In the United States, less than half of high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds who graduate from high school apply to colleges that scan as a good academic fit for them.
While structural issues, including a lack of resources or institutional knowledge, can play a huge role in perpetuating this inequity, for many students, applying to the nation’s top universities can pose a crisis of confidence. Although attending a leading college or university can be a critical step in charting a path towards a brighter future — and despite the fact that generous financial aid packages can, counterintuitively, often mean that highly selective schools are a cheaper alternative than less competitive options — many students lack exposure to peers or teachers who have themselves applied to top colleges.
In the fall of 2014, Madeline Kerner founded the national nonprofit Matriculate in the hopes of giving students the hope, support, and models for success they need to thrive in and beyond their education careers. The organization began working to train college students from top universities like Columbia, Princeton, and Yale as Advising Fellows, who would then in turn work with high-achieving, low-income high school students in order to create pipelines to excellence. Today, Matriculate partners with Advising Fellows across 16 partner colleges and universities in an effort to guide students through their applications process and provide a model for the success they can achieve.
NationSwell spoke with Madeline about Matriculate’s impact and how creating new educational opportunities can have a transformative impact on talented students across the U.S.
NationSwell: Tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind your work — what was the impetus for founding Matriculate? How would you explain your mission statement?
Every year, thousands of students from low-income families and diverse communities have done everything we could expect of a high school student and excelled, yet too few of these students land at a college commensurate with their track record and with enough funding to make it through. As a result, talented students across the country are not able to access the opportunities they deserve and have earned. My interest in co-founding Matriculate came in part from my own values — I was in college at the same time my 85 year-old grandparents were working on getting their degrees. Education unlocked opportunity for me and my family. But more than that, I believe all students should have the support they need to thrive. At Matriculate, we serve as allies to talented students from rural, suburban, and urban communities from coast to coast as they navigate the college application and decision-making process and encourage students to attend colleges where they will have the support they need to succeed and pursue their dreams. We hope our work can contribute to forging a higher ed system that is truly representative of the talent in our country.
NationSwell: For a lot of reasons, it must be a tough time to be working in the education space. Is there anything about these last two years of pandemic that has informed or influenced your work in a way that’s surprised you?
It really has been tough. On the one hand, I am so ready for human connection in person. At the same time, we’ve learned how powerful, flexible, and effective virtual connection can be. Matriculate provides (and always has provided) virtual advising to support talented high school students from low-income families, which enables us to support students in hard-to-reach communities. Matriculate recently received the results of a gold-standard, randomized control trial in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and CollegePoint and we’ve learned that the model is highly effective. Through virtual relationships, student are building meaningful, empathic connections with advisors. Matriculate students are going on to attend the top 80 colleges at a rate 24% higher than a pure control group. Our students also persist at statistically significant higher rates. So I am persuaded that while we all need in person human connection to break out of the challenges of the past two years, virtual connection can be very powerful.
NationSwell: Are there any initiatives coming up that you’re particularly excited about?
Yes! We’re exploring social capital—how deep connections formed between highly trained undergraduate advisors and high school students can prepare students for the college experience, help them know they belong, and help them anticipate the challenges they may face and how to navigate those issues. We are also developing new strategies to identify and connect with rural, first gen, and underrepresented students of color across the country, in part by leveraging our networks of thousands of students and advisors.
NationSwell: Do you have any helpful advice for people trying to understand how to lead or do impactful work in these uncertain times?
It has been very meaningful to be able to make a contribution during a time of great stress and uncertainty for young people and, at the same time, I have found it to be a very challenging time to lead. I have, not surprisingly, learned to hold plans very loosely and be more firmly guided by values and to reach out to connect and listen for what I don’t know.
In 2018, NationSwell inspired Council member Lauren Baer, a former senior policy advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to run for U.S. Congress in her home state of Florida. Her victory would have made history: Baer would’ve served as the first openly queer person to represent Florida in Washington. Following a narrow defeat, she’s now Managing Partner for Arena, focusing on supporting the next generation of women, BIPOC, and queer politicians on how to organize across the political spectrum and win seats on the federal and state level.
Following the news that the Supreme Court will likely overturn Roe v. Wade’s decades-spanning federal abortion rights protections in June, and that other civil liberties like same-sex marriage might be in jeopardy, I spoke with Baer to get her unique perspective on this unprecedented moment in our nation’s history.
This is what she had to say.
NationSwell: Thank you so much for speaking with us, Lauren. Please tell us about your professional journey.
Lauren Baer: My personal journey over the last five years is one of political activation and civic engagement. Earlier in my career, I had been a practicing lawyer, and then a foreign policy official in the Obama administration for six years. But in October of 2016, I gave birth to a baby girl, and two weeks later, Donald Trump was elected president. For me, that led to a very deep questioning of how I could have the most impact in our world — how I could create the kind of world I wanted my daughter to live in at a time where I saw our own democracy in the United States very much under threat.
And so what grew out of that for me was a move from the world of policy to politics. I returned to my home state of Florida and ran for office there — in 2018, I was the democratic nominee for US Congress in Florida’s 18th District. And although I narrowly lost that race, I knew afterwards that I needed to stay on the front lines in the fight to preserve and protect our democracy and all of the rights that we hold so dear.
So for the last 14 months, I have been managing partner at an organization called Arena. Our mission is to convene, train, and support the next generation of Democratic candidates and campaign staff. And what we see our job as is essentially building and diversifying the talent pipeline into politics, so that it is more representative of our party as a whole, more representative of the country as a whole, and therefore more effective at waging these battles that we’re fighting today — not only on the federal level, but in all 50 states.
NationSwell: How does Arena do that?
