What happens when a nonprofit organization reimagines how to deliver justice for victims of violent crimes? Network for Victim Recovery of DC took on this challenge when it launched in 2012, powered by Bridgette Stumpf, an exceptional advocate armed with a small seed grant. NVRDC now has a staff of 40 lawyers and advocates who operationalize a shared vision. It starts with the belief that survivors should not be left to navigate a complex system on their own and that they should be treated with ...
Dec 20, 2021•45 min
The National Coalition of Asian Pacific American Community Development is driven by a central question: how to advance the economic and social progress of members, amplify their voices, and tell their stories. Few nonprofits approach this challenge with as much rigor as National CAPACD. It starts with knowing its complex and nuanced base, 100 community-based organizations, from renowned community development corporations to start-up tenant organizations in 22 states and the Pacific Islands. And ...
Dec 13, 2021•40 min
How would you build an American workforce for the 21st century? This question was relevant before a global pandemic exposed and exacerbated deep fissures of inequity in our nation and is urgent now. Sequane Lawrence, a Chicago-based community development innovator and a cohort of social entrepreneurs are tackling this challenge head on, and their approach is generating measurable results. They founded Revolution Works, a nonprofit that provides training and career development that leads to well-...
Dec 06, 2021•42 min
If we want to speak honestly about the state of our nation, we must look first at how our children are doing. For Kimberly Perry, executive director of DC Action, this requires facing the fact that 1/3 of Washington DC’s children live in poverty, data that has barely shifted since the organization’s founding 30 years ago. An expert teacher, organizer and policy advocate, Kimberly is leading a movement to challenge this unacceptable status quo with unimpeachable data, solutions shaped by children...
Dec 01, 2021•41 min
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1981, he was determined to eliminate legal aid to the poor. He pressed Congress not to reauthorize the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), established in 1974 by President Nixon to provide lowest income Americans with access to high-quality legal counsel in civil cases. Congress stopped short of eradicating LSC but drastically cut funding and restricted the use of class action suits, viewed by conservatives as the gateway to broader social impacts. Maryl...
Nov 22, 2021•39 min
When the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies was launched in 1970 its founders entered the fray with a compelling vision. They were renowned public intellectuals committed to creating a hub for newly elected Black officials shifting from civil rights activism to governance. The mission was to advance the socioeconomic status and civic engagement clout of African Americans through evidence-based research and policy recommendations. And the work was rooted in a deep understanding that ...
Nov 15, 2021•40 min
This episode is a call to action for ending childhood poverty in America. Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz, CEO and Executive Director of Capital Area Asset Builders (CAAB) wants listeners to direct limited income families to the IRS Child Tax Credit (CTC) portal to apply for a refund by the November 15 deadline. We have, as Joseph explains, a once in a lifetime opportunity to lift more than half of low-income families out of poverty and keep them out. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child...
Nov 08, 2021•40 min
Here is a fact that I hope we can all agree on. American is home to a vast array of public lands, from forests to beaches, wildlife refuges and national parks that require our stewardship. These natural resources are vulnerable to devastating man-made harms, from the former president’s defilement of Bears Ears in Utah to climate change caused wildfires and flooding. The consequences of these disasters are felt disproportionately by indigenous and other communities of color. American Conservation...
Nov 01, 2021•42 min
It is impossible to overstate the dominance of social media in our lives. We are tethered to Facebook, Google and Twitter to consume, communicate, track our followers and detractors, access news and interpret world events. Facebook is the behemoth among other highly unregulated tech platforms that cultivate, collect and capitalize on our personal data. We are the technology users, but it is advertisers who pay Facebook for our data making them the valued customers. Facebook’s algorithms, based o...
Oct 25, 2021•38 min
The origin story of MALDEF-Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund-is rooted in the vision of the late Pete Tijerina. In 1967, he represented a Latina who was seriously harmed by corporate neglect and then again by a judge’s refusal, as constitutionally required, to seat Latinos on the jury. Discrimination against Latinos, fueled by misinformation, was escalating and the need for a dedicated civil rights infrastructure was clear. In 1968, Mr. Tijerina, fellow advocates and the genera...
