Category: What’s Possible

Hope in Action at NationSwell Summit 2024

Posted on by NationSwell Team

On November 20 and 21, NationSwell convened changemakers, innovators, and thought leaders in New York City for our Summit 2024. This year’s theme was Hope in Action — a nod to both the radical optimism this moment requires and the intentionality needed to create a more equitable and prosperous world.

Throughout the event, we heard from some of the nation’s leading social impact, sustainability, and philanthropic leaders on the innovative solutions and game-changing partnerships they’re pioneering. Below are a few of the moments that left us feeling hopeful and inspired to be standing shoulder to shoulder with this community of changemakers for all the work still to come:

Fireside Chat with Julián Castro

“We have an opportunity in this moment to model what we want the world to look like and to do that as leaders in our own organizations; to recommit ourselves to that vision and to breathe more energy into the values that we want to prevail.” – Julián Castro, CEO of the Latino Community Foundation and former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Impact Spotlight by Maria Kim

“What I’ve learned through my work and my life over the years is that lived experience is not what you’ve done or what’s been done with you; it’s sometimes this catalyst that makes you most beautifully, gloriously, affirmatively who you are.  So in a way, my lived experience is more aptly described as my lived expertise.” – Maria Kim, President and CEO, REDF

“I know we can do this if we put our back into it. And if we do it, we end up shifting from a generational transfer of poverty to a generational transfer of joy.” – Maria Kim, President and CEO, REDF

NationSwell founder and CEO Greg Behrman

Impact Spotlight by Scott Pulsipher

“To me, Hope in Action is about changing one life for the better and doing that hundreds of thousands of times, if not millions of times.  And it’s incredible to actually imagine a different world in which we rethink education, we imagine how it can actually operate. Not just for the good of the few, but for the good of the many.” – Scott Pulsipher, President, Western Governors University

“The U.S. higher education system is, in fact, failing those that it was designed to serve.”  – Scott Pulsipher, President, Western Governors University

NationSwell’s Books of the Year panel, moderated by Alesha Washington and featuring Nicholas Kristof and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

NationSwell’s Books of the Year

“Hope is a muscle.” – Nicholas Kristof, Journalist, The New York Times

“Find the way to connect the dots to your work. I offer a simple diagram: what are you good at, what needs doing, and what brings you joy? The joy part is what keeps you going and will welcome other people into the work. Pick one and roll up your sleeves and see how far we can get.” – Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Co-founder, Urban Ocean Lab

Impact Spotlight by Vilas Dhar

“Leadership in this moment is no longer about just individual courage; it’s no longer about many conversations that happen across society, but a world where we make decisions together.” – Vilas Dhar, President, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation

“We can be architects, we can build blueprints for tools and technologies in the future that incorporate our morals, our values, our norms, our beliefs, and the voices of the people around us.” – Vilas Dhar, President, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation

Impact Spotlight by Aly Richards

“[Affordable and accessible childcare] is a market failure – it is a broken business model. Early educators can’t afford to make less, parents can’t afford to pay more. The sooner we can understand that we need help from local, state, and federal, the sooner we can fix it.” – Aly Richards, CEO, Let’s Grow Kids

The Stonewall Chorale Chamber Choir

The Case for Care: The Business Imperative of Investing in Care

“In many ways, motherhood is the unfinished business of gender equality.” – Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO, Moms First; Founder, Girls Who Code

“You can make a very strong business case for [child care], to do the right thing to help your people.” – Stephan Dolling, AVP, Global Benefits and Well-Being, Merck

“Let’s talk about the challenges more. Talk to me, or talk to your employers, about the caregiving challenges that we’re all experiencing.” – Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, Founder and CEO of Wellthy

Creative Forces for Social Change: The Power of Art in Action

“There’s a war on the storytelling of our authentic selves and truth and history.” – Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tony- and Grammy Award-Winning Actress and Singer

“I put all my hope in art. For one, art never cared who was in power.”  – Rahsaan Thomas, Documentary Filmmaker, Podcaster, and Producer

“There’s a lot of misunderstandings going on in our country right now, so we need art more than ever to translate the truth.” – Rahsaan Thomas, Documentary Filmmaker, Podcaster, and Producer

“I think my greatest resource as an artist is my most authentic self.” –  Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tony- and Grammy Award-Winning Actress and Singer

Impact Spotlight by Dr. Carmen Rojas and Tara Raghuveer

“Our country faces an unprecedented housing crisis. Not only are more than 3 million people homeless, housing insecure, or living in shelters, but rents have gone up more than 30% since 2020. This is in a context in which we have 16 million vacant homes in the United States. So this means that we have made a choice not to house our brothers and sisters, our cousins, people that we might fall in love with, slow dance with, sing karaoke with – it’s a decision that our political leaders have made.” – Dr. Carmen Rojas, President and CEO, Marguerite Casey Foundation 

“The rent is the biggest bill in most working people’s budgets. When people need to cut back on living expenses, making cuts to housing is not an option – the alternative is homelessness. The rent is too damn high.” – Tara Raghuveer, Founding Director of Kansas City Tenants

“Derek is one of the tenants who will strike another month. He said, ‘My rent is my power. And I will use my power with my neighbors until we win what we’re owed.’” – Tara Raghuveer, Founding Director of Kansas City Tenants

Impact Spotlight by Jay Bailey

“You want to talk about innovation? Show me someone more innovative than a single mother with two kids making $17,000 a year. She problem-solves, she makes sure there are gifts under the Christmas tree – send her to business school and she’ll run circles around everybody.” – Jay Bailey, President and CEO, Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs (RICE)

“Hope in action is black prosperity through ownership.” – Jay Bailey, President and CEO, Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs (RICE)