Baer: There are four key components of our work, and the first component is training. Our flagship program is called Arena Academy and we’ve trained more than 6,200 campaign staffers and volunteers since 2019 — the majority of them women, the majority of them people of color, and more than 30% LGBTQ+.
We train these individuals on all of the different types of work that are necessary to run Democratic campaigns and work in movement organizations. But we don’t stop there. We have a team, our Arena Careers team, that works to place these individuals on Democratic campaigns and with Democratic and progressive organizations so that they can be carrying on the fight in all 50 states.
We also have a suite of free downloadable campaign tools that can be accessed by campaign staff and candidates alike in order to help them build effective operations. Those tools have been downloaded more than 40,000 times at this point.
Lastly, we support the next generation of new and diverse candidates running for office by taking individuals we’ve trained, placing them on what we consider to be the most critical races around the country, and fully funding their salaries and healthcare. This ensures that these individuals who are running for office have the capacity that they need in order to run good races and win.
And here I want to emphasize that our focus since the 2020 election cycle has been on state legislative races because we recognize that state legislatures control some of the most important things that touch individuals’ day to day lives. You look across the country at legislation from Florida’s, “Don’t Say Gay” bill, to SB-8 restricting abortion in Texas, to the dozens upon dozens of laws that have been proposed and enacted limiting voting rights. We know that control of state legislatures is absolutely critical to preserving our democratic freedoms. And so we’re placing a real emphasis on supporting those down ballot candidates who are ultimately going to determine who has control at the state level and therefore the rights that most Americans enjoy.
NationSwell: As you train organizers, what messaging have you found works in building bridges to talk about abortion rights? How do you bring more conservative voices to the table here?
On abortion rights, we actually know from polling that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that abortion is a constitutional right and that individuals should have safe and legal access to abortion. So that does not need to be a partisan issue. In fact, there is overwhelming bipartisan support. And so what I find effective to do there is actually to point out ways in which the Supreme Court and the Republican party are being anti-democratic in their actions. Even in so-called red states, there is support for abortion rights from both Democrats and Republicans.
More broadly, on issues where Americans do agree, we need to put aside the partisan labels and talk about these issues as issues. And we need to question our leaders as to why, when there’s such agreement, there isn’t action in the direction that the majority of Americans want.
NationSwell: The Supreme Court confirmed yesterday that the document was authentic. If the draft opinion holds, what does this mean for women? What does this mean for queer people? And what does this mean for people of color in this country?
Baer: So this is nothing less than an all-out assault on fundamental reproductive freedoms that are enshrined in the United States constitution. If that draft opinion holds, or if anything close to that draft opinion holds, what we know is that tens of millions of individuals in our country will be denied access to abortions, that this will disproportionately affect women of color, and that our daughters will be growing up with fewer rights than we were raised with. It’s a very scary time.
What we also know is that the writing was on the wall for this. Arena recognized prior to when Texas passed the SB-8 law, which at the time was the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, that this was going to be a huge issue this election year, and that even if the Supreme Court didn’t take action, that in states around the country, there was going to be an emphasis on trying to restrict reproductive freedoms.
This is precisely the reason that we are so heavily invested in Texas this cycle, including our upcoming Arena Summit in Austin, Texas, which is taking place June 11th and 12th. There, we will be convening reproductive rights leaders from across the state, along with other activists, elected officials, and change-makers to strategize about the path forward.
Our work we see as absolutely integral to protecting civil liberties because we know that they can be restricted in so many ways by state legislatures. And so our work to ensure that we have Democratic and progressive majorities at the state level is at its core work to ensure that we are protecting reproductive freedoms, that we are protecting voting rights, that we are protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals, that we’re paying actual attention to climate change and gun safety and the like. Because we know as we’ve seen in the legislative record this year, that when Republicans have the majority, they have no qualms about taking these things away.
So the first component of our work, working to elect the right people in the right places, is our number one safeguard in terms of protecting rights. But beyond that, Arena organizes large convenings like the Arena Summit in Austin, Texas, that I mentioned, to provide a space for individuals who are working on the front lines to protect our civil liberties to gather together, to share ideas, to strategize, to chart a path forward. Because we know that if we are going to win these battles, if we are going to effectively fight back, we have to be working effectively together. And we need spaces where people can come together and do that work.
NationSwell: As a queer person, did Alito’s draft opinion trouble you about what other civil liberties might be in peril?
Baer: I think the draft opinion is an incredibly troubling harbinger of numerous negative decisions that could be handed down by the Supreme Court. We are fooling ourselves if we do not think right now that LGBTQ+ rights are on the line, that our right to contraception, our right to privacy, our right to consensual sexual relations are all on the line.
Justice Alito made very clear that he had in his sight decisions like Obergefell, which guaranteed a constitutional right to same sex marriage decisions; like Lawrence v. Texas, which protected same-sex relationships; decisions like Griswold — going back decades — which ensured access to contraception. So this is no longer hypothetical. This is about a very clear path that the court is charting to roll back constitutional rights that have been taken as sacrosanct for decades. And we therefore, as a country, have to treat this moment with the urgency that it requires. At Arena, we are not sitting back. We know that this is a moment to train people, to organize, to fight all over this country, because it is not a given at this point that our rights will endure or that our democracy will endure. So we all have to be in it together.
The NationSwell Council is a non-partisan community bringing 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.
NationSwell Council Member Lori Choi, M.D., is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of I’ll Have What She’s Having, a Texas-based non-profit organization dedicated to breaking down systemic barriers that prevent hospitality workers — who are less likely to have health care than their counterparts in other industries — from getting the medical treatment they need.
Since the 2021 passing of SB 8, a Texas bill criminalizing abortions, Choi and her organization have accelerated their efforts to build coalitions and systems that support women and pregnant people in the industry seeking safe abortions.
