What if we recognized the importance of teens as leaders today, and not just in the future? That's exactly what BBYO, the global Jewish teen movement, has been doing for over a century: bringing young Jewish people together and empowering them to lead in the organization, their communities and beyond. In this episode, host Gloria Riviera sits down with BBYO's current teen presidents, Logan Reich and Mercedes Benzaquen, to hear about their leadership, experience managing elections at BBYO’s Inter...
May 12, 2026•31 min
Every young person deserves access to high-quality education and career opportunities. But for young parents, none of that is possible without first solving for the basic need of childcare. In the sixth episode of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's series on what young people need to thrive, host Gloria Riviera talks with Bella Agee, a 21-year-old student, worker, and mom, and Quanic Fullard, Senior Associate of Family and Youth Financial Stability at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, about why access...
May 05, 2026•36 min
What if young people could earn a paycheck, build real skills, and start a career – all before finishing school? Youth apprenticeships make it possible, but too few young people can access these opportunities. In the fifth episode of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's series on what young people need to thrive, host Gloria Riviera speaks with two guests who are making the case for how apprenticeships can open doors to opportunity, mentorship and high-quality career pathways: Laura Burgher, an Annie...
Apr 28, 2026•31 min
Every young person needs lasting relationships with caring adults as they navigate their way to adulthood. Too often,young people in the foster care system go without this support. In the fourth episode of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's series on what young people need to thrive, host Gloria Riviera sits down with Sandra Gasca, Vice President of the Center for Systems Innovation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Together, they explore what's working to help youth in foster care establish and ...
Apr 21, 2026•33 min
Young people aren’t just future leaders. They’re already leading in their communities today, as caregivers, workers, and activists. In the third episode of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's series on what young people need to thrive, host Gloria Riviera talks with Jasmine Bernard and Tosca Nance-Jones of BRIDGES, a Memphis-based organization building authentic youth-adult partnerships for social change, and Traci Broady, Senior Associate at the foundation, about what it really looks like to invest...
Apr 14, 2026•37 min
For young people, financial basics like opening a bank account, building credit and saving for the future can be challenging. It’s even harder if you are leaving foster care, and you don’t have a knowledgeable mentor, caregiver or parent to help you learn to manage money. That's where Opportunity Passport® comes in. It’s a program that has helped more than 22,000 young people build financial skills over the past 25 years. In the second episode of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's series on what yo...
Apr 09, 2026•30 min
What does it take for young people to thrive? In this first episode of a six-part series, host Gloria Riviera sits down with Lisa Lawson, President and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and author of Thrive: How the Science of the Adolescent Brain Helps Us Imagine a Better Future for All Children . Lisa makes the case that adolescence is a powerful period of growth, and shares what the science and on-the-ground work tell us about supporting the 48 million young people in America between the a...
Apr 09, 2026•33 min
The Marguerite Casey Foundation recently hit an impressive milestone: 100 percent alignment of their billion-dollar endowment with their mission of building community power and making the government work better for people. That meant screening out harmful investments, investing in diverse managers and ensuring every dollar supports their values. To understand exactly how they made it happen, host Gloria Riviera talks with the Foundation’s President and CEO, Dr. Carmen Rojas, and their Vice Presi...
Mar 24, 2026•37 min
Richland County, Ohio used to be a major manufacturing hub. Now, as the plants have closed, residents are looking to renewable energy to revive jobs and development. There’s just one problem: their board of county commissioners issued a blanket ban on large-scale solar and wind projects last summer, bringing those efforts to a halt. Now, residents are waging a historic fight to overturn the ban. In this episode, host Gloria Riviera speaks with two locals behind the campaign: Brian McPeek, Busine...
Mar 17, 2026•33 min
What if you could lower your utility bill at the polls? In Georgia, that’s exactly what voters have had the opportunity to do. By flipping two Public Service Commission seats in 2025, they’ve shown that elected officials can be held accountable for rising energy costs. In this episode, host Gloria Riviera speaks with Leslie Palomino, Georgia State Director at Poder Latinx, about how the organization has been mobilizing Latino voters around energy affordability and what’s at stake for upcoming el...