The Augment and Involve panel, featuring Molly Kinder, Nicole Johnson, and Carri Twigg

Augment and Involve: Empowering Workers in an AI-driven World

“We look at the AI development and economy that’s happening as an opportunity space. How can we ensure – unlike the internet – that there’s intentionality to the workforce that’s behind this technology?” – Nicole Johnson, Global Director of Social Impact & Inclusion, Cadence Design Systems

“Tech is all of us – each of us has the ability to engage and change for the tech future we want.” – Michele Jawando, Senior Vice President, Omidyar Network

“The human spirit is indomitable, and art is a fundamental part of that. We will figure out how to fulfill the promise of increasing representation, increasing stories using AI, and we will see more people fight for the art that gives their lives texture.” – Carri Twigg, Founding Partner, Culture House Media

“What gives me hope is that when workers are at the heart of our design of this technology and the decisions around deployment, this is not only good for society and workers, but there’s a lot of evidence that it’s good for employers, too. Workers are assets. They’re experts. They often know their space the best. AI is not something that’s top-down.” – Molly Kinder, David M. Rubenstein Fellow, The Brookings Institution

“Just as we celebrate innovation and we’re awed by it, it creates opportunities for creation and destruction. We need innovation in our policies, badly – we’re at an intersection of technology where it impacts workers, and there’s a role for the government in all of this.” – Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative

Impact Spotlight by Dreama Gentry

“The hope I’m holding – the hope that I’d ask you to join me in – is hope that this great nation can be a place where all of our children and young people are supported and have a choice-filled life.” – Dreama Gentry, President and CEO, Partners for Rural Impact

“We know what will create upward mobility from cradle to career – we just need to invest in that, and we can’t do this work alone.” – Dreama Gentry, President and CEO, Partners for Rural Impact

“When your friend is in a crisis, showing up doesn’t mean coming up with a ten-point plan to solve all problems. The truth is, people derive tremendous comfort from knowing that they’re not alone.” – Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy

Impact Next: An interview with Kyndryl’s Pam Hacker

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 Pam Hacker, Vice President of Social Impact at Kyndryl.

AiLun Ku, Senior Strategic Advisor, NationSwell: What brought you to this field? Was there a moment in your life that galvanized your commitment to driving bold action on social and economic progress?

Pam Hacker, Vice President of Social Impact at Kyndryl: I think I was born to do good in the world. I remember volunteering at the local hospital as a kid, and teaching theater to kids with special needs — I always had this passion for giving back. 

I was lucky enough to land in the PR department at Sesame Street’s nonprofit, Sesame Workshop, and I knew right away that I had found my people (and my Muppets). Slowly but surely, I found myself leading our outreach efforts — everything from creating resources for how to talk to kids about an incarcerated parent to eating healthy on a budget. Throughout it all, the essence of the work was about giving back to under-resourced communities. 

From there I was able to make a very organic transition to HBO, where I used my skills as a communicator and a storyteller to help build out their social impact work. I loved that era, and I loved creating resources and PSAs to help communities — everything from how to get access and talk about the vaccine, to Black Lives Matter, to Stop Asian Hate, and more.

Just as I was starting to ask myself what was next, a recruiter found me on LinkedIn and told me about Kyndryl. Over a year in, it has been the most incredible experience for me. I’m learning more about the space and how we can use tech for good, and how we can better allow our 80,000 employees to take time off to volunteer in the communities where we live and operate. 

Ku, NationSwell: How are you making sense of the current trends we’re seeing in social impact? What are you concerned about, what are you optimistic about, and what should we be paying more attention to?

Hacker, Kyndryl: Honestly, I’m a huge optimist — I always see hope in any scenario, in any community, in any issue we’re tackling, in any theme. If there’s one thing that still ails me, it’s the fact that diversity, equity, and inclusion is still something that we have to even have these conversations around, that there is still so much work to be done in terms of ensuring that all people have a seat at the table.

Ku, NationSwell: Looking back at the scope of your career, how have your thinking, your strategies, leadership style, or philosophies evolved? What are some attributes or approaches that make you an effective leader in this space?

Hacker, Kyndryl: I’m continuing to grow as a leader. At Kyndryl, being a global organization, this is the biggest team that I’ve led. But even when I’ve had small teams, I am a people centric leader.The work is as important, I should say, but I go back to the people. I care deeply about the next generation of humans and I care deeply about people having the opportunity to grow at a company and stay on their journey. Nothing makes me happier than mentoring people inside and outside of my team. I lead with my heart. 

Ku, NationSwell: Is there any particular initiative at Kyndryl you want to highlight that really kind of brings into focus your unique brand of leadership and what’s coming ahead in the work that you’re doing?

Hacker, Kyndryl: The beauty of a global company is that there’s so much happening on the ground that sometimes it’s hard to keep up. We are just in our first year of foundation grants, and we’ve given 11 of those grants out in seven different countries. We’re about to meet with our board and talk about the next round, so to be part of building something because the company is so young, that is something I’m grateful to be able to do.

I really see and feel the pride in working at Kyndryl: Employees wear our colors, they wear the logo — there’s a sense of pride, and it’s so exciting to have the platform to show that pride and to help build it. We’re building the culture, we’re transforming as we’re here, and you truly see them care about the people. 

Ku, NationSwell: It’s clear that you bring a very values-centered approach to leadership. How do some of those values show up — what’s the North Star of your leadership?

Hacker, Kyndryl:  Honestly, it’s people. When you have great people on your team, you end up doing great work together, and I got really lucky with the team I’ve gotten to work with. Kyndryl attracts really great people in general — smart, high performers, creative, strategic individuals. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder in my life, and yet I simultaneously feel myself stretching and learning and growing almost every day because the work is so inspiring.

