“Let the Kids Lead” - Youth Power in Action (with Josh Thompson and Zoë Jenkins)

as a whole. That feels super essential right now as the election season ratchets up and we get more dispirited and assaulted by a lot of noise, keep your head up and if you need to just take a time out, trust me, I get it. I truly hope this episode how restore you a bit. It's designed to give you a turbo boost of people power. We've recorded it with our live Zoom audience as usual, which you can join by visiting how to citizen dot com. Sign up for

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let the kids lead. In this episode of How to Citizen with barretton Day, we are going to explore two things that get a lot of lip service in the worlds of philanthropy and democracy, civic participation and youth empowerment. Can you hear the white papers ringing in your hair and an uninspiring fashion when those terms bring not so loudly in the streets. Civics, as we've talked about it on this show, is a topic that's gets very watered

down out there in the quote unquote real world. There a civic education and participation project that often shy away from addressing the idea of people power, the history of injustice in this country and why our systems are the way they are, the questions about power in the system and who benefits from those decisions, and why the grounding

in that deep understanding of power. Instead, this diluded version of civics, it focuses on the idea of being informed and making sure your representative knows your views and maybe volunteering, maybe, And none of those are bad things. They are in fact necessary, but they're not sufficient. They aren't the whole picture, and they miss key aspects that I just mentioned would come down to true accountability and things that make real

change happen. We think this idea of youth empowerment and civic participation needs a reset because at the same time we're facing some pretty big challenges I don't know, climate change, racial inequality, economic inequality, and the purposeful erosion of our democratic institution. And during all that we hear this refrain the youth will save us. It's now up to the kids.

This dastardly commencement speech which burdens the next generation with the failures of all those who came before, who should have handled it. It offends me. That's not how we do that. That is not fair. We don't tell kids to clean your room and then clean our rooms too. I say to the youth, welcome to our democratic society. We will be there with you, beside the front and

sometimes behind to let you leave. Now we hear this talk about many in the adult population talking about gen z is self obsessed and checked out with social media, and they're disengaged and they can't be counted on to vote. At the same time, we put the pressure of the literal world on them. We brate them for not believing in institutions. We've given them very little reason to believe it.

I find it interesting that this generation is putting pressure on the system in their own way and have their own savvy critique as to how change will happen. Given my perspective on this, you're gonna understand why I was thrilled to learn about this relatively new organization and campaign that is tackling these things head on, but in a

very new, reel and promising way. I am rilled to welcome the co founder and CEO of Civics Unplugged, Josh Thompson, along with Zoe Jenkins, a CIVICS Campaign Steering Committee member, to talk with me today about the founding of Civics Unplugged and the launch of their Civics twenty thirty campaign. Welcome Josh, Welcome Zoe. What is the mission of Civics Unplugged and what was the motivation for founding it? So you want to take the mission and I'll talk a

little bit about the founding. Sure that sounds great. So it's in everybody's email bio. The kids will lead. You know, we have so many systems that are falling apart, and we're tuned. I thank you phrased it perfectly. You know, we're putting the impetus on Generation Z while also not believing in them, and so it's civic unplugged. We're totally flipping that that the kids aren't just the future, you know, they aren't going to just be our future presidents and

our future leaders. They're going to be leading us right now. And we're seeing that just perfectly in this moment. So I think that's really demonstrated by the fact that our steering committee, which I'm a part of, we're all high schoolers, all under the age of eighteen, helping run a campaign to find other Gen Z projects and stuff like this isn't being done because we're not trusting kids to lead when we know that they have all the power and the knowledge and the spirit to be able to do so.

So I think that is really the core of our mission is really operationalizing that and letting kids start leading right now because we desperately need the leadership of young people. If that's not been made any clear by everything that's going on, and I'll toss it over the Josh to talk a little bit more about the founding. I was part of a mission of Senator Corey Booker from New Jersey and from Newark, New Jersey, and he was deciding

to run for the highest office in our country. And he's helped me so much in life that it's not even a question that when he does something, I usually tell people, do you need me or want me? With Corey, it's either one, I'm in. And so I was traveling around the country and I was at all these different rallies and convenings and a lot of campaign not his

others and other adults. We're looking out into the rallies and saying, I can't believe the adults and these parents dragged these kids out, And I was like, you know what, I think it's the other way around, and there's only one way to find out, which is to get out there. And started talking to the kids, and I call them

