Power Station

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I flipped the organizational chart so the CEO and executive team are at the bottom supporting frontline staff Apr 03, 2023

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As Felipe Pinzon says, not enough Americans know how nonprofits change communities. His own organization, Hispanic Unity of Florida, provides a master class in how transformative change in marginalized communities is made. It started in 1982, when residents recognized that immigrants arriving in South Florida needed help to manage the many complex transitions they faced. Hispanic Unity became a safe space where families learned how to navigate new systems, from public schools to healthcare to learning English, finding employment, and becoming citizens. Hispanic Unity sites the number of jobs attained, businesses started, and homes purchased by new immigrants among its successes. It also considers its public policy advocacy and committment to standing by the community in a deeply anti-immigrant environment a metric of impact. It's 2 Generation approach, working simultaneously with children and their parents to keep all family members on track for reaching their goals is key to building self-sufficiency and generational wealth. As a leader Felipe is proud to invest in Hispanic Unity's frontline workers, from training opportunities to including them in organizational decision making. He is building a new narrative about immigrants and he and the community will not be deterred.

This is what we have learned from the African immigrant community, the beauty of collectivism Mar 27, 2023

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There is intention and beauty in the naming of The Person Center. Its founder, Amelia Missielidies, wanted the women she served, survivors of domestic and sexual violence who were African immigrants and refugees to recognize the value of their personhood. As an Ethiopian and a social worker, Amelia understood what American service providers could not, that the experience these women shared: war, conflict, and migration, requires a trauma-informed approach to healing. After Amelia's passing, her mentee, Lul Mohamud, stepped up to carry on and even deepen her impact. Lul describes The Person Center as guided by "the beauty of collectivism", lessons from the community that she both comes from and serves. Instead of expecting marginalized women, some with uncertain immigration status to come to them to report abuse, Lul, a Somalian-American public health expert, and her team invest time in African immigrant and refugee communities, building trust, conducting informal needs assessments, and training community members to advocate for each other. She is collecting data for academic research, including the whole community in outreach and training, and advocating for a broader set of community needs, from healthcare to housing. Lul is an inspiration.

You are making a higher impact than you perceive Mar 20, 2023

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Are you, your nonprofit, and the community you serve being seen and heard? What if you could communicate the story of your nonprofit, the inequitable conditions you tackle, the public policies you advocate and your solutions for uplifting people and communities? In this episode of Power Station, I am joined by Oscar Zeballos, CEO of Podville Media, a fellow podcasting evangelizer whose partnership with co-founder Charlie Birney provides a dynamic stage for diverse voices, from ESPN to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to the White House Historical Association. Just before recording I participated on a panel session moderated by Oscar as part of Solutions for Housing Communications, a National Housing Conference event. Oscar conveyed the myriad ways that content generated by our audience of communications professionals can influence decision makers across an evolving media landscape. We carried our passion for purposeful communications into Podville Media's Studio C where I pressed nonprofit and foundation executives to support podcasting and other creative messaging tools. Oscar gave a glimpse into new technology that uncovers where podcasts are making an impact. What is the story you want to tell?

Abusers use finances to keep their victims with them Mar 13, 2023

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Where are our nation's most effective and committed changemakers? You may expect them to be representing us on Capitol Hill or launching start-ups in Silicon Valley but the real champions of opportunity and equity, from poverty alleviation, upending the racial wealth gap and creating a pathway to generational wealth are nonprofit leaders. On this episode of Power Station, two exceptional leaders, Mercedes Lemp of My Sister's Place and Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz, of Capital Area Asset Builders tell us about their organizational partnership, envisioned by Mercedes, to lift domestic violence survivors out of poverty and into a life of possibility. It starts with a monthly cash transfer, guaranteed income that provides women with the means needed to leave their abuser and build a life for themselves and their children. To deepen the effect of this initiative Mercedes reached out to Joseph whose track record in making financial education and resources accessible through CAAB, including guidance on the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, has proven to be life-changing for low-income families. Mercedes and Joseph have created a model that can and should take hold nationally. Hear them tell the story here.

I know that my story has power Mar 06, 2023

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Public narrative is about the story of me and the story of us. This is how Sandy Dang, an expert and educator in the field describes its essence. On this episode of Power Station, we explore the power of public narrative to communicate our values and lived experience and to tell the collective stories of our communities. Sandy came to this field, which trains individuals in how to distill their life experience into a 2 minute story, innately. Born in Vietnam, she survived the war, life in refugee camps and her family's resettlement in Salt Lake City, Utah. She realizes now that navigating through these challenges made her stronger. It fueled her drive to build community with refugee children and their families by founding Asian American Lead, a groundbreaking nonprofit in Washington DC. AA Lead created opportunities to share her story and to embolden young children and their parents to develop their own voices. Sandy believes in stripping away adjectives and affectation to share personal truth through public narrative. It sparks awareness, deepens our understanding of life experiences that are different than our own and makes connections that inspire.