Ku, NationSwell: What does winning in social impact look like to you?

Hacker, Kyndryl: I think the more lives we could impact and change, that’s winning, right? And there’s small wins, right? For every student that walks into our office who’s never been in an office before, that’s a win for me. For being able to train almost 50,000 women in India around cybersecurity, that’s a win. And on a larger scale, being so young as a company, there’s so much opportunity to grow, to impact more. 

As the brand grows, we’re part of that brand growth. Social impact is embedded into the DNA of the company. It’s not something that is an afterthought. It’s really built from the ground up.

Ku, NationSwell: Could you recommend any insightful resources – maybe a book, report, podcast, or article that has significantly influenced your thinking?

Hacker, Kyndryl:  My relationships in the impact space are my best resources. Whether it’s other colleagues, friends, a mentor — impact leaders want each other to succeed. My peers in this space are my go-to, and it’s so comforting to know that I have experts or advisors that I could call about any issue throughout the years, no matter where I’ve been in my career.

Ku, NationSwell: Do you have any words of wisdom to share with those working in the social impact space?

Hacker, Kyndryl: For newcomers to the work, I say often that if you are at a company that you’re happy at, start a social impact team there. One of my old bosses at Sesame Street always used to say, “change is good,” and that’s been true for me — it was good for me to leave Sesame and go to HBO, and it was even better for me to leave HBO and come to Kyndryl. So I’d say the same to a more seasoned professional, or anyone experiencing a moment of uncertainty, that I would to anyone just starting out: Change is good.

Expert Insights and Resources for Caregivers in Honor of National Caregivers Day

Posted on by robbie

balanced with our roles as intergenerational caregivers. Both these roles have become incredibly strained in the challenges of COVID and racial injustice. 
Caregiving is a complex web that brings together cultural beliefs about our roles at home, our views of our responsibility in families and our own balance and boundaries on how we can stay whole while managing work and life.
We also know that family caregiving is often silent, viewed as just part of what we do as family, with many of us not even identifying as “caregivers”.
That said, the data show us that many women, especially women of color, and millennials are now filling a gap in the care system while also struggling to stay at work. Without care at home, and services to help navigate the complexities of care, it would be impossible for work and life to come into balance.
As we work toward reimagining a future of work, while also reimagining our healthcare system, we know we can more equitably support caregivers and their families, and enable them to thrive.  But first, we need to acknowledge what we are seeing, what can be improved, and how we can get to resources quickly. 
In honor of National Caregivers Day, together with our NationSwell network, we have assembled valuable insights, quotes and matching resources to help dissect the many challenges and facets of caregiving
Insight #1: Better awareness is needed in the workplace so that we can all understand caregiving as a universal experience that we will likely all face as we get older.
“Caregiving– once one of the most personal and private matters in family life – is a growing public issue. The costs of caregiving impact individual workers, employers and society as a whole,” Jean C. Accius, Senior Vice President AARP Global Thought Leadership, said. “When it becomes stressful to juggle caregiving activities with work and other family responsibilities, or if work requirements come into conflict with caregiving tasks, some employed caregivers make changes in their work life, including leaving the labor force altogether, resulting in loss income at the individual level, loss productivity that impact the bottom line for employers and we all suffer due to the loss of opportunities for economic growth. As the nation faces unprecedented economic challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is a critical time to consider support for working family caregivers as part of a larger strategy for economic recovery and growth.” 
Resources:

Insight #2: Whether you are a new caregiver or supporting a loved one through a later stage challenge, trusted tools can help caregivers navigate the system to get the support that they need.
“There are so many resources for different groups, people just don’t know where to access them or need a ‘coach’ to find the right resources,” Jenn Wolff, a community organizer, said. “That’s why I’m currently working on a new virtual space to share resources for people with disabilities and would like to have several others trained to be Community Health Workers so folks can talk with someone they relate to” 
Resources: 
Caregiver Action Network
AARP Caregiving Resource Center
Caring Across Generations
Cake
Daughters in the Workplace
Insight #3: Caregivers need to remember the importance of caring for themselves in addition to their loved ones, and they should recruit help in their ongoing effort.
“Self-care is not something to put off or see as a luxury, it is an essential part of survival.” Elissa Yancey, author and co-founder of A Picture’s Worth, said. “Believing, truly believing, that you are worth taking care of is, in itself, a revelation for many caregivers. Especially those of us who define ourselves, consciously or not, by our value to others. Without a grounding in self-worth, your caregiver duties can become an excuse for self-pity and resentment, neither of which are deserving of your precious time.”
Resources: 
Atul Gawande article Letting Go
Grab Happy: The Serendipitous and Surprising Sides of Caregiving
Insight #4: Caregiving and balancing work requires a support system for the family caregiver and the person in need. Employer benefits are key; but home health agencies and community-based organizations who bring care home are often missed as part of our system. We need them when caring for our loved ones. 
“Getting out of homes right now is tough for any of us, but it’s even harder for the folks that we care for,” Paurvi Bhatt, President of Medtronic Foundation and NationSwell Council member, said.
Resource: 
Home Instead 
Wellthy
Insight #5: Embrace hospice care.
“End of life is a part of life that we don’t talk enough about.. and it’s easy to forget about hospice care as a critical part of our healthcare system,” Adam Dole, Managing Director of Not Impossible Labs, said. “When my father-in-law recently passed away, I had a really positive experience with hospice — it was a night and day difference for me, in terms of what the end-of-life experience can mean when it’s done right, proactively with dignity and thoughtfulness, versus left to chance.” 
Resources: 
Hospice Foundation of America
Find Hospice Care Options Near Me
What Are Palliative Care and Hospice Care?
Insight #6: We need to have end-of-life conversations with our loved ones (and for ourselves) when they are theoretical, rather than pressing. 
“Planning ahead helps caregivers so much,” Dr. Lori Choi, a vascular surgeon and founder of I’ll Have What She’s Having it, said. “It relieves so much of the guilt and pressure, and lets us respect our loved ones’ wishes.”
Resource:
Starting the Conversation
Insight #7: Many people do not even know that they are caregivers. How do we define “caregiver” today, and how do we change the image of caregivers to be a more accurate representation?
“I do believe people need to know this work is so noble, so compassionate – perhaps the most important role we’ll ever have,” Zach Weismann, founder of MAG Impact Collective, said. 
Resources: 
End Well
Millennials: The Emerging Generation of Family Caregivers
Recalibrating for Caregivers: Recognizing the Public Health Challenge
Caregiving Doesn’t Care, But You Can