Mar 03, 2026•26 min
Climate solutions aren’t out of reach. They’re already here, and California is leading the way. In 2025, the state hit a historic milestone: for more than 200 days, its grid hit 100 percent clean energy, often for hours at a time, making it the largest economy in the world to reach this goal. In this episode, host Gloria Riviera speaks with Mary Creasman, CEO of California Environmental Voters, about the state’s race toward total clean energy by 2045, what this transformation means for tackling ...
Feb 03, 2026•34 min
What if the people best suited to transform the justice system are the ones who know what it's like to live inside of it? In prisons across the country, incarcerated organizers have long fought for policy change, but they’ve rarely had the resources to communicate with the outside world and stay up-to-date on current events. In this episode, host Maya Rupert speaks with James King, Director of Programs at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, about how the organization is changing that through...
Jan 13, 2026•27 min
Across the country, kids in the juvenile justice system face a hidden burden: fines and fees that can follow them well into adulthood, affecting their credit, education, and ability to get a job. In this episode, host Maya Rupert speaks with Cameron D. Clark, Co-Coordinator of Debt Free Justice, about their work to eliminate fines and fees placed on youth and their families. In partnership with local communities, Debt Free Justice works to transform the system in states like Hawaii, where youth ...
Dec 09, 2025•25 min
Great teaching changes lives, but even the best teachers need support. In this episode, we highlight a bright spot in New York City Public Schools where students achieved remarkable gains in reading proficiency. To uncover what led to these results, host Gloria Riviera speaks with Teaching Lab CEO Sarah Johnson and explores how investing in teachers can transform classrooms, boost student learning, and create a ripple effect of success. You’ll also hear from a New York City teacher and his teach...
Nov 25, 2025•23 min
In 2023, multiple wildfires broke out in Hawaii, devastating the island of Maui. The town of Lahaina was destroyed, with more than 2000 buildings burned, and over a hundred deaths. The wildfires shocked the country, but there were people on the ground in Hawaii who had been raising the alarm for years. Elizabeth Pickett, the Co-Director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, joins us to discuss her efforts to raise awareness about the growing wildfire vulnerabilities in Hawaii over the ...
Nov 04, 2025•34 min
A year ago, North Carolina experienced one of the worst storms in history when Hurricane Helene hit. As a result of the historic rainfall, several rivers in the region overflowed, causing major destruction and over a hundred deaths. Two council members in North Carolina have been at the forefront of helping rebuild their communities from the ground up. Councilwoman Maggie Ullman and Councilman Anthony Sutton join us to discuss their response both during the hurricane and its aftermath, including...
Oct 14, 2025•31 min
America is experiencing a maternal health crisis. We are witnessing the worst maternal death rate for Black mothers amongst developed nations. Shawnee Gibson is ensuring we don't forget the women behind the numbers. She lost her daughter to a pulmonary embolism a few weeks after giving birth and has been fighting for reproductive justice with her organization, The ARIAH Foundation. She joins Danielle Atkinson, founder of Mothering Justice, to talk about the “In Her Honor Project,” a series of po...
Sep 23, 2025•36 min
After wildfires razed Los Angeles neighborhoods at the start of this year, the city was reeling. Repair the World, a Jewish service organization, mobilized hundreds of people to support wildfire relief efforts. They also launched a service corps specifically focused on assisting wildfire victims. In this episode, we’ll hear from Cindy Greenberg, CEO of Repair the World, and Michael Auerbach, who oversees their Los Angeles programs. You’ll also hear stories from volunteers on the ground, who show...
Sep 09, 2025•20 min
Today we're sharing an episode of Giving Done Right , a podcast from the Center for Effective Philanthropy about how to make an impact with your charitable giving. Shifts in federal policy and funding have profoundly impacted the nonprofit sector, and it has never been more urgent that donors act decisively and wisely. You’ll hear from experts across the social sector who shed light on the rapidly shifting landscape of need and the crucial, but complex, role of charitable giving in filling criti...
Sep 04, 2025•57 min
For decades, the story of religion in America has been the story of decline. A steadily growing share of Americans have been identifying as “nones” – people with no religious affiliation. But a new report from the Pew Research Center shows something surprising. That number of “nones” has plateaued. What could be behind it – and is it a sign of bigger things to come? We’re joined by Greg Smith, senior researcher at Pew Research Center, and Ed Stetzer, theology dean at Biola University, to explore...