kids in our community. They asked to be identified as that, and so yeah, all the things I think that we may all in this community have a feeling of, you know, I would go up to someone like Zoe, and I would say, hey, did you get dragged out here? And the big do you know what I had to do to get my mom out here? Like she's got to be more involved, Like I had to bring her out here to tell her where it was, to get her there, getting here on time. And that's just when it started

to come together. And it's a bit of a misnomer. Sure you introduced me as as the CEO of civics Unplug my contract and in my title within the community is that I'm the executive Assistant to Generation Z. It is an intergenerational theme of service and in action and service. But it started with us saying, let's have an all inclusive, paid for a trip to our nation's capital. Let's start

their accesses everything. We say that kids will be the change, but they've never even been to the nation's capital, majority of them. So I started going around speaking about that kind of connective tissue. And that's when I met a couple other kids and young folks and another co founder, Gary Shane, who was part of Google and building out the Google Cloud, and he said, I'm gonna build your digital platform, And I said, what digital platform? We're all going to d c and he goes right, I'm gonna

build your digital platform. And that's when we started to bring in this community that has led us to today. Before we catch up to today, Josh, I want to go a little bit further into your background because what you shared is fascinating. What I've learned about you before the Corey Booker speed dial moment is also fascinating. Okay, And you talk a bit about your personal journey pre that with St. Benedict's and even a bit of your childhood.

I'm a multiple time high school dropout. Talk about a system not serving right, just getting handed one education system was was not serving in that sense. And for the age of eleven, lived in over five states, you know, a couple dozen homes, but the home and where I became a man, as I say, is in Newark, New Jersey, and at St. Benedic's And you know, guiding in into that community. St. Benedict's really threw me for many many reasons.

One father Edwin Leahy much like our community. Yeah he's the headmaster, but no way that the kids run that entire school. And Father Revan found me at a time where I had no community, did not know where the next place I was going to sleep, and he welcomed me in to this experience that I'm so thankful for everything at St. Benedic's. It was the first time where I was brought in and the first day I went up to him, sucked my teeth, told him everything I

didn't even experienced it. I told him everything that I didn't like about the school, and he goes, great, don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. And even more to the story is we know at St. Benedict's, so there's a boarding facility there and a majority of us in that boarding facility are in a situation where we don't have parents, need not be with our parents, or we

need a more structured community in that sense. And that's where I learned, and it was called out that there's a time in my life all I wanted was a door to hide me from everyone, right, like, I'm good, Just just put me behind the door and I'll be all right. Well, the dormitory that I was put in, they didn't have doors. H And I found out that because if you are depressed, if you're feeling this anxiety,

what you do is retreat. So the whole concept of St. Benedic's is living out in brotherhood and our sisterhood as we welcome young women. When I was brought into the home of St. Benedict's, that is when I met the goofy thirty one year old wearing birkenstocks, Corey Booker mayor, a hopeful running for our city. And you know, I'm part of what was called the Street Fight Gang and worked the Central Ward. I used to work it when I was not in high school, hustling, playing basketball, putting

around ball through a round hoop. And you know, I found Corey. I found Forget a Campaign. I found his movement right. He was welcoming in people who were not of the age to vote like me, people because of our criminal justice system and equities, had lost their right to vote. And that's when it was really imparted upon me. If sure, Corey wanted to win and he knows how to account votes, but it was something bigger, as he said, Josh, what were you doing with your time before this movement?

So I met him at the same time I met my wife to be and that's when I started to get deeply involved as well with the Jackie Robinson Foundation. MS. Rachel Robinson is an angel on this earth, and I started to uh intern and work around there, which the motto is education as our pitch. So I never had a choice, man, uh and I'm happy for that. So in a roundabout way, that's some of the background, thank you for going there. A bit with us. Elphant helps

to understand where you're at. I know him, where you've come from. A bit, Zoe, I want to know a bit more about you and your connection to Civics Unplugged. How did you get connected to this merry band? Yeah, so, I guess I'll walk back because I'm I was an inaugural fellow with CUS. So I applied last November, but I want to go back a little bit of how did I even, you know, come to the point of wanting to apply? Um So, my mom, she is a c p A. She's an accountant. She worked at her

parents trash company. They were first generation college students, paid for it on their own, got alone during Jim Crow, which was really difficult for African Americans, and so they really instilled in her and all of their children that's like you're going to college or you're not. My child, like education was like the pathway to success. You know, for them to be able to start a trash company

that's still profitable fifty years later. They're like, Yeah, you're going to college and you need to take your school work very seriously. And that's something that she and my father have both instilled in need. And then going through elementary and middle school with you know, that attitude and seeing a lot of students who don't have that attitude

