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Impact Next: An interview with Salesforce Foundation’s Becky Ferguson

Posted on by NationSwell Team

At a moment of growing inequality and division, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster our most vulnerable communities? Whose work is fostering the inclusive growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact? 

In 2024, Impact Next — a new editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Becky Ferguson — Senior Vice President of Philanthropy at Salesforce and CEO of Salesforce Foundation.

Greg Behrman, CEO and Founder, NationSwell: Tell us a little bit about your journey into leadership in this field. Were there any defining moments, experiences, or mentors that helped you to get here? 

Becky Ferguson, Salesforce: For me, a really foundational experience was my first job out of college back at a small, community-based nonprofit in the community where I grew up. 

When I look back, I appreciate it for a number of reasons. First, the support services we provided across the entire county made me appreciate just how interconnected so many social issues are — I learned to look at things holistically and try to get beneath the surface and understand the root causes. 

It also gave me an appreciation for every single dollar. When I look back, I realize how much we made happen as a small organization with a limited budget. And through my career, as I’ve worked with larger organizations, partnerships, and budgets, I still try to think about the power of every dollar. 

And then the other thing I really took from that experience was that when you work at a startup or a small nonprofit, you wear a lot of hats. One of the hats I wore in that period of time was running the hotline — making sure that any day of the week, any hour, if someone called, there was someone on the other end to pick up that phone. I learned that oftentimes what people really needed in that moment was someone on the other end to listen. There is so much power and importance that comes with presence and listening. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What makes your approach to your work differentiated or sets it apart in the field?

Ferguson, Salesforce: At Salesforce, we’re celebrating our 25th year anniversary as a company this year, and one thing that has grown with us over the years is what we like to call the 1-1-1 model. Early on, we made a pledge to look at how we could give back our financial contributions, our time, and our product, and the ways in which we have been able to watch and see those contributions grow over time is really remarkable. As we look back over the years and see things like over nine million volunteer hours from our employees, thousands of nonprofits that now use Salesforce technology to help power their missions out in the world, and much more. The layering of that impact over time is really powerful. We’ve also always really believed in the power of partnerships and it has been so inspiring to see other companies adopt the 1-1-1 model and make it their own with now over 18,000 companies joining the Pledge 1% global movement. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Salesforce has really built a reputation for being out in front and on the vanguard. Is there anything you can point to that has helped you to stay in alignment with those expectations over time?

Ferguson, Salesforce: To start, it is very much a part of the origin story of the company — it’s the fabric of who we are and our values. 

I think another element of it is that at Salesforce, we’ve really embraced a more distributed or integrated model of impact in the company — meaning it lives in different parts of the business; it’s not just one person or one team’s responsibility alone. At times that can be a little bit messy, but we’ve always felt that that is actually the most powerful way to make lasting change happen.

Behrman, NationSwell: There’s a lot of energy around employee engagement, volunteering, folks wanting to see how to push to the next level of impact, engagement, design. Is there anything you are particularly proud of that you might speak to?

Ferguson, Salesforce: A couple of years ago, we decided to shift away from just celebrating the number of hours people have volunteered — which is really impressive, and which we still have ambitious goals around — in favor of thinking about how we can also inspire and celebrate a deeper kind of giving back journey for employees. 

We dug in with our in-house design team and got a lot of feedback from employees to create a new impact journey. We now have a set of impact milestones people can earn that encourage them to not only volunteer, but to volunteer more than once with an organization, to volunteer and donate, to perhaps join a board — the ultimate goal is to build deeper and deeper engagement. And then as we reward, recognize, and celebrate those milestones over time, we’re able to connect employees with different opportunities that they can then use to continue to further their impact journeys. 

We’re hoping to reach over a million employee volunteer hours this year. The way in which Salesforce employees engage and give back, whether it’s individually or collectively with their teams, is really inspiring.

Behrman, NationSwell: I have this impression that you guys have a differentiated way of communicating, and using narrative, to further ingrain this work and inspire employees. Can you bring us into that a little bit more?

Ferguson, Salesforce: We are a company and a culture of storytellers, and we bring our work across the company to life through stories — be it stories about customers that we work with, stories about our employees, stories about our community partners. We often refer to the individuals in those stories as trailblazers — people who are forging a new path forward — and the idea is that any of us can be a trailblazer in all sorts of ways, from how you’re using new technology to how you’re inspiring teams. 

We’re also definitely intentional about the ways we create moments and avenues to share those stories. We were just at the company kickoff, and we ended the time together by recognizing three employee trailblazers who were rewarded with golden hoodies and recognition from the entire company. They were three really different employees, working in very different roles and parts of the company — making a unique impact not only in their day jobs, but also in their communities. 

At the end of the day, we are community builders: We think a lot about our ecosystem of partners and trailblazers and the ways we all come together in community. And people really feel that sense of community.

Behrman, NationSwell: What has helped you to be an effective leader in the space? Are there attributes or proclivities or parts of your philosophy of leadership that are central to your leadership

Ferguson, Salesforce: I’ve worked in a lot of different organizations, sectors, and settings. I’ve done work in the UN, research, corporate venture capital, private philanthropy, corporate philanthropy, and I think across all of those roles, I have gained an appreciation that there are many different ways and styles of leadership. I think there are two things that really resonate with me: first, trying to reorient my mindset around failure — this idea that to do hard things, you’ve got to take chances, you’ve got to make bets, and it’s not always going to work or go exactly as planned, and that’s okay. 

Behrman, NationSwell: I’d love to hear about a few things you might recommend that have been influential to you in your leadership journey or current state of mind.

Ferguson, Salesforce: There are a couple things that are on my book stand right now, and one of them is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants. What I love about it is it’s a blend of stories and science. Another is a book by Bob Sutton called Scaling Up Excellence that was recommended to me by another leader here at Salesforce. One thing about Bob Sutton’s work that has been sticking with me lately is he talks about this idea that in organizations and companies, things layer up over time and you need to step back and look at what is no longer adding value and strip those things away.

He refers to them as barnacles, and that is something I’ve been thinking about lately — what are the barnacles in the work, in the field I’m in, that have layered up over time and are no longer serving us? What do we need to chip away at or strip so that our ships can sail much faster to where we’re trying to go? 

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are some of the peer leaders you really admire — folks more or less in your role at other companies or organizations who you think are really great leaders doing great work?

Ferguson, Salesforce: I’ve met a lot of incredible people through the NationSwell community actually. Being around a table, sharing meals with folks. For instance, Alicia Vermaele, executive director of the Starbucks Foundation, is someone I love to run across town and have a cup of coffee with and hear what’s on her mind, what she’s working on and thinking about. And then Shamina Singh and the team at MasterCard, that’s another group I have come to know through the NationSwell community that I think are doing great things in the world. 

The NationSwell Council on influencing social and economic mobility in America

Posted on by NationSwell Team

In Q2, members of the NationSwell Council and team set out across the U.S. for a Salon series dedicated to exploring Mobility in America.

Specifically, our members were interested in unpacking the role our education, government, communities, and families have to play in influencing social and economic mobility — and how our own personal narratives are indelibly intertwined with broader mobility trends.

The series brought us face-to-face with transformative leaders from diverse sectors, sparking discussions that were as rich as they were enlightening. Some of the Council members who were in attendance came together to describe the most actionable insights, resources, and practices that were shared during the events — our full recap appears below.

Key Insights and Questions:

  1. Mentorship is vital to economic and social mobility
  2. We’ve created a narrative of a post-secondary path that is not the reality for most
  3. Policy and legislation are key for advancing mobility
  4. AI will change how society calibrates social mobility
  5. Is social mobility a proxy for proximity to whiteness?
  6. How much coercion are we willing to assert to increase social capital?
  7. Psychological barriers to success can be overcome by strategies that address the mental models of family and community 
  8. Is scale the enemy of impact?
  9. To be truly inclusive, DEI initiatives must include the ex-offender population 
  10. How do we shift narratives when media norms aren’t built for narrative shifts?

What leaders who attended are saying:

NationSwell asked members in attendance to respond to two key questions:

  1. In your own work, how can you support the strength, the visibility, the power, and the influence of ideas, individuals, and institutions from outside the dominant frames that shape and distort our world—be they whiteness, US exceptionalism etc. 
  2. In your work, how can you support and elevate the ideas, individuals, and institutions that are often overlooked or marginalized by mainstream perspectives? (Who can you lift up and how?)

