Power Station

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, Executi...

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 collabora...

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...

The path to legal services for the poor in the U.S. includes support from the Freedman's Association post Civil War to philanthropic investment by the Ford Foundation in the 1960s and the adoption of federal funding in 1974. A conversation with Maryland Legal Aid's Amy Petkovsek and Dimitri Degbeu demonstrates how innovative and life-changing a nonprofit law firm can be. In both rural communities...

What does it take to build wealth in low-income and communities of color? It requires more than personal responsibility and savings. Bridging our nation's gaping racial wealth divide means taking on systemic barriers: racism, student debt, low wages and resistance to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. We need changes to the US Tax Code, which, as Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz, Acting Director o...

A new organization is amplifying the voices of those who are often invisible in the  immigration narrative, undocumented Black people. The UndocuBlack Network started when a group of currently and formerly undocumented Black people came together after Freddy Gray, a Baltimore resident, died from injuries sustained while in police custody. In just 3 years, the UndocuBlack Network has blossomed into...

Dr. Imani Woody has a vision and she is bringing it to life. It reflects a lifetime of working at the intersection of LGBTQ, race, cultural diversity, and aging issues. It is informed by her experience with her father, an accomplished entrepreneur, who, after entering a "good" nursing home, experienced a decline in self-worth and physical health. She took her father out of the facility, into her h...

Alison Feighan learned about the power of community development to change communities and lives as a Fair Housing advocate in Quincy, Massachusetts. In her first "real" job out of college, Alison became a Fair Housing advocate for Quincy Community Action Agency where she worked for and was mentored by her executive director, the late Rosemary Wahlberg. The lessons learned from Rosemary - listening...

This episode of Power Station tracks the latest news on the lawsuit, filed by Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, challenging the inclusion of an untested citizenship question on the decennial U.S. Census. John Yang, President of AAJC, explains what the  lawsuit alleges: that adding the question represents collusion by President Trump, Kris Koba...

As Mike Koprowski, National Campaign Director of Opportunity Starts at Home  says, eyes widen on Capitol Hill when they see the logos on our letterhead . That is because policymakers are not used to seeing powerful nonprofits outside of the housing sector advocate for a housing centered policy agenda. The data makes the case that decent and affordable housing is foundational to the well-being and...

A conversation with Daniel del Pielago, Organizing Director at Empower DC, is a good reminder that public policy change cannot be made or sustained without an organized community. And when the community seeking change is public housing residents, the barriers to becoming organized are considerable and the stakes are extremely high. Daniel tells the story of Berry Farms, a public housing complex be...

As Diane Yentel, President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) explains, Only 1 in 4 households that need and are eligible for housing assistance, gets it. They are the winners in what is basically a housing lottery.  Lowest income Americans who need project-based housing subsidies and public housing are the focus of NLIHC's research, analysis, education and policy advocacy. They...

New America is a think tank devoted to America's renewal in a time of unprecedented social and technological change. Under the leadership of Anne-Marie Slaughter, it is building a new field of endeavor, known as Public Interest Technology. This emerging sector convenes municipal leaders, public agencies and nonprofits to generate nuanced solutions to systemic problems, from foster care, to opioid...

Quyen Dinh, Executive Director of Southeast Asia Resource Center (SEARAC), is deeply connected to the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian communities she serves. As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees she knows first hand the challenges faced by new immigrants with limited resources. SEARAC, a national civil rights organization, is energized by a network of 40 community-based nonprofits that advocat...

Bob Friedman has been at the forefront of building wealth in low-income communities for decades. He founded Corporation for Enterprise Development in 1979, (recently renamed Prosperity Now) to develop, test and implement the strategies needed to move low-income people into the economic mainstream. These now fully vetted strategies are the foundation for Prosperity Now's public policy proposals at...

Josh Hoyt explains that the way you make democracy work is by organizing the people who are left out. This is the proposition that guides his leadership of the National Partnership for New Americans, a multi-ethnic and multi-racial organization comprised of the nation's largest immigrant-serving coalitions, 37 nonprofits in 31 states. These organizations serve both traditional hubs of immigration,...

Tanya Fiddler (Cheyenne River Sioux), Executive Director of the Native CDFI Network, is a self-proclaimed wayuiyeska , a Lakota word for translator. In her interactions with policy makers, funders and fellow nonprofit leaders, she translates the experience of Native Americans to those of us who do not fully know it. She \explains that, according to Native spirituality and culture, the concept of a...

How do you create a more just financial marketplace? We explore this question with Diane Standaert, Executive Vice President, Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a nonprofit dedicated to economic justice and the elimination of predatory lending. As Diane explains, the problem is rooted in racially exclusionary and discriminatory policy making, exacerbated by the 2008 mortgage crisis. Payday lend...

If you want to know DC as more than the nation's capitol, listen to this conversation with Ed Lazere. As executive director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, he has mastered the formula for influencing the City's legislative and budget making process. He and his team of nine use research and data analysis to shape an advocacy agenda around the issues that are most  crucial to low-income DC reside...

John Holdsclaw, Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs, National Cooperative Bank, refers to himself as an "accidental banker." In this episode, we discuss his evolution from community development practitioner to public policy advocate to a champion for the financing of affordable housing and worker-owned cooperatives. At Capitol Impact Partners, John became a trusted voice on Capitol Hill, k...

Kathy Tran is a change maker and an advocate for all people seeking to fully live the American Dream. Her own journey started as a 2 year old with her family's exodus from Vietnam to America in search of opportunity and freedom. Kathy witnessed her parents perseverance after settling here and making the sacrifices needed to sustain their family. She was inspired to carry on their legacy through he...

Ashley Allison, Executive Vice President of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, talks to Power Station about the All Voting is Local Campaign, which is building support for, and tackling systemic barriers to voting in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona. This campaign operates as a collaborative with national partners including the ACLU, the American Constitution So...

John Yang brings layers of life experience to his leadership of Asian Americans Advancing Justice. His family moved to the US from China when he was a child and coped with losing their documentation, temporarily, after overstaying a work visa. After becoming a lawyer, he litigated for a DC based law firm and was legal director for a fortune 500 company in Shanghai, China. And he served in the Obam...

Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz, Associate Director of Capital Area Asset Builders (CAAB), returns to Power Station with news about the expansion of its Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) campaign into Washington DC's historic Wards 7 and 8. The EITC enables working people, whose employment is low-wage and sporadic, to claim a tax credit through through their annual tax filing. This return can be instrume...

Get ready for a dynamic conversation! Becky Belcore, Co-Director, and Jung Woo Kim, Organizer, at National Korean American Service & Educational Consortium (NAKASEC) talk to Power Station about their holistic approach to serving, engaging and advocating for Asian-Americans, this country's fasting growing population. NAKASEC, based in Virginia, has robust affiliates in Chicago and Los Angeles. They...