for a myriad of reasons. There are a lot of students who I guess, quote unquote don't care about school, but there's something going on at home that's why they're not caring about school, or you know, there's something going on with how we're catering to different types of students. There's something with the way that we handled discipline in

school that makes students not want to go. And so with all of that experience, I got involved with the group in Kentucky around education advocacy and student waste Because students go to school thirty five hours a week, it's a full time job, but they're not at the decision making table deciding what's going to be on our curriculum, how are we going to discipline students, what does the

school they look like, and so I've been doing that work. Um, I guess I'm approaching almost four years, four or five years of doing that work. And then the application specifics on PLUG came about, and I was like, Wow, this is a great opportunity to take you know, education work to a macro's scale. Um. I think I kind of skimmed over the word civics because I was like, that doesn't apply to me. Education and civics. It's not the

same thing. And then I think probably within like three weeks of being in the Fellowship, I was like, oh wait. I was like education, reform, civics, and that's all the same stuff. And I was like, this is a great opportunity to kind of unite those two things. And then you know, going through the Fellowship, we had our launch event for Civic and I hosted that event um where we had Corey Booker speak, we had Andrew Yang, and then was kind of the launch pad for me getting

more involved with the steering committee. And then I'm just getting more committed ever since. And it's just it's been fantastic the whole way through. Zoe used the word launch pad, and now I want to give you an opportunity to talk about this organization you launched, tell us the name and what your mission is. Okay. So with Civics Unplugged, I launched a diversity inclusion, equity and anti racism training for gen z Ears called DICE and it was inspired

off of some stuff that happened in my own school. UM. I was in this math and science program predominantly white and Asian students, and a lot of them were using the N word, and I was like trying to figure out, how do I like educate my peers on why that's not appropriate? And I think what I realized that I was like, I've been in k through troup education all my life and I cannot even put the words to it of how do I explain to someone why that's

exclusive language and why that's not okay. And So, with a little bit of extra time during quarantine, with school being were flexible, I did a lot more research into there must be some kind of diversity inclusion training for young people right Apparently that's not the thing, and so I partnered with some people at the University of Kentucky, partnered with Verda, one of the co founders, and just an amazing resource and all things anti racism and see

you to create a curriculum that's free and open source, and we're starting our own pilot cohorts here in the next week or so. So just super exciting to try and get this to as many young people as possible because it's so important. It always blows my mind that we were on this train probably in February, so before a lot of us were I think more in tune everything going on, and so we were just kind of, you know, perfectly positioned I think, to really jump off

in the summer here. How old are you doing, I'm seventeen years old. I have a huge smile on my face right now. I also have noting that I think part of why this training didn't exist is because we have this assumption that young people just magically no things. But like the next generation just it's in the air, they breathe different air, or their genetics are slightly modified to a more woke setting, and uh, someone's got to

be a part of that educational process. So I'm really grateful for the effort you've taken to either of you. You know, do you have this term in your movement called civic superheroes? Who or what is a civic superhero to you. So, you know, I think we all have superheroes. Like when we were younger, we all looked up the Superman and Batman. We were like, we I love these superheroes. They're so powerful and they're going to save the world.

And I think that, you know, we ascribe to them the ability to fly, this crazy ingenuity, all of this wealth in the case of Batman, digeneral to buy any gadget that you want. And you know, I think our society is in the place where we need superheroes. We need people to look up to who we know that these are the people leading systems change. And so I think that that is the inspiration behind the use of the word. I mean, we would normally call them. These

are icon hants. They're they're tighten social entrepreneurs. I mean, they're great words and they describe who they are, but they don't really get at the powerfulness of somebody who can really unite a group of people around the betterment of a society. And so I think that's a lot of what our language at civics and plugs about. We're all space themed, all astronaut themed, talking about lift off.

You know, everybody, and it's just an astronaut kind of exploring the realm of space and just that representing the social betterment, which I think is so crucial to I think that the whole visionary culture that we've created within our organization. Visionary is sometimes a word overused, but I think in the case of your organization, you actually have a vision. It's not vision, it's a twenty thirty vision. I think you call it CIVICS. There's a plan. There's

people involved in moving us toward it. You call them builders. What is the CIVICS vision and what motivate someone to be a builder in that, you know, in achieving that vision. So someone asked me the other day, Josh, what's your role at CIVICS Unplugged? I said, to pick fights with the kids that I consistently lose, right, and that that's like one of the funnest things in the world. But