Brian Lovins, President, Justice System Partners

At JSP, we work closely with justice involved individuals and find that while our society says they believe in 2nd chances, we often create significant roadblocks to bringing people back to our communities after a prison sentence. Two major challenges–housing and employment. We have amazing people who have served their sentences and need legitimate pathways forward so they can be their best self. Finding ways to eliminate the labeling of people as ex offenders, convicts, and inmates; centering their humaness, giving grace, and providing direct paths to housing and employment would be great first steps. 

Baffour Osei, Robotics Lab Manager, Princeton University

In your own work, how can you support the strength, the visibility, the power, and the influence of ideas, individuals, and institutions from outside the dominant frames that shape and distort our world—be they whiteness, US exceptionalism etc. 

We can intentionally create spaces and validate them with the authority structures that currently exist in our organizations. E.g. We’ve created a spontaneous book club in our lab focused on our library of books of autobiographies, analyses, etc. around individuals and groups of people from various socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities, religions, nations, and other dimensions of diversity. Conversations centered around these topics don’t usually happen in engineering settings and so this library along with the spontaneous book club events are meant to change that by creating spaces where these conversations that touch all of us can happen. We’ve had books donated to our library by other guests and faculty as well and continue to seek ways to grow attendance and encourage our lab residents to come and keep returning. I think a big portion of this is my attendance as the manager of the space and also getting faculty to attend as well as encourage their lab groups to attend. People will leave our robotics program to become leaders in academia and in industry and so it’s imperative that they have proper social frameworks with which to engage their future mentees, coworkers, and customers in person and with their products and services.

In your work, how can you support and elevate the ideas, individuals, and institutions that are often overlooked or marginalized by mainstream perspectives? (Who can you lift up and how?)

We can and have been doing this with the spontaneous book club. Among the books in our library are Crippled, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freedom is a Constant Struggle, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, Viral Justice, The New Jim Crow, and so many more titles. The Spontaneous Book Club structure allows our patrons to pick any book, read for 40 minutes, and then share what we read with the group and discuss. This allows us to learn about different authors’ perspectives on different topics and view tying lines between our various books since we’re all reading something different. Topics that we would’ve never discussed all of a sudden arise in these conversations and many of our patrons have shared taking action and changing behaviors as they learn new information. Our patrons also share how their personal experiences are reflected in these writings or may even contradict some of them. The point is this setting opens up all of these conversations and elevates these ideas, individuals, and institutions for discussion and adjusted behavior moving forward with a new respect and honoring for elements that have been invisible to us in the past.

Kanene Holder, Manager, Create Labs Ventures

As a former educator turned diversity trainer and ethical AI advisor, I’m often called in to manage a crisis. Too often it’s too late. My answers don’t focus on fixing the issue, but rather on preventing the issue and building the capacity to navigate disequilibrium. 

Linkedin is filled with infographics and cheat sheets to maximize productivity and leverage IQ to boost KPIs but rarely are there tools to unleash EQ- emotional intelligence. This overemphasis on people being an ends to a means and a series of data points and accountability measures can trigger mental health issues due to their rigid adherence and reward for those who “succeed” at all costs. The costs include frayed relationships with family, friends, their self concept and their health.

The culture of work is starting to evolve beyond the ruinous compartmentalization that forces people to choose between their personal and professional goals, but not fast enough. GenZ is leading the charge but too often a culture undergird by a Puritanical work ethic is weaponized to shame them into submission rather than make accommodations that would benefit the mental health of all workers. 

Additionally post Covid, I observe what I call “the trauma class”. People who regardless of social economic status are experiencing trauma and triggering the trauma of others. Trauma is no longer relegated to a tragic few or a large majority of those experiencing poverty. The trauma class is diverse. From those who experience school shootings to the opioid crisis and dealing with mourning due to Covid or not being able to afford healthcare, increasingly trauma looks like you and me. Even. when you are minding your own business, isolation from trauma is becoming more difficult. Due to rising rates of homelessness you might experience vicarious trauma as you witness the mental breakdown of someone on a train or in the street. 

The solution is a paradigm shift that centers soft skills and is trauma informed to ensure people feel valued regardless of their ability to “perform”. Having a workplace that is conditional on performance is one fueled by fear which too often metastasizes into stress, resentment, overwhelm, burn out or worse. A workplace that values the whole human being can inspire more innovation, creativity and resilience because fear is replaced with trust. Leaders that master emotional intelligence can model how to balance personal and professional goals and co-create healthy ways for coworkers to deal with stress, grieving, health and other issues. Mental health can be a culture of wellness if designed with human potential and connectedness in mind.

Susan Mason, Founder, Susan Mason Consulting

In your own work, how can you support the strength, the visibility, the power, and the influence of ideas, individuals, and institutions from outside the dominant frames that shape and distort our world—be they whiteness, US exceptionalism etc.

I focus on amplifying diverse voices and perspectives. This includes:

  • Prioritizing Underrepresented Narratives: Centering the experiences and insights of people impacted by the system first, instead of as an afterthought. 
  • Encouraging Proximity: The lived experiences of others helps the dominant culture understand exactly how systems impact individuals and communities. This promotes a deeper understanding of systemic issues. 
  • Strive to Operationalize: By consistently integrating best practices, organizations can move from constantly being in the education phase to truly achieving equity and inclusion. Inclusion is the only way to move past the dominant frames mentioned above; while learning is essential, incorporating these principles is the key.

In your work, how can you support and elevate the ideas, individuals, and institutions that are often overlooked or marginalized by mainstream perspectives? (Who can you lift up and how?) 

  • Promoting Inclusive Practices: Keep sounding the alarm that organizations must prioritize operationalizing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  • Collaborative Projects: Partner with organizations that want to elevate their inclusion and create joint initiatives.
  • Advocacy and Awareness: Use my platform to raise awareness about the systemic issues faced by people with conviction histories and continue to push for inclusion.

Errika Moore, Executive Director, STEM Funders Network

On many occasions, philanthropy is automatically invited to the table when unfortunately fellow community partners are not.  Thus, philanthropy must leverage its circle of influence to effect change, ensure more inclusive dialogues, and create equitable space at traditionally exclusive tables. In my role as a leader in and representative of a philanthropic organization, I encourage our partners to give grantees access to their circles of influence to enhance their strategic partnerships, openly market their grantees to provide visibility, and overtly stand with their grantees to empower them during challenging times.  We are currently operating within a troubling and divisive landscape within education.  Thus, this is an opportunity for philanthropy to serve as champions for justice reflecting persistence amid resistance.  In this heightened capacity and positioning, we can support the strength, the visibility, the power, and the influence of ideas, individuals, and institutions from outside the dominant frames that shape and distort our world. The decisions we do or don’t make now will have multigenerational effects.

In my role with the STEM Funders Network, I have the opportunity to illuminate the ideas and initiatives of marginalized organizations or organizations that represent and support marginalized communities.  The STEM Funders Network is a community leader and partner. As such, it has an obligation to community service and uplift. As I engage in events like the Science Summit hosted by the Simons Foundation, the NSF ADVANCE Equity in STEM Community Convening, or the CONECD conference I meet organizations and STEM leaders from around the country that are making a difference and making an impact.  Through our social media platforms, via our Power of Positive InfluenceTM webinar series, or through partnerships with national media leaders such as STEM Magazine we have an opportunity to leverage our social capital and give voice and agency to overlooked, under-resourced, and marginalized organizations or communities. Not because they “need” us to…but because their great work deserves elevation and illumination.  So often our systems give credence to mainstream or “big box” entities and devalue leaders in marginalized communities.  Philanthropy has an opportunity to be a catalyst for innovation, a change agent, and a positive disruptor of systemic challenges. 

Resources shared:

A Tribute to Our Friend and Colleague, Anthony Brian Smith

Posted on by Anthony Smith

Anthony Brian Smith: August 26, 1989  –  December 30, 2023

Greg Behrman:

Anthony Smith was a singular gem.

To our organization and team, he was so many things: a brilliant editor, writer, and thinker; an amazing teammate who injected everything — large and small — with warmth, humanity, and fun; a supportive and encouraging collaborator, who made us all think harder and strive to be better.

To me, he was a cherished teammate and friend. I had the good fortune of working with Anthony on what now seem like a million things. Everything was better for having Anthony’s pen, take, or touch. I loved seeing Anthony on a NationSwell stage; he seemed to make the spotlight brighter.

What I treasure most is the time in between; our time connecting, catching up — accompanying each other in our work and our lives. Anthony knew a lot about a lot of things that I didn’t even know were things. I learned from him, admired him, and looked forward to every encounter.

