Category: Event Takeaways

Augment and Evolve: Empowering Workers in an AI Driven World

Posted on Sara Danver

At a moment of unprecedented technological evolution, we stand at the crossroads of digital transformation and human potential. NationSwell Summits’ thought-provoking panel, “Augment and Evolve: Empowering Workers in an AI-Driven World” — presented by Omidyar Network — explored just this. Featuring an all-women lineup, moderated by Michele Jawando, Omidyar Network, joined by Nicole Johnson, Cadence Design Systems, Molly Kinder, The Brookings Institution, Carri Twigg, Culture House Media, and Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative, the panel illuminated a critical pathway forward: focusing not just on how AI will shape the future, but how we in turn can shape the future of AI. 

As moderator and Senior Vice-President at the Omidyar Network, Michele Jawando pointed out, AI has dominated the public conversation since Chat GPT first launched, but that conversation has been baked in fear as much as possibility. The panel situated their conversation at the intersection between the two as they discussed who will be most impacted by this new technology and how we can ensure that we all have a voice in shaping its advancement. 

Here are some key takeaways from the discussion: 

Workers must play a role in the development and implementation of AI technology and policy.

Jawando first turned to Molly Kinder, David M. Rubenstein Fellow at The Brookings Institution, to lay the groundwork for the conversation with her research into the impact of AI on workers. 

“The reason this is capturing our anxiety and our imagination,” she said, “is that generative AI is upending a lot of experts’ advice about how to stay ahead of technology.” She went on to elaborate that in the past, that advice focused on developing expertise, creativity, and empathy. But AI is advancing so quickly that its ability to mimic those qualities is putting white collar workers and creative industries on the frontline of technological disruption. 

U.S. Trade Ambassador Katherine Tai also noted that we have seen disruption like this before, particularly in trade. We are still reaping the consequences of the development of globalization and free trade, which left workers behind as it reshaped the economy. 

“Trade and technology actually have very similar impacts on the economy and on the workforce,” she stated. “They both have displacing effects, and they both go to this capitalistic pursuit of efficiency and cost minimization.” 

But both Kinder and Tai reminded us that who gets to participate in conversations around AI is critical in ensuring that AI can be a force for good. And the NationSwell audience is uniquely suited to that goal. “You are the people who are focused on figuring out how that power is used, and how that power can be used for good,” Tai said, addressing the room. 

“A lever that this room in particular can be so impactful on,” Kinder said, “is at the workplace, and as employers… making sure that employees and workers have a real seat at the table.”

Women are on the frontline of AI as a disruptive technology. 

Kinder highlighted that her research also shows that women are more exposed to the impacts of generative AI, for two reasons. First, because the jobs most likely to face automation by this technology are predominantly held by women – clerical and customer service work, as well as positions like bank tellers and paralegals. And second, because women are underusing this technology compared to men. 

But fellow panelist Nicole Johnson, Global Director of Social Impact at Cadence Design Systems, is on the case. Johnson shared that at Cadence Design Systems, they’ve seen a 50% increase in women in technical positions over the last ten years and they are taking that playbook into the world with the launch of Fem.AI and a $20 million commitment to close the gender gap in AI. 

“We looked at this AI development, this AI economy, the AI revolution that’s happening and we looked at it as an opportunity space. How can we ensure that unlike the development of the internet that happened 30 plus years ago there’s intentionality about the workforce that is behind this technology?” she said. 

As creative industries face challenging shifts in technology and the attention economy, how can we protect art’s breadth as well as its depth? 

“[Artists] have the most to gain, and we have the most to lose,” said Carrie Twigg, Co-founder and Head of Development for Culture House media. “But that’s also true for audiences, and people who consume art.” 

Creatives, particularly in media, face significant pressure. Not only does AI already have a foothold in how we edit movies and TV, but consumers frequently split their attention between several screens at once. As Twigg noted, we’re always half looking at our phones, and that creates a downward pressure on creatives to make content that doesn’t require as much of our attention or discernment. And she added that while there has always and will always be high art, it’s that middle class of media, the shows that everyone watches but that don’t usually win awards that are most vulnerable. 

