About
The Moonlight Collaborative partners with nonprofits and philanthropy to achieve their goals in community-centered research and analysis, grantmaking and funding support, programming design and funding strategy, risk analysis, and network building.
About Claire
Claire Downing, Founder and Principal at The Moonlight Collaborative, has spent the last 10 years of her career in the racial equity and DEI space, first as a Program Associate and then Program Officer at the RISE Together Fund (RTF), and then subsequently as a Consultant with Frontline Solutions and now as an independent consultant. Claire is a community builder, connector, educator, advocate, and conflict resolver whose work centers empathy, healing, and creativity.
Claire’s particular expertise is in working with faith communities such as the Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (BAMEMSA) field served by RTF and other funders. In her consulting work and current PhD candidacy work in conflict resolution, Claire has employed critical race theory, gender theory, and equitable evaluation theory and practice. She is a skilled and culturally-competent researcher, evaluator, and facilitator. Finally and critically, Claire is a Muslim convert whose lived experience helps her better understand, empathize, and connect with marginalized communities and frontline advocates.
What’s in a name?
Moonlight
The moon is mentioned many times throughout the Qur’an. Our name is inspired by the following verse, a fascinating explanation of how the moon and sun work together:
“He is the One Who made the sun a radiant source and the moon a reflected light, with precisely ordained phases, so that you may know the number of years and calculation ˹of time˺. Allah did not create all this except for a purpose. He makes the signs clear for people of knowledge.” (Surah Yunus, Verse 5)
Part of our aim is to reflect the brilliance of our clients’ work by drawing out their insights and expertise and reflecting back to them what we hear from their staff and partners.
Born out of a tough experience, our practice aims to shine a light in darkness. Our expertise in conflict resolution and organizational development and culture change help organizations and leaders illuminate a path to healing, realignment, growth, and transformation.
Our founder’s name (Claire) means light or bright in French. We draw upon this inspiration to provide clarity and levity to our work, and never take ourselves too seriously. We work with our clients in a way that centers joy, wholeness, and optimism, while recognizing the immense challenges that organizations and advocates face in these times.
Collaborative
Collaboration isn’t just a practice—it’s a way of being. Our firm draws from historical and contemporary ways of partnership, decentering power, and ijma’ (consensus).
My years of experience working to center community voices and leadership, through my work with nonprofits and my PhD work, has taught me that those with lived experience are, and should be, the architects of their own solutions.
Therefore, we pride ourselves on deep and collaborative research and analysis, skilled and creative interviewing and focus group facilitation, and a commitment to centering the most marginalized.