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#63 Michelle Moore, Groundswell May 20, 2019

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As executive director of Groundswell, Michelle Moore leads with a deep conviction that solar power is an abundant source of energy that should also be a source of economic empowerment. She wants all communities to have access to clean energy and has developed a model for supplying it that has taken root in 5 states and Washington DC. Groundswell's Empower program enables market rate subscribers to purchase solar energy from a local power project and share the savings with low-income residents. This approach is cutting energy bills in half, creating a pathway for savings that low-income families need for rent, food and school. Groundswell also partners with community-based partners willing to host a power project on their land, rooftop or parking lot. Michelle knows the energy sector's strengths and weaknesses including a lack of racial and gender diversity in its executive leadership. She is a disruptor in the energy sector who wants the sector to look much more like the communities Groundswell serves. And she wants rural communities, like her own in La Grange, Georgia to be included in the energy conversation too.

#62 Chris Lu, The Miller Center May 13, 2019

Show notes

Chris Lu has spent the last 20 years at the hub of federal policy making, including as Deputy Secretary for the US Department of Labor, and he is still a champion of public service. As he says, government matters: it builds our roads and bridges, creates the laws that protect veterans, keeps our homeland secure and our air and water clean. He is guided by a belief in the capacity of government to make the American Dream possible for all families, including his own parents, who immigrated to the United States from China. Now a Fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center for Public Policy, Chris speaks often to young people who want to affect policy change. His advice is to think more expansively about where and how change is made. Chris sees innovation and problem-solving on issues from climate change to job training and Census implementation resting in local and state government, nonprofits and even mission-driven corporations. And he sees technology as crucial to the mostly calcified systems that nonprofits and companies use to manage government relations. Chris Lu is a believer in our collective potential to make change.

#61 Jackson Brossy, Native CDFI Network May 06, 2019

Show notes

In Native American communities, conversations about building local economies start with a shared belief in tribal sovereignty. This belief is foundational to the Native CDFI Network, whose 50 nonprofit members based in 23 states, provide financial education, credit building, and make loans for housing and small businesses where traditional banks are not engaged. Jackson Brossy brings his experience of growing up in Navajo Nation to his leadership of the Network. The legacy of forcible removal of Native Americans from their land, the decimation of assets, including buffalo, and the more current failure of public and corporate to invest on tribal land are drivers of the Network's vision. As Jackson explains, people should not have to travel for miles to buy milk and groceries and invest their resources off reservation. But a lack of access to the capital needed to launch businesses in Indian country and the complications of investment on rural lands held in trust by the federal government are barriers to thriving economies. Change is coming.

#60 Nate Mook, World Central Kitchen Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

When we hear about a natural disaster our first thoughts go to saving people and then to saving homes, roads and infrastructure. We expect a rapid response by government and relief agencies and, hopefully, we volunteer to help. Chef José Andrés launched World Central Kitchen in the wake of Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake. He found his way to the island, listened to people struggling to survive and used his unique skills as a chef and entrepreneur to feed the community. Since then, World Central Kitchen has used food, our most shared cultural touchstone to uplift communities after floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados in North Carolina, Florida, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Mozambique. WCK galvanizes chefs, students, professionals and everyday people to produce thousands of meals in logistically impossible situations. And Chef Andrés is a moral voice on behalf of immigrants and refugees battered by poverty, political turmoil and a hostile White House. As WCK executive director Nate Mook explains after his recent return from Mozambique with José, "the first step we take is to connect to local networks." WCK is both a collaborator and a disruptor in the government and nonprofit sector.

#59 Sophia Miyoshi and Candace Cunningham, Restaurant Opportunities Center Apr 22, 2019

Show notes

Restaurant Opportunities Center, a nonprofit that advocates for restaurant workers to receive equitable pay and treatment. was borne in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. On that horrific day, 73 workers from the Center's iconic restaurant, Windows on the World, were killed and their co-workers displaced. Sekou Siby, a Windows on the World cook from the Ivory Coast, organized those survivors to ensure their well-being and to find new opportunities in the industry. Their efforts started with a worker's center in New York and has since expanded into Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a game changing national nonprofit with chapters across the United States. In Washington DC, organizers Sophia Miyoshi and Candance Cunningham tackle wage theft and sexual harassment while promoting fair wages and paid family leave for tipped workers and racial equity in the industry overall. Sophie and Candance are coalition builders and they want you to be informed consumers about the restaurants you support.

