Power Station

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#123 Mark Winston Griffith, the Brooklyn Movement Center Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

I like to think that I choose my words carefully. I use terms like community organizing and movement building to describe a set of actions taken to meet social goals. But I realize that language that speaks to my own experience may ring hollow for others. Enter Mark Winston Griffith, who embraces the challenges of language and the hard, nuanced and unrelenting work of organizing and movement building in Central Brooklyn. He formed the Brooklyn Movement Center 10 years ago to reinvigorate what had become a calcified environment for change-making. And he committed to building a talented staff and engaging community members in the work needed to dismantle systemic inequities, including policing, housing, food access and environmental hazards. This is what community organizing and movement building really means. It is not easy to generate, sustain or fund but it is essential to the world we say we want to live in.

#122 Steven Choi, New York Immigration Coalition Jul 06, 2020

Show notes

A conversation with Steve Choi begins with his upending of assumptions about which immigrants and refugees live in New York State and where. It provides a view into how the New York Immigration Coalition, the nonprofit he leads, mobilizes 200 member organizations to influence local and state policy making. And it includes a review of the toll these tumultuous times are taking on immigrant communities. We associate immigrants with New York City, which remains a constant, but there are over 1 million immigrants residing outside of the City, from Long Island to Westchester to Rochester and Buffalo. And their national origins are so diverse that no single group dominates. The NYIC vigorously protects their legal rights and economic opportunities in a virulently anti-immigrant federal environment. And the needs are growing because immigrants are on the frontlines of service in restaurants, hospitals, and grocery stores during the COVID19 pandemic. While they are losing jobs and even their lives, immigrants have been left out of congressional relief packages, a stunning omission that the NYIC is working to correct. Steve and the NYIC are building influence and power, from the ground up.

#121 Meghan Maury, The National LGBTQ Task Force Jun 29, 2020

Show notes

The best nonprofits tackle what lies beneath the economic and social wrongs that rock= our nation. They organize, litigate and advocate to undo discriminatory policies based on race, immigration status and sexual orientation. More recently, nonprofits, including The National LGBTQ Task Force, are using an intersectional prism to guide their advocacy. Intersectionality, a concept developed by scholar Kimberlee Crenshaw, refers to our overlapping identities, which shape how we view the world and how we are perceived. This prism also reveals how privilege and marginalization operate. As Meghan Maury, Policy Director for The Task Force explains, battling discrimination is not enough. LGBTQ people are also over-represented in homeless shelters and the criminal justice and immigration systems. And the Task Force is active on all fronts. Valuing intersectionality is reflected in a staff comprised primarily by people of color, people with disabilities and with lived experiences of homelessness and poverty. It informs the Task Force's campaigns to increase the count of LGBTQ people in Census 2020 and to scuttle the Administration's schemes to deregulate Obama era protections. And it shines through in Meghan, whose resistance is savvy, tireless and relentlessly positive.

#120 Lauren Grimes, The Community Enrichment Project Jun 22, 2020

Show notes

How are young people processing the chaos of the current moment and how can we support them? We are all confronted by circumstances we did not foresee and cannot control. COVID19 has pummeled this nation, robbing low-wage workers of their jobs and far too many, of their lives. And the killing of George Floyd, a Black man at the hands of police officers, catapulted us into protests that continue today. The sense of uncertainty is palpable. But we are adults and have at least some agency over our lives. For young people in communities color, the challenges are more complex. They are suddenly attending school online, confined to homes that are under stress and may lack access to Wi-Fi. Lauren Grimes is one adult who stepped up for young people long before these dual pandemics launched a national conversation about racial justice. A rising professional in the federal government, Lauren founded The Community Enrichment Project to spur youth organizing in Washington DC's Wards 7 & 8. They have great insights to share. We just need to listen.

#119 Paulina Gonzalez-Brito, California Reinvestment Coalition Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

It took years of activism by community leaders before Congress enacted the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. This legislation was meant to undo decades of discrimination by banks against African Americans, Latinx and other non-white people seeking mortgages and small business loans. It required banks to lend and made them accountable to community interests. As Paulina Gonzalez-Brito explains, redlining create the predatory lending industry, which continues today. As executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, she engages 300 organizations across the state in requiring banks to meet their CRA obligations. And she is spearheadinga vigorous campaign to prevent the Trump Administration from dismantling this essential civil rights law. The story of who is leading this assault, and how, is essential listening. The pandemic of racism calls for action and saving the CRA is at the heart of the matter. We must all participate in the next chapter.