Following the Supreme Court leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, a decades-standing precedent legalizing abortion in all fifty states, NationSwell spoke with Choi about what this moment means for our nation’s most vulnerable, why the work she’s leading matters now more than ever, and how anyone can get involved to support her mission to help uninsured and marginalized workers in Texas.
NationSwell: Thanks for talking today, Lori. Tell us about how your personal and professional journey led you to start I’ll Have What She’s Having.
Lori Choi, CEO, I’ll Have What She’s Having: I was living in New York and moved to Houston, Texas to train in surgery. Houston’s a known center for cardiovascular surgery. I’ve never regretted that decision — I just don’t think that I realized before I moved here exactly how conservative this state really was.
You hear stereotypes, but there’s no doubt that this state government was regressing, becoming more and more conservative, and there were some nutty things going on, and even being completely preoccupied with surgery training, the stuff would trickle through. And I found myself going around in a really grouchy mood all the time.
I finished training, and then my life was going pretty much as expected for an academic surgeon when Trump was elected. And by that time, I’d spent a lot of time with my husband’s peers, who were all in the food and beverage industry — that was my part-time job before medical school, and one of my first jobs after college.
This is an industry which is by and large uninsured, and very, very hard working. And the small businesses themselves, they don’t have large profit margins — so most are not able to provide benefits to their employees.
Here in Texas in 2011, there were some substantial changes made to family planning budgets in public health as a result of a tremendous change in the political makeup of the state legislature and the state Senate. They really pushed through a lot of budget cuts which were meant to attack abortion access — and they did this by shutting down family planning clinics.
And so we saw the writing on the wall for uninsured people, and we foresaw, with all those federal judgeships that were vacant at the time that Trump took office, we really could see the path to decreasing abortion access, which was already lousy in Texas in a lot of rural communities. So we decided to form our nonprofit, I’ll Have What She’s Having, which consisted of mostly chefs, restauranteurs, food and beverage workers, and several doctors.
NationSwell: Can you talk about your mission and how it took form?
Choi: Our mission was really to educate ourselves and our community on overcoming barriers to maintain our health and well-being, identify non-profit health care partners and raise funds for and awareness of their vital work, including women’s and mental health, and partner with professionals in science, medicine, sports and the arts to highlight the diverse coalition of individuals prepared to fight for a Texan’s access to high quality, affordable health care and reproductive rights.
The food community here is very beloved, and because of my husband and my backgrounds, I brought to the table those connections to both the medical center and food and beverage.
When we started, we raised the question of what participants wanted to raise money for — and it was really the restaurateurs and entrepreneurs who drove our efforts towards abortion protection. It didn’t come from me. Someone close to me really didn’t think it was a good idea for the volunteers’ careers.
The vast majority of Americans are quietly in favor of some form of safe and legal abortion. But these women were willing to put their names out there, to be the face of that pro-abortion majority. And to put their small businesses at risk. It’s quite common in liberal enclaves like New York or San Francisco to take a stand for abortion rights, but it really was quite unheard of for Texas.
But these young women were really adamant. They themselves had been patients of Planned Parenthood. And many of them — most of us — have been uninsured at one or more times in our careers. And they felt strongly that they wanted to make that stand.
I’m amazed by their courage. I know that some of them have suffered. One of our partners is a wonderful chef who, when she began to support abortion access, received death threats. We’ve had protestors show up at our events. After all they’ve been through with the pandemic, for these small businesses to stand up and make their voices heard at this crucial time, I think that should really motivate all of us to get outside of our comfort zones.
When we got started, we spoke kind of in euphemisms about abortion – we called it reproductive rights, women’s health. But in the summer of 2021, when SB 8, the Texas bill criminalizing abortion, got passed, we decided to change our language and start using the word abortion, talking about abortion as an issue of health care, of bodily autonomy, and how, until everyone in this country is guaranteed abortion access, 50% of our population doesn’t have the rights to decide what happens to their own bodies.
That lack of freedom is deeply disturbing to me as a citizen, as an individual. To have the government so involved in health care decisions, and discussions between a physician and his or her patient is, as a physician, deeply offensive. And now we’re preparing to return to a period of time prior to Roe V. Wade in which women routinely died of infection. And I really don’t see any way around that because states are putting in place legislation to criminalize even medical abortions. As long as that’s the case, pregnant people who don’t want to be pregnant will have no choice except to take serious risks with their lives. And we know from history what that means. It really is risky.
NationSwell: Why will the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade hit hospitality workers harder than workers in other industries?
Choi: The Texas government is profoundly hypocritical when it comes to this point. We have more uninsured individuals, men, women, and children than any other state in the country. We refused Medicaid expansion, which would have enabled some of our poorest citizens to access care.
Because of that, when people become pregnant, if they’re not insured, they’re less likely to have access to a physician at that point. And because of paperwork delays, people will often not see a physician until their second or even their third trimester. As a result, we have increased infant mortality, and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country — especially for women of color.
We walked into all of this because in 2011, when the Texas Legislature slashed the family planning budget, we actually saw 83 community clinics close in the next several years because that lack of funding meant that they weren’t unable to keep their doors open to provide low cost, quality care to women who weren’t insured.
So uninsured people with ovaries don’t have access to contraception. They don’t have access to consistent medical care to treat their chronic illnesses. If they become pregnant, they often are going to be a high risk for complications during and after pregnancy. If they have high blood pressure, if they have poorly controlled diabetes, these factors will really impact the health of their pregnancy. And if they are keeping the child, it oftentimes impacts the child health, as well as the health of the parent.
NationSwell: You mentioned that you moved away from saying “reproductive rights” and started to purposefully use the word “abortion.” What did that change for your organization?
