Meet your Community Organisers

Michael is an organiser, campaigner, facilitator, change maker and leader with over a decade of experience working in social justice efforts around the world. His background is in community organising, having worked for charities, trade unions and think tanks in his native UK, Australia and Finland. He’s developed leaders to build power in their communities to win change on issues ranging from low wages to affordable housing, refugee resettlement to action on the climate emergency.

Since moving to Helsinki in September 2023, he’s been exploring community organising in Finland whilst studying Social and Public Policy at the University of Helsinki. He’s currently Chair of HYY's International Committee where he’s built and led a team of international students to win a campaign to boost internship opportunities for international students, as well as delivered organising trainings and workshops, hosted events, and led advocacy efforts to give international people a voice in response to the Finnish government programme.

Prior to moving to Helsinki, Michael was Head of Campaigns and Organising at the British think tank New Economics Foundation, building and leading a team of organisers supporting communities across the country. He is a Churchill Fellow, having received grant funding to travel to the US, Canada and India in 2019 to research basic income pilots, before becoming Co-Founder and Director of the Basic Income Conversation, a campaign organisation in the UK. Prior to that he was a community organiser for the charity Citizens UK and a trade union organiser for Unions New South Wales in Australia.