About

About GAIA

The Grassroots Activist International Association (GAIA) began in 2018 as the shared vision of hundreds of organizers — both paid and volunteer — whose work, campaigns, and lived experience shaped its foundation. GAIA is not the creation of one person alone, but the result of years of collective struggle, planning, and on-the-ground action.

Our roots are in the streets, in encampments, in community centers, and at the doors; wherever people are fighting for dignity, justice, and freedom. We exist to turn fierce determination into tangible victories for climate justice, housing rights, immigrant justice, drug policy reform, and cognitive liberty. We strive to build a collective power strong enough to take on any issue and built from the very concrete up.

About Founder Chris Abrahamsen

Among the many people who shaped GAIA from the start is Founder Chris Abrahamsen, a lifelong organizer whose journey began with nearly five years at Greenpeace. There, Chris received direct action, strategy and tactics, and leadership development training, while helping to build the most successful grassroots fundraising teams in the organization’s history.

This experience led to the creation of the People’s Climate Action (PCA), a climate justice coalition that partnered with groups like Rogue Climate to design more effective, coordinated campaigns. Chris went on to work with the ACLU, Doctors Without Borders, and Save the Children, opening outreach and fundraising offices nationwide.

Chris’s work expanded into housing justice with the People’s Housing Collective, organizing entire neighborhoods to provide shelter and mutual aid; into drug policy reform with cannabis activist Paul Stanford and psilocybin decriminalization alongside Sheri Eckert; and into cognitive liberty through founding the San Diego Psychedelic Society and working with Psilosangha and The Chrysalis Sanctum to create community-funded religious models for safe, ceremonial psychedelic use. These efforts helped launch Legalize Consciousness, a campaign to defend the human right to explore consciousness in all its forms without harming others.

In 2018, Chris also joined Occupy ICE PDX, spending nearly seven months at the encampment. From the chaos, infighting, and fierce determination there, a plan emerged: target corporations profiting from ICE through high-profile, publicly funded campaigns. That plan became ICE Breakers, one of GAIA’s flagship campaigns.

GAIA’s Organizing Model

GAIA’s organizing is rooted in Organizing Summits — gatherings where coalition representatives come together to build strategy, then take those proposals directly to the communities most impacted. There, organizers work side-by-side with residents to refine plans, lock in community-backed strategies, and launch high-visibility, tactical actions.

We are committed to horizontal organizing, with decision-making grounded in grassroots participation. Our extensive onboarding and training program is designed to create long-term, sustainable paid organizing positions and to develop highly skilled organizers capable of leading campaigns that are strategic, visible, and effective.

Written into GAIA’s bylaws is our permanent commitment to educate, organize, and archive movement history. We don’t fight for communities, we equip communities to fight for themselves and win.

Why We Use Canvassing

GAIA is powered by canvassing, because we aim to genuinely challenge the status quo in ways that big corporations and wealthy private interests will never fund. Our independence matters as it ensures that our only obligation is to the people we serve.

Canvassing keeps us directly connected to the public, building our membership one conversation at a time. It means that when we speak, we speak with the voice of the communities we’ve met, organized, and mobilized. This connection keeps us honest, keeps us grounded, and ensures that our campaigns always represent the public’s voice, not the agenda of the powerful.