Ariel Brooks is an educator, organization builder, and community steward. She loves messy problem solving, creative strategy, and DIY hacking – whether she is up-cycling thrifted cashmere sweaters into baby clothes or helping to grow an organization from bootstrapping to maturity.
As the Director of Capacity and Operations for the Center for Economic Democracy (CED), Ariel stewards operations and donor and investor organizing. She has also served as CED’s lead program director for the Solidarity Economy Initiative and Solidarity Philanthropy Learning Circle since 2019.
Before joining CED, Ariel spent fifteen years building experiential and social justice education programs for college students and nonprofit professionals. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard University, and a M.Ed. in Instructional Design from UMass Boston.
Ariel lives in Ashfield, Massachusetts with her husband, daughter and two cats. She serves on the Town Planning Board, and practices solidarity economy in daily life through cooperative community gardening, collective childcare, and experiments like “a year of no shopping.”