Choi: As a woman in Texas, when we first got started, just to talk about anything between the belly button and the knees on a woman was really freaking people out. I mean, they just didn’t want to talk about women’s health, which is so strange to me. But we feel like we’ve really turned the corner on that part, at least. We advocate for mammograms, STD screening, cancer screenings — all of which involve pap smears that take place in this general region. But abortion is a procedure which one in four persons in the US with a uterus need during their lifetime. So, it’s very, very common. It’s very, very needed. And until we normalize discussion about all parts of it, including using the word “abortion” itself, it’s really, really difficult to get people to think about what individuals actually need.
Under conservative status quo, the majority of the responsibility for avoiding pregnancy has fallen squarely on people who have uteruses. So, until we normalize that kind of conversation, I really think it’s difficult for us to move forward. And until people voice their support for abortion, I think that the politicians are just not going to get it.
To say things like reproductive justice, reproductive healthcare, I just don’t think that we’re getting people to really think about what’s involved with that. And that’s part of the reason why we felt like we needed to change our language and to be part of that change for the community. We did see a decrease in press coverage for our events when we changed that language, but since the Politico article really is a wakeup call for everyone who’ve been ignoring the course of history, I don’t think the press can shy away from this discussion any longer.
NationSwell: What are some of the ways I’ll Have What She’s Having is taking action?
Choi: Most of the women we support are uninsured. I’m not actually certain how some of them are getting their contraception, but we’re really trying to encourage women to get that annual visit with their physicians, for people to go and have that preventive medical exam and get their care.
It’s not realized, but if you look at people who are born with an XY chromosome, the biggest cause of mortality for someone until they’re about 50 is trauma and accidents. But for people who are born XX, cancer actually becomes the leading cause of mortality in their 20s.
So it’s really important that we encourage people to go to the doctor, even at a young age. And we’ve really advocated for that. We have a small fund, which allows people from the restaurant industry to get that preventive medical care on an annual basis. And we’re trying to do more to educate people in the industry to stay well, rather than treat themselves when they’re sick.
We’ve also held a series of happy hours at different bars called Abortion Support. Historically, it’s been speakeasies and taverns where a lot of political activity and change took place. And we’ve been really appreciative how the bar owners in our community have been willing to take on that role here in Houston, and push that conversation forward.
Unfortunately, the Delta variant kind of took out those plans for the summer. So, we regrouped and we engaged in a social media campaign called the 1973 Project.
The restaurant industry loves masking tape — they take masking tape and put it on everything, they label all of their food behind the bar and in the walk-ins. And so we had a wonderful photographer, Emily Jaschke, work with us, and employees would put this blue tape or masking tape somewhere on their bodies with a pro-abortion slogan, post a photo, and donate $19.73 to our fund. So, with a matching donor, we were able to donate $60,000 after about six weeks of social media campaigning to the abortion funds across Texas in response to SB 8.
And with the upcoming expectation that Roe V. Wade is going to be overturned, we’re really trying to push and continue with that conversation. Engage more people on a national level so that they’re able to have their voices heard —because we can’t just wait till the election. I think it’s really important that we find a way for people to easily register their protests to the changes that are taking place.
NationSwell: What are some of the ways we can support your organization, and support uninsured women and people with uteruses in the hospitality industry?
Choi: I’ll Have What She’s Having can always use your help! We’re planning a national fundraiser in September in which we’ll be able to engage with people all over the country — and we’re interested in sponsorship for that. That’s going to be chefs getting together nationally to prepare a meal which can be sent around the country via FedEx or UPS. And we’re going to be able to use that money to distribute the funds nationally, especially to the states who are probably going to be having full abortion bans to help people that are going to need to travel to get that abortion care.
Right now, we are supporting six different abortion funds in Texas, and our September fundraiser will expand nationally. But when we speak to those abortion funds, the cost of their being able to support a single patient has just skyrocketed because they need to provide either bus or airfare, as well as usually overnight hotels stay for either one or two days. People who are leaving, the vast majority of them who need abortions already have children and family responsibilities. So, those organizations are also helping individuals get childcare so that they’re able to leave the state for care.
On top of this, we always encourage everyone to call our senators and congressmen to speak out in favor of abortion access. The Women’s Health Protection Act was passed in the House and then failed in the Senate. But that bill, when it comes up, would be a way for us to get around while we’re expecting SCOTUS to officially overturn Roe v. Wade in June.
It’s very important that we really come to this from a place of our shared humanity. It’s important that we say to state and national governments that we believe that bodily autonomy is a human right. And regardless of whether it touches me, or my siblings, or my parents, our loved ones directly or not, it’s just something that we understand and feel with all of our fellow humans that we have to stand up for this — now.
According to a brief released by the World Health Organization, incidences of anxiety and depression have rocketed up 25% globally, an increase which can largely be attributed to the unprecedented stress, social isolation, and logistical barriers to mental health resources caused by the pandemic.
Remote work and learning have presented their own set of challenges, particularly around caregiving and productivity, and feelings of overwhelm and emotional exhaustion have intensified apace. It’s no wonder that so many of us are struggling with unprecedented levels of burnout that have left us feeling unmotivated, overworked, and directionless.
In an effort to offer support, surface insights, and encourage solutions-sharing, NationSwell Council members met for a five-part event series over the course of two months that aimed to shed light on the unique ways burnout has impacted leaders and team members of different cohorts: single parents, leaders of color, educators, healthcare workers, nonprofit leaders, and the CEOs and founders of companies.
In observation of Mental Health Awareness month, we are sharing some of the most compelling, actionable insights and learnings from this series.
Carving out intentional spaces for joy can be a radical act in a society that constantly demands more of us:
While our society tends to put a premium on productivity and “hustle culture,” being prepared to do the work for the long haul must necessarily involve some self-sustaining practices — such as carving out dedicated time and space for joy.