Oct 18, 2021•37 min
Mississippi Votes starts with an awe-inspiring mission, the registration of 400,000 eligible unregistered residents, and then goes deeper. It is building a culture of civic engagement in Mississippi, where access to the ballot box is a high hurdle, from the archaic requirement to print, fill out and mail in registration forms to lifelong disenfranchisement for 23 categories of former offenders. Equally daunting is the disconnection that many Mississippians of color feel from civic life, a legacy...
Oct 11, 2021•36 min
In recent years disinformation has become the currency of political forces seeking power over truth. But as we know, facts and data matter. They reveal a true picture of the state of our nation, from which communities are prospering to those that are struggling. They are foundational to identifying the state of healthcare, education, transportation and housing and where disparities in access lies. At the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, 15 super-smart professionals dig into bills prop...
Oct 04, 2021•32 min
Have you ever changed your mind about a pressing social or cultural issue? As we experience life and hopefully evolve so can our perspective and politics. For organizations in the business of advancing social change, interrogating how minds change and applying that knowledge to our communications is essential. At a time of dangerously divisive politics and cultural chasms the status quo for messaging, from disinformation to baiting on social media is inadequate. For 15 years the Opportunity Agen...
Sep 27, 2021•39 min
At a time of profound turmoil in America, community-based and national nonprofits are demanding big bold social change. Progressive nonprofits are the frontline of movements with the capacity to remake inequitable systems affecting the environment, health care, housing and immigration. This is consequential culture-shifting work and nonprofits need infrastructure and staffing that is commensurate to the challenge. Linda Nguyen launched Movement Talent to position social change work for success b...
Sep 20, 2021•33 min
In 1964, the US Supreme Court ruled on a lawsuit challenging how electoral districts were drawn and political representation was apportioned. Such cases were inevitable as people moved from urban to rural areas and new immigrant populations settled into both. The Supreme Court ruled that electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be of roughly the same population providing for a one person one vote rule. Redistricting is the process of redrawing district lines based on the most curre...
Sep 13, 2021•31 min
The current assault on voting rights in America is both predictable and shocking. We saw it in full force during the 2020 presidential election when then President Trump’s appointee Postmaster General Louis DeJoy stripped mailboxes and “lost” ballots in targeted areas. Right now, state legislatures are devising new maneuvers to subvert the ability to vote by people of color. They include almost insurmountable barriers to the ballot box, from requiring copies of ID with requests for a mail-in bal...
Sep 06, 2021•32 min
Sometimes an image is so powerful it breaks through political rhetoric, media noise and sears into the soul. A recent video of Afghani children being foisted over the Kabul airport wall and into the arms of American soldiers resonates in this way. What we don’t see is the organized process underway by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) to help Afghans who supported the U.S. Military as translators, drivers and guards, flee Afghanistan and resettle in America. LIRS has been at the f...
Aug 30, 2021•26 min
Bright Beginnings is so much more than a beautiful and inviting space for a first-rate day care center. It is a nonprofit organization founded 30 years ago to provide evidence-based education, therapeutic and social services to children and parents who are experiencing homelessness. And it is based in Washington DC’s Ward 8, an historically Black and underinvested community that is now leading its own renaissance. Dr. Marla Dean, an exceptional educator, leads Bright Beginnings with a two-genera...
Aug 23, 2021•34 min
Over a long political life, Edward Roybal was true to a consistent theme. He fought for the material needs and civil rights of Latinos, both new immigrants and those with deep generational roots in the United States. When he was elected to Congress in 1963 he committed to making Latinos a force in the American political landscape. In 1976 Rep. Roybal founded the National Association for Latino Appointed and Elected Officials (NALEO), creating the infrastructure needed to spur community activism ...
Aug 16, 2021•37 min
The human brain, as Rinku Sen explains, loves and is even addicted to stories. A highly respected author, organizer, and political strategist driven to achieve racial and gender justice, Rinku has amplified the stories of many people whose voices are rarely heard, or communities fully represented in mainstream media. Now, as executive director of Narrative Initiative, Rinku is transforming the ways in which nonprofits communicate their stories to policymakers and the press. The work goes deeper ...