that dialogue is super important. Right. It's not just hey, I disagree with something, so let's no no, why, how? What's the research behind it? Don't just say I don't like the system and throw to have you experienced it? Have you gone gone all the way? And all the adults that you see recognized as civic superheroes. They were all selected and elected by by our community, which was one of the funnest thing launching CI. When Corey was selected or you know the rock it was, it was

the easiest outreach I've ever done. I literally would drop a line of like, you know, I can care less if you do this. The fellows in the community have selected you and and to see the speed of the civic superheroes. That so the intuition of the kids were remarkable, but you know, the launch of it. When I picked the first fight, it made me roll my right that the community had come up with this ten year pledge. I've been in politics and government and public service. How

many superintendent five year plans that I heard about? I got a three year strategy of five year turnaround plans. Is like, here we go, we're recreating this other generation of a plan that's going to be written like a white paper, put on a shelf and get dusty. And that's when one of the community member said, nope, here's the deal with the plan. And then so we talk about how do you become a building and how that's evolved, they said, adults, A lot of the way stress out

about what to have for lunch tomorrow. The ten year plan is when I make my tenure pledge around climate change, that informs what I'm going to have for lunch for the next ten years, the impact that that has on the environment, and that is the sense of actionable pledges. And that's when I got it, and then that's when

Zoe and the kids just ran with it. So so if you want to talk about the process and how you become a builder, yeah, how you become a builder is just that you're committing to build a better So at the end of our fellowship, all of the fellows who were to become builders created their own tenure pledges. They designed what is the ideal community? What is our ideal democracy? What am I personally going to do over the next year, five years, ten years to realize that mission.

We all signed a declaration where we laid out this is what we want to look like, this is how all of our individual pledges play into that. This is how our community is going to be governed. We have

probably as flat of a structure as possible. The only reason we need seriing Committee members is because he needs somebody, I guess to just sit in the room every Monday, because not everyone can get there Monday nights, but the whole Builder community votes on everything um and so yeah, just being a builder just means that you're committed to building the future of what are some examples of the

picture of your painting. So my own personal Builder pledge revolves a lot around dice, a lot around how can we get people to be more vulnerable, be able to listen to other people, and just work more collaboratively organically. But there are a lot of other people's bludges, like what Josh mentioned that involve around climate change. We have people who are focused on election reforms, and it's just a really diverse array of what people are committing to.

But I would say, you know, getting a chance to see some of our other Builders pledges, which you can also actually find on our website. For the most part, a lot of our own pledges are just out there for people to see and to ask us about building a society and the community that listens to everybody, and I think just works work concretely together than we are right now, because that's the basis of any kind of

systems change. You need to be listening to the people who are on the front lines, the people who are experiencing it, but just making the through line of connecting it and you know, bringing the value proposition to every single citizen. What are some of the motivations of the builders in this community. I'll say that something our co founder mentioned to me recently, and I don't even think I totally realized it, is that every single builder has

some kind of chip on their shoulder. But like, you know, you don't just wake up in life wanting to, you know, totally flip all the systems that you've been experiencing and living through like on their head. You don't just wake up wanting to do that. There has to be something that happens, which is sad. We we want everybody to see that value add But I think the motivation is that people see a problem, they're experiencing a problem, they

know someone who's experiencing a problem with the system. They've you know, taken I guess, all of the traditional routes, and at some point they realized they were like, no one else is going to do something about this. I have to be the one who steps up and does it. And you know, there are a lot of natural barriers, especially for young people. And you know, if you're under the age of eighteen, you can't sign certain checks, you can't you create certain contracts about your parents being there.

And that I think is the real beauty of Josh and the rest of the co founders. They have a lot of value, I assure you, but huge values that they're over the h b T, thank CAI contracts for us and just really operationalize that the kids can lead.

And there are a lot of superficial barriers that we place on young people, on people of color, and we place on women, that we place on various other people of different social locations, but they're virtual barriers and their barriers that we had civic exemplud are committed to helping people break the move past. Can you explain even more

house Civics Unplugged differs from existing civic engagement work. It's been natural, Barritt Unday, in terms of how we're different, one being we consistently get this feedback from our partners, Hey, we are kid like, like their advisory y'all are kid heavy and and we're working with our community to really understand that that for them, they can't just flip that switch. They just can't make that culture chain organizationally overnight. Right.