In recent days, I’ve thought about that Maya Angelou quote: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I’ll never forget Anthony’s brilliance and originality; his genius for seeing dimensionality in so many things I might have overlooked; his passion for social justice and commitment to work for a better world; his great gift of language; his compassion and kindness; the great fun I had with him — it was so much fun to be in Anthony’s presence. I’ll never forget the lasting impact he’s had on NationSwell — and the world. 

You made us all feel so good, Anthony. 

Thank you. 

We will carry you forward with us, always, my dear friend.


ANTHONY SMITH | VP Published Content + Growth
NationSwell welcome email, Day One, Aug. 2, 2018

  • You’d never believe that I was almost a reality tv star.
  • I Love to cook, especially French pastry and Roman Italian.
  • I don’t love pearl onions, ricotta cheese, red wine, or bean sprouts.
  • Recently I took a trip to Marrakech and fell in love with the city, and saw shades of green and blue that I don’t think I’d ever seen before.
  • I make people laugh when I sneeze. I have a ridiculous sneeze that maybe you will hear one day, but for both our sakes, I hope you don’t!
  • My hidden talent is interior design. I’ve been playing the Sims ever since the first game came out when I was in middle school, and I love coming up with a concept/story for every room I make.
  • Born in the Philippines, grew up in the Bronx, went to boarding school in New Jersey, and I’ve found my way to Brooklyn like every other Millennial with a big city dream :]
  • Started career in restaurant criticism.
  • Proudest moment was breaking the story of concerns about ethical concerns around Secretary Ryan Zinke’s travel schedule at the Department of the Interior. I don’t think there are a lot of journalists’ eyes on the Interior the way there are on other parts of the Trump (or any president’s!) administration, and in my reporting here, I received a lot of handwritten notes from a lot of people for whom corruption at the Interior can ruin everything. It felt good to break out of the bubble and actually reach people.
  • I really demonstrated my baking talent when for my old office’s weekly baking challenge, I baked a gluten-free dairy-free Queen Victoria’s Sandwich from scratch without consulting a recipe. And it was great!
  • When I was little I always sobbed whenever “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree came on the radio.
  • My favorite place in the world is probably the Parc de Buttes Chaumont in Paris, or Louie & Ernie’s Pizza in the Bronx. 
  • My “bucket list” trip would be a trip to that underwater hotel in the Maldives.
  • Obsessed with that Twitter of Japanese mascots!
  • A roaring thunderstorm on an early Saturday morning makes me joyful
  • The dinner party scene from The Birdcage makes me laugh for hours
  • Comedy or drama? Drama! The best dramas all have these incredibly funny moments. 
  • Dogs or cats? I want to say both for different reasons, but dogs eke out the victory here.
  • Sweet or savory? Sweet, for sure. Eating an entree is just an excuse to eat a dessert. 

Alison Kotch:

It’s not often in one’s career that you meet someone who inspires you to be a better colleague and human: Anthony was one of those people. His warmth and positive energy made me look forward to working at NationSwell, and was an example of what it means to lead with empathy, good humor, and grace. I’ll always have fond memories of our team outings outside the office, too: He was an expert at making everyone feel heard, valued, and appreciated, regardless of their role on the team. Sending him good vibes as we celebrate his one-of-a-kind spirit. We love you, Anthony!

Marc Anthony Branch:

When I joined NationSwell and visited NYC to figure out where I might move, it was Anthony and Taekia who came to the office to work with me as my first in-person staff interaction in the COVID world. From that point, whenever I connected with Anthony, he was the bright spot to my day. He brought energy, laughs, compassion, and encouragement, and left you feeling better than before your interaction. I’ll never forget him consistently uplifting me and calling me a smart, Black king. Anthony — you are a gem, and I am forever grateful to have crossed paths with you. 


Ellie Fox

This planet won’t be the same without our exuberant, brilliant, talented, wonderful friend Anthony. He wrote stories, and games, and jokes, and entire worlds. Don’t get me started on the Shakespearean genius that is his Twitter. He used words like “rule” in earnest to describe things he liked, as if it was 2003 forever. He befriended ghosts and sought opportunities to be haunted. He taught you how to salt brine a chicken to perfection. He read for filth your astrological chart in one glance and was the trivia quizmaster to end all others. He committed to the bit, like when he told everyone at work that his most coveted dish was Amy Klobuchar’s “tacotots” recipe. He practically had stock in Win Son, Crown Fried Chicken, and haggis — the Scottish delicacy (and did not care what the haters had to say). Need a recommendation for where to eat anywhere in the world? He sent you on your way and was friends with the chef. Maybe you needed a highly detailed review of a play you were considering seeing? He already saw it (in previews) and wrote something hilariously scathing about it.

CMo (Christina Montero):

One time back in 2019 we were all at the office on 5th Ave and I went out to grab a coffee. I happened to walk by the comedian John Mulaney and his (now ex)-wife on 20th and 5th. Who was the first person I texted? Anthony. His reactions:

“NO”

“omg” 

“Which way was he walking?”

“did u say hi?”

My second memory was that I was one of the few people that liked Andrew Yang when he was trying to run for President in 2020. I sent his campaign lots of micro-donations and became part of the #yanggang. Who was the one person that I could talk to about my love for Andrew and his ideals? Anthony. Anthony would send me tweets and updates a plenty so I had a pulse on how Andrew was faring.  

There were many more instances where we would gossip about celebrities and discuss for hours the state of our country, and we could be open about our fears and feelings. I always loved my Anthony talks. Most of all, I will miss that smile and laugh of his. I actually bet he’s laughing right now at how things turned out. He helped me find humor in tragedy and always will. 

Love you 4EVA AS.


Kylie Madden:

Anthony was his own brand of magic and he made everyone feel seen, cared for, and appreciated. He embodied the concept that small things mattered — whether it was ordering you your favorite meal from a go-to restaurant for lunch and presenting it to you (which I appreciate more than I could have ever expressed), sharing a random thought with you in the middle of the night, remembering something you mentioned offhand one time six months ago, or making sure you got to experience something *he* felt was special or unique.

Sreya Belbase:

Anthony had a smile that emanated innocence, generosity, and acceptance. Those qualities embodied his essence, and his warmth was felt far and wide. From bonding over astrology, helping me draft my first LinkedIn post, to sharing unexpected food preferences (e.g. noodles for breakfast and black sesame ice cream), Anthony will forever leave his impression on me and our team as a cultural juggernaut. May his legacy live on.

P.K. Weiland:

Dear Anthony,

I promised you homegrown lemongrass and never got to share it with you. 

In every fragrant stalk, I hold you close, my friend, a garden of love and remembrance blooming forever.

I hoped to share this recipe of Vietnamese Spicy Lemongrass Chicken (Gà Xào Sả Ớt) with you.

You’ll be missed. 


Danielle Benedetti:

Anthony and I delighted in discussing all of pop culture’s highs and lows — our latest high was the 2023 Broadway cast recording of Merrily We Roll Along, an album which he called “relentlessly good,” “crackling with life,” and the “best cast recording in years” (he is correct on all accounts.) Since his passing, the lyric I have returned to the most is not one of sorrow, but one that encapsulates his deep love for life and the ways we can come together to make it better: “It’s our time, breathe it in / worlds to change and worlds to win / our turn coming through / me and you, man / me and you.” 

Brooke Josebachvili:

At last year’s Summit, as we were kicking off the Shared Conversation, Anthony and I found each other solo at a back corner table. I was hesitant to participate, but Anthony immediately disarmed me by posing the question with his soft voice and gentle smile. He offered to answer first. He opened up so immediately, sharing his personal stories as only a gifted storyteller like he could. By sharing of himself, he reminded me there are people who offer safe, soft landing spaces to share the full you.


Joseph Ingraham:

Every other Monday, I’d get up just before 5 am, head to the airport, and fly into New York City. I’d get to the NationSwell office around 9:30 AM, feeling a little tired and in need of caffeine. Coffee helped — but my pick-me-up of choice was ten minutes spent at Anthony’s desk. From the other side of the office, I could see his cheeky smile and mischievous eyes saying, “Get over here! I have something I simply must tell you.” And he always did. Sometimes, it was a review of a show I had never heard of (but which would inevitably clean up at the next year’s Tony Awards). Other times, it was juicy political gossip. Often, it was a hot tip on a new restaurant or a wild recap of his weekend antics. Whatever the story, it would lift my spirits, nourish my mind, and make me feel deeply grateful that we were both there. 

