How One Movement Builder Found Clarity on a Remote Island

Shelby Cole has spent years on the frontlines of civic engagement in the United States, mobilizing voters, mentoring young leaders and guiding teams through high-pressure campaign cycles.

She is the chief mobilization officer for the Democratic National Committee and has held senior leadership roles in some of history's most high-stakes campaigns. It's a position that has given her a deep understanding of the complexities — and polarizations — of the current political climate.

The work is constant.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time my nervous system wasn’t a wreck,” Cole admits. “I’ve missed weddings, babies being born... it’s hard to put the work down.”

Which is why, when she landed at a gathering on Cortes Island in the fall of 2023, she wasn’t expecting it to change her life. She wasn’t even planning to participate.

Her husband, José Nuñez, was invited to speak at Activate — Hollyhock Leadership Institute’s annual gathering for campaigners, digital strategists and community organizers. Cole came as his guest, simply hoping for a few days of rest.

Instead, she found something much more lasting: renewal.

“I was completely burnt out when I arrived,” she says. “I thought I’d just quietly recharge on my own. But everyone was so welcoming, and before I knew it, I was part of the program — and having a ton of fun by accident.”

More than a conference

Activate is unlike traditional conferences with panels and PowerPoints. The gathering creates space for genuine connection. Participants convene on Cortes Island — a northern Gulf Island in British Columbia — to share, reflect and build relationships over five days of nature-immersed programming.

“It’s not a conference,” she says. “I had like 10,000 enlightening conversations in the course of five days. It feels so much more open and accessible and curious.”

The gathering brings together organizers, technologists, educators, labour activists, Indigenous land defenders and community builders to share strategies and support each other in continuing the long arc of social change.

“There were so many conversations that stayed with me,” she recalls. “From burnout and digital strategy to Indigenous land defence and voting rights — it expanded the way I think about movement work.”

One conversation that stood out for Cole was about protecting old-growth forests in B.C.

“Here in the States, we’re debating whether kids should have guns at school. And in Canada, they’re talking about protecting forests. It isn’t that one thing is better or worse than the other — it just was such an interesting conversation about values.”

Building across borders

The relationships Cole made at Activate didn’t end on the island. She’s since welcomed several attendees to Washington, D.C., and helped a group of Canadian labour leaders attend a national convention in the United States.

Another Activate relationship eventually led Cole’s husband, José Nuñez, to leave his job and co-found Contrast Campaigns, an agency that helps candidates, causes and like-minded companies engage and mobilize supporters with digital strategy and community engagement.

“That decision changed my life too,” Cole says.

And perhaps most personally meaningful: Cole began spending more time in the park across from her home.

“That might not sound like a big deal, but it is. I used to go months without stepping outside during the day. Hollyhock reminded me to make time for myself again.”

She even returned to Activate in 2024 — at the height of a national election season.

“That was a bold choice,” she says, smiling. “But it was the right one. I had to learn to make space for life again.”

A place for what’s next

As civic movements around the world adapt to new threats and opportunities, Cole sees spaces like Activate as essential infrastructure for the road ahead.

“I’m in a place where I get to help figure out what rebuilding looks like. And I take that seriously,” she says. “These movements are only sustainable if the people inside them are too.”

When asked what she’d want supporters to know about Hollyhock, she doesn’t hesitate:

“This place changed my life. It changed my husband’s life. I don’t say that lightly. It matters.”

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Shelby Cole will be returning to this year's Hollyhock Leadership Institute’s Activate: Beyond the Ballot. Activate will take place Sept. 6-10, 2025, on the traditional territories of the Klahoose, Tla’amin and Homalco First Nations.

This article was adapted from an original piece by Jacqueline Voci.