If burnout is, by definition, a sort of mental and physical collapse, then mitigation tactics won’t be enough to combat its spread; we’ll also need to go on the offensive, prioritizing our mental and physical health in more deliberate ways. One way to do that is to be more conscious about reminding ourselves that we have a right to wellness, and that something as simple as prioritizing joy is not a waste of time or a drain on productivity.
“Joy helps connect us to the bigger purpose and reminds us that this fight has been around for generations — our generation can only do so much,” one member said. “Without joy, the fight can become toxic — we can become toxic — if we don’t remember that what we’re really fighting for is the chance for future generations to experience joy.”
Addressing burnout must include concrete policies that address historic and systemic inequities:
In the summer of 2020, people around the U.S. flocked to the streets to protest the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of police. The demonstrations were an example of how trauma can compound — and how, even as the pandemic has worn on, the politics of education, DEI, the pushback against critical race theory, and many, many more social factors have wound up fueling burnout.
During our session for leaders of color, members expressed skepticism about the usefulness of coaching and resilience training, which is often implemented in workplaces specifically as a way for BIPOC to deal with burnout. “It raises the question of what resilience is — I can pull my bootstraps up if I need to, but that might not be the thing that helps me to grow and thrive in this environment,” one member said.
Members stressed the need for systemic changes over superficial programs, including corporate advocacy for the expansion of voting rights, more diverse hiring practices, and promoting and hiring more BIPOC employees into leadership roles.
Working parents are feeling the stresses of the pandemic — but their workplaces can actually be a bulwark against burnout.
During the huddle for working parents, members relayed the particular challenges they’d faced in being suddenly thrust into an environment where they had to perform what essentially amounted to two jobs: full-time caregiving and their careers.
“Especially during the pandemic, I just realized I just couldn’t do the things I used to be able to do,” one member said. “I had carefully constructed this web of caregivers and neighbors, and that all went away in the course of two weeks. I was so struck by the fact that I had these resources in terms of dollars, flexibility at work, a network of support, time, and I still couldn’t figure out a way to make my life work in the same way that it had before.”
Members in each group stressed the rising numbers of single parents entering the workforce, and said that employers on the whole need to be more conscientious about creating a destigmatized work environment that offers dedicated resources for parents, including flexible work hours and advocacy for universal childcare programs, like the plan for free, high-quality pre-K outlined in the Democrats’ Build Back Better Act.
Workplaces need to put the same premium on mental health benefits that they do on physical health programs.
Many members said that the pandemic highlighted the need for more dedicated mental health resources in the workplace, and said that the creation of such tools would facilitate a better workflow for preventing burnout.
Letting your team know that you prioritize mental health, and modeling that mental health as well, can be an actionable way to make others feel less isolated and more advocated for. Some mental health resources that were recommended include: workshops to address depression; stress management seminars that teach techniques such as mindfulness and breathing exercises; more flexible policies around working hours and paid leave; and affinity groups that provide teams with a sense of community and understanding.
Tweaking how we think about work won’t be enough — it’s time for a massive overhaul.
The concept of the 9 – 5 workday might have been widely accepted in the time before Covid, but the advent of remote work and a rapidly shifting social landscape, among other things, have necessitated a closer look at the old way of doing things.
From radically transformed caregiving expectations to the elimination of the morning commute, the workday just doesn’t progress the same way it used to. Many members argued that the implementation of new technologies make it easier than ever to get work done on a more flexible schedule — which companies should sign on to if they want employees who are happier and more productive.
“I may not be here from 9-5 every day, but if you know I’m doing good work and I’m going to get it done, that shouldn’t matter,” one member said. “We’re all better when we can show up to work and be present.”
To combat ‘founder burnout,’ don’t innovate: anchor yourself in the ordinary.
Members in our sessions for nonprofit leaders and founders in particular discussed ‘founder burnout’: the real and widespread phenomenon that sees leaders feel the need to take care of everyone and cater to the interests of multiple constituents at once, often at the expense of their own mental health.
“From a founder perspective it’s not the ridiculous hours that get me, it’s the fact that [work] is just always in my head,” one member said.
For nonprofit leaders, it can sometimes feel like the ‘work can’t wait,’ or that taking time to slow down inherently comes at the expense of vulnerable and underserved communities.
In order to combat feelings of overwhelm, nonprofit leaders advocated for “little moments of ordinariness” — sharing a piece of music during staff calls, or requests to drop whatever is on team members’ minds that day into the chat.
“Instead of this all-or-nothing approach, trying to find a middle path where we know that there’s this emotional charge pulling at us, but we also know we’re going to operate on both ends of the spectrum,” one member said.
Mental health is physical health — which means physical self-care can help.
A critical way to mitigate burnout is to pay attention to the ways it shows up in the body. Just like any other type of stress or anxiety, feelings of overwhelm can manifest as physical sensations, and taking the time to properly address these symptoms can help us to get a handle on our discomfort.
Going for a walk or a run, taking a long bath, and even giving or receiving hugs are all ways to physically tend to ourselves in order to reduce the effects of burnout. Similarly, techniques like mindfulness and breathwork can help us to maintain composure in the moment rather than taking our stress out on whoever’s nearby.
“Pay attention to what your nervous system is telling you — when I’m super activated, I take 30 seconds to pause before I go into my next interaction,” one member said. “This helps you to acknowledge where you are, to notice when you’re in a heightened state.”
Focusing on your own needs first can actually better prepare you to take care of others in the long run.
The uncertainty of our current moment has created a state of constant emergency, one where the sirens are always blaring and our priorities are always shifting. For some, that need to constantly be pivoting towards putting out different fires has been draining and overwhelming.
