About Me
I'm Dylan Waguespack.
I’ve spent my career helping organizations and coalitions build power under difficult conditions, navigate hostile political environments, and grow capacity for the long term.
Over the last decade, I've designed and directed national advocacy campaigns, helped form and strengthen coalitions, advanced policy at every level of government, and built international partnerships.
Today, I work with organizations that are working toward liberation and grounded in community in the United States and internationally.
My Guiding Principles
Local and lived expertise is invaluable.
I believe the people closest to a problem are best positioned to define both the problem and its solution. Every movement operates within a unique political, cultural, and historical context, and the expertise that matters most already exists within the communities doing the work.
Conflict between people with shared goals is an opportunity for growing and strengthening relationships.
I believe in N’Tanya Lee’s concept of Principled Struggle as a roadmap through conflict toward greater honesty, integrity, and unity. I believe that conflict is often necessary and that conflict avoidance breeds hurt and distrust.
“…in struggle that is principled, we struggle for the sake of building deeper unity, that we are honest and direct while holding compassion, that we each take responsibility for our own feelings and actions, and seek deeper understanding by asking questions and reading a text (such as an article or proposal) before we launch our counter-argument.”
Liberation is achievable. Harm reduction is important. Incrementalism with no underlying strategy won’t deliver us the future we deserve.
I believe in a future where all people are free and can access the material and existential conditions to author their own lives. I believe in taking what steps we can today to reduce the harm that systems inflict upon our communities. I believe it’s necessary to envision how those steps will carry us to the future we deserve in order to ensure we don’t sacrifice our descendants’ freedom for a house with no foundation.
My understanding of power and justice is rooted in the specific history of race and colonialism in the United States, and that history shapes how I approach my work.
I believe that no system can be fully understood or changed without reckoning with the history that built it. The policies and institutions that shape our lives in the US can't be understood separate from the racial histories that built them. That's a lens I bring as a US-based strategist. Working with organizations in other countries, I recognize that different histories and hierarchies require that same rigor.