Maddy Allison:

ABS

The funeral home was packed

Overflowing with people

Laughing and crying

Reaching to hear the stories being shared

100 more people on the zoom which

stopped working halfway through

So we stood still

Being with each other

Reaching for Anthony’s presence 

Someone said “he would have found it 

hilarious”

Technical difficulties at his funeral

Someone else “maybe it was his final joke” 

When I first met Anthony we discussed

chili crisp

How delicious it is, what best to put it on 

He said the best gift he ever got was 

homemade chili crisp from a friend, because he knew

how meticulously it had to be made 

How difficult it is not to burn the garlic 

The next time I saw him he said he had a jar of chili crisp

for me, his favorite brand

He brought it to the office to make sure I would have some

He told me to put it on vanilla ice cream

Anthony was like chili crisp 

meticulous and specific, doling out care so 

generously

He was like the unique spice atop soft and 

sweet vanilla ice cream bringing fire and 

flavor and surprise and delight 

He made you stop and go, “wow!”

He made you present 

The funeral home was packed 

Busting at the gills with people who were

lucky enough to love this man

I’ve been eating chili crisp all week


Caroline Mak:

While my path only overlapped with Anthony for a few months at NationSwell, he will always be remembered as the colleague who unfailingly checked in when the world was rough, and as a generous soul who always strove for making the world a better place. My Slack messages with him were always the most fun, and uplifting. His spirit will always be remembered. Thank you.

Taylor Chapman:

Anthony was a treasure of an individual; one of my favorite remarks from the memorial service compared him to “a golden apple, casually dropped into the banquet of our lives.” When he and I met in a work context and went for a beer, I assumed it would be a typical colleague get-to-know-you. How wrong I was! Hours later, I left with my head spinning, having learned about all kinds of fascinating cultural phenomena I never knew existed — and with a new friend, someone I knew I’d treasure.  

Brianna Provenzano:

If you were here, I would Slack you: “So this Anthony memorial post… some of it’s there but it’s way underbaked like Claire Saffitz brown butter choc chip (derogatory)” and you would respond “AUWHFJSFKSKSK okay lemme look,” and then you would come back to me in 60 seconds with something eloquent and fully-formed and more beautiful than anything I could’ve ever put together. I need you back right now so you can punch up your own memorial post… do you see what a mess you’ve left me with?

Here are some random scraps for you:

  • I saved a screenshot of a Slack that  you sent me on my first day on the news desk at Mic that just said “hey B — sit next to me today when you get in :)”
  • There was drama at your funeral, and everyone laughed and cried; you would have loved it
  • In the grand tradition of court jesters and fools, you always said the true and obvious thing that the main characters were oblivious to, and you always played it for laughs
  • Did you really have a Flintstones fan fiction called “A Feetcar Named Desire?”
  • Did you really use black magic to put a curse on Antonin Scalia the night before he died?
  • Did you know that I loved you very much and felt very protective of you, especially towards the end of our friendship?
  • Did they really let you go behind the counter at the Dunkin Donuts on Graham Avenue and make your own coffee coolatas?

I wish I could take all of the scraps and shape them into something coherent and meaningful, but not just yet. In the meantime, I promise to buy myself more little baked goods as a treat; to pour more intention, energy, and vulnerability into my writing; to be a little weirder and lighter on my feet; to text people more often and tell them that I love them; to Always Be Scheming. I love you and so I’m mad at you for using your death to catalyze me into being a better person, for leaving me with the kind of grief that is already starting to alchemize into something generative and hopeful. I hope that you haunt me and that your ghost takes the form of Clippy, the Microsoft Word paperclip. 


Amy Lee:

My promise to Anthony:

Every time I come across something hilarious, weird, or artistically adventurous I am reminded again how much more fun life was when Anthony was there to share it with. Did you see that new satirical Gen Z comedy special on HBO? OMG why did that movie get overlooked at the Globes? Is that pop star’s new album an intentional piece of throwback genius or a collection of shallow songs we’ve heard before? These are the important questions I have wanted to pose to Anthony in just the last week alone. Yes, I also miss his encyclopedic knowledge of politics and pressing world issues. How can someone be that smart and serious about change and yet so irreverent? This election year, I will be forced to do all the reading and understanding of candidates and the minor details of democratic operations that have major implications for people’s rights; all the learning that he did for me for the last five years. And, on the personal side, I will have to dig deep and give myself the little pats on the back that he would send me out of the blue in support of my own creative endeavors. I am feeling a little lost without his supremely confident opinions on the culture unfolding around us. I stare off into the distance more. I definitely laugh less. But I know that he would absolutely not stand for complacency, and would hate for any piece of life to slip past without squeezing the most joy, outrage, warmth, sarcasm and beauty out of it. Thank you, Anthony, for showing us how to use the time we have. I promise I will try to make the most of it, just like you did. 

In Memoriam: Anthony Brian Smith

Posted on by Anthony Smith

Anthony Brian Smith, Editor at Large for NationSwell, passed away suddenly on December 30th, 2023. He was just 34 years old, but his legacy is massive — a ripple effect of hope, action and human warmth that impacted countless people he connected with during his lifetime, and that changed our team for the better, forever.

A proud child of the Bronx, NY, Anthony constantly went above and beyond. After graduating from Wesleyan University, he carved out a successful career in fast-paced online media before joining NationSwell in 2018 to lead our solutions journalism and editorial content. 

Anthony’s natural curiosity and sharp intellect made him a source of invaluable insight and analysis of current events, for our team and community. He could synthesize detailed source material into relevant calls to action with astonishing speed & nuance. For over five years, he made sure our content was rigorous, thoughtful and top quality; he acted as charismatic MC for events large and small; and charmed hundreds of high profile thought-leaders through his work on interviews, campaigns and panel discussions. He cared deeply about politics and social and environmental issues, and he wrote eloquently about and supported causes close to his heart, including LGBTQ+ rights and racial equity. 

He was a passionate journalist and a joyful consumer of culture: movies, books, music, travel, food. You name it, he had a hot take. There was nothing surface level about Anthony: his knowledge ran deep, on almost every topic you can imagine, from the circular economy to awards season nominees. He went out of his way to make others’ lives richer too — creating and participating in numerous groups over the years to support LGBTQ+ youth, Pokemon enthusiasts, Great British Bake Off lovers, and beyond. Listening carefully to people’s specific preferences, he then went out of his way to get them that thing (often delivering colleagues’ personal lunch orders to them without them even asking). His delight in the minutiae of life was infectious.

Anthony knew everyone. As a team, we gathered yesterday to share some of our favorite memories of him. One colleague shared that getting anywhere in New York with him took ages because of all the people he stopped to speak to on the way. Every project we worked on, he had spot-on recommendations for speakers and contributors — people he had worked with or met on his journey, people he lifted up as intellectual leaders and genius creatives, without ever stopping to acknowledge those same qualities in himself.

Above all else, the overriding feeling you had after any interaction with Anthony was lightness. He was funny. Effortlessly so. Funny in a way that skewered hypocrisy and often himself, yet was also somehow so incredibly warm. Walk into any room, and you knew that Anthony would make you feel welcome… and make you laugh. “He was magic,” our CEO, Greg Behrman, reflected. 

We are devastated to have to write this statement today, and heartbroken for Anthony’s family and loved ones.

As a team, we are grieving, processing and thinking about how to do justice to our dear friend Anthony’s legacy. We will post more from the team next week.

Thank you, Anthony, for everything. You are one of one.

NationSwell Team

Marguerite Casey Foundation Partners With NationSwell for Author Series Centering Radical, Transformative Luminaries

Posted on by NationSwell Team

To advance its vision for a society that prioritizes the needs of excluded and underrepresented people, Marguerite Casey Foundation (MCF) has partnered with NationSwell, an executive membership and advisory firm, on the MCF Book Club: Reading for a Liberated Future, a quarterly event series promoting authors from historically marginalized populations whose work centers radical, regenerative, and transformative approaches to community-building.

“Stories are the foundation for a liberated future,” Dr. Carmen Rojas, President & CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation, said. “They have the power to redress historic failings, lift and illuminate the marginalized, and show us all that the path to a more just world can only be found if we expand our search past our backyards and our board rooms. We’re honored to partner with NationSwell and showcase these dynamic writers and the profound stories they’re telling.”

In fireside chats curated by MCF Book Club and organized by NationSwell, Dr. Rojas will interview each author in front of the organizations’ shared audience of field-builders, thought leaders, impact investors, philanthropic grantmakers, elected officials, and heads of social impact and sustainability at some of the nation’s largest private sector companies. 