“I feel like the entire world keeps changing every 90 days, and I have to keep adapting my organization and strategy around it. It just won’t stop,” one member said. “Every time I think it will, something new happens, and that constant churn has been exhausting.”
In moments of crisis, it’s important to remember the old self-care maxim of ‘putting your own oxygen mask on before helping others’. No matter how quickly you’re rushing to address a problem, if your children, colleagues, friends or community members are getting a frayed version of you, nothing will be addressed comprehensively. The simple act of asking ‘What do I want,” or ‘What do I need right now’ — even if it feels selfish or uncomfortable in the moment — can help you to reclaim your power and stay in control.
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.
As part of Salesforce’s celebration of Earth Month 2022, Suzanne DiBianca, Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations and Chief Impact Officer for Salesforce and one of the key leaders at the company responsible for its ambitious commitments to taking bold climate action, announced that Salesforce would be co-leading an unprecedented cross-sector, global collaborative effort “aimed at driving consistent standards around high-quality blue carbon projects and credits.”
“Blue carbon is the carbon captured by ocean and coastal ecosystem… that is increasingly used by companies to offset their carbon emissions on their paths to reach net zero by 2050,” Salesforce explained. “As businesses, investors, and governments look to scale the blue carbon market, it’s critical that investments are made in high quality projects while also yielding community leadership, transparency, and standardization.”
As part of that effort, DiBianca shared that Salesforce would partner with the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance to drive at least $500 million of investment into coastal projects by 2030.
“At the moment, there are too few on-the-ground solutions which can be a source for high-quality, verifiable blue carbon credit products ready to go to market, and no clear benchmarks or definitions of what a high-quality blue carbon product is — or should be,” Karen Sack, Executive Director for the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance, said in a statement. “It is also important to develop demand-side guardrails to ensure that blue carbon credits are additional — not an alternative — to efforts to reach net zero. We are delighted that Salesforce is joining [us], and to be working jointly with them and other partners on this effort.”
Investments in nature, such as the ones Salesforce will drive through their partnership with ORRAA, are one of the core solutions through which DiBianca encourages business leaders to join her and Salesforce in taking bold climate action, especially at the intersection of sustainability, equity, and racial justice.
“Business leaders can look to two mitigation actions, reforesting the planet and saving the oceans, for inspiration,” she wrote in a February op-ed. “One area you can look to in particular is in lower-income neighborhoods and communities of color. On average, communities of color have 33% less tree cover than white communities, according to American Forests. Planting trees in urban areas leads to significant benefits like sequestering carbon, improving air quality, absorbing rainwater and beautifying communities.”
Salesforce’s new focus on advancing standards for high-quality blue carbon projects comes shortly after the news that the organization had announced it would be adding sustainability as the software company’s fifth core value — alongside trust, customer success, innovation, and equality. “One way for companies to accelerate change during this moment of profound global change is to embed sustainability and responsibility into the core of their business,” DiBianca told Forbes of the announcement. “The companies that do this early will lead and drive great value not just for their business but for all stakeholders.”
NationSwell’s membership program is built for leading corporations, philanthropies, and investment firms, designed to help leaders take their work in CSR, ESG, DEI, Impact Investing, Sustainability, and Philanthropy to the next level. For more information on NationSwell’s Institutional Membership community, visit our hub.
Building strong communities has never been more important. In addition to impacting the health of millions, the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged local businesses and economies, disrupted our education system, and deepened the divides that exist between those with and without access to technology. That is especially true for low-income, under-resourced, and minority populations. To encourage long-term recovery, we need to find ways to not only build back better — but build back right.
But when it feels like our nation is more divided than ever – how can we make that happen?
NationSwell and Verizon, an Institutional Member of our community, partnered to hold a spirited discussion on the solutions needed to ensure long-term, community-based prosperity with thought-leaders at the intersection of economic opportunity, technology, and equity: Rose Stuckey Kirk, Verizon’s SVP and Chief CSR Officer, and John P. Bailey, Strategic Advisor for the Walton Family Foundation and Visiting Fellow at AEI.
Because the insights and resources surfaced during the discussion are so crucial to leaders at the vanguard of social change, we are making the full event streamable for our audience. Watch the discussion here.
NationSwell’s membership program is built for leading corporations, philanthropies, and investment firms, designed to help leaders take their work in CSR, ESG, DEI, Impact Investing, Sustainability, and Philanthropy to the next level. For more information on NationSwell’s Institutional Membership community, visit our hub.
Recent research shows that over the last 50 years, both major parties in Congress have drifted further from the ideological center. Progress can feel as though it has ground to a halt as neither side wants to compromise for fear of looking weak or appeasing their political opponents.
Meanwhile, private citizens are dividing themselves along partisan lines — which, at its most extreme, results in individuals severing some of their strongest social and even familial ties over these differences.These impulses to ostracize, isolate, and separate isolated from our communities can have negative impacts on mental health and lead to further political radicalization.
As a nonpartisan organization, NationSwell strives to create an environment where all viewpoints are heard and given equal credence in an effort to bridge political divides — both within our Council members’ organizations and throughout the country.
Members comprising a diverse ideological spectrum recently sat down for a conversation on how we can go about creating these inclusive spaces and better capitalize on our positions as leaders to break down these barriers.
Here are some key takeaways from the event.
Inclusivity must be fostered before a conversation even begins
Creating these nonpartisan spaces becomes much more difficult if people are coming into the conversation with their guards up. As such, efforts must be made to make it clear that ideologically diverse viewpoints are not simply tolerated, but welcome. Otherwise, some may feel their perspective is being dismissed before they even have a chance to speak.
