08/28/2026
🌻🔴 MEET MARNESE JACKSON | EQUITY BOOTCAMP 2026 🔵🌻
What happens when we stop accepting systems as neutral and start asking who designed them, who benefits from them, and who has the power to change them?
🔵 Accept what we've been given?
🔴 Or expose the design and organize for something better?
Meet Marnese Jackson (she/her/hers), an Environmental and Climate Justice activist, advocate, trainer and educator from Pontiac, Michigan.
Marnese is also a mother to London and Dawson, and her commitment to environmental justice is rooted in building communities where families can live, work and thrive without carrying an unequal burden from pollution, climate change, energy costs and systemic inequity.
🌻 BUILDING A JUST, DECARBONIZED MIDWEST
Marnese serves as Executive Director of the Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition.
The coalition works to inspire and educate Midwesterners toward ending new installations of fossil-fuel equipment in residential and commercial buildings by 2030 and achieving zero emissions from these buildings by 2050—with equity and labor justice intentionally and consistently integrated throughout the work.
For Marnese, decarbonization isn't simply about changing technology.
It's about people.
It's about power.
It's about who benefits from the transition.
And it's about ensuring the communities that have historically carried the greatest environmental and economic burdens aren't left behind as we build what comes next.
🌻 A CAREER ROOTED IN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Before her leadership with the Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition, Marnese worked with Mothers Out Front as Frontline Organizing Program Manager, focusing on building a base of mothers in frontline Environmental Justice communities.
She previously served as the Midwest and Great Plains States Regional Organizer for the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.
Her experience also includes serving as Weatherization Coordinator for Oakland Livingston Human Services Agency and Energy Outreach Specialist for the Southeast Michigan Regional Energy Office.
Across these roles, a consistent thread emerges: connecting climate and energy policy to the everyday experiences, leadership and power of communities.
🌻 LEADERSHIP + SERVICE
Marnese's leadership extends across local, regional and national climate and justice spaces.
Her service has included:
🌻 Board member of the U.S. Climate Action Network
🌻 Board member of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council
🌻 Environmental and Climate Justice Chairperson for the NAACP Northern Oakland County Branch
🌻 State and local Social Action leadership with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
🌻 Appointed member of the State of Michigan Council on Climate Solutions
She was also selected for the 2020 Michigan Clean Energy Leaders Cohort and participated in a 350.org BIPOC cohort.
🌻 EDUCATION GROUNDED IN JUSTICE
Marnese earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Eastern Michigan University, with interdisciplinary studies spanning Public Relations, Communications, Journalism and African American Studies.
She later earned a Master of Arts from Marygrove College in Social Justice, specializing in Environmental, Economic and Racial Justice.
That intersectional foundation continues to shape how she approaches climate solutions today.
Because a building can become more efficient without becoming more equitable.
A community can receive investment without gaining power.
And an organization can talk about justice without changing who makes decisions.
That's why the questions we ask matter.
🌻 RECOGNIZING LEADERSHIP
Marnese's environmental and climate justice leadership has received recognition across the movement.
She was selected as a Grist 50 Fixer, recognizing forward-thinking leaders working toward a more just and sustainable future.
In 2025, she was a Catalyst Award recipient from Rachel's Network.
She was also honored by Environmental Defense Fund Action at the Michigan Environmental Leaders Awards for Outstanding Leadership in Building Decarbonization.
But Equity Bootcamp isn't about collecting titles or awards.
It's about what we do with our influence, relationships and power.
And that's exactly where our conversation begins.
🔴🔵 EQUITY BOOTCAMP 2026 | DAY ONE: REFLECT
On September 9, join Marnese Jackson and Patti Dayleg, Leadership Coach of Malaya Solutions, for:
REFLECT | Expose the Design
🤝 Coalition Building for the Midwest We Deserve
We're going beneath the language of partnership and collaboration to examine what coalition building actually requires when the goal is changing systems and building collective power.
We'll explore why movements cannot win without coalitions and draw lessons from historical and contemporary examples.
Then we'll ask harder questions about the coalitions, partnerships and institutions we're building.
♻️ REGENERATIVE
Are we building more power than we consume?
Does participation strengthen the people, organizations and communities involved?
Are we developing leadership and relationships that can continue beyond a single campaign, grant or initiative?
⚠️ EXTRACTIVE
Who benefits most—and who pays the cost?
Whose labor, relationships, stories and credibility are being used?
Who receives the funding, visibility and decision-making authority?
👁️ PERFORMATIVE
Are we producing outcomes—or just optics?
Are we changing conditions and shifting power?
Or are we creating another table, statement, committee or photo opportunity that leaves the underlying system intact?
These questions matter because collaboration alone isn't necessarily justice.
A coalition can reproduce the same inequities it claims to challenge.
A partnership can extract from communities while speaking the language of equity.
An institution can celebrate diversity without redistributing power.
So we're asking participants to look deeper.
🌻 Who designed the system?
🌻 Who benefits from the current design?
🌻 Who carries the cost?
🌻 Who gets invited to the table?
🌻 Who built the table?
🌻 Who controls the resources?
🌻 Who makes the decisions?
🌻 And what would we build if justice—not neutrality—were the starting point?
🔵 THE BLUE PILL
Accept the system as neutral.
Work within the structures we've inherited without interrogating how they were designed.
🔴 THE RED PILL
Expose the design.
Ask uncomfortable questions.
Follow the power.
Challenge assumptions.
Build relationships capable of changing conditions—not simply navigating them.
🌻 Neutral Is a Myth.
🌻 Expose the Design.
🌻 Justice for the Midwest Is a Choice.
Join Marnese, Patti and leaders from across the Midwest as we REFLECT on where we are, interrogate how we got here, and strengthen the coalitions needed to build where we're going.
📅 September 9, 2026
⏰ 9 a.m.–2 p.m.
🎯 REFLECT | Expose the Design
🤝 Coalition Building for the Midwest We Deserve
💻 Virtual via Zoom
🌻 REFLECT. REPAIR. RESET. RESIST THE MATRIX.
🔴 Ready to expose the design?
Register for Equity Bootcamp 2026:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/C6WwuVuLScWOT6sDB7TDmw