Paurvi Bhatt is President of Medtronic Foundation. Zach Weisman is co-founder and CEO of MAG Impact Collective. This article was written in cooperation with members of the NationSwell Council.

NationSwell Celebrates 5 Years of Nicole Navratil

Posted on by Anthony Smith

Thursday marks the five year work anniversary of Nicole Navratil, NationSwell’s Chief Operating Officer. Today, we celebrate her indelible, transformative impact on every aspect of the work we do here.

I asked my fellow members of the NationSwell team to share some of their favorite memories of Nicole, and what she means to NationSwell. This is what we had to say.
Greg Behrman, NationSwell CEO + Founder:  My favorite collective memory is something that I have seen time and time again over the past years from Nicole. It’s how — so often when no one is looking — she is thinking about how to help our team, or one of our team members. She cares so much about our culture, our mission and team members as human beings — and is constantly thinking about how to help us to flourish. She’s been the wind in our sails in so many ways – big and small.
Nicole has been a rock of guidance, care, and steadiness for NationSwell, and for me personally, for the past 5 years. She has been an incredible advisor, partner, friend — and companion on this great adventure!
Amy Lee, Managing Director, NationSwell Studio: My most fun memory of Nicole has to be her incredible array of textured and patterned sweaters and pants. She is the only person I know who is more of a magpie than me when it comes to clothes, and her leopard print velvet slacks are one of my all time sartorial highlights. If Nicole ever turns up to work in a quintessential New Yorker all black outfit I would fall over in shock.
Nicole is the backbone and the heart of NationSwell — basically we wouldn’t be standing up and living without her! She is the funkiest math nerd I ever met, with a capacity for both business rigor and human sensitivity that I have never seen in one human before.
Kate Dinota, Senior Director of Community + Impact: Nicole is our calm, confident, colorful leader. My favorite memory of her is when I met Marty for the first time at the Impact Hub, I learned that his first nap started at 8am and I’m pretty sure my jaw fell on the floor. Years later when I became a mom, Nicole and I definitely shared some laughs over our blissfully ignorant, well-rested, pre-children selves.
Jessica Lacombe, Director of Creative Content, NationSwell Studio: I appreciate that this is probs supposed to be funny stories, but I consistently find myself being grateful to Nicole for navigating the PPP hellscape in the wake of COVID.  Everything I know/have heard about that process is that it was a nightmare to navigate, and I’m sure I haven’t thanked her enough for it.
Nicole does not shy from a clothing pattern, and this is something I deeply, deeply respect. For me, and NationSwell.
Patricia Ureña, Community Manager: My favorite memory of Nicole was the huge hug she gave me in Denali on my first day at NationSwell. She made me feel very welcome.
Christina Montero, VP of Accounts @ NationSwell Studio: It was Halloween 2018 and it was an in-office day and given it is my favorite holiday, I was dressed to the nines in 80’s neon gear. When the elevator doors opened and I walked into the office, NO ONE was wearing a costume… except Nicole. I recall it was also 80’s ski and/or workout gear and she looked amazing. I even think she had a few outside clients/interviews that day, and she still rocked her gear.  #kindredspirits
Nicole is my mother hen. She has given me the right amount of guidance, support and encouragement over the years — as a colleague, a mother, and a friend.  This is especially true when she is donning one of her oversized cozy sweaters.
Elyssa Dole, Community Director: Nicole means strength, clarity, attention and attentiveness. My favorite memory of her is all the amazing prints she wore around the office that brightened my day.
Jeremy Hurewitz, Curation Director @ NationSwell Council: I appreciate Nicole’s rigor and attention to detail and her drive to always push NS to be better. I also love to practice my terrible Czech with her and talk about skiing!
Mikhail Relushchin, Operations Senior Associate: My favorite memory of Nicole is the burst of color that accompanied her entrance into the office every morning — what with the shawls, the leopard print, or just the lion’s mane hat-hair!
Nicole is someone who keeps her eyes on the prize, and keeps the team focused on the necessary things!
Taekia Blackwell, Director of Business Operations; Chief of Staff to the COO: Joining my first call on my first day to her in a unicorn birthday hat was pretty special. Secondly, I interviewed for this job remotely so I didn’t get a chance to meet Nicole IRL until about two weeks after I started. However, she made the whole interview process feel really comprehensive and like we were able to actually start to get to know each other— to the extent that my roommates started to joke that I already worked for NationSwell halfway through the interview process. I appreciate the time and care and effort it takes to make someone feel like part of the team even before they’ve joined.
In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve been incredibly impressed by Nicole’s ability to keep all of the plates spinning. She’s clearly foundational to the success of NationSwell and just a super smart, super caring, super efficient lady that I feel lucky to work with every day.
Allie Mahler, Strategy Director: Nicole is masterful at keeping the trains running on track and on time, always. She does so with grace, curiosity, and a sense of joy – all while holding the vision for where NationSwell is and where it can go.
Kelsey Overby, Senior Director + Head of Partnerships, NationSwell Studio: Nicole is the Queen of NationSwell, guiding all of us to excellence and brilliance.
Faustyna Hariasz, Member Partnerships Manager: I love her wild and colorful sweaters (and her jumpsuit game), and I think she is just effortlessly chic. I also love that she notices people’s haircuts and style game right back. It’s important to make people feel seen for the little, personal things and she does that so well.
On a more professional note, she is able to distill complicated, wandering ideas into very actionable and clear ways forward and we would be lost without her lighthouse/beacon ways.
Anthony Smith, VP for Published Content + Growth: I will never forget meeting Nicole at a crowded coffee shop in Chelsea. We were introduced by a mutual friend because he thought that we would get along. He was right! Talking to Nicole about journalism and audiences and what might be possible if storytelling galvanized — instead of just informed — I realized I wanted to keep talking to her and maybe even work with her. I made professional decisions accordingly, and it’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Nicole is the rising tide that lifts all boats, really and truly. The people that work here are always on her mind, and she is a fearless advocate for us. Lots of leaders talk about caring for their teams, but our lives are tangibly better because of the ways she cares about us. NationSwell is the place that it is because of her, and I’ve learned so much about leading and listening just from watching her.