We need to walk together, we need to learn together, and we share our mistakes consistently. But what we really found is when the Fellows started to be recognized for their work two things. One was other nonprofit or more specifically political campaigns wanted access to our kids. Cool, we we are never we are decentralized, we're not the barrier. But when I started asking what they wanted to do, they said, well, be interns. I said, cool, what do you want them to do? I want them to run

our product, our social media campaign. Uh, think about how we do engage youth. I was like, that's a leadership position, that's not an internship. So show me the budget that you have to recognize that. And we were met with a lot of them saying, okay, I'm with you. It is leadership, but we don't have the budget. And I said, cool, we'll chip in. We're not going to let budget get in the way of these youth attaching themselves as leaders.

We're investing capital directly into these projects like Zoey's, like the project down in St. Louis. Talk about a chip on your shoulder, Our builder down in St. Louis is working and has been recognized statewide that you need a notary to recognize your mail in ballot. And he has built this organization and and got funding to provide access to notaries and even beyond. And he called me one night with a list of literally like five thousand names.

He's like, I need connections to all these people. I said, cool, I know most of them. Why and he goes, I did a complete internet search and anyone that has ever said young people need to vote, I'm going after him on this because if they actually mean it, they will help with this. And I was like, that is that mentality that we are just lifting up at civic Umplogers are remarkable? That is remarkable. I mean talk about calling someone in that is what that means. The boldness of

someone stepping up to that degree is beautiful. I had my own experience with a gen Z leader within the climate space who hit me up and she's like, you're on TV a lot. I need introductions to all these bookers so they can hear directly from the most impacted generation about the biggest crisis and species has ever faced. You can join our zoom Welcome to my every morning. Many yes, so so just you know, despite or in addition to this focus on gen Z, your movement and

campaigns have an intergenerational flavor to them. Can you share more about that perspective how you're achieving that other than using people over eighteen to sign checks. Appreciate you, Zoe? Um, yeah, we are not anti generational, right, we are not that.

Okay boomer movement which is not gen Z is caused at that and really from the founding ethos back to man, I wish this existed when I was always aged right the amount of things that I did in my public service that I'm proud of, but it could have been a lot more impactful if I understood the system as

opposed to the issue. I understood my issue, I didn't know its system in which it existed in And with age comes wisdom, no matter what that wisdom its, whether sharpening your own conviction or learning from what they have

carried out. So our community is fourteen years old, all the way up to ninety four of individuals that have signed pledges and if if committed and rolled up their sleeves, and it comes in in a lot of different forms and fashions, but that superhero it's not even superhero theme. We are superheroes, right, People say, oh, you lean into it. No, no, we we are explorers, we are astronauts, We are superheroes. We are building the largest democracy movement Forget America that

this world has ever seen. And we say that with humility and with conviction. And so we asked the intergenerational of Okay, I see your LinkedIn. I see that you're a good CEO. That's great. What is your actual superpower? And we have this mantra in the community you have to lean in and what you're good at to to show that you can lift this community up. But what's the other side of you that you don't get the

flex all that often? And one lean into what you're good at and then lean into that side so that there's everything from providing jobs, providing mentorship, to joining boards of of the organizations and movements that are fellows and builders aren't launching. I don't know if I did that just to Zoe, you tell me, I think so, And I think he framed it perfectly. There's a lot of wisdom, all of the co founders, all of the board members.

I mean, you can look at their linked in, but you can also just talk to them, and I've been amazed. I'm like wow, I'm like, these people are doing stuff that like I want to do, and like, I know, I got that feeling when I talked to Nick, for example, because he used to be an educator and went to law school and now I was doing you know, civic some plug work and leading program development. I was like wow, I'm like, this is like the education person that like

I've always needed to talk to. And so I know, I joked that you know so much of their purposes of administrative assistance, but there's an even added I mean, they're not assistance, their administrative assistance. Yeah, there's a lot of feedback, there's a lot of advice, there's a lot

of help that comes from having these adults. I can't tell you how many times I have slapped Gary late night, like Gary, I'm trying to figure out how to do this tech thing, or Gary, how do you figure out you know this, because I'm trying to figure out, like how do I frame this for a college essay. He's great, responds so quickly and it's always there, but then you know, it's it goes back and forth. So I would say that not only are all of the co founders mentors,

but I think we're also just friends. And I don't think that young people get to have that relationship with adults all the time where it's like you rely on them, but they just as much rely on you as well, And that's not a dynamic that you see a lot. I think when young people have mentors and it's been a really powerful and transformational experience. You've talked a bit about the flat organizational structure, about being executive assistance to

the generation. From Josh's perspective, what are some of the top technologies or even process you that you have in place that are critical to powering this campaign and it's actually governing in this different way, I'll say, in terms of technology, Slack number one. I don't think anything that's going on and see you would exist without Slack. The ability to just message anybody in Slack whenever you want to. It's just so powerful too. I think, just like flattening