“That medium tier where people really spend their time has this awesome power to shape who we are and who we become and that is the most threatened by the AI landscape…and what we’re really going to miss if we don’t build in protections for it. It may not make immediate obvious economic sense but we have to think about it in a longer term way.” 

The panel provided critical insight on the challenges AI presents, and the importance of intentionality throughout the process of developing technology and integrating AI into our lives – not just in how we use it, but in who is in the room, and what we should preserve from AI’s influence. But how the panel channeled the theme of Hope in Action can best be summed up by Michele Jawando’s last words. She got into tech policy because of Star Trek and left us with the image of Captain Picard using technology to boldly go where no man has gone before to save civilizations all over the galaxy.

“Humans first, technology second,” she said. “Let’s do it together.”

For more moments from NationSwell Summit 2024, click here. 

Creating Opportunity: Building Equitable Communities for the Future, a Fireside Chat with Julián Castro

Posted on Sara Danver

On November 21, 2024, the NationSwell Summit opened with a riveting and in-depth fireside chat between the current CEO of the Latino Community Foundation and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro, and NationSwell CEO, Greg Behrman. Although the uncertainty of our current political moment was at the forefront of both the conversation and our minds, so too was this year’s theme, Hope in Action. 

Castro started by providing his perspective on this year’s election results and how we understand them within the context of our work. He noted that across the country, Americans continue to feel the impact of high prices and anxiety about the future, making economic opportunity a critical focus in the coming years. And while there have been questions and even unwarranted derision about the rightward swing of the Latino vote Castro was quick to deconstruct the stereotypes and false narratives around a monolithic Latino experience. No one issue, experience, or campaign addresses that complexity. 

Pushing back on these oversimplified and harmful narratives is even more important in the face of the incoming administration’s proposed mass deportations. Castro pointed to the role of all of us in pushing back against this policy by supporting organizations doing vital legal work in immigration services and civil rights, and by using our voices and influence to demand resistance at the city, state, and federal level. 

“We’ve seen part of this before a few years ago,” Castro said. “And so just as the new administration has experience accomplishing whatever it wants to accomplish, there’s also a lot of experience in trying to make sure that we continue to be a nation that lives up to its best values. So, that makes me optimistic for what’s possible.”

Castro is no stranger to that endeavor, and he comes by it honestly. In response to a question about a leadership-defining person or experience in his life, he went straight to his mother, Rosie. 

“My mom was a hellraiser, a Chicana activist, a civil rights activist,” he said, adding later that “She never pushed us to go into politics, but she gave us this sense that you should get educated and do well for yourself and then figure out how you’re going to do good for other people.” 

In fact, service in the Castro family is a multigenerational project. When asked about what 2024 Summit’s theme, Hope in Action, means to him, Castro spoke movingly about his kids. “Every time I think about their lives, and what they are going through, I think that it’s time for us to live up to our values,” he said, “the values of treating each other with dignity and respect and compassion and trying to find the places where people can work together and compromise.”

Julián Castro lives the values of hope in action, as evident in his lifetime of service, and that continues in his work with the Latino Community Foundation. LCF was first formed in 1989 as an affinity group of United Way of the Bay Area, and became an independent foundation in 2016 with the mission of building a movement of civically engaged philanthropic leaders, investing in Latino-led organizations, and increasing political participation of Latinos in California. And while philanthropy is quite a bit different from his work as a public servant (Castro noted with a laugh that he’d never heard the word ‘proximate’ as much as he had this last year), both feature the core themes that have guided his life so far – lifting up community, and doing good work that makes a difference in people’s lives. 

LCF’s projects and investments are wide ranging, but Castro highlighted with particular pride the work they do ensuring that workers at all levels can share in the success that they help create, and building capacity at nonprofits and other organizations whose leaders often have the ideas and the determination needed to enact them, but not the resources. 

“Less than 2% of big philanthropy dollars go to Latino led organizations,” he noted. By providing operations support and financial investment, LCF bolsters community-led initiatives improving the health and wellbeing of thousands of Latino families across California. 