The Tweet That Launched a Movement

Posted on by robbie

Two thousand and forty-four miles.
A distance that would take 677 hours to walk.
A distance that would take around 30 hours to drive.
A distance that technology immediately obliterated as four passionate citizens united against police violence.

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Just days after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014, civil rights activists DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie were on the ground in Ferguson, Mo., documenting on social media the unrest that ruled the streets. Shortly thereafter, the two connected with Brittany Packnett, the then-executive director of Teach for America in St. Louis.
As #Ferguson became a rallying cry on social media, Oprah Winfrey leveled a critique at the Black Lives Matter movement (which used Twitter to mobilize its followers), saying that it didn’t have clear goals, leadership or asks. Mckesson tweeted a reply, listing demands of the protesters.
Meanwhile, more than half a continent away, Samuel Sinyangwe spotted Mckesson’s response and felt compelled to reach out.
“I replied to the tweet saying that I could help develop a policy agenda that implements these demands in practice. I didn’t know who DeRay or anyone was,” says Sinyangwe, who was doing policy work for a nonprofit in Oakland, Calif. “As a policy analyst, I wanted to contribute policy.”
Two thousand and forty-four miles separated Sinyangwe from Mckesson and the other protesters in Ferguson. Yet Mckesson’s 140-character post forged a virtual connection and jumpstarted a conversation that would, in just a few short months, result in the formation of the far-left leaning nationwide organization WeTheProtesters.
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Initial phone calls between Sinyangwe and Mckesson (and later, Elzie and Packnett as well) focused on a shared understanding that data needed to inform policy making so that it would gain traction with both the public and government officials at all levels.
“What made it work was that we’re all committed to the same goals, and we each have a particular skillset that added value to each other’s work. It was all about the commitment to work; it was not about our own personalities,” says Sinyangwe. “I can analyze the data and identify policy solutions. DeRay can communicate that very well in relationships with media. [Joh]Netta can make sure the information — this sort of ivory tower research — is accessible to people and Brittany has institutional access to make sure these recommendations are embedded in some of the foremost institutions of government.”
Not surprising to the activists, their data mining uncovered systemic problems with policing use-of-force practices nationwide. Taking that information, they developed and launched Campaign Zero, a series of 10 proposed policing policy solutions, like ending broken windows policing, community representation, demilitarization and fair police union contracts.
“No other group had ID’ed solutions and grounded it in data and evidence,” Sinyangwe says.
Sinyangwe and company also leveraged data to create a second resource, a groundbreaking interactive map that provides comprehensive information (name, location, description of incident and a link to related, authoritative news coverage) for each police-involved shooting in the United States.
“In the beginning, it was all about convincing the country that it was a crisis — that police violence was happening everywhere, not just in St. Louis or Baltimore,” says Sinyangwe. “No one is going to read a 30-page report on this, but people will look at something that looks high quality and communicates [the information] in much less time.”
Using off-the-shelf technology (often free or free-trial versions) as they continued to collaborate virtually, Sinyangwe and his WTP cofounders built a tech-powered infrastructure that overcame geographic limitations. (“It was literally a period of months before I met everyone in person,” says Sinyangwe.) They shared information in Google docs and sheets, held meetings in Hangouts, designed infographics with Piktocharts and created data tables using Tableau.
Typeform proved to be particularly valuable to WeTheProtesters in recruiting volunteers. The group used the platform to increase its ranks by around 16,000 people in just two weeks. These helpers were then organized into groups and used Slack to communicate, building a bond in cyberspace.
WeTheProtesters is supported by Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech-focused nonprofits and a partner of Comcast NBCUniversal. Today, the group’s biggest challenge is scaling its systems so that more citizens can become effective advocates.
“Across the country, as I’m meeting people and speaking at various venues, people come up to me and ask, ‘How do I get involved?… I want to do something, but I don’t know what to do about it,’” says Sinyangwe. “In today’s day and age, when you see the hyper-targeting of every political campaign, there is no excuse to not have a pathway to get involved. People shouldn’t have to ask anymore.”
But just in case, WeTheProtesters created a Wikipedia-style guide known as the Resistance Manual. The crowdsourced webpage tracks local, state and federal issues, offers resources on effective organizing and lists upcoming teach-ins, town halls and marches across the country. It’s part of a wave of new digital tools created since the 2016 presidential election in response to people’s renewed interest in politics.
Sinyangwe believes that it’s possible to awaken and amplify more voices, “in part because of the tools that we have available to us, because of the platforms and technology and the creative ways we’re using it.”
If he’s right, this tech-driven era of activism may bring about a level of civic engagement unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
Additional reporting by Chris Peak.
This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.