It all starts with language
We often assume those on the other end of the political spectrum don’t share our same values, but sometimes it is just a language barrier.
The language we use can inadvertently lean left or right, even when striving for nonpartisanship. When inviting people into a conversation, special attention must be paid to the framing we use to characterize the issues we wish to tackle and the types of solutions we envision.
Using the wrong language could cause certain listeners to tune out or even become actively hostile because they feel that, through no fault of their own, they are not welcome in a conversation.
Strive to find common ground with those we may disagree with politically
Regardless of what ideological and political labels we may apply to ourselves, many of us can agree on a multitude of issues that need to be addressed.
Taking on these issues in collaboration with those on the other side of the aisle can help form lasting partnerships and relationships, which in turn will create an environment where traditionally opposing forces can continue to work together in good faith.
An act as simple as telling someone from a different political party something you admire about their work to their face can have a powerful impact on bridging these divides.
It is okay to disagree, but differences must be dealt with respectfully
The very nature of a nonpartisan, inclusive space means bringing together people who will not see eye to eye on every issue.
Addressing these differences is critical to building trust. Letting someone know the language they are using is hurtful, or possibly sending the wrong message is useful when done in a respectful manner.
Another key is to assume that those around you are working on issues with you in good faith, so even if you disagree on the solutions, a positive discussion can be had, rather than an argument where nothing is solved.
Separate the issues from the people
Very little will be accomplished if a discussion on how to solve a problem turns into a series of complaints about political opponents.
In addition to being unproductive, it can stifle participation from those with minority viewpoints in the group, who may feel as though their input is not welcome simply by virtue of being in the same political party as a politician who is being attacked.
Encouraging civic engagement can help bridge these divides
The more polarized our discourse becomes, the less appealing public service looks. Finding nonpartisan ways to engage in the political process, especially for younger people, can go a long way to breaking through these divisions.
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.
In the United States, data show that gaps in life expectancy fall along racial, socioeconomic, and geographic lines. The implications of this longevity gap ripple through every aspect of our society.
In our recently released AARP report, Our Collective Future: The Economic Impact of Unequal Life Expectancy, we examine the costs of the American longevity gap, calculating the continued and cumulative economic costs of racial disparities in life expectancy while also emphasizing the human and societal costs. Through these findings, we challenge everyone to envision what it would take for all people in this country to live longer and reach their fullest potential.
As the report reveals, these disparities don’t just disrupt people’s ability to live longer, healthier, and more productive lives — they also stifle economic growth, resulting in lost opportunities and lost contributions not just for the individuals who are impacted, but for society at large.
Shining a light on existing disparities
Inequality and disparities in health and well-being are not new phenomena. However, the pandemic has surfaced and exacerbated the pervasive disparities that existed in health, wealth, and life expectancy.
In 2019, Black people could expect to live 4.1 years less than the average person in the United States. This gap rose to 5.5 years during the first year of the pandemic in 2020. In addition, we know that the pandemic has resulted in a disproportionate number of deaths among Black and Latino people, widening the gap even more.
Too steep a price
By 2030, racial disparities in life expectancy will cost the United States an estimated 10.1 million jobs, which AARP calculates will translate to an annual loss of $1.1 trillion in total consumer spending by 2030.
But the toll of racial disparities in life expectancy isn’t purely economic: It is quite literally life and death. Our researchers found that an additional 5.9 million people would be alive in 2030 if everyone had the same opportunities over the next decade to live longer, healthier lives.
The people we are losing aren’t just mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They are also vital to local, regional, and national economies and industries. Many of these costs will be borne by the services, construction, and health sectors, which are most sensitive to population changes.
Solving the longevity gap
While the statistics around the country’s growing longevity gap serve as a sobering call-to-action, these disparities do not have to lead to despair. They are not intractable challenges. Inequality does not have to be status quo, and life expectancy should not be determined by geography or zip codes. There are solutions — and the solutions can be found across stakeholders from policymakers, businesses, communities, and the individual choices we make.
So what’s it going to take? The answer can be summed up in three words: commitment, collaboration, and thought leadership.
Public, private, and philanthropic sectors should work collectively to identify, advance, and accelerate solutions to reduce and eliminate health disparities. Together, they can create a marketplace of ideas fueled by data, insights, and timely analysis. As our nation continues to become more diverse, a prosperous future will require equitable systems , which sustain prosperity for all
AARP’s mission is to empower people to choose how they live as they age. It is in our DNA to help people live longer, healthier lives. This includes addressing disparities in health and wealth, and reducing the gap in life expectancy for communities of color.
This is why we work to improve access to healthcare, make communities more livable, support older workers, and work across sectors so that we can close the longevity gap and help people to lead healthy and productive lives.
The time is now
James Baldwin once said, “There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.”
We can and should work now to change the longevity gap so that we don’t have to bear the cost of lost opportunity and productivity for future generations. Instead, let’s harness the potential of all of America’s talent and truly allow people to live and age equitably and productively.
Staci Alexander is the Vice President of Thought Leadership for AARP.
According to an AARP report,more than 78% of older workers have seen or directly experienced age discrimination in the workplace. On top of that, 64% of workers 50 years of age and older believe employers see their age as a disadvantage in getting hired, and 79% of those 65 and older feel their age hurts their chances to get the job.
Age bias makes it difficult for older workers to make headway in the labor market. Such attitudes make little economic sense given the strong business case for hiring and retaining older workers. Knowledge and expertise — the main predictors of job performance — increase in perpetuity the longer one works, advantaging older workers who are more likely to have spent more years working than their younger counterparts. They frequently outperform their younger counterparts on many other key metrics of worker success, such as less absenteeism, less turnover, and stronger interpersonal skills.