The series partnership will kick off in early December with “Invisible No More: Voices from Native America,” a book talk celebrating and centering Native American luminaries who are leading through cultural-grounding and nation-building in community, environmental, and economic justice. 

“It’s with deep gratitude that we have the opportunity to partner with Dr. Rojas and Marguerite Casey Foundation on this author series,” Chloe Lew, SVP of Strategic Partnerships & Innovation at NationSwell, said of the partnership. “Their standard-bearing work on funding organizing movements has been a rising tide that has lifted not just philanthropy, but all social impact and sustainability work that has historically decentered the needs and voices of the communities they’re actually trying to reach, and the authors they’ve curated for these talks represent some of our favorite books in the NationSwell Library.” Learn more about the series partnership and how you can attend these conversations here.

Marguerite Casey Foundation is an institutional member of NationSwell. Learn more about MCF here, and NationSwell institutional membership here. RSVP here.

NationSwell Fellows Program: Empowering Young Leaders to Reach New Heights

Posted on by Syd Goin

NationSwell is thrilled to launch the second year of its fellowship, NationSwell Fellows, sponsored by Cerberus, Service Now, and American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact. The NS Fellows program empowers young impact leaders to build and sharpen their skills, grow their network, and develop a project that meaningfully contributes to their social or environmental focus area.

This year’s young leaders are not only incredibly passionate about their work, but they are remarkably intentional about intersectionality, and have already made outstanding strides in their areas of focus. NationSwell is honored to announce the thirteen leaders who were chosen to be this year’s Fellows: Jorge Alvarez, Alex Ang, Srinithya Gillipelli, Maddox Guerilla, Charles Hua, Ericka Kamanou-Tenta, Jennifer Lee, Katherine Owojori, Nitya Ravriprakash, Maya Salameh, Maya Siegel, Elizabeth Swanson-Andi, Guiying (Angel) Zhong. This extraordinary group of innovators focus their work on a wide variety of impact issues including mental health access & awareness, climate justice, tech and data for good, disability rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, and more. We are eager to see what these groundbreakers are going to accomplish over the course of the Fellowship! Meet this year’s Fellows:

JORGE ALVAREZ

Mental Health Activist, Social Impact Strategist, & Creator

As a social impact strategist, Jorge takes a community-centered and intersectional approach to his work around youth mental health, ensuring solutions are culturally sensitive and acknowledge the ways in which mental health is connected to other social and health issues.

ALEX ANG

Content creator & mental health advocate

Her work focuses on making mental health awareness more accessible, particularly for BIPOC youth, through storytelling. She creates social media content that’s culturally inclusive and digestible, hosts her own podcast, “a is for anxious”, and sits on the youth advisory board of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) where she helps create programming and advises on youth mental health initiatives.

NITHYA GILLIPELLI

Health equity advocate & medical student

Nithya is a medical student who is dedicated to understanding interventions that can be used to improve healthcare access and equity in resource-limited settings. She has years of experience working under experts on research within this realm, leading global health student groups, and studying language as a barrier to healthcare.  She hopes to focus on mixed-methods studies and implementation science to address health equity on a global scale.

MADDOX GUERILLA

Visionary & advocate for trans & queer youth mental health & youth homelessness

A firm believer in protopia or the idea that we create the future we want a little at a time everyday, Maddox does just this through his work which has driven change for you experiencing homelessness in NYC. Currently, as a Senior Consultant for Point Source Youth, Maddox connects communities with Direct Cash Pilots.

CHARLES HUA

Nationally recognized clean energy & environmental justice advocate

As a recent graduate of Harvard College, his work in sustainability spans back to high school where he organized a campaign that successfully petitioned his school district to become the largest district in the U.S. (at that time) to commit 100% to renewable energy. Since then, he has become a published thought leader on climate and energy issues and serves on the Board of Directors for several environmental nonprofits. For his work in climate and environmental justice, he has been selected by the White House as a 2018 U.S. Presidential Scholar, by the Aspen Institute as a Future Climate Leader, by GreenBiz as an Emerging Leader, and as an Energy News Network 40 Under 40 honoree. 

ERICKA KAMANOU-TENTA

Social Entrepreneur & Pan-African Advocate 

Ericka is determined to create a Pan-African movement to help African young adults, on the continent and in the Diaspora, see themselves as leaders and change-makers through entrepreneurship. As a graduating Senior at NYU, she is also the Co-Founder of the early-stage venture IVG Ghana which has a mission to decolonize minds and business models in Black communities. 

JENNIFER LEE

Founder & disability rights activist 

An incoming Juris Doctor candidate at Harvard Law and founder and executive director of the Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative (AADI), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit amplifying the voices of disabled Asian Americans nationwide, Jennifer is on a mission to center the disabled experience in order to forge change.

KATHERINE OWOJORI

Anti-racist educator & community organizer

Katherine works to interrogate, challenge, and dismantle harmful systems and narratives that impact BIPOC communities. With a focus on anti-racist education, civil rights, intersectional movement building and more, she hopes to implement institutional change in policy, media, education and beyond.

NITYA RAVRIPRAKASH

Data Scientist for equitable opportunities 

She is passionate about using data ethically to combat disparities, and currently works as a data science manager and her research focuses around how some AI models actually promote more equitable outcomes in hiring and credit lending for marginalized communities.

MAYA SALAMEH

Arab American mental health advocate & data analyst

Maya Salameh works at the intersection of data analysis and social impact at VIVA Social Impact, where she leads data strategy for public agencies working to improve underserved Californians’ access to care services. She is particularly interested in Arab American mental health, and hopes to use the Fellowship to develop a project focused on queer Arab Americans’ experiences with mental health care.

MAYA SIEGEL

Advocate for people & the planet

Maya’s work centers storytelling and aims to build a more sustainable equitable future. She is the Social Editor at Feminist, the largest (6M+ followers on Instagram) women-owned media platform for women, girls, and gender-expansive people and the co-founder of Stories of Consent, an organization devoted to community-based consent education that shares stories of affirmative consent.

ELIZABETH SWANSON-ANDI

Storyteller & Indigenous rights & climate justice advocate

She utilizes storytelling through social media and filmmaking to inspire hope in her community and drive changes that will protect her forest home and the planet as a whole. Elizabeth is of the Napu Kichwa People (Venecia Derecha community member) from the Ecuadorian Amazon, who are on the front lines of fighting food and water insecurity, land invasions/loss, deforestation, cultural loss, climate disaster, and contamination of rivers. Through experience within Indigenous territories in the Amazon, a vast international perspective, and intersectional lens she addresses socio-environmental challenges and builds solutions serving as President of Iyarina Center for Learning, Impact Storyteller at If Not Us Then Who?, and co-founder of the Youth Collective in Defense of the Amazon Rainforest.

GUIYING (ANGEL) ZHONG

Mental health equity scholar-activist

Angel is focused on decreasing racial and gender disparities in mental health access and care-seeking. Much of Angel’s research focuses on how intergenerational trauma affects the AAPI community when it comes to reaching out for mental health services, and she is currently a Research Analyst at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Health Disparities Research.

Place-Based Impact in Practice: 36 hours in Tulsa with NationSwell and George Kaiser Family Foundation

Posted on by Anthony Smith

On the evening of October 18th, black clouds of starlings wheeled overhead as the NationSwell team made its way to meet a group of partners and leaders in downtown Tulsa. The group had gathered as part of our Place-Based Impact Collaborative for an immersive, 1.5-day experience designed to explore how community-centered investment and strategic partnerships are working in concert to give new strength to Tulsa. 

The insights and best practices we gathered from GKFF’s approach — and from the experts in attendance — were many, and can better enable communities nationwide to thrive. Although it’s impossible to accurately capture and convey the profound experience of being on the ground in Tulsa, our hope is that this piece can shed some light on what it was like to come together and learn with an incredible group of leaders and inspire you as you strengthen your own community-centered, place-based work.

Day One

The day began with a tour at Greenwood Rising to hear the vital stories at the core of Tulsa’s history and identity: the impact the Trail of Tears, the systems of anti-Blackness that fomented the Race Massacre of 1921, and the cultural reverberations of both eras that are still being felt throughout the city. Despite the violence dotting its past, Tulsa and its residents have persisted — deepening their sense of community and establishing a rich sense of place and culture that makes the city vibrant and unique.