There is a lot of joy in what we are trying to build Feb 27, 2023

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If we have learned anything from the last several years, it is that while we have shared collective pain, a global health crisis, economic freefall, mass shootings, and political discourse so fractured we cannot agree that democracy is a core value, the impacts of these events have landed starkly unevenly. The data shows what progressive nonprofits know: low income, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ communities continue to be disproportionately harmed by systems, rooted in racism that make these outcomes inevitable. On this episode of Power Station, the brilliant lawyer, strategist, and organizer Afua Attah Mensah shares stories of community based organizations across the nation that are building the relationships and policy solutions needed to make transformative change possible. We may not hear about these achievements on the nightly news, but we should. The good news is that Community Change, a national nonprofit with deep community roots and a long history of bold activism invests its assets, staff with exceptional expertise in organizing, policymaking, communications, political and issue campaigns, in advancing the aspirations of its grassroots partners. As Afua tells us it starts with people who care about the common good.

We are all very committed to the work and we are committed to each other Feb 20, 2023

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At its core, the N Street Village story is one of humanity, resistance, and advancing racial and housing justice. It began in 1972, when Pastor John Steinbruck opened the doors of Lutheran Place Memorial Church, at the center of Washington DC's embattled 14th street corridor, to women and children in need of shelter and care. It was 6 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, a devastating act that reverberated across the nation and ignited riots just blocks from the White House. That moment led to the founding of N Street Village, which has evolved over the last fifty years into a national model for serving women experiencing homelessness. The process starts, as explained with clarity and compassion by N Street Village CEO Kenyatta Brunson, by welcoming them without judgment, providing the time and resources needed to recover from domestic violence, disability debt, divorce, death, key drivers of women's homelessness, and advocating for the expansion of safe and affordable permanent housing. It takes tremendous skill and heart to both address complex individual needs and reform public policies rooted in racism. Kenyatta tells her powerful story here.

We have all the same obligations of other Americans but not the same rights Feb 13, 2023

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When you live with racial injustice as a child and have parents who encourage your intellectual curiosity and impulse to advocate and serve you know what it means to live your values. In this episode of Power Station, Ty Hobson Powell describes a childhood in Washington DC marked by the loss of close friends to gun violence, limited access to resources, from grocery stores and parks, and resilient and underestimated friends and neighbors. His pathway to activism included graduating from high school at 13, earning a bachelor's degree at 15, and a master's degree at 17, and since then, applying his skills in public service, political field organizing and an HBCU. In 2020, Ty founded Concerned Citizens Demanding Change, a nonprofit that grew organically from protests, in DC and nationally, against rising violence towards people of color at the hands of police. He invited a team of young Black leaders with expertise ranging from the environment to women's reproductive rights, to reimagine with him how change is made. CCDC is the future of community-building, the bridge to statehood and a voice for marginalized people everywhere.

The media can help us expose these issues, report on them and build a bottom-up solution Feb 06, 2023

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The roots of racism in America run so deep they even determine who benefits from life extending clinical trials. This truth guides Dana Dornsife in advocating for equitable access to medical treatment, which should be but is not, a standard of care in our medical system. When Dana's brother-in-law Mike was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she immersed herself in enrolling him in a clinical trial. That experience, which allowed him to live another 19 months, inspired Dana to launch the Lazerex Cancer Institute. She knew that with all the challenges Mike faced, it was exponentially harder for people of color without financial support. Lazerex is upending the status quo for nonprofits in the cancer care arena. It connects people with all forms of cancer to clinical trials, covers the costs of travel for those without means, and engages stakeholders, from patients to hospital administrators in democratizing outdated government policies and profit-driven insurance systems. Lazerex Cancer Foundation is building a bottom up movement for change with the capacity to move the FDA, state and national legislators, and medical institutions to prioritize racial equity. As Dana shows, problems are only intractable when we allow them to be.

No one has ever given them the chance to think big Jan 30, 2023

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If you are a nonprofit leader who thinks about fundraising with the same intensity that you bring to tackling your mission, this is your episode. Chances are you have been denied the level of funding needed to scale your most impactful strategies or turned down for general operating support, which enables you to deploy resources as needed. In this episode of Power Station, we explore what happens when our most open-minded philanthropic leaders design a new model for identifying and investing in solutions to our world's most pressing challenges. Dr. Cecilia Conrad brings brilliance, intentionality, and a belief in the power of collaboration to her leadership of Lever for Change, an affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is cultivating a cohort of donors, from the LEGO Foundation to the Kellogg Foundation and MacKenzie Scott, who agree that the most powerful solutions to complex challenges, from climate change to infant and maternal health care and the refugee crisis are generated by nonprofits. They have stepped up to invest $10 million in the winners of competitions among exceptional nonprofits. Dr. Gordon is the deeply committed change maker who tells this story best.

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