Power Station

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We are in the business, at Power Station, of amplifying the true changemakers Jan 06, 2025

Show notes

My wish for 2025, a year for which Donald Trump's plan to weaken democracy and human rights is memorialized in his Project 2025 blueprint is that more people, from our families to the business sector and the media, recognize that the complex business of protecting both is the daily business of the nonprofit sector. Nonprofits, especially those guided by the communities they serve, are powerful problem solvers that redress historic wrongs with policy and capital based solutions. Tech leaders are credited with being great innovators but nonprofit innovations transform systems that hold communities down. To name just a few: Grounded Community Solutions solves for our purportedly intractable housing crisis through community land trusts and shared equity, Rochdale Capital lends and invests where banks fail to, bringing capital and hands-on help to entrepreneurs of color. The TRIGGER Project dismantles gun violence through youth-led prevention strategies and Global Development Advisors is building the infrastructure needed for small business development in San Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, allowing those with a dream to thrive at home rather than risk their futures to migration. Robb Spewak and I break it down here and issue our call to resist retrenchment.

I write the show number on my hand Dec 30, 2024

Show notes

I am obsessed by the business of changemaking, the generation of solutions to our most pressing unmet human needs. I am drawn to people who are moved to action by their own lived experience and by those with a deeply felt sense of responsibility to redress injustice. And I see nonprofits, the best of them, as the infrastructure needed to produce enlightening data, build connections and organize communities, advocate for consequential public policies and implement new policies to make the intended impact. So, in this episode of Power Station I have the great pleasure of looking back, with stellar podcast producer Robb Spewak, on a truly inspiring roster of guests in 2024, the very changemakers that I admire and am honored to amplify. Robb and I want these leaders and nonprofits to be seen, heard and recognized and not to be "best kept secrets." As always, we take the mission seriously and have great fun doing the work.

We are literally led by the people we have the privilege of serving Dec 23, 2024

Show notes

Whatever challenges you navigate during your day there is tremendous comfort in knowing where you will lay your head at night. For too many Americans, that safe place is out of reach, a consequence of failed housing policies and artificially low wages that perpetuate the racial wealth gap. In Montgomery County, Maryland, one of our nation's wealthiest counties, there is a deep well of poverty that pervades the region's prosperity. In this episode of Power Station, Courtney Hall, the invincible CEO of Interfaith Works, a champion of low-income communities since 1974, talks about the privilege of serving those who are struggling and aspire to more. Interfaith Works has developed the infrastructure and expertise required to serve 35,000 Montgomery County residents through shelters, permanent housing, food, clothing and training for jobs generating salaries that can support families. As Courtney says, it takes resident-informed and data-driven policy change to reinvent broken system and create new opportunities. Interfaith Works advocates to and is a resource for a rich network of municipal, state and federal elected officials who are the force behind progressive policies in the region. Courtney and his team are standing with the community no matter what lies ahead.

An America without poverty is possible Dec 16, 2024

Show notes

Origin stories are powerful in shaping both people and organizations. In this episode of Power Station, Lelaine Bigelow, the outstanding executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, shares how her family inspired her all-in career as an advocate for racial, economic and gender equity. She credits civil rights champion and Georgetown University Law Professor Peter Edelman for founding GCPI and continuing to advance its mission to study, inform and act. As Lelaine explains, GCPI operates from a belief that an America without poverty is possible. Its small staff of policy and communications experts produce research on issues from climate change to health and housing disparities that perpetuate economic and racial inequality. They collaborate with elected leaders in state legislatures and on Capital Hill to design, enact and implement meaningful policy solutions to these profound challenges. We talk about GCPI's illuminating report on state abortion bans and their impact on women of color living in red states with diminishing public benefits. Lelaine is not slowing down or lowering expectations in the face of a new administration. She calls for not only defending hard-won policies but for pressing forward to achieve more.

We need films and books that talk about us, that dispel myths about our culture and history and how we exist in the world Dec 09, 2024

Show notes

In the Ghanaian culture, a mythical bird called Sankofa honors the African Diaspora, symbolizing the need to look to the past and carry forward the truth and wisdom found there to benefit future generations. The image is so powerful that filmmakers, educators and entrepreneurs Shirikiana and Haile Gerima named both their groundbreaking 1993 movie and their incomparable bookstore, Sankofa. It was an honor to interview Shirikiana on Power Station, the final episode of a 4-part series produced in partnership with Rochdale Capital. Sankofa Video Books and Café is a vital cultural touchstone where children can see themselves depicted in books about joyful Black families, a rarity in literature, students from Howard University explore the works of Pan-African writers and the community gathers to hear live Jazz and meet independent filmmakers. The strength of and connection to the community is critically important to Sankofa as it navigates pushback from gentrifying neighbors, the need for more physical space and the high cost of operating in Washington, DC. Sankofa's next chapter is a transition to cooperative ownership, a journey informed by looking back to shape the future. Shirikiana Gerima tells her remarkable story here.

