TCS Spotlight: Montserrat Arredondo
Montserrat Arredondo, Board Member, The Capacity Shop
“We were trying to be lean and mean, and that led us to ask what the percentages of who pays for what.”
Growing up in a tight-knit Arizona community, Montserrat Arredondo learned the power of sticking together. “I grew up in public housing here in AZ, born and raised, and in my mind, the world existed in a five-block radius. My school was walking distance, and I knew all of my neighbors. We looked out for each other.”
Those five blocks would influence her to impact families like hers far beyond her neighborhood. In high school, a time when so many youth start to dream of the quintessential college experience, she had an epiphany: “Many of my classmates learned they didn’t have Social Security Numbers, so they couldn’t apply to college. That was my big ‘the world isn’t fair’ moment. I knew my mom was undocumented, but I didn't know young people could be, too. That's when I got really involved in the immigration rights movement.”
Her political awakening happened in 2009, amid heightened calls for immigration reform at the federal level. The next year, her home state passed Arizona SB 1070—the “Show Me Your Papers” law—empowering law enforcement officials to profile, harass, and detain immigrants. The campaign leading up to the signing of SB 1070 elevated the profile of Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio, notorious for his harassment of immigrants. “It goes to show that rhetoric worked in Arizona for many people. I saw how much support Arpaio had and how little representation we had at the state level and how little people cared about the issues in the community I was coming from.”
Building on her hard-won experience and wisdom from that election, Montserrat joined the OneArizona staff in 2017 as Deputy Director. The next year, when the executive director left the organization to run a campaign for Arizona governor, Montserrat became the new OneArizona ED.
Rather than despair, Montse got to work doing civic engagement for Neighborhood Ministries and Promise Arizona. Five years of experience there led her to campaigning for an Arizona minimum wage ballot initiative in the 2016 election. While many progressive voters remember a dark cloud settling over the country that election night, there were silver linings. “That same night, we took out Arpaio and passed that initiative, but then Trump won. It was a bittersweet moment.”
“I definitely had coalition experience, and I was familiar with the people and cared about the work because this is my home state. I did well for quite some time, but then we got to a place where we had our 501(c)(4) and we were fiscally sponsoring other organizations,” she recounted.
This is where the need for multi-entity capacity building became crystal clear. OneArizona focuses primarily on base building and education for its members. Because of its 501(c)(3) designation, the organization needed to figure out how to work compliantly and efficiently with its more elections focused 501(c)(4) sister organization, Arizona Wins. “We were trying to be lean and mean, and that led us to ask what the percentages of who pays for what. The soft ‘in’ was a resource sharing agreement, and then that kind of opened the door to other questions,” Montserrat explained.
Partnering with New Left Accelerator—which, along with The Capacity Shop, comprises its own multi-entity structure—OneArizona was able to ensure compliance with tax law while leveraging the collective power of the two organizations. They can now share staff as they grow the team.
OneArizona’s multi-entity story is emblematic of the complicated decisions that grassroots leaders have to make while also doing the organizing work that inspired them in the first place. Montserrat sees The Capacity Shop as a key resource for those leaders. “There are all these wonderful leaders across the country that are suited for the role but might have limitations, and I just think that shouldn’t sway folks from leading,” she explained. “It’s super needed. Each phase of social justice work looks different, and we’ve hit a spot where we need to just to keep our books tight.”
It’s so needed that Montserrat joined the Board of The Capacity Shop to help expand this work. Like her own trajectory, her vision for the future of The Capacity Shop centers on its potential for a broader reach. “The Capacity shop can be a starting point for many people for really hard work. I think you can have a big reach on the education side.”