That night, we joined our hosts from George Kaiser Family Foundation for a welcome reception at a speakeasy in the city’s Deco District. After an evening of warm conversation, introductions, and getting to know one another better as we prepared for the next day, Aaron Miller — head of partnerships at inTulsa — announced that he would lead a group by bus to celebrate the city’s popular Oktoberfest, currently in its 44th year. Jonathan Pride, executive director at NPower, announced that he planned to lead a competing group to the same location via the city’s widely-available Lime scooters.

Day Two

East Tulsa


After a quick pit stop for breakfast on Thursday morning, our group set out by bus for East Tulsa, where white flight and the attendant infrastructural divestment have created unlikely opportunities for the city’s growing immigrant population. 

Cynthia Jasso — a program officer on the Vibrant and Inclusive Tulsa team — explained that East Tulsa has become a community hub, learning center, and worker community for newly-arrived immigrants, more than 1,100 of whom arrive at the Plaza Santa Cecilia from Mexico by bus each week. While organizations like Growing Together have done grassroots outreach to meet residents where they are — helping to expand access to vaccines and make PPP loan applications easier for local businesses owners — they ultimately found that there was an overwhelming need for a centralized community hub where people could get the help that they needed. Plaza Santa Cecilia has become that epicenter — a place for the community to gather, relax, take classes, shop, or even acquire permits.


The plaza features beautiful murals, restaurants, and a nightclub, and has become a major source of community pride and belonging — a critical metric of success for place-based investment. 

North Tulsa


Our next stop was in North Tulsa, where attendees heard from Pastor Philip Abode of Crossover Community Impact and Crossover Bible Church. A former University of Tulsa football player and current high school football coach, Abode’s passion for coaching youth eventually catalyzed an even deeper relationship to mentorship in the city: he now serves as executive director of Crossover Preparatory Academy, which oversees several private middle schools throughout the city.

A majority-Black neighborhood, Tulsa’s north corridor is currently the site of major community development efforts, including a planned 500-unit, mixed-income housing project and new contracts with high-quality, high-paying manufacturing jobs at companies that agree to recruit from within the neighborhood (and nearby Tulsa Technology Center). 

Kendall Whittier


As the bright sun continued to warm up the day, we visited Kendall Whittier Park — located in Tulsa’s historic Kendall Whittier neighborhood — where we learned more about how a mixed-income neighborhood trust has helped  provide stable, affordable housing, and how partners like Growing Together and Tulsa Educare have created educational opportunities and green spaces where children and families can grow and thrive. 

We also had the opportunity to tour The Gathering Place, which words alone don’t really do justice. A sprawling 66.5-acre green space nestled against the Arkansas River, The Gathering Place’s pathways were dotted with pumpkins and its playgrounds had names like “Land of the River Giants,” “Fairyland Forest,” and “Volcanoville.” All park activities are free, and guests can help themselves to kayaks and paddle boats, attend concerts on the lawn, and engage with the park’s many educational programs. 


After lunch, we reconvened at Greenwood Cultural Center for a series of panel discussions — first on how to leverage the power of storytelling, and then on how new models of collaboration across the public, private, and philanthropic sectors can help to foster opportunity from the ground up.

During the first panel, Jasmine Dellafosse — Director of Organizing and Community Engagement at EPIC — spoke about the value of telling the stories that run counter to our assumptions. 

“What are the stories we don’t know, and in whose interest is it that we don’t know them?” she asked. 

Panelist Vanessa Garrison — Co-founder and COO of GirlTrek — further emphasized the power storytelling holds in developing a community: deconstructing myths, challenging assumptions and enabling community members to lead change. 

In the second panel, a key insight that surfaced was the recognition that change doesn’t just take a longer grant cycle but can take generations to actualize. The question that emerges, then, is how do we integrate intergenerational change as a metric when measuring impact? 

At the intersection of both of these panels is the emerging understanding that how we measure impact in place-based philanthropy needs to evolve to incorporate more qualitative data, compelling us to reimagine what a thriving community really means.


After a visit to Archer Studios to learn about the Tulsa Artist Fellowship — and a ceramics activity with fellow Raphael Corzo — participants had a few minutes to rest and recharge before coming together for a NationSwell Signature Dinner to reflect on the events and learnings of the day. 

Hosting us for the evening was the team at et al., a collective of chefs working collaboratively to “build a more delicious and equitable future for the food and beverage industry in Tulsa.” Aptly named to reflect the important but often overlooked or unknown people who help to make an ambitious vision into a reality, the symbolism behind et al.’s name and mission had a beautiful symmetry with the focus of our visit to Tulsa — and the patchwork of organizations and solutions we’d witnessed firsthand on the ground there. 


Attendees dove deep into what had inspired and moved them during the course of the meal, which was themed around the idea of breaking bread (as chef Colin Sato explained, “You have now broken bread with Tulsa, and now it’s a part of you”). There was a discussion of some of the central challenges to their own place-based work, with members laying out the approaches, tools, and new opportunities for partnership they were excited to bring back to their own communities. 

Like the chefs in et al.’s culinary collective, our time in Tulsa was distinguished by the patchwork of seemingly disparate, often undersung voices we heard from joining together to create a beautiful and undeniable chorus of solutions. While partners on the ground maintain different focuses in the work that they do and the neighborhoods they serve, everything in Tulsa has a certain harmony to it; the work comes together to hum like a well-oiled machine. As we packed up to leave on Friday, we couldn’t help but think about how this model of community impact — where every voice, program, and initiative happening on the ground is truly greater than the sum of its parts — has the potential to transform not only communities, but the world.

We’re so excited to have plans for more in-person, immersive experiences in the works for the near future. This incredible experience was part of our Place-Based Impact Collaborative. Our Collaborative model is based on the idea that the challenges we face call for collaboration and shared action to achieve the impact we seek on a variety of issue areas. Together, with cross-sector leaders, we illuminate challenges and opportunities in the space and align on action to advance each other’s work, and the field as a whole.

We encourage you to read more about our different Collaboratives and to contact us to get involved if you see one that resonates with you and your work. 

NationSwell Collaboratives are a new initiative convening cross-sector leaders to work in new ways on major issues affecting our lives, our nation, and our world. Learn more about our current offerings here.

Thinking Beyond Prime Working Age

Posted on Justin Ladner

Key Takeaways

  • Labor market policies and employment practices have historically been designed with prime-age workers (i.e., those age 25-54) in mind, yet the economic importance of older workers is growing rapidly.
  • Workers age 55-plus accounted for 22.5 percent of full-time employment in 2022, up from just 10.7 percent in 1992.
  • In 2022, 25.4 percent of labor income was earned by workers age 55 or older, up from just 12.9 percent in 1992.
  • The productivity of America’s workforce depends on developing labor policies and employment practices that meet the needs of every generation.

For decades, labor market policies and employment practices have emphasized the “prime working age” population, which includes people age 25-54. This focus stems from the sheer size of the group and its reliably high labor force participation. In contrast, workers age 55 and older have historically been a much smaller population with lower labor force participation; consequently, their role in the labor force has received comparatively little attention or care. However, unprecedented changes in the workforce have greatly amplified the importance of older workers and underscored a fundamental truth: The future success of America’s workforce depends on developing labor policies and employment practices that meet the needs of every generation.

Workers age 25-54 receive so much attention from policymakers and labor market analysts because they have historically represented a large majority of America’s full-time workforce and accounted for a correspondingly large share of critical economic contributions such as labor income, consumer spending, and tax revenue. Conversely, relatively few full-time workers were age 55 or older just three decades ago. Since then, the U.S. population has aged significantly, and people are increasingly choosing to work later in life. As a result, 22.5 percent of full-time workers were age 55-plus in 2022, up from just 10.7 percent in 1992. This dramatic increase was mostly due to the growing role of workers age 60-plus, a group whose representation in the full-time workforce rose from five percent in 1992 to 12.5 percent in 2022.

As their role in the workforce grows, older workers earn a correspondingly higher share of labor income. The figure below illustrates this by comparing shares of labor income for age groups in 1992 and 2022.1 In 1992, workers under age 55 earned 87.1 percent of labor income, with workers age 55-plus earning the remaining 12.9 percent. By 2022, the share of labor income earned by those age 55-plus had skyrocketed to 25.4 percent, largely because the share earned by workers age 60-plus more than doubled (from 6.2 percent to 14.7 percent). This shift has had far-reaching implications, including a greater reliance on older workers for economic contributions such as consumer spending and tax revenue.