#118 Tony Walters, National American Indian Housing Council Jun 08, 2020

Show notes

Self-determination is a deeply embedded value within the National American Indian Housing Council. It is the driving force for its members, leaders from 570 tribes who advocate for the housing needs of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in 32 states. The shortage of affordable housing is a national crisis and is even more nuanced in native communities. Tribes own and manage their own housing stock and must navigate many levels of municipal, state and federal governance. And they often operate in rural areas, where a lack of running water and heating speak to profound infrastructure problems. It is all the more noteworthy, then that NAIHC, led by executive director Tony Walters, has moved Congress to commit considerable funding to native housing in CARES Act legislation. It reflects a congressional recognition of the disproportionate impact of COVID19 in native communities, attributed in part to overcrowding in tribal housing, which makes social distancing impossible. Tony brings his lived experience, from growing up in Oklahoma to working in the executive and legislative branches, to amplifying the voices of powerful native practitioners on Capitol Hill. This is how change is made.

#117 Sarah Saadian, NLIHC Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

Our democracy is imploding and that is not hyperbole. Across the nation, communities are protesting the murder of an African American man by a White police officer who carried out this execution under the watchful eyes of devastated onlookers, including a young woman who captured the images on her phone. And the pandemic that is ravaging communities of color is by no means over. How can ambitious champions of change be effective in these times? The best social change nonprofits are advocating for Congress to invest in communities that have been under resourced, segregated and marginalized for generations. That is how the National Low-Income Housing Coalition approaches their mission of increasing access to decent and affordable housing for lowest income people. In this episode of Power Station, Sarah Saadian tells us how NLIHC mobilizes a diverse constituency of public housing residents and authorities, local housing and homeless serving groups, municipal and national leaders, to secure resources now, through the latest CARES Act legislation. This is literally life-saving work made possible by a laser focused approach and a demonstrated commitment to equity.

#116 with Frederick Isasi, Families USA May 25, 2020

Show notes

If you want to understand why the United States has the most expensive and worst performing health care system among developed countries, in terms of access, equity, efficiency, and outcomes, you have a unique and vital resource in Families USA. For forty years, this national nonprofit has investigated every aspect of our broken bureaucracy, from the cost of prescription drugs to the politicization of Medicare to the implicit bias deep within our delivery systems. And it has used this understanding to inform and engage consumers, from those willing to share their lived experiences to community-based health organizations in every state to the media and policymakers in state houses and on Capitol Hill. Families USA Executive Director Frederick Isasi talks about how the powerful stressor that is COVID19 has rocked this fragile system and exposed its profound weaknesses. He believes in, and Families USA is based on, a theory of change that honors the perspective and experience of many while working towards justice for all. This is the story of our times.

#115 Jonathan Mehta Stein, Common Cause California May 18, 2020

Show notes

While we worry about how to restore our democracy, Jonathan Mehta Stein knows that in disenfranchised communities, many people feel that democracy has never worked for them. This is the starting point that Jonathan, the newly appointed executive director of Common Cause California, embraces. He is a civil rights attorney who believes that at this moment in time, relying on litigation and legislation alone is not enough. He argues that we need more community organizing to inspire those who have been left behind to believe that voting can make a difference for them. The stakes are high as we head into the most consequential election of our lifetime. While voting in America is a constitutional right, the election process varies wildly across municipalities and is comprised by under-resourced bureaucracies, entrenched party politics and racism. And a devastating global pandemic raises deep concerns about how to carry out fair elections in 2020. California has raised the bar on lowering barriers to voting. Now the challenge is to motivate people to mail in ballots and turn out to polls. Jonathan talks about tackling the Common Cause mission and the transformational power of participation.

#114 John Holdsclaw, National Cooperative Bank May 11, 2020

Show notes

Small businesses have been devastated by COVID19, and by extension, so have their owners, workers and communities. We are talking about true small businesses, not Shake Shack or Ruth's Christ Steak House. Their role in our economy is so significant that Congress appropriated federal funding for them through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) within the CARES Act. This moment underscores the importance of federal investment in small businesses that meet needs in underserved communities. The most impactful resource for this is the CDFI Fund, a US Department of Treasury based program that deploys capitol into communities that banks do not serve. They are run by nonprofits and mission-driven lenders that build affordable housing and launch businesses. And CDFIS are having a moment. The New York Times just reported on the campaign to fund CDFIs at $1 billion in the next spending bill. This is the life's work of John Holdsclaw, Executive VP at National Cooperative Bank, a rare financial institution dedicated to funding cooperatives in LMI communities. We talk about CDFIs that are literally changing lives and powering communities.

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