Power Station

There is no question that disinformation, the invention of narratives founded in lies to influence how Americans think was instrumental to the election of Donald Trump. The far right has transformed our media eco-system by repeating hateful messaging on questionable platforms now perceived by true believers to be legitimate. The repercussions are upon us: deportations without due process, federal...

In 1984, at the height of the AIDS crisis, the LGBTQ community was pushing back hard against prejudice, transphobia and the failure of the public health system to meet dire medical needs. When queer youth, some of whom identified as trans, were hospitalized at the then-notorious St. Eliabeth's hospital in Washington DC, a group of community members and health professionals founded SMYAL, a nonprof...

The true story of America is currently being rewritten in real time by the White House. The president's rejection of incontrovertible truths, from racism to domestic violence to the marginalization of people with disabilities is laid bare in the banning of words on government websites that reference those who have been most wronged in our society. It also explains his freezing of federal funding f...

For Andrew Lee, performing at Carnegie Hall, bringing violin instruction to underfunded DC public schools, working in coalitions designed to increase funding for the arts and STEM during students' out-of-school time, launching new orchestras, and partnering international musicians with young, emerging artists is all part of building a musical eco-system that reflects and is accessible to all. As A...

It was 1973 when the National LGBTQ Task Force, the nation's first LGBTQ rights organization, was founded. Homophobia was being codified into legislation; the AIDs epidemic was a devastating and deadly epidemic, and gay people were subject to discrimination and violence. A brave group of activists, scientists and doctors stepped up to create a nonprofit from which they advocated for the right to e...

It is a singular privilege to interview an author when their work is as powerful, instructive and intimate as What Might Be, Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions. In this episode of Power Station, I speak with Susan Sturm, Professor of Law and Social Responsibility at Columbia School of Law about her book, which explores her experience in tackling racism in American institutions and in...

How do you stay hopeful and motivated when entire communities, immigrants, LGBTQ and people with disabilities among many others, are being demonized and targeted for punitive action by our nation's leaders? For Lucy Arellano Baglieri it is by keeping her eyes on the long game, building in the most difficult of times for a more just future. As Lucy shares on this episode of Power Station, this admi...

  We are living in a moment of turmoil. Many communities feel targeted, and nonprofits are under pressure to quiet their voices. LIFT, a Washington DC based national nonprofit with offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles is undaunted in its support for and belief in Black and Brown parents seeking to break cycles of poverty and achieve economic mobility. In this episode of Power Station, Neil...

Do we believe in forcing people experiencing homelessness into detention camps? The president of the United States does, and it is happening now, including in New Orleans where 100 people were removed from an encampment and placed in a detention camp in the lead up to the Super Bowl. As Jesse Rabinowitz, Director of Campaign and Communications at the National Homelessness Law Center shares on this...

It is not news, but it remains unacceptable, that young people in America experience life distinctly differently based on their race, class and geography. In Washington DC, children from low-income families attend schools that are deeply under-resourced, a stark contrast to their peers in more affluent and white communities. Academics and think tanks have long documented these disparities and elec...

An organization's origin story reveals so much about its founders' principles and vision for generating transformational change. In the case of New Disabled South, co-founders Dom Kelly and Kehsi Iman Wilson knew that they were creating a space that didn't exist, a movement for disability justice in the American South. They focused first on their internal infrastructure, developing human resources...

What is the charitable sector and why is vital to our nation? It refers to organizations that exist to create social value over financial profit. It is an IRS designation that affords a tax-exempt status to nonprofits and the philanthropies that support them in meeting human needs and advancing policy solutions to social and economic inequality. Do not underestimate nonprofits, this country's thir...

Deportations of immigrants in the United States did not start with the Trump administration. And virtually no one would disagree that our U.S. immigration system is deeply dysfunctional and requires an overhaul. What is new is how this administration's explicit racism and xenophobia is deploying the blunt instrument of deportation to upend the lives of Latinos and other immigrants whose hard work...

  In the first week of a presidential administration marked by executive actions banning the education of Air Force members about the Tuskegee airmen, freezing scientific research grants at the NIH, immigration raids intended to fast-track deportation and the purging of DEI programs across federal agencies, remember that it is the nonprofit sector that continues to move democracy forward. In this...

Innovation, disruption and problem-solving, these are words often used to describe how technology impacts society. But the sector does not center those powers on equity, ensuring that all people can access housing, livable wages, healthcare and education. That work is the business of the nonprofit sector, which  is particularly potent in local nonprofits with deep community roots. Too often these...

We are at moment in which grappling with America's history of racism, recognizing the impacts of generational injustice and creating solutions to those harms is being met with fury by our president elect and his allies. including Elon Musk, a ceaseless purveyor of misinformation. Trump has memorialized his plans to eradicate DEI-Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives within federal agencies a...

My wish for 2025, a year for which Donald Trump's plan to weaken democracy and human rights is memorialized in his Project 2025 blueprint is that more people, from our families to the business sector and the media, recognize that the complex business of protecting both is the daily business of the nonprofit sector. Nonprofits, especially those guided by the communities they serve, are powerful pro...

I am obsessed by the business of changemaking, the generation of solutions to our most pressing unmet human needs. I am drawn to people who are moved to action by their own lived experience and by those with a deeply felt sense of responsibility to redress injustice. And I see nonprofits, the best of them, as the infrastructure needed to produce enlightening data, build connections and organize co...

Whatever challenges you navigate during your day there is tremendous comfort in knowing where you will lay your head at night. For too many Americans, that safe place is out of reach, a consequence of failed housing policies and artificially low wages that perpetuate the racial wealth gap. In Montgomery County, Maryland, one of our nation's wealthiest counties, there is a deep well of poverty that...

Origin stories are powerful in shaping both people and organizations. In this episode of Power Station, Lelaine Bigelow, the outstanding executive director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, shares how her family inspired her all-in career as an advocate for racial, economic and gender equity. She credits civil rights champion and Georgetown University Law Professor Peter Edelman...

  In the Ghanaian culture, a mythical bird called Sankofa honors the African Diaspora, symbolizing the need to look to the past and carry forward the truth and wisdom found there to benefit future generations. The image is so powerful that filmmakers, educators and entrepreneurs Shirikiana and Haile Gerima named both their groundbreaking 1993 movie and their incomparable bookstore, Sankofa. It was...

Music not only feeds the soul it has also been, throughout history, a vital means of creative expression and resistance against social and political repression. While some musicians become chart-topping bestsellers, most are with small labels or are entirely independent. And while we may view digital platforms like Spotify as providing access to less well-known musicians they do not feature or com...

If you doubt the power of cooperatives to build community and generate economic equity you need to know the Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (CPA) story. It emerged from an energy deregulation crisis in Washington DC that burdened houses of workshop with utility costs that exceeded clergy's salaries. The Washington Interfaith Network came together to find a solution, which they achieved through a c...

Here is the hard reality: In 2024, a majority of voters can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction. This truth is disturbing and dangerous but not that surprising. As a recent Pew Research Center study reveals, most voters cite friends and families, not newspapers, television or academic studies as their primary source of news and information. We are all subject to a deluge of misinformati...

Our news feeds are brimming with stories about America as a divided nation which cannot agree on who deserves to live here or whether to ensure that families do not go hungry. But there is a different vision for America, one that Power Station guests strive every day to bring to life. They are overcoming disinvestment and disenfranchisement with community power-building and capital. Many of them v...