Cheyenna Layne Weber is a queer, white, and disabled writer and organizer who works to elevate the needs of human and non-human communities over the priorities of capital and profit. She grew up in rural and urban West Virginia (Osage, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Adena territory) where economic, ecological, physical, and emotional violence shaped her political and spiritual commitment to utilize love in response to oppression. For over 20 years she has worked with social justice, environmental, and community organizations in every capacity from volunteer to executive director. She currently lives in Brooklyn (Lenni Lenape/Canarsee territory) and provides communications, online program design, fundraising, collective leadership, and organizational development consulting to grassroots racial justice groups in New York City and beyond.

Current work: In addition to consulting for movement groups, Cheyenna has several ongoing commitments. They include:

  • She is an online trainer and program designer with PeoplesHub, a movement school based in the US, where she works on solidarity economy and disability justice programming.

  • She is a co-founder and volunteer administrator of the Manna-hatta Fund, an Indigenous solidarity fund that supports the work of American Indian Community House to sustain the largest urban Native population in the US. In this role she is actively building knowledge with other organizers in a national Indigenous Solidarity Funding Network.

  • She is an advisor to Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City, a membership organization of over 120 solidarity economy groups in the five boroughs that she co-founded and coordinated from its inception to its first full-time staff hire in 2020. 

  • She is a co-founder and member of SolidarityNYC, where she led the creation of the first online interactive map of New York City's solidarity economy, supported the development of five new New York City worker cooperatives during Occupy Wall Street, and co-founded New Economy Coalition in 2013. She’s currently co-leading a project to create a Solidarity Economy Principles and Practices resource with other solidarity economy organizers nationally. She also participates as an Associate Member in Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) collective.

  • She also volunteers to support local Indigenous Solidarity education, advocacy, and fundraising efforts with the NYC chapters of Resource Generation and Showing Up for Racial Justice, and with an emerging Regional Indigenous Solidarity Network for New York State/surrounding area.

Testimonials

Cheyenna brilliantly and compassionately shepherded us through a massive transition, one that could have been the sunsetting of our 45-year old organization. Her care and presence was tangible, and her spacious facilitation allowed our values to emerge and then guide the strategic planning and board development into our next chapter. She balanced this facilitated emergence with much-needed structure and technical skills from a wealth of knowledge and experience, and it was the embodiment of our values in these very concrete policies and practices that created the stable foundation for us to step forward with confidence. It was nothing short of magic, and I'm so grateful.

Rahil Rojiani, Board Chair at Buddhist Peace Fellowship

Cheyenna is a hugely energetic, dedicated, and skillful organizer and communicator, highly principled and hard-working. A pleasure to work with!

Cliff Rosenthal, Executive Director of National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions

Cheyenna has not only helped my organization work better, she has also shared her immensely valuable skills, knowledge, and insights to help me develop my own leadership skills and capacities for the last 5 years. In the messy world of nonprofits, outreach, and member engagement, Cheyenna understands the perspectives, needs, and tensions from all sides. As my mother would say, she would still be a bargain at twice the price!

Evan Casper-Futterman, Board Chair at Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City

Cheyenna brought stability, accountability, and balance to our organization. She facilitated the process needed to transition towards a fair and functional group, and was instrumental in helping us reach consensus and understanding when navigating decisions. She is a fantastic writer and strategist, and our communications and fundraising work is much more successful for her efforts.

Agustina Vidal, Resources Development Coordinator at Fireweed Collective

Cheyenna demonstrates a deep respect for and desire to truly understand the community she is working with and for - personally working with her, I felt as though she truly sought to understand how to engage most effectively with our constituency, while keeping a keen eye on the landscape of our work and how to be accountable to a larger movement. Coming into an organization as a consultant for something as nuanced as communications is no small task. Cheyenna did a masterful job of listening and assessing how we communicate about our work while also proactively offering ideas, solutions, and frameworks from her own expertise and vantage point. Her editing skills are sharp, she is always clear with her feedback, and she asks bigger-picture strategy questions while also paying attention to commas, word choice, and visual layout.

Jessie Spector, Executive Director at Resource Generation

Cheyenna has been supportive, compassionate, and insightful throughout her time working with us. We were impressed by the way she came into our organization and learned about our communities and the issues we face. Since then, she’s been instrumental to skilling up our team, organizing our roles and programs, and providing the necessary structure to guide our work. We are in a much better place than we were before, in large part due to her efforts

Kaj Kraus, Development and Operations Director at HEARD