The music industry is dependent on underpaid workers Dec 02, 2024

Show notes

Music not only feeds the soul it has also been, throughout history, a vital means of creative expression and resistance against social and political repression. While some musicians become chart-topping bestsellers, most are with small labels or are entirely independent. And while we may view digital platforms like Spotify as providing access to less well-known musicians they do not feature or compensate all artists equally. Simon Vansinjan is in the business of creating economic equity and opportunity for musicians who want to be heard and compensated and for listeners who want engagement with a more diverse universe of performers. On this episode of Power Station, Simon tells the story of Mirlo, the online audio distribution and music sales platform he co-founded as a cooperative. It unites his dual passions for music and the solidarity economy, which prioritizes social profitability, collective decision-making, and equitable pay for musicians, venue workers and other undercompensated players in the industry. An accomplished software developer and Rochdale Capital Greater Washington Center for Employee Ownership 2024 Impact Award winner, Simon and co-owner Alex Rodríguez are organizing a day-long event for union leaders, performers and shared equity advocates to explore their collective future together.

We are pulling back the curtain to see how the cooperative functions Nov 25, 2024

Show notes

If you doubt the power of cooperatives to build community and generate economic equity you need to know the Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (CPA) story. It emerged from an energy deregulation crisis in Washington DC that burdened houses of workshop with utility costs that exceeded clergy's salaries. The Washington Interfaith Network came together to find a solution, which they achieved through a collective energy purchase, producing a savings of over $100,000. Their success led to the launch of the CPA, a cooperative that is wholly owned by its nonprofit member-owners, including churches, synagogues, public charter schools and affordable housing developments, all local institutions that are vital to the low-income children and families and communities of color they serve. Member-owners identify what they need to operate safe and welcoming facilities and CPA's exceptional staff facilitate processes for collective purchasing while building a robust eco-system of vendors led by women and people of color. Alex and Amy tell their story powerfully on this episode of Power Station. Their commitment to a workplace that honors all voices in decision making fuels the pursuit of their mission. Rochdale Capital's support is driving their mission, collectively, forward.

Comic books, particularly the superheroes, in their DNA have always been about fighting for democracy and combatting bigotry Nov 18, 2024

Show notes

Here is the hard reality: In 2024, a majority of voters can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction. This truth is disturbing and dangerous but not that surprising. As a recent Pew Research Center study reveals, most voters cite friends and families, not newspapers, television or academic studies as their primary source of news and information. We are all subject to a deluge of misinformation on social media but microtargeting, a campaign of disinformation warfare on an unsuspecting public, was a hallmark of the GOP's presidential campaign. As Gal Golan and Alan Jenkins share on this episode of Power Station, it is possible to communicate across lines of difference. This, they argue, is how we build a more perfect union. Their contribution to this aspiration is 1/6, a striking and powerful graphic novel that imagines what might have happened if the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol had been successful. It is grounded in the real stories of those who were there and, in the tradition of pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian comic books, honors the truthtellers. In 1/6, Alan and Gan are speaking to everyone. Hear them! OneSixComics.org

There is a lot to unpack with cooperative ownership, it is like a marriage Nov 11, 2024

Show notes

Our news feeds are brimming with stories about America as a divided nation which cannot agree on who deserves to live here or whether to ensure that families do not go hungry. But there is a different vision for America, one that Power Station guests strive every day to bring to life. They are overcoming disinvestment and disenfranchisement with community power-building and capital. Many of them view cooperative ownership and shared equity as essential to that vision. My guest for this week's episode (the first in a series produced in partnership with Rochdale Capital) is Dominic Hosack, a leading voice in the movement for food sovereignty. While in a PhD program focused on food systems, he was inspired to address food deserts in communities of color by becoming a grower himself. As founder of Steptoe Farm, he invites the community to share in Steptoe's abundant crops and teaches neighbors to become farmers themselves. There is a reason that Dom is a winner of the Greater Washington Center for Employee Ownership's 2024 DC Cooperative Impact Award. He demonstrates how capital, relationship-building and cooperation can build the America we want to see.

We know that in the world there is an abundance of capital Nov 04, 2024

Show notes

America has a complicated relationship with those who leave behind their families, culture and countries of origin to pursue a greater future in ours. Throughout U.S. history we have both celebrated the risk-taking and resilience of our own descendants in making a new life here and reviled, in the grip of nationalistic political forces, migrants fleeing poverty, violence and a lack of opportunity. In this episode of Power Station, Paty Funegra demonstrates what is possible if we reimagine our current immigration system by supporting would-be migrants' right to stay at home and prosper. Paty launched Global Development Advisors to support economic development in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by building a vibrant entrepreneurial eco-system there. In collaboration with universities, international aid agencies, FinTech and venture capital groups, she is bridging the capital and information gap that constrains small business owners and tech start-ups in the region. By creating a path to investment, GDA is building the economic infrastructure needed to generate jobs that sustain families and strengthen communities. Paty Funegra makes a powerful social justice and business case. She invites philanthropy, investors and all of us to join her.

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