Power Station

In 2016, Andrew Lee received a call that changed his life and created a cultural sea-change in Washington DC. A conservatory-trained musician he juggled professional performances, running music festivals, and, as a community leader and volunteer, bringing classical music to under-resourced neighborhoods. He was invited to perform that night in a concert featuring brilliant musicians from across th...

When Allen Morris is asked what a policy director does he gets to the point and is not shy: "I tell the President and Congress what to do." As policy director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, Allen advocates for his community in Congress and in state houses where xenophobia, transphobia, and anti-Blackness dominate policy making. In states where the very humanity of LGBTQ people is under attack,...

  To understand the long and twisted journey to the Supreme Court's chilling decision to dismantle affirmative action in higher education and its implications, you cannot do better than to ask civil rights champion and self-described optimist John Yang. As president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, John has navigated the drumbeat to defeat affirmative action for years a...

As listeners know I record from Podville Media, a vibrant audio and video studio in Washington, DC. After 277 episodes, it's my turn to be the guest, admittedly a reluctant one. Robb Spewak, a 30 year broadcast professional and a podcast host in his own right who has produced almost every episode of Power Station is my co-host and interviewer. It was a great experience, evidence of my trust in Rob...

None of us, from the Supreme Court to our elected representatives to corporate CEOs, should underestimate this nation's young people. On the same day that the Supreme Court struck down President Biden's student debt cancellation plan, blocking relief for 40 million Americans, the 18 to 34 year old's that animate Young Invincibles, a nonprofit founded during the nation's tumultuous debate over the...

  Do you know the old idiom, the devil is in the details? In this episode, Natalie Davis, co-founder, and CEO of the nonprofit United States of Care, tells Power Station about the importance of treating every detail in the policy making process as an opportunity to produce the most impactful legislation possible. And she is admittedly obsessed with public policy implementation, creating a plan tha...

A conversation with Families USA executive director Frederick Isasi is a masterclass in how to transform our expansive, inefficient, and poorly performing health care system. America spends more money per person on health care than any other nation yet our health outcomes, including some of the world's worst life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates are appalling. In this episode of Power...

  Do we stop to think, when enjoying a meal at a favorite restaurant, about what is happening in the back of the house? While servers and bartenders are working hard, their counterparts, dishwashers, food runners and bus boys, face far greater challenges. In Washington DC, less visible workers receive hourly pay as low as $3.89 and depend on tips distributed by "the house" to make minimum wage. Bu...

Every person, in every city, deserves to live the healthiest possible life. You could assume this is a shared national value, but our health outcomes tell a different story about America's aspirations. Residents from the most marginalized neighborhoods in underinvested cities are subjected to living in unsound housing conditions under persistent threats of eviction, compromised by poor air quality...

Annabel Collinson wants you to know that if you feel anxious and helpless about environmental conditions around the globe you are not alone. She shares the climate anxiety that is pervasive among young people whose futures are compromised by rising temperatures and their real-time harms, from warming oceans to sea level rise, economic disruption, food insecurity and the displacement, primarily of...

There are many versions of our American story. For some it is a gateway to freedom and opportunity, for others it is where only some can thrive, often at the expense of less valued communities. As always, the truth is complex and nuanced and data, when our public leaders choose to collect it, tells the true story. A global pandemic exposed and deepened America's fault lines, revealing how historic...

  When George Jones talks about his mission to make Washington, DC an anti-racist city he is sometimes met with discomfort and even denial. But when he talks about the tremendous disparities in wealth and income that separate white communities in the NW portion of the city from Black families in the SE the very same business, academic and foundation leaders agree that the data is unimpeachable and...

Elyssa Feder remembers the moment she became an organizer. She was watching a debate on C-Span about the proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood and government officials were spouting lies to bolster their positions. She realized that their power shielded them from consequences and that she was not satisfied being a young woman in a food court who knew better. She honed her organizing capacities...

Some organizations really do lead with love. When Jeanne Manford joined her gay son Morty at the 1972 Christopher Street Liberation Day March her handmade sign declared, Parents of Gays Unite in Support of our Children. That message moved many young people whose families were not there for them. Jeanne went on to become the mother of a movement, PFLAFG, that unites families, their LGBTQ loved ones...

If you want to know how to protect and advance the rights of Latinos in Texas, ask Eric Holguin. A native son of Corpus Christi and Texas State Director of UnidosUS, the nation's largest non-partisan champion of Hispanic civil rights, he starts with the facts. Without the state's 11.4 million Latinos, who are critical to the workforce and especially well-represented in the civil service, energy an...

Today's headline stories about jobs and the economy focus on remote workers facing a return to offices and thousands of professional hired by tech companies to deepen their capacities for artificial intelligence and machine learning. More commonplace injustices are being challenged by a growing movement for livable wages and paid family leave, against racial discrimination and immigrant exploitati...

  Niciah Mujahid wants you know that your city's budget is 100% your business. As the dynamic executive director of Fair Budget Coalition, she leads a cohort of community-based nonprofits in advocating for a budget that invests in human needs and advances racial justice. Every aspect of this complex process, from analyzing budget proposals to engaging residents in testifying at budget hearings to...

Tram Nguyen, co-executive director of New Virginia Majority, is reframing how to think about progressive change making in politically polarizing times. She pushes back against the deeply embedded belief that those working for social justice and racial equity are in a lonely uphill battle against a fierce anti-democratic majority in her state and throughout the nation. Tram believes that the multi-...

As Felipe Pinzon says, not enough Americans know how nonprofits change communities. His own organization, Hispanic Unity of Florida, provides a master class in how transformative change in marginalized communities is made. It started in 1982, when residents recognized that immigrants arriving in South Florida needed help to manage the many complex transitions they faced. Hispanic Unity became a sa...

There is intention and beauty in the naming of The Person Center. Its founder, Amelia Missielidies, wanted the women she served, survivors of domestic and sexual violence who were African immigrants and refugees to recognize the value of their personhood. As an Ethiopian and a social worker, Amelia understood what American service providers could not, that the experience these women shared: war, c...

  Are you, your nonprofit, and the community you serve being seen and heard? What if you could communicate the story of your nonprofit, the inequitable conditions you tackle, the public policies you advocate and your solutions for uplifting people and communities? In this episode of Power Station, I am joined by Oscar Zeballos, CEO of Podville Media, a fellow podcasting evangelizer whose partnersh...

Where are our nation's most effective and committed changemakers? You may expect them to be representing us on Capitol Hill or launching start-ups in Silicon Valley but the real champions of opportunity and equity, from poverty alleviation, upending the racial wealth gap and creating a pathway to generational wealth are nonprofit leaders. On this episode of Power Station, two exceptional leaders,...

  Public narrative is about the story of me and the story of us. This is how Sandy Dang, an expert and educator in the field describes its essence. On this episode of Power Station, we explore the power of public narrative to communicate our values and lived experience and to tell the collective stories of our communities. Sandy came to this field, which trains individuals in how to distill their...

If we have learned anything from the last several years, it is that while we have shared collective pain, a global health crisis, economic freefall, mass shootings, and political discourse so fractured we cannot agree that democracy is a core value, the impacts of these events have landed starkly unevenly. The data shows what progressive nonprofits know: low income, people of color, immigrants, an...

  At its core, the N Street Village story is one of humanity, resistance, and advancing racial and housing justice. It began in 1972, when Pastor John Steinbruck opened the doors of Lutheran Place Memorial Church, at the center of Washington DC's embattled 14 th street corridor, to women and children in need of shelter and care. It was 6 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, a de...