that organizational structure. You know, when you have an idea and you want the steering committee to hear it, you just at all of them in a message. You're like, hey, at steering committee, I want you to think about this, or hey, or you can add anybody on the CU team. Hey, I want you to look at this, and you get the notification. And we have I think, a really strong culture of like when someone has an idea, when someone wants to experiment, you go all in. You're you're supposed

to help them figure it out. And I think that's a really powerful attitude we all have. It's just that we want to experience because that's the only way you figure out how to do things better. And so while we have, you know, a strong culture that we have traditions, we're always looking for ways to change that and to

make it better. And we're conducive for everybody. Like, for example, we have an opportunities channel where people can share things, and so sometimes in Slack you can notify everybody in the Slack workspace. So like all one hundred and eighty six builders would get notified every time somebody hosts an opportunity and someone was like, hey, that's a lot of notifications in the day. Becauld we maybe condense this. Can we do like a weekly thing? And now we do.

We we round ups and that's something that I think in a more hierarchical organization would have taken weeks to figure out, and we we made that change in two days because I think it's really powerful and really key. I think to how fast civic some plot is able to move on a lot of things. I like the idea of my city council being available to me on Slack and I were like, hey, dude, fix this, this isn't right. Change the funding of the police. Do it

your account of UM. I have one question that we ask all our guests now, which is this show sees citizen as a verb more so than a legal status. And so if you interpret citizens as a verb for both of you, how would you define the word citizen? And I think, like two words I guess come to mind. I guess it's just vulnerability, knowing that you don't know everything, and it's important to seek out the voices and the information that you're not hearing. But it can really shape

the kind of change that we can create. And then I think mobilizing. You know, I think when you have a real, a great idea, when you're really passionate about something, it's important to bring people along. The co founders to see you could have just run on this idea of what do we want to look like, let's just do

this as a group. But you know, they knew that they needed young people behind that, and that's why they put together the fellowship, That's why they started see you, because young people had to come and be on that mission with them. And that's you know, an impetus. It's also been put on all of us. Is we, in many cases have the privilege of being able to be a part of this community, to be able to check

slack and every hour or so? How can we bring young people who aren't able to do that, or how can we bring young people who aren't engaged yet into this movement as well? And Josh, for you, how would you define citizen if you interpret it as a verb? I'm bad with verbs and adjectives and stuff like that, so I'll just riff on as real. But what I think about it is just that whole idea of how boring is life? If you're actually the smartest one in

the room. That is a position I never want any myself to be in, but a lot of us to be in. Uh So I think about that in terms of how you do citizen to consistently seek out communities that are more active, smarter, intelligent, thoughtful than you. And the second one is how you and I vibed on it as I was rooted in the love of Jackie Robinson's legacy and had the privilege to grow up there and Mr Robinson wrote a book First Class Citizenship and talk about him turning it into a verb way post

his professional baseball career. It picks up of what he did thereafter to make citizen a verb and more active in people's life. So that that's what comes to mind. And now we're going to go to questions. I'm starting with this first one in terms of leadership. Have you found it more effective to empower people to become leaders or has it been more effective to bring together and catalyze people who already are taking action as leaders? So that has been one of the coolest things to play out.

So when we announced to the community that hey, you went through this fellowship, you poured it in with us, and now we're going to invest in your project, so right that project plan will invest in it. Once again, I was wrong. I figured, you know, all, a couple hundred plus fellows moving into builders would have made their

own proposal. What we did see was about of them bringing work from other folks and their peers that they already saw happening in the community, saying I lean in behind the scenes, which is often more important, and they need the support they need this community. And then about the other fifty cent to say, hey, you know, I'm the leader, this is what I want to want to head up. And that that was really something very hopeful that I experienced. There's a follow on in our next

question from Jennen's horn. Not all kids are leaders. How can kids who aren't into leadership still be involved? Yeah, I can take that. You You don't have to lead in an organization. You don't have to be on the steering committee. Uh. So much of everything that See You has done would not have happened without people just doing the work. And I mean, like we have leaders who

are doing the working. Of course, those are the front people who are maybe you know, on podcasts like this, or people who are going out and kind of evangelizing the message. Um, but you know, we wrote a ton of song parodies to invite of our civic superheroes to come to commence. And that's work that every builder participate in. We had builders who didn't submit their own projects, but man, they can write some really good Drake parodies. I I didn't even know that was a skill that people had.