Streaming Government in a Smartphone Era

Posted on by robbie

Provoking a citywide debate about the safety of downtown Eugene, Ore., isn’t what Matt Sayre set out to do when he put together a three-minute video of a passionate citizen speaking at a City Council meeting and posted it on Facebook, where it reached an audience of 40,000 people. But that’s exactly what happened.
“Not everyone makes it to the meetings, so to be effective, we brought the meeting to where [citizens] are: on social media,” Sayre says.
Sayre stitched the clips together using software created by Open Media Foundation, a Denver-based nonprofit. Its Open Media Project initiative transforms traditional local government meetings into modern, in-the-palm-of-your-hand video streams.
In today’s increasingly hectic world, constituents don’t have time to track whether their state and local politicians are upholding their campaign promises. Combined with that is a decline in local news coverage. The outcome? Power is being handed to lobbyists, says Tony Shawcross, the foundation’s executive director.
“We’ve seen trust in government and voter turnout drop for 50 years, and we think the reason is because government is falling behind the times. Our big-picture goal is lowering the bar for what it takes to be engaged,” Shawcross says.
Accessible via desktop or mobile, school boards and municipal and state governments can use the foundation’s cloud-based platform — Open Media Project (OMP) — to give citizens quick access to what’s going on. Constituents can watch live webcasts of government meetings and search through archived agendas and transcribed video files to jump straight to points in the video where specific topics of interest (like “homeless shelters” or “tobacco”) are mentioned. If users find a moment worth sharing, they can, like Sayre, package a video to share on social media.
The tools themselves might not sound flashy, but the transparency they promote is what makes democracy function, says Neil Moyer, director of the Lane Council of Government’s Metro Television, which coordinates with the foundation to stream meetings for Eugene and other nearby cities.
“Our driving motivation is not just to replay meetings but to help our community thrive, and I really believe we thrive only when we have good governance. We only get good governance when people are paying attention.”
Sometimes, politicians push back on OMP’s capabilities, hesitant to practice full disclosure online. But as a nonprofit, the Open Media Foundation prioritizes what its beneficiaries — constituents themselves — need above all else. “We’re putting in features that are above and beyond what governments demand and expect in terms of accessibility,” Shawcross says.
The Open Media Foundation was founded in 2001 under its original name [denverevolution]. In 2006, it helped the City of Denver set up a new public broadcasting station on the cheap. That project attracted the attention of Andrew Romanoff, then speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, who was trying to set up a state version of C-SPAN.
In 2013, the foundation created a video-on-demand tool for the legislature’s web portal. The number of visitors to the site doubled and inspired Shawcross to replicate the idea on a smaller scale. By the end of 2016, 10 local governments in Colorado used the service.
The Open Media Project is supported by Comcast NBCUniversal and Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech-focused nonprofits. It makes its software available through an online portal, and the video is streamed through YouTube. The basic software package is free for towns with less than 5,000 residents, $3,000 for cities of 5,000 to 50,000 residents and $6,000 for cities of more than 50,000. The organization’s founders hope the software’s low cost will help spread it to local government websites across the country.  
Back in Eugene, Sayre’s video posts have increased attendance at city council meetings where community safety is a key agenda item.
“To hear what someone is saying at a meeting and to see their body language is engaging,” Sayre says. “Energy attracts energy.”
Sayre hopes that this rise in community involvement in the political process will lead to greater safety in downtown Eugene.

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This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.
Homepage photo by iStock/Getty.

Learning to Code Is Vital for Today’s Students. This Nonprofit Helps Schools Teach It