Aug 09, 2021•40 min
Thirty years ago, six parishes in Chicago came together with a shared mission. They resolved to do more than pray about conditions that overwhelmed local neighborhoods, from drugs and crime to a lack of jobs and housing. Each parish donated $5,000 to jumpstart a safety-focused organizing campaign. They could not have foreseen that their investment would evolve into The Resurrection Project, a powerhouse nonprofit whose template for community development is based in putting faith and values into ...
Aug 02, 2021•35 min
What do you think about when you see abandoned buildings and overgrown plots of vacant land? More importantly, how do you feel if they are fixtures in your own community? Dr. Akilah Watkins, CEO of the Center for Community Progress, sees the physical manifestation of housing segregation, disinvestment and other federal policies that have generated a devastating wealth gap in Black and Brown communities. And she has felt the despair those conditions evoke in people who experience them every day. ...
Jul 26, 2021•32 min
Dr. Mary Calderone was a trailblazer in the normalization of contraception and family planning. Her tenure at Planned Parenthood Federation of America left her alarmed by how uninformed young people were about their bodies and human sexuality. In 1964, she founded SEICUS-Sexuality Information & Education Council of the US-to develop what are now regarded as our foremost guidelines for sex education from kindergarten through high school. Now rebranded as Sex Ed for Change, SEICUS is led by Ch...
Jul 19, 2021•33 min
Kiki Louya is a disruptor in an industry she loves and is determined to transform. She started working in restaurants at 15, learning every aspect of the business, eventually graduating from culinary school, becoming an executive chef and a restaurant owner. That journey included first-hand experience with injustices that are prevalent in restaurant life, from racial discrimination to sexual harassment and wage theft. And it propelled her into a more activist role within the industry. In 2018, K...
Jul 12, 2021•40 min
There are many metrics for effective leadership touted by the corporate and nonprofit sectors, but I doubt that lived experience is among them. It is just one of many strengths that Dr. Bambie Hayes-Brown brings to her leadership of Georgia Advancing Communities Together (Georgia Act), a statewide association that advocates for safe housing and vibrant neighborhoods for all. The mission is critical in a state where 333,000 residents are very low-income, 72% pay more than 50% of their income on r...
Jul 05, 2021•30 min
The culture of empathy that characterizes the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) can be traced to its origin story. Two women whose sons were diagnosed with schizophrenia, connected. They struggled to help their children and cope with the associated stigma. And both had been identified as the root cause of their son’s schizophrenia. What started as a series of kitchen conversations 40 years ago became NAMI, the nation’s largest grassroots mental illness advocacy organization. NAMI suppor...
Jun 28, 2021•36 min
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, thousands of Haitian and Cuban nationals escaped repressive regimes for the promise of safety and a better future on American shores. But once here their experience has been starkly disparate. Cubans were welcomed as political refugees, but Haitians, survivors of Duvalier’s brutal dictatorship, were detained without due process rights in Miami’s infamous Krome Detention Center. Their path to citizenship has been tenuous at best with former President Trump’s ter...
Jun 21, 2021•38 min
So much goes into bringing fruits and vegetable to our tables. It starts with farmers who because of rising costs are increasingly selling off their land, often family legacies, to corporations and international investors. It relies on farmworkers brought to the United States on H-2A temporary visas who once here, migrate across states to harvest crops requiring a specialized workforce. In Florida, the nation’s second largest agricultural producer, farmworkers, are subjected to environmental haz...
Jun 14, 2021•27 min
How is legislation enacted? Do you picture Capitol Hill staffers scrambling to draft bills they have little connection to? Or back-room deal-making with corporations? That happens but more often nonprofit advocates press for legislation that will mitigate harms caused by policy making based in racism. Enacting legislation for the public good, let’s say decreasing carbon emissions and increasing access to affordable housing, impacts all sectors, nonprofit, public and business, so why not bring th...
Jun 07, 2021•39 min
Larry Curley has felt the destructive force of US government policy on Native Americans first-hand. A member of the Navajo Nation he lives with the legacy of dislocation and stripping of identity caused by the Removal Act of 1830 and the Assimilation Act of 1887. He has directly experienced the Termination Act of 1953 and Relocation Act of 1956 as blunt instruments of a federal power grab. As a young and fearless advocate in 1978, he drafted Title VI of the Older Americans Act, requiring federal...
May 31, 2021•39 min