#58 Sanaa Abrar, United We Dream Apr 15, 2019

Show notes

If you think that young people are disconnected from public policymaking, you need to reconsider your assumptions. United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led nonprofit in the nation is on the frontlines of advocacy and activism for undocumented immigrants. Staff and members are youth for whom immigration, detention, deportation, enforcement and citizenship are both personal and political. Their hard work has been instrumental in organizing for passage of the Dream and Promise Act and against federal funding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. United We Dream also builds pipelines of leadership for the future. And Sanaa and her network of leaders are active both on Capitol Hill and in states where the stakes are highest, including New Mexico, Texas, Florida and Maryland. These are change makers to watch and learn from.

#57 Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, National Skills Coalition Apr 08, 2019

Show notes

The National Skills Coalition was launched twenty years ago when public support for job training was lagging and both labor and business leaders were concerned about the resulting lack of job opportunities and readiness. NSC's is now bolstered by 28,000 members representing industry, labor unions, community colleges and Chambers of Commerce. As Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, NSC's Director of Upskilling Policy says about this disparate and broad-ranging coalition, "They may not agree on much, but they all agree on the importance of workforce development." They meet with state and federal policy makers to advocate evidence-based positions and to share the results of a new NSC poll of 2020 voters. It demonstrates overwhelming support for increased public investment in people's skills to meet employers' workforce needs. That demand rests with "middle skills" jobs, such as those in the culinary arts and the medical field. They require training that falls between high school and a 4-year college and create an opportunity as a society that we cannot afford to miss.

#56 Nikitra Bailey, Center for Responsible Lending Apr 01, 2019

Show notes

The Center for Responsible Lending was founded in the belief that all communities should have access to fair banking and lending services. And that the nation's financial marketplace, from Wall Street to banks, should be reformed. It was rooted in the civil rights and economic justice movements and grew out of Self Help, a credit union launched in North Carolina in 1980. As Niktra Bailey, Executive VP says, "Low income families shouldn't have to pay more for financial services." We talk about CRL's unimpeachable research and its field building among diverse organizations. We looked back at the promise of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the hard-fought "win" of the small dollar loan rule, which over 700 nonprofit and faith-based organizations advocated for. Nikitra, a lawyer with an expertise in financial services is a leader committed to those who have been hurt by the debt trap. She is ready, as always, for what comes next.

#55 Monica Gonzales, No Kid Hungry Mar 25, 2019

Show notes

Share Our Strength is an organization rooted in the conviction that hunger is a solvable problem. It is led by Billy and Debby Shore, whose father ran the political office of a congressional member in Pittsburgh and made the everyday realities of constituents a part of the dinner table conversation. Billy and Debby now lead a thriving organization that deploys staff across the country to collaborate with schools, parents, chefs, corporate allies and policy makers to solve our nation's hunger and nutrition challenges. As Monica Gonzales, Associate Director of Government Relations for No Kid Hungry, says, "hunger affects children in urban, rural and suburban communities alike. And it is an indicator of other unmet needs that stem from poverty." Monica draws on her experience as a child who benefited from school-based breakfast programs when she meets with policy makers on Capitol Hill. And she underscores what the data shows: nutritious food, like early exposure to reading, is critical in early childhood development and is a predictor for positive life outcomes. By building bi-partisan support on Capitol Hill, Monica stands up for policies that nurture children and families and she stands with the elected leaders that champion them.

#54 Ariel Levinson-Waldman, Tzedek DC Mar 18, 2019

Show notes

If you want to see justice in action, go to DC Superior Court and look for the lawyers with the blue clipboards and a sign offering free help. They position themselves there for the 2 days a weeks dedicated to debt collection and are a counterpart to a sea of for-profit debt collectors. The justice gap for people marginalized by debt is what led Ariel Levinson-Waldman to create Tzedek DC, a public interest nonprofit that advocates for just policy solutions. Debt can have devastating consequences for people with a limited ability to repay. It can mean the suspension of a driver's license, leading people who need to drive to get to work or take kids to school to risk arrest by doing so. And non-payment of utility bills can lead to wage garnishment that makes it impossible for low-wage workers to pay rent. Judgements on permanent records create significant obstacles to employment, housing and credit. Tzedek DC is based in the central Jewish tenet of seeking justice. It is making justice possible, in collaboration with a growing cohort of inter-faith partners, in DC and nationally.

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