Awareness about the growing role of older workers is rising quickly. For example, a pandemic-driven decline in labor supply among people age 65-plus has contributed to significant and persistent labor shortages in many parts of the workforce. Preventing outcomes like this in the future will require labor policies and employment practices that meet the needs of all workers, regardless of age. Recent work from AARP, including the Living, Learning, and Earning Longer initiative, a report examining the business case for healthy longevity, and extensive research on the Longevity Economy®, highlights this fact and identifies innovations that can build a more age-diverse workforce. Efforts of this kind empower workers of every generation, yielding widespread economic gains for businesses, employees, and society at large.

  1. The income data used in Figure 2 come from the 1993 and 2023 waves of the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), which is administered as part of the March Current Population Survey (CPS). In these data, reported labor income reflects total wage and salary income earned during the prior calendar year. ↩︎

ESG Next: An Interview With Y Analytics’ Maryanne Hancock

Posted on by Anthony Smith

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Maryanne Hancock, CEO of Y Analytics, about the importance of centering rigor in impact investing, ESG’s “Fearless Girl” moment, and the surprising lessons that impact leaders can learn from an economist and a can of beans.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Can you tell us how your professional and personal journey led you to this work?

Maryanne Hancock, CEO of Y Analytics: If I ever get asked to share a fun fact about myself, it’s that my parents were clergy before they met, married, and had me.  My father was a priest, and my mother was a nun, and they were both quite active in the social justice movement at large. My father founded programs for kids addicted to drugs during the late sixties and early seventies, a time when such programs were nonexistent. He met people at often vulnerable points in their lives, helping them build new lives. To this day, there are people alive due to the work he did.

My mother, as a nun, took to teaching in historically marginalized communities. This overall milieu of social work wasn’t just a job for them, but a way of life. Because of them, I’ve always believed you really need to stand in awe of the burdens that people carry, as opposed to in judgment. It’s a philosophy that encourages one to honor, assist, and appreciate people facing adversities, and the complexities of the adversities they face.

Originally, I aspired to become a human rights lawyer, pursuing an education in law, especially humanitarian and human rights law. But a detour through McKinsey shifted my journey. While I was there, I maintained a client roster from the private sector, and I engaged with industries I found fascinating, even if they weren’t glamorous — like waste management, logistics, and energy sectors. At the same time, I delved into social sector projects. Interestingly, the attendees at my logistics or waste management meetings hardly ever overlapped with those at my education or poverty alleviation discussions, which gave me the sense that these were inherently distinct swim lanes. But now at Y Analytics, whether it’s a company engaged in the circular economy and waste, or a fin-tech firm operating in Africa, I get to have all these different interests under a singular umbrella as part of my daily routine.

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you make sense of this moment in ESG? What’s the potential and the promise, and where are the pitfalls?

Hancock, Y Analytics: The image that comes to my mind for the moment we are in societally is the Fearless Girl statue — where you’ve got the bull and the little girl standing there, staring him down. The conventional interpretation of the scene is that the charging bull represents unfettered capitalism, or the “old boys club” of Wall Street, and the Fearless Girl symbolizes the pursuit of gender equality – a counterweight to the imposing minotaur with smoke coming out of its nostrils. 

But I think it symbolizes something bigger. To me, the bull represents this vast set of societal issues we grapple with every day – geopolitical unrest, war, climate change, a pandemic…some so big and so powerful that they feel unstoppable or immovable. 

And then, there’s this Fearless Girl, which symbolizes how we feel amidst all these challenges. But here’s the thing I’m left thinking about: while we can’t ignore the enormity of the challenges symbolized by the bull, what I’d love for everyone to do is to look around and realize that there are thousands of Fearless Girls facing them. The pitfall is to believe you are isolated , as if you’re the only Fearless Girl out there, yet what I see every day are thousands and thousands of people embodying that spirit. This includes teachers, nurses, doctors, firefighters, community members, and also Fearless Girl’s physical home in New York’s financial district underscores the role that entrepreneurs, and the millions of people who go to work every day in businesses, play in meeting the moment.

What’s been inspiring to me is witnessing real actions and conversations happening within businesses — conversations that were unimaginable just five years ago. While the collective efforts may not seem enough to combat the metaphorical bull, recognizing and affirming the existence of these millions of Fearless Girls is crucial. We’ll be a better force for good when we acknowledge how strong this collective truly is.

It’s undeniable that social impact and sustainability practitioners are facing headwinds right now, but there are tailwinds, too. And together, these winds are steering us to a zone of quieter, yet more authentic action. The tailwinds are strong, and interestingly, they align well with good business practices. For instance, utilizing lower-cost energy sources that are renewable is smart business. So is offering products that benefit rather than harm people, and implementing employee policies that create a desirable workplace amidst a talent-driven landscape. These factors reinforce the strength of the tailwinds.

On the flip side, the reality of legal repercussions, varying state approaches, the politicization of these issues, and the potential backlash for greenwashing, might lead to a toned-down announcement of new initiatives and commitments. And this quieter approach isn’t necessarily negative. In my view, it’s probably beneficial. The quieter stance doesn’t undermine the solid tailwinds and the consequential actions they encourage.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s unique about the work you’re leading?

Hancock, Y Analytics: When the Rise Fund began in 2016, it aimed to accomplish a few objectives. One was to usher scaled capital into the impact space, as there were endeavors to fund social entrepreneurs onto a path of growth, yet they were lacking a significant pool of capital to propel them from early growth to a further stage. That was part of the concept. At that point, the largest impact fund stood at about $500 million while the average was about $200 million, but the Rise Fund came in at $2.1 billion, aiming to attract institutional capital. To ensure this, they committed from the get-go to treat the impact aspect as rigorously as the financial aspect. So they envisioned what later became Y Analytics, an organization meant to bolster capital into impact companies by increasing the confidence in their impact. That was the fundamental premise behind our creation. 

And as they came together, it was actually a call from Jerome Vascellaro, a longtime leader at McKinsey who was then the COO at TPG, and someone well known to my mentors, that led to my involvement. That first call was followed by an engrossing weekend brainstorming at the whiteboard about what this endeavor could evolve into. The prospect of being serious and rigorous about impact, coupled with people who could take action immediately, was just so intriguing to me personally. That’s what made me make the leap.

Here’s what I love the most about what we get to do: we get to turn to the vast amount of research that’s out there about what works to help some of these social and environmental ills, and channel that into our investment decisions and actually make a difference. It’s been so fascinating to observe the evolution of evidence-based approaches in different fields, from evidence-based medicine in the 1980s to evidence-based policymaking in the 1990s and early 2000s. Our big innovation, which I just loved so much, is that we started to do evidence-based impact investing at scale. This methodology allows us to tap into the profound knowledge of individuals who are dedicated experts in specific areas of their fields, from soil’s carbon capture potential to the impacts of digital banking on small to medium enterprises in emerging markets. It’d be almost problematic to leave that expertise on the table.

But it’s also about the unique capabilities of our team. Our roster has included nuclear physicists, economists, and others with diverse expertise; we can bridge the chasm between academic insights and investment professionals, translating intricate research into investment strategies. This human capability, which is unique to have nested within a private equity firm context, can help translate academic discourse and parse through the jargon for insights to inform actionable investment decisions. This multidisciplinary approach isn’t just cool, it’s immensely invaluable in driving forward our mission.

Behrman, NationSwell: To which leadership practices do you contribute your efficacy?

Hancock, Y Analytics: It all boils down to striving for authentic action. I think that’s the key. And by the way, we might not hit that mark every day, but that’s certainly our goal. 

There’s only one joke that I’ve ever been able to remember: You’ve got three folks on a deserted island, and there’s a chemist, an engineer, and an economist, and they have one can of beans and they’re trying to figure out how they’re going to open this can of beans. So the chemist says, well, if we heat it to a certain boiling point, it’s going to explode and we can get it open. And the engineer says, if we hit it against this rock just the right way, it’s going to pop open. And the economist says, assume we have a can opener. 

When I used to think about that, I would laugh and say, oh, that’s so silly. We all know someone who made a comment like that, but then as I delved into this work, I actually started to reflect on that. What if we all thought about what would happen if we had the can opener, that we had the tool we actually needed? We’d see the value of getting the can open quickly and safely, of conserving more beans because they didn’t explode, and seeing that value would actually inspire us to build the can opener, to create the tools we need. Even if it’s not perfect, or it’s just a prototype. It’s really helpful to have a working hypothesis.

Behrman, NationSwell: Who or what informs and inspires your leadership?

Hancock, Y Analytics: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s work with All We Can Save is astoundingly well-conceived, an incredible set of resources for folks, and I admire the heck out of the entire approach from there. And I know he’s a fellow ESG Next honoree, but George Serafeim’s work with impact-weighted accounts is ground-breaking. It’s one of the closest analogs to what we do at Y Analytics.

