business alternatives modeled on the natural world. Small-scale organic farming and food forestry are also passions. Ryan currently resides in the unceded lands of the Duwamish in present day Seattle, and he loves hiking and backpacking throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Aynur Yilmaz
OANM Research Manager
United Kingdom
In her university years, Aynur developed a keen interest in the adverse effects of growth-oriented economies on society and the environment. While working in export finance, her enthusiasm for research and learning helped her further her studies, and she got her PhD in Economics with a thesis on Türkiye’s energy consumption structure. She hopes growth-oriented economic policies will evolve into “alternative” models considering planetary boundaries and human values, and is exploring ways she can contribute to this transition. Originally from Türkiye, she now lives in Norfolk, UK; her family is at the center of her life and she strives to balance her mind, soul, and body through yoga, aikido, and caring for her cats.
Donnie Maclurcan
OANM Creator
Patagonia
Donnie (he/him) is passionate about all things not-for-profit. Originally from Australia, and having spent the past decade in the U.S., he moved to Argentina in 2022. From there he leads the Post Growth Institute, exploring how we accelerate the transition to a society that thrives within ecological limits. Donnie sees purpose-driven business as central to this shift, drawing from his work as a consultant to more than 500 not-for-profit projects. An Affiliate Professor of Economics at Southern Oregon University and Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Donnie holds a Ph.D. in social science, with his research having explored nanotechnology’s implications for global inequality and sustainability.