In spite of the differences over the word proximate, however, Castro sees an opportunity space in the overlap between public service and private organizations like LCF. Recognizing that politics is often a fraught endeavor, Castro emphasized the untapped potential presented by public private partnerships. 

“I can count on one hand the number of times that anybody in philanthropy set up a meeting [when I was a councilman, and then mayor],” he noted, but his advice for the room was to be willing to have those conversations because there are a lot of good public servants out there with good ideas that could benefit from that connection with philanthropy. “We have this opportunity to make a lot of progress when you have stronger public private partnerships because from the philanthropy standpoint, there’s no way, even with all the philanthropic dollars, to make changes on housing or other issues. You need government.” 

Willingness to have the conversation was the running theme of Castro’s fireside chat. Whether in communities of practice that share information and resources, or amongst public servants and philanthropic leaders, parents and children, and Republicans and Democrats, it is conversation that leads to community, connection, and compromise. These are the values that we will need to build a future where we can all thrive. 

But that’s not all we’ll need. “This is going to be a time to be bold, to be in partnership, to be strategic, thoughtful, but to stand up,” Castro said, his last advice to the NationSwell audience. “It’s a time to stand up in [whatever] way you can.” 

For more moments from NationSwell Summit 2024, click here.

The Takeaway | DEI in Focus: Understanding, Defending, and Advancing Together

Posted on by NationSwell Team

With Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs currently facing relentless attacks in legislatures and courtrooms across the country, there is no better time than the present to get clear on what DEI work actually entails — and on how we can work to defend the programs that uplift our diversity and defend access to the American dream.

On June 20th, NationSwell hosted a virtual Mainstage event called DEI in Focus: Understanding, Defending, and Advancing Together that sought to ground us in what DEI is and isn’t; how and why it’s being attacked; and how the work is rooted in common values that connect us all.

The event featured a rich conversation between Sid Espinosa (former mayor of Palo Alto and current Head of Social Impact at GitHub), and Stacey Abrams (lawyer, voting rights activist, political leader, and bestselling author). Below are some of the key learnings from the event:

Understanding

  1. Understand the underlying history of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and its importance within the U.S. Since the founding of the U.S., efforts to advance DEI have enabled the manifestation of key movements and legislation, such as the civil rights movement, the labor rights movement, gender rights, LGBTQA rights, the Voting Rights Act, Title IX, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Understanding the role of DEI in activating these societal changes, and emphasizing that it is connected to a plethora of identities and experiences, can support the case for its continuance.
  1. Acknowledge the offensive tactics used by forces working to dismantle DEI. Forces behind the Dobbs decision, the Students for Fair Admissions decision, and Project 2025 use three tactics in their offense against DEI: 1) Delegitimize language and progress on DEI to build a false narrative on its decline; 2) dismantle progress by engaging in litigation; and 3) disband progress by supporting legislation that inhibits fair access to conditions necessary for achieving the American Dream (participation in education, the economy, and elections). 
  1. Enforce the fundamental meaning of each word in the DEI acronym. “Diversity means all people, equity is about fair access to opportunity, and inclusion is participation in the American Dream” (Stacey Abrams). The DEI field is motivated to widen opportunities for achieving this Dream, currently disproportionately afforded to select groups of people. Accomplishing this goal would lessen barriers to success for all people, regardless of their identity or lived experience. 

Defending

  1. Sustain the acronym to solidify the credibility of the field. Allowing the acronym to be reduced by engaging in semantic changes to DEI work gives way to delegitimizing the work itself. Owning and celebrating DEI – in terminology and in action – helps every person see how DEI has improved their access to the American Dream. 
  1. Uphold conviction around DEI across institutions by openly communicating about the harms of retreating. The impacts of the Students for Fair Admissions decision on business and examples of companies scaling back their DEI work are being conflated in the media. Companies can break through this noise by communicating a fact-based counter-narrative centered on underreported legislative progress in favor of DEI (e.g., Allen v. Milligan), sharing information on the business case for DEI, and publicly reporting how successes from investments in DEI outweigh the case for retreating. 

“Remember what the Students for Fair Admissions decision said when coming into collective action. It was not a death knell to affirmative action. It was a realignment that is problematic, but in the same decision, they defended DEI in military academies, and they permitted DEI to continue in other aspects of education.”