But there's just so many ways for people to plug in. And I think the parody is a great example of Like, you don't think that's something that's going to help. But if we hadn't written those parodies and hadn't gotten those people to come to commence, would we have the energy right now that we're having when we have the connections

that we're having in the name recognition. No, So in many ways, you know, those just writing those songs at like eleven o'clock at night, um in the middle of the summer really did catalyze a lot of the civic movement. So I think there are a lot of ways to be a leader in your own right without necessarily leading like a team of people. I have long believed that Drake parodies were key to restoring and renewing our democracy, and now I have the evidence to use that. Thank

you that. Our next question comes from Ned and Amber. It's it's about the organizational structure. How big is the organization, the number of staff, where those involved day to day. But it's related to this idea that most people have a sense that an organization needs a hierarchy to ensure order. So, in addition to sort of your ORC chart and head count numbers, how does your culture defy the narrative of hierarchy to ensure that things get done? It frustrates me

at times. But the steering committee that Zoe talks about, we leaned into that structure where they are the ones because we built it with them and and co piloted it and then agreed that these five community members were the ones that make the decisions on what projects we invest in. And I couldn't love that more because I know myself and I knew I would start to mingle in it. And the second I think it was the first project that you all invested in, I jumped in.

I was like, well, I've got all these questions about it and I'm not sure. It was like, well, that's why we set up the structure. And so it is actually leaning into structures to ensure that there is leadership and accountability within these different mechanisms. So we started with two twenty fellows. We got hundreds of applications from all fifty states, Squam Puerto Rico our community. So you gotta recognize we had zero marketing budget. We did zero ads.

We built a website with these kids and said take it out and started with two because we were going to culminate in Washington, d C. And Georgetown only gave us. I mean, I love you, Georgetown, but you only gave us two bets. So that that was that forcing function. Now, when COVID down and we as a community decided, we decided in I think early April, Zoe, we weren't going to d C. We called the shot. When we weren't going to d C, we started launching things like Unpluged Conversations,

fireside chat. So that's when we started to bring in hundreds of more other participants. And we just launched year two application and in less than forty eight hours we got more than two hundred applications in two days. We're probably going to cap around five hundred. But the size of everyone working on it all the time, I say, is it about eleven deep. But we interact as a community every single day. So we start our mornings off

with a morning reflection. Where I come from, it's called convocation. But it's a morning reflection where we all lean in, set for the day, expectations, reflect on something, challenge each other. But that's a bit of how we're structured in the size. Thank you for that. We're going to go to a live question. We're going to Gunner Carlson. I'm gonna Carlson. I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Thank you for this talk first of all, and thank you for your leadership and service. Zoe.

My question is for you, and specifically I work with a lot of youth, and so something I like to ask and get an honest answer on is one way that you think that adults like us can be supportive and get behind you and lean in and help your momentum? And what is one area where we need to just get out of the way because we're a problem and it would be easier to just let you do your thing. I think the biggest thing is just to believe, just

believe in young people. You know, if a young person has the drive to come and talk to you about a problem they're seeing, if they have a new policy they want to recommend, then you just got to lean in. I can tell you from personal experience with my education advocacy group. We were lobbying in Frankfurt to increase pay but also just increase the number of school counselors because our school to counsel ratio is like almost close to

five one, which is just ridiculous. Students aren't getting school counseling resources. And that the response from a senator in the Kentucky legislature was, we all should start a bake sale and raise money to pay for your school counselors. Yeah, which is like, I know, people are laughing, they're shaking it has that's ridiculous. You know you can't pay for school counsels of the bake sale. Um. So I think

that just overcoming that culture of writing kids off. If the kids are gonna come and lobby to you and Frankfort about how they think they need more school counselors than you know, they're lobbying just like anyone else, would they really care about an issue in terms of I guess, I guess tips as well as I think a lot of kids sometimes say they we want to be treated

like adults, but there's a nuance to that. We don't want to be treated like we're thirty because we're not thirty, but just given the same kind of like value in our opinions and what we know. But also recognize though that if we're eighteen, like what Josh was saying, we obviously don't have the same kind of wisdom as somebody who's lived much longer. But that doesn't mean that our

ideas are any less merited. It just means that we may need a little bit more support from intergenerational partners to operationalize those ideas. I hope I answered your question. I thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you, I appreciate that question. And I'm still mad about the way those Kentucky elected officials responded to you. So I want to know how we can help out. Telling kids to do a big sale instead of you doing your job is the height of offensive and on small d democratic, So

we gotta work on that, especially in a pandemic. So, because there's been so much concern, especially by folks like your parents and the age group of your parents, about the consequences of living in a digital landscape, how do you manage the full time screen time life. What does that digital hygiene look like for you? It's been an adjustment,

so I think for a long time. My resolve was like, well, I don't spend too much time on screens because I'm at school and I'm not on screens and I'm at school, so it's okay for me to do all these calls and I get home because I've had all this in person interaction. And then when that went away, I think a lot of the kids, I know, it was kind of a wake up call like, whoa, we need to do some things personally to make sure that you know, we're filling our own cup before we're filling everyone else's.

