Power Station

At the core of the American Library Association's membership of 50,000 public, school, academic, specialty libraries, librarians and allies, is one unifying principle, the right to read. ALA has weathered times of war, political unrest, funding cuts, and censorship. But this moment in time poses its greatest threat, state-backed book banning. ALA President Patty Wong joins us to talk about how boo...

Thirty-five years ago, Nancy Sander started a conversation that has grown into a public health movement. She was struggling with her young daughter's severe asthma and was not getting the support she needed from her doctors and insurance provider. She reached out to other parents and more enlightened medical professionals to learn ways to manage a chronic health condition that if untreated can lea...

We are living in perilous times. Racism, homophobia, anti-immigrant violence and misogyny have been unleashed, normalized and embraced by elected leaders and regular citizens, from school boards to state legislatures and Capitol Hill. Organized hate groups are expanding their ranks by targeting an aggrieved citizenry and most recently children. Middle and high school students, who have been isolat...

Twenty-five years ago, a brave Anacostia High School student asked a compelling question at an assembly. She asked how she could participate in an internship, one that might help her to move on to college. That question motivated Andrew Plepler, the guest speaker and a community development banker, to launch a nonprofit dedicated to making internships, a rite of passage for upper middle-class stud...

When Zakiyah Johnson learned there was a summer social media internship at the Community Enrichment Project, she poured her heart into her application and made the position her first choice. She says she is a different person now because of the experience, not only because CEP gives young people a seat at the table where vital issues are discussed, from civic engagement to racial justice and polic...

What will persuade Congress to pass urgently needed legislation to correct the impacts of climate change on our planet? As with all our nation's greatest challenges, the nonprofit sector is driving this ambitious agenda. For decades, environmental nonprofits have documented how deregulation harms our air, wildlife and oceans. And the data is crystal clear: these harms are disproportionately borne...

It is not hyperbole to say that nonprofits are essential to becoming a just democracy. The best nonprofits produce unimpeachable data and mobilize across sectors and geography to advocate for federal legislation informed by the lived experience of their members. This role has taken on greater urgency in the face of a global pandemic that has disproportionately impacted the physical and economic we...

It is humbling and exhilarating to talk to Torey Carter-Conneen, CEO of the American Society for Landscape Architects. An esteemed nonprofit executive and social justice advocate he now leads a professional association whose highly skilled members create purposeful places using art, science, engineering and design. ASLA was founded in 1899 by innovators Frederick Law Olmsted and Beatrix Ferrand wh...

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 survivor...

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...

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 fou...

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 move...

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 th...

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 evide...

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...

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 disas...

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 advert...

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 ded...

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. Eq...

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....

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 messag...

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...

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 pe...

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 in...

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...