– Stacey Abrams

Advancing together

  1. Leverage philanthropy to lift organizations that work on the front lines. “Philanthropy is impervious to harm relative to any other institution in the country” (Stacey Abrams). This demands that in moments like today, where the moral call to do this work is being questioned, funders double down on their efforts to meet the needs of organizations working on the frontlines of protection who are “already wobbly.” 
  1. Advance DEI by speaking up, standing firm, and staying in touch. 1) Speak up by signing on to op-eds, going on TV, and sharing stories about how DEI operates where you work and how it has affected your lived experience. 2) Stand firm by relentlessly advocating that the alternative of not having DEI is a loss for all Americans. 3) Stay in touch by connecting with organizations like NationSwell, American Pride Rises, and the Black Economic Alliance who can help you find communities of support and lift up one another’s work, as well as access resources and tools.

“When you feel alone, it’s easier to block you, stop you, and force you into retreat…we need to be expanding what we want, expanding what we demand, and not constraining it to accommodate those for whom nothing will be sufficient except our demise.”

– Stacey Abrams

View the full conversation:

The Takeaway | Ethical Tech and the Future of Social Impact

Posted on by NationSwell Team

Whether it’s a future of work powered by software that supports workers and businesses alike, technology infrastructure to manage sustainable supply chains, improving digital access and safeguards for our democratic process, or removing bias in data and AI platforms that impact marginalized communities, the actions we take in the present to invest in equitable digital platforms will determine whether our collective grasp will ever extend outwards to our collective reach.

During a NationSwell virtual roundtable on May 25th, a group of cross-sector leaders gathered to discuss the role of emergent technologies like generative AI have to play in advancing that impact and what leaders can do to implement ethical digital and technical solutions in order to scale solutions and provide equitable access.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Organizations must stay disciplined when it comes to asking larger questions about who they’re using AI to serve and what they hope to accomplish. In order to bridge gaps between intent, strategy, and the actual digital products and services that end up being built, companies must establish clear mandates and decision matrices about how to best serve the populations they’re working for. One of the first steps to guaranteeing alignment should be to make sure that clear lines of transparency and clear moral imperatives are present throughout the entire organization. 

The adoption of an “ethical ombudsman” can help to ensure a shared ethical responsibility. Rather than adopting “shiny new tech” just for the sake of doing so and then allowing the ethical buck to get passed on to the tools themselves, companies and individuals should take a more active role in assuming the ethical burden by creating a new position designed specifically to oversee projects at the organizational level and evaluate the potential risks and harm that new technologies can pose to individuals and communities.

Train new systems with humanitarian concerns, not just technological ones. The tech we use broadly everyday (internet, social media, etc.) was created by a relatively small group of people, technologists who are good at making things, but not necessarily experts at holistically considering the ecosystems and people that will use that tech in everyday life. To solve for this gap, we’ll need to build better and more intentional methods to ensure that public interest is baked into design — potentially by hiring folks with humanitarian backgrounds to serve as model trainers and by ensuring more cross-sectionality in design phases.

Drawing distinctions between the types of potential harm that new technologies can cause will be critical to mitigating the damage. We need to think about potential technological harm as falling into two distinct categories: acute harms and institutional harms. The former includes harms done to the individual, while the latter includes harms to communities and populations. These different types of harm will require unique interventions, and getting clear on which is which will be the first step to any mitigation strategy. 

Pathways to widespread adoption of potentially transformative new technologies must be established in order for underserved populations to thrive. In addition to ensuring pathways to adoption, it’s also imperative to bring in the people who stand to be most affected by the digital divide during the design process and incorporate their feedback into the build. Bringing boots on the ground into the regulation process and having the right people around the table to help in the decision making can also be a way to reduce inherent bias.

The Takeaway | Building Culture and the Role of Leadership

Posted on by NationSwell Team

For the past two years, organizations have been forced to navigate a series of social, financial, and political pressures that no one could have seen coming. As the dust begins to settle, it’s become increasingly obvious where organizations have made great strides towards achieving more equitable cultures and organizational outlooks — and where they still have room to grow.