Besides being strong individual contributors, older adults bring cognitive diversity to their teams, which increases organizational performance. One study found that the relative productivity of both older and younger workers is higher in companies that utilize mixed-age work teams. Another found that age diversity within a team was positively related to performance for groups involved in complex decision-making tasks. Age diversity within a company can also lower employee turnover.
For companies convinced that age must be included as a dimension of their overall DEI strategy, there are several steps they can take to increase age diversity within their workforce.
Offer “returnships”
Returnships are full-time paid internships for adults who have been out of the workforce for several years or more. People who are returning to the workforce might have retired and now want or need to return to work to restart or change careers. Perhaps they have taken time off to care for an elderly parent or raise a family. Returnships help people get back to paid work, all while giving employers a chance to diversify their workforce so that it looks more like the communities their organizations are serving.
Partner with organizations that can help recruit talent across all ages
To achieve an age diverse workforce, a company must put generational diversity at the core of its equity strategies and goaling. Partnering with organizations that help older adults acquire the skills they need to get hired in today’s labor market is one way to supercharge an organization’s efforts to achieve an age diverse workforce. Such partnerships can provide ready access to a talent pool of older workers.
AARP Foundation has several workforce programs that give older, low-income adults the job skills and confidence they need to succeed in today’s workplace. AARP Foundation’s new $10 million grant from Google.org will help fund the Digital Skills Ready@50+ initiative to train vulnerable older adults — especially women and people of color in underserved communities — in the digital skills they need to succeed in today’s tech-focused workplace, so they are job-ready when companies need workers.
Partnering with organizations like AARP Foundation can provide companies seeking older adult workers with a pipeline of candidates to consider, greatly enlarging their recruiting pool.
Provide incentives to help workers remain on the job longer
There are a variety of incentives companies can provide to help older workers stay on the job longer. Some older workers may wish to phase into retirement rather than leave the workplace abruptly, or they may want to retrain for a new challenge. Providing flexible work schedules, sabbaticals, or caregiving options can make staying in the workplace longer more appealing. Other employers have found that allowing full-time workers to shift to part-time, but still investing in their benefits, has provided those workers with extra incentive to postpone retirement.
Remove age limits on apprenticeship programs
Apprenticeships are a key part of employee development at some companies and there can be age limits on who is eligible to apply. One way to develop an age-inclusive workforce is to remove all age limits from such programs. From there, organizations should not only encourage older applicants to apply for these programs, but recruit them in order to continually invest in developing their skills.
By following these strategies, companies and organizations can reap the many benefits of an age-diverse, multigenerational workforce and help fill job openings that have gone wanting far too long in the current economy.
The national discourse over abortion access is often polarized along partisan or religious lines — but the diversity of people at the heart of the movement to protect reproductive rights tells a different story.
Despite the politicization of abortion access in mainstream discourse, studies have shown that a majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In fact, although we might expect opinions about reproductive rights to fall along partisan lines, the truth is that there are allies working on both sides of the aisle to support a pregnant person’s right to determine their own future without being hindered by the U.S. government.
During a NationSwell Council event, the Reverend Jacqui Lewis, a prominent faith leader and pro-choice advocate, Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, JaTaune Bosby, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, and Charlie Dent, and Charlie Dent, a Republican former member of the United States House of Representatives for Pennsylvania, took a look at how the movement for reproductive rights is a wider tent than many imagine it to be, and how unification across perceived divides is central to the work ahead.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:
We’re at the edge of a precipice that underscores the dire need to protect abortion from state to state
Recent abortion restrictions enacted at the state level in Texas and Mississippi have purposefully escalated the threat to abortion access up to the Supreme Court. As we await the Court’s decision, it’s important to remember the possibility that Roe vs. Wade — the decision that upholds a pregnant person’s right to abortion — could be overturned at any moment.
Love is at the center of most religious doctrines
Most religions advocate for a kind of “fierce community love,” as Rev. Lewis puts it — a mandate to love one’s neighbor as one loves themselves. Although those who traffic in splitting humankind around economic justice, race, gender, education, and so on have thought to use religion as the cudgel to froth up an anti-abortion community, there is no official religious teaching that condemns reproductive freedom.
“To me as a theologian, the very best way to love our neighbor is to acknowledge their autonomy and freedoms,” Rev. Lewis said.
Abortion access is more broadly supported than its detractors would have you believe
Many people, politicians in particular, frequently use abortion as a wedge issue to advocate for organizations like Planned Parenthood to be stripped of resources of federal funding. But while reproductive rights have been heavily politicized, there are voices on both sides of the aisle who support a woman’s right to choose.
“While many Americans are conflicted on abortion… most want abortion to remain legal under most circumstances,” Dent said.
Use your voice to advocate for reproductive rights
One of the most powerful ways to lend your support to the fight for reproductive justice is to make your support visible in your spheres of influence. A whopping 70% of Americans support abortion access, and the more visible that support is, the better. Whether you’re advocating for abortion access amongst your family members, in your workplace, or at your place of worship, you may be able to have a transformative impact just by sharing your abortion story (if you’ve had one) or cementing your support.
Educate, collaborate, and advocate
If we can do those three things effectively as a collective, we’ll really be able to move forward with imagining a country that’s more inclusive and safe for all. You are a citizen and neighbor, and your neighbor’s life affects your own. Try to do the research necessary to have a well-informed position on abortion, and work to identify and elect politicians who might be sympathetic to your cause.
We don’t live in a Christian nation — we live in a nation
The democracy we want to enjoy is made up of a cacophony of diverse voices. Although Christian activists have become one of the loudest factions advocating against abortion access, there are still some who believe that we can rally around what unites us, including a shared desire for a healthy planet, having enough food on the table, racial equity, and more… striving to be a “world that delights in difference,” rather than a world divided.
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.