Sara Menker of Grow Intelligence is a phenomenal CEO, coming from the commodities trading world, originally from Ethiopia. She has created a data company that really has a finger on the pulse of agriculture, physical climate risks and trends around the world. For example, her data immediately identified the drivers behind the current food crisis. She could see that fertilizer prices were spiking. She could see that crops in parts of Asia were failing because it was too wet. 

And lastly, I admire my colleagues at TPG Rise who are investing for impact with so much integrity and success. 

My favorite book would be “Tattoos on the Heart” by Father Greg Boyle.  From a podcast perspective, Hank Paulson’s “Straight Talk”  is excellent. He hosts some fantastic guests and covers really diverse topics. And then, for the psychology of doing the hard work of good work, I love listening to the storytelling of Dr. Bertice Berry. She’s an author, she’s a speaker, she’s done academic work as well in psychology, and she also does daily digital storytelling.

To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. To learn more about NationSwell’s community of our country’s leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.

ESG Next: An Interview With Steelcase’s Kim Dabbs

Posted on by Anthony Smith

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Kim Dabbs, Global Vice President of ESG and Social Innovation at Steelcase and author of the upcoming book, You Belong Here on the importance of building a global learning community, the power of inclusive design, and the importance of centering the wellbeing of your teams and of other leaders.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Can you tell us about your professional and personal journey to this field?

Kim Dabbs, Global Vice President of ESG and Social Innovation, Steelcase: Belonging has been my North Star in the work that I do, both in the nonprofit sector and the corporate sector. I believe that everyone has a role to play in this, and part of my journey has been trying to figure out what each individual’s role is, and how to build safe spaces where everyone can be seen, heard and valued in the world.

That’s a journey that began in high school. I remember that early on, during the late ’80s and early ’90s, the AIDS crisis was devastating entire communities. I started volunteering with the AIDS Resource Center when I was a teenager, and through that, I discovered the power of collective action in effecting change.

When I was really young, I took a trip with the AIDS Resource Center to see the NAMES Project in Washington, DC. It was the last time the AIDS quilt was displayed in its entirety; it spanned the entire mall, showcasing art being used for activism and the power of collective impact. When people are confronted with issues in ways that they cannot look away from, that’s when real change happens. That experience truly kickstarted my journey.

Following that, I worked extensively in the nonprofit sector, focusing on arts, culture, and creativity, and the significant roles they play in the world. This path led me through endeavors into equity in education, and now into the work I do at Steelcase.

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you make sense of this moment in ESG? What is the potential and the promise, and where are the pitfalls?

Dabbs, Steelcase: We’re seeing before us the promise of collective action. Right now, I genuinely feel that a movement has been built. Everyone wants to make a difference, and how that difference is manifested varies from person to person, depending on the distinct capabilities or resources they bring to the table. But the task at hand is to align everyone towards the same direction. If we can build a global learning community centered around progress, that’s when real action can ensue. We have to approach this through a lens of abundance, not scarcity; through endless possibility, not fear. 

Yet, we all face resistance at some point in this journey. I see criticism as a good thing. I believe it always propels progress forward, and if you have criticism, it usually means you have a diverse range of people and perspectives at the table. But criticism can get unproductive when it comes at the expense of supporting one another. If we can center that support in our collective success when we make our criticism, I believe we can make a substantial difference in our lifetime. 

That’s easier said than done, and it’s important to remember that this is ongoing work. No matter the difference you and I make in our lifetime, there will always be another generation with their own set of challenges, and a generational workload ahead. Keeping this perspective in mind is crucial too.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s unique about the work you’re leading at Steelcase?

Dabbs, Steelcase: We know that leaders at large organizations grapple with the questions of how to get better at actually sharing insights so what happens in Hong Kong can inform what’s happening in New York, which can in turn inform what’s happening in Mexico. The work that we’re doing here at Steelcase is about building a global learning community, about building the infrastructure for these conversations to happen. We focus on finding ways we can invite more people to the table, and finding more ways we can share insights, thought leadership, and best practices. The lab is really that community where we come together and say, “we’re going to learn from each other and with each other.”

That’s why we launched our Better Futures Community. Both our internal and external partners, as well as our clients and community partners, are involved because no single organization, industry, or sector has all the answers. The more we can come together and understand, the better. 

We do this through our Better Futures Lab, which is really about radically open innovation. We do this through the Better Futures Fund, which supports promising, new ideas in the areas of equity, education, and the environment, hoping to bring them to a point where we can design proof of concept together and then share it and embed it back into people’s value streams. And finally, we have the Better Futures Fellowship, which is an accelerator and incubator for bold new ideas around equity, education, and the environment. The last fellowship we had was around well-being and education, and the one before that focused on equity and education. We cover different topics every year.

A little bit of everyone’s involved in Better Futures at Steelcase: from our clients to nonprofit partners to architecture and design firms. A good example of this is our Better Futures work with G3ict. Together, we worked on understanding what inclusive design means for the world of work. We conducted a study with them last year to really build the blueprint for the inclusive workplaces of the future.

Because of that research, Better Futures helped support our own inclusive design practice here at Steelcase. As a result, we’re joining coalitions like the Valuable 500 to make inclusive design core to our strategy at Steelcase, and core to how we help create workplaces in the world. It’s really about understanding where that shared value lies, and where we have a chance to actually make a difference, impacting not just the lives of our employees, but the lives of all our clients as well when we bring these concepts into action.

We’re in it for the long haul. People talk about long-term value. For us, it’s always about understanding that change won’t be instant. This is long-term iteration, partnering side-by-side to say, “hey, let’s try to move the needle. Some things are going to work, some things aren’t, but we’re really committed to it.” And if we learn things along the way, we have to share it with others to shorten their innovation time concerning what works and what doesn’t. So, we’re constantly publishing, sharing, and using public forums to help people see and understand. 

With the launch of the lab, part of it is understanding that nonprofit organizations are often focused on the local level, which they should be, but they’re not often plugged into that global community. So, we’re trying to figure out how we use our global scale to help them see different perspectives, get to know each other, and understand new approaches.

Behrman, NationSwell: What would be valuable for other leaders in the field to know about what you and your team have learned?

Dabbs, Steelcase: Last year, our community was dealing with the trauma of the police-involved shooting death of Patrick Lyoya. In that moment, the first thing that we did was reach out to our community partners and give wellbeing dollars to the leaders of the organizations that were on the ground doing community response work, because we knew that there was nothing more essential than supporting people on the frontlines. I remember telling them, “You decide how you spend that wellbeing money, just do something to take care of you. Whatever it takes; you get to decide. But just know that we’re here to support you in your journey as a leader and that your wellbeing matters just as much as the people that you’re serving.”

The people on your teams are the people who are in this work, professionally and personally. We’ve learned that wellbeing is critical. How leaders take care of their teams, how leaders take care of other leaders — all of that matters. 

At our team, we start every team meeting with our team norms. And just the repetition of those norms on a weekly basis keeps everyone focused on the same things, helps everyone understand why we’re doing this work. Little rituals like that that are not to be underestimated in this really deep, heavy, forever work.

Behrman, NationSwell: To which of your leadership practices do you attribute your efficacy?

Dabbs, Steelcase: If you’re going to be a leader in this space and be successful in your leadership, you have to be radical and revolutionary. You have to act with bravery. You are delivering hard news to systems that don’t want to change. So in order to do this work, you need to have the resilience to be able to do that. 

We have to challenge the way things are. And if you’re willing to interrogate systems, if you’re willing to act with bravery, if you’re willing to speak truth to power, those are the things that are going to change the world. And those are things that I try to do every single day.

If a table isn’t set for equity and justice, I’m not going to pull up a chair to that table. I’ll build my own. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are the fellow leaders who inspire your leadership?

Dabbs, Steelcase: I think everyone’s doing tough work, right? The majority of people that I find incredibly inspiring are the people on the ground doing the work. I used to be a single parent, going to college, working two jobs, living on the streets. I’ve experienced homelessness. And to me, the people that I look at, it’s really, truly the people that I serve. 

When I look at the adversity that people have to overcome with systems that are difficult, those are the people we should really hold up as leaders. So there are people and organizations that obviously are making a difference, whether that be Acumen, Ashoka or others, that are building these powerful, beautiful networks to make impact happen. But at the end of the day, the people that continuously inspire me are the people that have the most to lose.