Posted on by robbie

Acerlia Bennet, a 17-year-old New Yorker from the Bronx, likes to read heady political news, often twice, from top to bottom, to make sure she’s fully comprehending the story. But she knows she’s unique: Her peers spend more time sharing memes. So at a local hackathon sponsored by Code/Interactive last summer, Bennet and three other high schoolers built a preliminary website that could translate hard news into more entertaining teen-speak. The algorithm, written with the programming language Python over a 72-hour weekend, extracts text from newspapers and replaces big, confusing words with simpler terms. “That way, they read it and know what’s going on,” Bennet says.
That type of out-of-the-box thinking — and the deep understanding of code to make it a reality — is the end goal of Code/Interactive (C/I), a nonprofit based in New York City. Since 2010, C/I has helped public schools better teach computer science. The program, which currently counts about 5,000 students in six states, is comprehensive: As early as third grade, kids begin experimenting with simple, block-based coding. By the time they reach high school, C/I is preparing them to excel on the Advance Placement (AP) computer science exam.
Besides equipping students with invaluable coding and web development skills, C/I provides teacher training and curricula for the classroom; hosts hackathons and arranges office tours at tech companies for students; and provides a select number of full-ride college scholarships, attracting those teens who otherwise wouldn’t apply for, or couldn’t afford to earn, a computer science degree.
“These computer skills are as fundamental to this generation of students as carpentry was to my father. Back then, not everyone built a home, but they all knew how to hang a picture and how to assemble a table,” says Mike Denton, C/I’s executive director. “The knowledge about tech you interact with is invaluable, and it’s necessary as these technologies become ubiquitous in every industry.”
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C/I got its start in 2001 as an arts organization in the Bronx. Back then, the nonprofit was providing basic technology like video cameras, color printers and online-accessible computers to at-risk youth. By 2010, though, as more and more people gained internet access through smartphones, the mission felt outdated. Denton, then a board member, left his consulting work to revamp the agency. Under his leadership, C/I began offering an after-school coding class on JavaScript at a local community center. “We recognized pretty quickly that teaching 20 kids would not solve the problems we knew existed,” Denton says. To scale their vision, C/I turned its focus to integrating programming lessons into the school day.
C/I first works with teachers who don’t have a background in computer science or engineering, offering seminars during professional development days. Over the course of anywhere from six days to six weeks throughout the year, educators come together to talk through the coding coursework, asking questions ranging from the simple, like what HTML stands for (that would be HyperText Markup Language), to wondering if there is a way to learn coding without a computer on hand (there is).
They also learn that C/I’s pedagogical method derives from an unexpected source: foreign language classes. After all, says Denton, “Computer science, more than anything else, is a language.” So like in Spanish or German classes, the teachers coach students in “grammar,” showing how individual units must be strung together, line by line. The new coders then, in turn, put those lessons into practice as they work to build a website or design a mobile app. Later on in their instruction, students participate in the equivalent of an all-immersive study-abroad trip, diving in to collaborative projects at weekend hackathons.
As students master the new language, like Bennet has done, C/I organizes office tours to show the multiplicity of careers in tech. In Austin, Texas, for example, students might visit a cloud-storage company’s offices or an architectural firm, all of which can use the language of coding in different ways. In New York, Bennet has dropped in at Google, BuzzFeed, FourSquare and so many small startups that she can’t remember all of the names.
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“A lot of times students say they want to be a lawyer or doctor because they know those are professions where you can make money more easily. But they might not be aware of the other positions that are available to them,” says Julia Barraford-Temel, C/I’s program manager for its Texas program, Coding4TX. “We bring them there so they can visualize their future.”
To be sure, C/I is not a workforce-development program. Students aren’t funneled into entry-level software testing jobs as soon as they complete their coursework. (About 70 percent of graduating seniors from C/I do choose computer science as a major or minor in college.) As a student at an arts high school focused on film, Bennet, for example, likes the idea of pursuing animation at a company like Pixar. But whichever career path she chooses, she credits C/I with strengthening her creative approach to problem-solving. “Computer science is not just a bunch of code,” she says. “It’s more about connecting through software and tech, with everyone building and creating and being more innovative.”
Denton echoes her point. To him, the main goal of C/I is for young people to understand the technology that now dictates so much of our lives. “We’re only at the beginning of the tech revolution,” he says. “By 2025, these kids are genuinely going to make a massive difference in the world.”

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This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.
 
 

The High-Tech Way Foster Youth Are Safeguarding Their Records (And Their Memories, Too)

Posted on by robbie

Florida’s child welfare system shuttled Jay Schad to a new home every of couple months — roughly 25 placements in all. (He lost the exact count.) The most disruptive move sent him to a group home in Tallahassee, two hours east of Panama City, his hometown, and plopped him into a new high school. Already a month behind his classmates, the freshman attempted to make friends by trying out for the football team. But with many of his records back in Panama City, including his latest physical exam, the coaches couldn’t let him take the field. Eventually, Schad got the go-ahead from a local doctor and started playing. But the setback made him feel, as he says, “let down by the system.” Hadn’t the 14-year-old been through enough with his mother’s meth addiction, his father’s violence and dozens of destabilizing moves to have to worry about his personal papers?
Record-keeping, a seemingly bureaucratic task, poses a huge challenge for the nation’s 428,000 foster youth. Already struggling to keep up with their peers, these adolescents might not realize the need to preserve their important documents until it’s too late. Even if a diligent social worker does compile a binder, it might be lost in a hectic move, and in some states, there are extra hurdles for a teen who’s aged out of the system. This means most applications — whether for financial aid, a new job or housing — can be stymied simply because documents are missing.
Cloud-based technology, however, might have an answer for these teens. My JumpVault, a virtual storage locker, allows a foster kid to upload and protect their essential files, like a birth certificate, medical history and school transcripts. Developed by Five Points Technology Group (FPTG), a business headquartered in the Tampa suburb of Bradenton, Fla., and funded by the state, My JumpVault currently has about 7,000 users. The digital records it holds, maintained securely behind several layers of authentication, won’t disappear like hard copies might.
Former foster youth played a large role in building My JumpVault. In 2009, two 19-year-old former foster kids led a statewide campaign to streamline access to Florida’s child welfare records. (Previously, emancipated youth needed a judge’s order to see their case file.) After successfully pushing a bill through the legislature, they started to question what access truly meant. Even though they’d won the legal right to look at their papers, did adolescents truly have access if the process of obtaining a copy was so difficult? That’s when the young men — Thomas Fair, now a member of the design team, and Mike Williams, an assistant product manager — signed on with FPTG to advise the team behind My JumpVault and help code the nascent app.
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Accessible by desktop or smartphone, an email address is all a teen needs to sign up for the service. Once they’ve locked the account with a password, they might log in to scan an important document they’ve just received or to locate an image, like Schad did eight months ago when applying for a waiter job at a restaurant. He’d misplaced his social security card, and his new manager told him he couldn’t clock in until he found it. Schad pulled up his electronic copy, and luckily, the boss accepted it.
To further ease the process, a couple of agencies recently partnered with FPTG to store files directly on My JumpVault’s servers. For example, Sunshine Health, the state’s Medicaid provider, lists a kid’s prior hospital visits and prescription medications. Soon, My JumpVault could integrate with the court system to track hearing dates and with local schools to keep report cards. “Tactically, it frees caseworkers up from having to provide documents over and over again in hard copy, and it puts youth in a better position for independence,” notes Chris Pantaleon, the company’s business development director.
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In addition to vital records, one of My JumpVault’s unique features provides storage space for memories. Because foster children might have only one or two pictures of their birth parents, storing photos is the best way to preserve a sense of self. Without these keepsakes, “You don’t understand who you are,” says Williams, who knows the feeling firsthand. “It’s like having no identity.” That’s why they encourage users to add pictures, certificates and awards. Even if a foster kid is relocated to another home, one whose walls might be covered with family portraits, he can take comfort in his own background and family roots, too.
Another powerful feature, which Fair pushed to include within the app, is a series of guides to help foster youth navigate difficult situations. These worksheets might list the names of all service providers in a metro area, provide instructions on applying for food stamps or explain the types of questions employers ask in an interview.
Schad knows there are plenty of issues still plaguing the foster care system. But at least with My JumpVault’s storage in the cloud, those kids don’t have to worry about whether paperwork might hold them back.