As we continue to steer towards that more equitable and egalitarian future, join us for a conversation on what your fellow leaders are doing to build a culture of equity and belonging — one that prioritizes DEIB initiatives, mindful hiring practices, and workforce satisfaction and retention rates.

In a NationSwell virtual roundtable, leaders connected to discuss some of the challenges they’re still facing, while surfacing opportunities we’re eyeing to help us advance corporate cultures that pave the way towards progress, equality, and greater social impact overall. 

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Wrap arms around the ways that work has fundamentally changed in the pandemic era. Workers and leaders alike share a heightened awareness of organizational shortcomings; and while all leaders have blind spots, there is new urgency around stakeholders’ expectations that you will work to address them. But even as we work to address them, they way we all work is changing: hybrid work means new technology, and new technology means new opportunities alongside new challenges. As internal stakeholders may feel even further from the rooms where big decisions are made, building a culture rooted in transparency becomes paramount to organizational success.

To build an equitable and inclusive organizational culture, align around what you mean when you use the word “transparency.” Workers want leadership that is clear and consistent, but just as there is a danger in sharing too little information, there is a danger in sharing too much. This often necessitates being explicit about what you will share, and what you won’t — especially in difficult moments. As an example, share the criteria around why you might terminate an employment instead of sharing the specifics around why one person’s employment was terminated.

A thriving culture often aligns around norms and expectations for when to have a meeting. In a hybrid work environment, meeting bloat can feel like the enemy of productivity. At the same time, those meetings were often designed to enable productivity, efficiency, and innovation. It’s helpful to align around what meetings ought to be used for, and what the norms are for being in one another’s presence: think about friendly ways to reinforce that attendees shouldn’t be working on anything else, and that they should focus to the best of their ability on the information that is being shared.

Culture is communication. Build performance management systems that can evaluate based on outcomes but also behavior and collaboration.  Reward people who hit goals, but also support positive behaviors that improve culture (and hold those accountable who damage culture). Consider using a work style assessment tool, such as DISC, to help employees understand one another better. 

The Takeaway | The Future of the Workforce

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

On January 25, members of the nationswell council gathered for an in-person salon in New York City to discuss the future of work — the solutions and programs being considered at all levels of learning to better prepare students for successful careers; what organizations can do to build untraditional pipelines to the middle class and beyond; how to navigate a new hybrid work landscape in a way that balances individual flexibility and seamless collaboration while simultaneously mitigating burnout; and much, much more.

The conversation was warm, inviting, and generative, and sparked a flurry of great ideas and new chances for collaboration. Below are just a few key highlights from the discussion:

  • The future of work starts with students — and with how we ensure that they’re being prepared not just for the careers of today, but also to make family-sustaining wages. By partnering with large companies, community colleges in particular have an opportunity to be more thoughtful about designing curriculums that equip students with the real-world skills and connections they’ll need to land in-demand jobs. Micro-credentialing, upskilling, and financial literacy conversations — happening not just with students, but with corporate executives as well — can also help to create a climate of preparedness that will give applicants a competitive advantage.
  • Building a more equitable workforce will require us to take a more realistic look at the current set of challenges facing marginalized applicants. Taking into account the realities of violence and trauma that disproportionately impact some communities, companies looking to increasingly onboard new hires from nontraditional backgrounds will increasingly need to reevaluate their cultural competency training and provide more mental health, wellness, and wraparound support systems for future employees. 
  • To get more economically diverse applicants in the door, we will first need to “tear the paper ceiling.” Far too often, internships, fellowships, and other entry level opportunities require levels of experience or credentials, like a four-year college degree, that exploit and exacerbate existing societal inequities. In order to combat this and level the playing field, leaders will need to put out a clarion call to executives and hiring managers challenging them to reimagine their selection systems and hiring practices.
  • For those struggling under unreasonable credential requirements and barriers to entry, credential stacking could be a helpful pathway towards success. One way around this is through the stacking of credentials: building transferable skills through extracurricular experiences that count as elective credits, which can be immediately added to a resume in real time.
  • The pandemic has permanently reshaped our understanding of what counts as a “good job.” While there will always be a premium on the ability to earn a living wage, millennial and Gen Z workers have expectations of their employers that differ significantly from their predecessors. Interest in policies like unlimited paid time off and an increasing demand for health policies that respond to concerns about Roe v. Wade signal that, more and more often, people are choosing jobs and employers that align with their values.
  • Anticipating the challenges of the next 25 years will be critical in training the next generation of leaders. The challenges that young people will inevitably be forced to reckon with in the coming years are nothing short of enormous — not just in the world of work, but also involving climate change, globalization, wars, and growing social stratification. The question of how to develop and train young people as leaders in a more holistic way will be critical to anyone working with the next generation, and a particular premium will need to be placed on the “3 Cs”: connectedness, creativity and curiosity.
  • The interconnectedness of all people will continue to emerge as an important theme in the near future. Acknowledging those global challenges that young people will undoubtedly be facing will also require us to develop the deeper mindset that ‘my fate is interconnected with yours’ — not just in the U.S., but globally. Preparing young people for work will, increasingly, require us to grapple with an even bigger set of global challenges.

