Power Station

This conversation with Eric Ward remains as instructive, powerful and resonant as when it was first recorded. Eric, now a Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a nationally lauded expert on authoritarian movements in America and their corrosive impact on democractic systems and our belief in them. In this episode, Eric explains how antisemitism took root in America and provided the...

In the movies, small business owners are often depicted as avatars for what we admire: people following a dream, continuing a family legacy and serving a beloved community. But the real life version of entrepreneurship is more complex. Not everyone has a friendly banker, access to capital, or the capacity to generate a business plan. For people of color damaged by systemic racism in policymaking a...

Our nation is bitterly divided over its vision for democracy or whether to remain a democracy at all. Increasingly, elected leaders on school boards, state legislatures and Capitol Hill, are using their policy making powers to further marginalize vulnerable constituents.. The discord, amplified relentlessly on social media, often tells only a portion of the story. We hear less about the problems-s...

  In 1990, 60 disabled men and women with disabilities put their wheelchairs and mobility aids aside and crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capital and into the Rotunda. Once inside they chained themselves together and announced that they would not leave until the House passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Dara Baldwin, consummate policy advocate and inspiring disability justice activist was...

We are at war, in America, with empathy. Every day, state and national leaders introduce bills designed to stigmatize, strip resources from, and publicly target those they view as other than human: immigrants, people experiencing homelessness and LGBTQ children, to name a few. The recent Supreme Court decision upholding the right of Grants Pass, Oregon to fine homeless people for sleeping outside...

This conversation is about what is possible when a nonprofit organization engages jobseekers and employers in shaping the future of work through a North Star lens of racial equity and economic mobility. It is about reimagining workforce development, an admittedly wonky and uninspiring term, as an opportunity to prepare jobseekers, largely women of color in California, for high quality jobs. And it...

For many students, college internships are a rite of passage, an opportunity to experience different workplaces and enhance their resumes. They are even more meaningful when the interns are first-generation Latino college students whose immigrant parents are America's farmworkers. In this episode of Power Station, I continue a tradition that I cherish, interviewing exceptional young people whose l...

It is a rare book that enlightens readers about how our capital markets work and how to invest in them to build wealth in ways that prioritize economic opportunity, environmental sustainability and racial equity. The Social Justice Investor, the first guide for anyone who wants to better understand the financial marketplace, is that book. In this episode of Power Station, I speak to its author, An...

When Tia Bell was just 10 years old, she experienced a devastating trauma, the shooting of her mother in their own neighborhood. She went to her elders, neighborhood protectors, and pleaded with them not to seek retribution. She did the same after the murder of her uncle, and other community members. She recognizes the humanity of the perpetrators, seeing them as victimized by the same lack of res...

When the global pandemic struck America, it shut down our institutions, from schools to courts and libraries, devastated our economy and exposed who is served by our public systems and who is overlooked. Low income communities of color suffered the most, from a loss of jobs and housing to dire health outcomes. That moment moved seasoned public defender Kirsten Gettys Downs to think about the faile...

America is heading into a presidential election that will determine whether we remain a democracy or consign ourselves to autocracy. It is happening while the world witnesses a devastating assault on Palestine by Israel, a constitutional democracy, led by an autocratic leader, Bibi Netanyahu. Much like aspiring autocrat Donald Trump, he does not recognize the rights and humanity of many within his...

Solving this nation's housing crisis, which has triggered an all-time high in homelessness, begins with demystifying the reasons it exists. The National Low Income Housing Coalition answers the why, advances policies that make housing attainable and builds the political will to achieve large-scale solutions. For 50 years it has been unwavering in its focus on the housing needs of lowest income ren...

It happens during every election cycle. Young adults are characterized in newspaper headlines as apathetic non-voters. This very tired trope, which is contradicted by data, greatly frustrates Kristen McGuire. As executive director of Young Invincibles, the national nonprofit that emerged when young people stepped up to be heard in the lead up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, she...

The numbers tell a powerful story about America and its future. Today, 64 million Latinos, those with multi-generational roots and newcomers, call the United States home. While they are vital contributors to our economy, culture, and civil rights legacy, they are grossly underrepresented (just 2%) in elected office. Latino Victory is the trailblazing nonprofit that is changing the trajectory of La...

If you have lived through housing insecurity and homelessness or worked in a nonprofit as a shelter provider, tenant organizer, nonprofit housing developer or policy advocate you know that having a home is fundamental to thriving, losing a home is traumatizing and fining people experiencing homelessness is unproductive and shameful. The progress that the nonprofit housing sector has generated over...

It often begins with a knock at the door in the middle of the night. A child, or multiple children, need immediate care. Their parents have been deployed, incarcerated, are sidelined by substance abuse or mental illness. This is when grandparents, other relatives and family friends step up at a critical moment. These adults, who take on caregiving for conservatively, 2.5 million children in Americ...

What compels men and women to leave their home countries behind to migrate to the United States? Oscar Chacon, executive director of Alianza Americas, has made it his mission to answer this question for our elected leaders whose policies determine the quality of life for some 22 million Latin American and the Caribbean immigrants, the largest segment of America's foreign born population who now re...

Consider the implications of undertaking a 10-year strategic plan during a global pandemic. The Greater Washington Community Foundation did just that, bringing its intentionally diverse constituency of civic, business, nonprofit and community leaders together to inform the process and vision. In the Washington DC region, the pandemic exposed the thin economic margins, structural racism, and lack o...

In 1996, a small group of Asian American civil rights leaders in Washington, DC stepped up to launch a new and inclusive organization, the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans. The vision was to create a home for, and combine the forces of, a diverse constituency that includes South Asians, East Asians, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders and more to ensure that their voices and expertise wer...

  In 1996, a small group of Asian American civil rights leaders in Washington DC stepped up to launch a new and inclusive organization, the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans. The vision was to create a home for, and combine the forces of, a diverse constituency that includes South Asians, East Asians, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders and more to ensure that their voices and expertise we...

The story of Mothers Outreach Network is about what happens when women stand up for other women who live in poverty and are entangled in the child welfare system. It is about being a Black mother in Washington DC where 13% of families live under the federal poverty guidelines and face a loss of benefits when they get a job or their income increases. It is about moms who lack the basic resources, i...

The most powerful advocacy begins at home. This is the case for Staci Lofton, who loved growing up in Queens, New York but realized as she got older that her family and neighbors had to leave their community to buy groceries, find a doctor and connect to the many resources needed to maintain their lives. As Staci explains on this episode of Power Station, her experience is shared by countless othe...

There is power that comes from privilege and position and there is power that communities who have been excluded from decision making tables, claim. It is built over time with a commitment to meeting needs, creating personal bonds, and deepening community connections. This is the origin story of MANA, the oldest and largest Hispanic Women's nonprofit organization in the nation. Amy Hinojosa, MANA'...

Let's be real: If you work for a nonprofit with a social change mission you are probably not averse to taking on challenges. Whether a nonprofit's charge is tackling hunger, homelessness, or access to healthcare you must be prepared to help people in crisis, provide resources, build community power and advocate for policy solutions. The truth is that nonprofits exist to take on deep-rooted problem...

America's housing affordability crisis is a well-documented reality not just in gentrifying cities but in virtually every corner of this nation. The persistence of the problem is particularly frustrating because we have proven policy solutions in hand, largely generated by nonprofits and community leaders. What is lacking is full-on political will at the federal level to break through barriers and...