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This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.
 

The Simple Way to Keep Struggling College Students in Check

Posted on by robbie

One morning last summer, Zulmaly Ramirez, an academic advocate who advises undergraduates at the University of South Florida, logged on to her computer and saw a notification that a new freshman was at risk of dropping out. The student, an off-campus commuter, hadn’t been signing in to the course portal, where reading assignments are posted, and his grades were slipping, the software showed. Ramirez asked the young man to stop by.
In person, the teen confirmed exactly what the computer program’s algorithm had predicted. His half-hour drive to campus made him feel removed from the other students, he had yet to decide on a major, and he had recently broken up with his girlfriend. Ramirez proposed some quick fixes. She introduced him to the ultimate Frisbee team, helped him settle on a business track and personally walked him to the counseling center to make his first appointment.
Ramirez’s intervention can be credited to Civitas Learning, a software company that sorts reams of student data to warn counselors, in real time, which students are in the greatest danger of dropping out — before the semester has ended and grades have been posted. The company, based in Austin, Texas, also has programs designed to help students pick classes and allow administrators to track what impact they have on student performance.
Civitas, which has contracts with Texas A&M, the University of Arizona, Penn State University, Morehouse College and hundreds of others, has pledged to boost graduation rates by 1 million more students each year, before 2025. (Economists predict America must add up to 23 million skilled college grads to its increasingly tech-centric workforce, by 2025, to be globally competitive.) The company plans to reach that goal by completely revamping the function of advisers in higher education.
“Most students’ relationship with their adviser is fairly transactional. ‘What are the classes that I have to take next?’ And, ‘How do I enroll?’ Unfortunately, the conversation is hurried and infrequent,” says Charles Thornburgh, one of Civitas’s two co-founders. “Hopefully in the future, more tools will provide more personalized recommendations to students, with both the student and adviser coming in dramatically better informed about where the student is on the journey to success.”
Previously, most college advising departments merely guessed who might not graduate on time. These counselors often based their speculation on whether a student was meeting traditional markers of success, like a high grade point average — a policy backed up by intuition, not evidence. Civitas, by contrast, starts with a review of a college’s historical data to detect which factors recur among dropouts, a more accurate way to develop a school-specific predictor.
Often, the results of this analysis surprise even veteran administrators. One of Civitas’s recent findings, for example, showed that GPAs were nearly meaningless when correlated with retention rates. A student with a 2.0 was no more likely to quit than a high achiever with a 4.0. Rather, the surest sign a kid wouldn’t make it was his grade in a freshman writing course.
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Using Civitas, an administrator can easily see which students are thinking of quitting. They can also test how well an intervention can reverse a downward trend. Armed with a vast archive of historical data, Civitas’s software first digs up the records of past students with similar circumstances. Then, it analyzes how intervening would change the students’ learning trajectory, compared to the past. “There’s an opportunity there for educators and administrators, who’ve been operating in the dark forever,” he adds. “They can become more scientific.”
Of course, there’s a danger in placing too much faith in numbers. In the wrong hands, predictive analytics in education might divert resources (or deny college admission) from students who are careening toward failure anyway. But Civitas maintains that its approach is intended to direct help to those students who need it most, not to take it away from their classmates. Thornburgh notes that the education system already relies on an insidious predictive model. Fixed characteristics like family wealth, race and gender are seen as factors in student success — inherent conditions that, Thornburgh points out, can’t be changed or reversed. Luckily, as he’s found in his research, demographics aren’t the best way to predict who stays in school. “How students engage while on campus is dramatically more important than anything else, and that’s what really drives our model.”
Civitas emphasizes its role as a tool to support more personal academic advising. After the software flags a student, the intervention comes from a counselor, not a machine. “With our freshmen, even though they do use their phones and technology a lot, I’m always surprised by how much they enjoy just sitting down for 30 minutes or an hour,” says Ramirez. “I see students change dramatically when they have a meeting face-to-face, rather than receive alerts on their phones.” Especially when isolation drives disengagement, that human interaction can go a long way.
So far, it seems to be working. At the University of South Florida, retention rates that had plateaued for years finally surpassed 90 percent this year, reports Paul Dosal, vice provost for student success. And while the data’s not in yet, he expects that USF will finally crack a 70 percent graduation rate very soon, a huge step as the college looks to boost its prominence.
Across academia, researchers spend plenty of time conducting research in the humanities, sociology and the hard sciences. But they too rarely turn that critical eye to assessing the best way to teach the degree-seekers in their own lecture halls. With Civitas, these professors and administrators can begin to study themselves.
“There’s a lot of capital, time and energy spent on educating students, and we should find a way to make sure that we keep getting better at it,” Thornburgh says. “As educators, we have to learn from each other and every student’s journey.”

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This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.