Power Station

America has a complicated relationship with those who leave behind their families, culture and countries of origin to pursue a greater future in ours. Throughout U.S. history we have both celebrated the risk-taking and resilience of our own descendants in making a new life here and reviled, in the grip of nationalistic political forces, migrants fleeing poverty, violence and a lack of opportunity....

It is rare to feel enlightened, deeply distressed and optimistic during a single conversation. I experienced all of that with Manjit Singh, co-founder of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, (SALDEF), my guest on this episode of Power Station. His formative years in India during the 1980s were shaped by conflict and violence against Sikhs, a faith that values and practices humility,...

I invite compelling people to be my guests on Power Station, the podcast I created to amplify the voices, solutions and stories of accomplished nonprofit leaders. Most know that a 40 minute episode can move and influence allies, policy makers and funders and are onboard. We break down the social, racial and economic injustices their organizations confront and the under-reported yet meaningful syst...

It is difficult to reconcile the human, cultural and economic contributions of immigrants to America, both historically and now, with their relentless vilification by extremist political leaders. And it is deeply frustrating that attempts to enact legislation to repair a broken immigration system have failed because of political opportunism. The experience of asylum seekers, those who fled torture...

One voice that is often overlooked or not even considered in deliberations about ending homelessness in America is that of people who are experiencing homelessness themselves. That paradigm is being upended by the National Coalition for the Homeless, which organizes, trains and engages people with lived experience as partners at policymaking tables. Their first-hand knowledge of housing and homele...

It should not feel astonishing, but it does. In a national debate and many state campaign stops, presidential and vice presidential candidates are asserting that housing is a human right and sounding a call to end homelessness in America. Their declaration is both overdue and exhilarating. Getting there is the North Star of Funders Together to End Homelessness, which brings together grant makers,...

A few years into hosting Power Station, outstanding audio engineer Rob Ford said, "People should really hear what you and your guests talk about off-mic." He was right, which led, eventually, to today's inaugural episode of Power Hour, a segment of Power Station that brings those off-mic conversations into the light. It is where social change leaders share what concerns and enlivens them, beyond t...

Sometimes an organization's backstory speaks volumes, which is definitely true of The Women's Foundation of the South (WFS). It was co-created into existence by a cohort of women, all accomplished grant makers of color who were compelled to build what the philanthropic sector lacked, a public foundation dedicated to the advancement of women and girls of color in the American south. They started to...

If you want to know about the state of our public schools and how parents are advocating for the needs and aspirations of all children, you will need to look beyond the headlines. Parents who disrupt school board meetings to spew hate about books and classes that value diversity and inclusion may make the news, but their actions tear schools apart, not build them up. In this episode of Power Stati...

In America, small business and entrepreneurship is venerated and often romanticized in popular culture and by the media and politicians. But for aspiring entrepreneurs who are not wealthy or well connected, starting a new business is fraught with challenges and inequities. The data reveals that 85% of our businesses are microenterprises, companies of five or fewer people, launched with $50k or les...

  If you want to know what matters most to your elected leaders, the answer is found not in their rhetoric, but in their choices during the budget making process. When the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was founded in 1981, the mission was to understand how federal spending, or the lack of it, impacted low income Americans, particularly their ability to access healthcare and housing. It al...

The next time you visit your local farmers market take a moment to consider who produced the bounty of just-harvested fruits and vegetables and brought them with care to your urban neighborhood. As Hugo Mogollon shares on this episode of Power Station every farmer, from new entries in the sector to Black farmers carrying the toll of historical exclusion from federal resources to immigrants managin...

Sindy Benavides leads Latino Victory with strategic saavy, optimism and a deep belief in the ability of Latinos, and other communities of color, to engage in the electoral process and generate a more equitable America.  I am excited to reshare this very edifying and inspiring episode with Sindy. We learn about her own road to organizing, the communities that poured into her, the talented cohort of...

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...