So you know, we've started kind of like taking Saturday's off of Slack, and that's something we started recently. It was like, we need to have something where people know I don't have to be on Slack today because nothing's going to happen important today. And I think a lot of digital hijin think is just making sure that you're being social, because if you're just working all day and just on zoom calls, which just work, I think that's really draining. But a lot of what we do with

civicsum plugs is a lot of fun. You know. If we're not getting right into the need of things, we're just chatting, just chatting about how life is going. I always like to reference Lillian another person a staring committee. She started a meme channel in Civics and plug where we just send memes and just talk about meme culture.

It's just something casual so that you, you you know, can be on the screen because that's when one of the ways we can really interact with others, especially and see you but still you know, have a good time while also you know, working to save democracy on the other side and thinks as well. Uh, this conversation with both of you has been what I needed. I think it's

been what a listener needs. Right now. We are in this moment of extraordinary frontness and precariousness and balancing and feeling overwhelmed, and we don't get very many signals of anything worth fighting for looking forward to from our major news outlets. And you have filled my cup with your energy, with your reproach, with your Drake Paris, and your belief in memes to restore and renewed democracy. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for building relationships, thank you for

understanding your power. Thank you for working on behalf of the many and not just the few. That's how the citizen and we are learning from you in the process. Zoe and Josh Civics Unplugged family, You're welcome here any and every time. Thank you for sharing the space with it. And so we're still gonna work at a bake salvers and need to climb back of a very specific nature.

I don't know about you, but I am feeling motivated, inspired, and uplifted by that energetic conversation with representatives from the next generation. We are so grateful to Josh Thompson and Zoe Jenkins for joining us. You can find them online Joshua T. Thompson on Twitter or Civics Unplugged on Instagram or Twitter, and you could also, of course go to their website at civics unplugged dot org. This whole episode a transcript and the actions I'm about to tell you

are always findable at how to citizen dot com. So listen to what I'm about to say, but also just go to the website. Here are some actions you can take in the spirit of youth and action and letting the kids lead. Internally, we have, as usual a writing exercise. This one is inspired by the civic program at CIVICS Unplugged, and it's to help you start your journey as a Civic twenty builder. Even though you're not formally in the program, you can run alongside. So you want to fill in

the following statements. To me, a flourishing democracy is one that A flourishing community is one that blank right by I pledged to have contributed to the flourishing of the following communities and then list them. Finally, by I pledged to have played any, many, or all of the following roles in service of creating a brighter future for my communities and American Democrat. See and if you're not American, that's okay. I might be low key jealous of you.

So pick your society, your community as it fits. After you've done developing your own vision, check out a bit of the vision of Civics Unplugged. We are linking to two pieces. Why we must save American Democracy is one of them, and what American democracy could look like. In for external actions, We've got four things lined up for you in this episode. Number one, identify young people in your life that you could support, Ask them what they are working on, and ask how you can help. Then

help them. Number two the Civics Unplugged Fellowship is open and accepting submissions. The deadline is November. Nominate someone, Encourage someone, Spread the word to get high schoolers involved in this process. Number three, Get involved as a mentor yourself in supporting builders at a Civic's twenty campaign. We have a link to that Civics Unplugged dot org, slash plug dash in and a bonus. This is my favorite assignment by far. Don't tell the other producers my favorite assignment. I want

you to find or create your own Drake memes and parodies. Yes, do it for democracy, y'all. This is how we do it. If you take any of these actions, share them with us via email action at how to citizen dot com. Make sure to mention kids will lead in the subject line and brag about it loud and publicly on social media. Use the hashtag how to citizen. We love general comments. You can hit us up comments at how to citizen

dot com. I'm barretting Day Thursty. I am your host, and I am infinitely reachable wherever barrettone days are found on social media, but specifically reachable by you via text message at two oh two eight nine four eight eight four or four How does sit him with? Barratune Day is a production of I Heart Radio Podcasts. Executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart and Barratton Day Thursty. Produced by Joel Smith, Edited by Justin Smith. Powered by you