The NationSwell Council community brings together a diverse, curated community of bold individuals and organizations leading the way in social, economic, and environmental problem-solving. Learn more about the Council here.

The Takeaway | Inclusive Leadership: How We Lead Online and Offline

Posted on by NationSwell Team

The pandemic ushered in a wave of fresh challenges for companies and leaders, but it also served as a much-needed pause for leaders to reflect, retool, and reset. Now, nearly three years on, we’ve inherited a radically transformed workplace environment — and we’re tasked with implementing some of the carefully considered changes that will better serve our teams and help us to create the workplace of the future.

In a conversation hosted by the NationSwell Council community on Wednesday, we came together to parse exactly what leaders are doing to address DEIB goals, team attrition rates, competing needs amid a newly hybrid working world, and more.

Here are some of the key learnings from the event.

  1. We often think of how we create value for customers — now it’s time to start thinking about how we create value for our teams. New, remote work challenges have prompted a slew of new questions about how to keep teams engaged and how much “in-person” time is actually needed. Some leaders who are used to thinking about how to create value that makes customers want to show up are now flipping that question on its head, asking what they can do to incentivize team members to work from the office. Creating a hybrid schedule where employees are only expected to come into the office on certain days of the week — and then offering special perks, like free lunches and special affinity group meetings on those days — can be a helpful system for making team members feel like their time in the office is valuable and worth it.
  2. Building out effective listening engines will be critical to accurately assessing employees’ needs. With so much shared wisdom on how to respond to team members’ post-pandemic needs flying around, it can be tempting to impulsively deploy some of those solutions and policies, especially given that the underlying assumption is that they will make employees’ lives easier. But as one member pointed out, not every team member’s needs look the same — and it’s important to build out an infrastructure for feedback that ensures that you’re capturing your specific team’s needs as accurately as possible.
  3. Pay as much attention to why people are staying as you do to why they’re leaving. When it comes to high turnover rates, the intuitive response is to get to the bottom of why people are leaving and what can be done to mitigate the departures. But it’s equally important to figure out why people are staying — and which policies are actually working — so that you can be sure-footed in creating an environment that people genuinely want to be in, and not just one that they’re not ready to leave.
  4. If you value DEIB, put a premium on mental health. Team members’ mental health and well-being naturally dovetails with DEIB concerns: conversations about compensation, job security, hybrid work schedules, pipelines for advancement, and more are inherently stressful, and play a huge role in employees’ livelihoods and psychological safety both inside and outside the workplace. Investing in wraparound support structures can help to ensure team members’ happiness and well-being in the long run, and can set your organization up to more sustainably foster a workplace that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
  5. Work with team members to build hybrid schedules that suit their lives and needs. Rather than mandating that employees be in the office at certain times on certain days, create flexible mechanisms by which team members can choose to work from home when needed, as long as they let team members know well in advance. 

The NationSwell Council community brings together a diverse, curated community of bold individuals and organizations leading the way in social, economic, and environmental problem-solving. Learn more about the Council here.