Sep 02, 2025•37 min
Welcome to Bright Spots - a new series from Lemonada that offers bite-sized stories of community impact that will leave you feeling inspired and hopeful about what is possible. Today, we’re turning our attention to the foster care system. In Oklahoma, the Office of Family Representation ensures every parent dealing with a child welfare case has access to a strong legal defense. We talk to executive director Gwendolyn Clegg about how OFR got started and how their work supports families in Oklahom...
Aug 12, 2025•28 min
North Carolina has one of the biggest rural populations in the country, but for a long time, the needs of rural North Carolinians were largely ignored – until Down Home North Carolina came along in 2017. Since then, the grassroots nonprofit has changed the conversation to center the needs of rural people. Host Maya Rupert talks to Down Home Co-Directors Dreama Caldwell and Todd Zimmer about what it takes to build multiracial political power among the working class, and why it’s the only way to g...
Jul 08, 2025•39 min
As the federal government has been making unprecedented funding cuts, many communities are facing more uncertainty and less support. In response, the Marguerite Casey Foundation is making a bold move: they’re distributing $130 million this year to organizations working for racial and economic justice. In this episode, Carmen Rojas, the foundation’s president and CEO, gets into the reasons behind the move, which organizations will benefit and how this funding aims to fill critical gaps. This epis...
Jun 17, 2025•35 min
Gun violence in America is at a crisis point. It’s now the number one killer of kids and teens – a stat that should make us all pause. But instead of throwing up their hands, healthcare leaders, gun violence survivors, physicians, community members and faith leaders are doing something about it. In this episode, we’re diving into Northwell Health’s groundbreaking Gun Violence Prevention Forum, where they’re treating it as the true public health emergency that it is and elevating the conversation...
Jun 11, 2025•42 min
The rent is too damn high, housing quality standards are far too low, and Tara Raghuveer is doing something about it. Tara is director of Kansas City Tenants , a tenant union which organizes to ensure that everyone in KC has a safe, accessible, and truly affordable home. In this powerful conversation with host Gloria Riviera, Tara explains how the union of more than 10,000 members is fighting against our country’s dysfunctional housing market and standing up for what they truly deserve. This epi...
Apr 01, 2025•42 min
Is it time to rethink how we do school? In 2022, over 2 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 left school without earning a high school diploma or GED. But what if we could change that by taking an innovative approach to education? In part three of our three-part series about helping young people thrive economically within safe communities, Allison Gerber (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) and Betsy Delgado (Goodwill Excel Center) join us for a conversation about how education doesn't have...
Mar 18, 2025•31 min
Does the key to preventing gun violence lie within our own communities? In this episode, guests DeVone Boggan (Executive Director, Advance Peace) and Timmeka Perkins (Senior Associate, The Annie E. Casey Foundation) share the data about the power of credible messengers to transform neighborhood safety. In part two of our three-part series about helping young people thrive economically within safe communities, we are diving into data-driven strategies that effectively reduce violence and help ent...
Mar 11, 2025•38 min
What happens when an award-winning actress, producer, director, author, and activist uses her platform to shine a light on the criminal justice system? Kerry Washington's recent projects, UnPrisoned and Daughters, tell stories of incarceration, family separation, unification, and love that we rarely get to see. In our conversation, she explains how portraying a daughter navigating her father's return from prison transformed her understanding of reentry and gets personal about how the system has ...
Mar 08, 2025•37 min
In Baltimore, young people are finding ways to create their own economic opportunities through entrepreneurship. Dr. Ron Williams (Coppin State University) and Sara Cooper (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) join us to dig into research about youth entrepreneurship in Baltimore and show how community collaborations like the Baltimore-based Excellence in Entrepreneurial Learning (EXCEL) Research Project are creating pathways to success. This conversation kicks off our three-part series about helping ...
Mar 04, 2025•28 min
What does it mean to be smart on crime? Jeanne Woodford, former warden at San Quentin State prison, has been a longtime advocate for rehabilitation. In our conversation, she offers a new vision of what prisons could look like, from removing prison cells to providing opportunities for incarcerated people to garden, take college courses, and even play chess with correctional officers. Follow When it Clicked wherever you get your podcasts, or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime Membershi...
Mar 01, 2025•35 min
