People in Common

As CEO of GlobalGiving, the world's first and largest nonprofit crowdfunding platform, Victoria Vrana connects donors with vetted local changemakers in 175 countries. Jama serves on GlobalGiving's Tech and Innovation Council. The people powering that generosity at scale: a man who made a mosaic out of NYC subway cards in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and auctioned it for $400. A woman who sold stickers for $2 each and donated $500 to wildfire relief. A group of former USAID staffers who organized comedy shows, happy hours, and QR code campaigns to keep PEPFAR-related HIV programs alive. Victoria says "Whatever you can give is totally enough."

‍Show Notes

“People should do what they're able to do. And every single thing makes a difference and you build on it. Every single thing.” -Victoria Vrana

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At 12, Victoria organized her first Amnesty International meeting in her living room (inspired by her activist big sisters). Her mother had to shoo away the adults who showed up at the door. 

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She was the working mom who could not run the Girl Scout troop meetings. Instead, she was the Camping Mom. One weekend a year, for 15 years, she did the thing no one else would volunteer for. 

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GlobalGiving is built on the same logic of giving what you can, how you can. The subway mosaic man. The sticker woman. The USAID staffers who could not bear to walk away from a promise. Every story she tells is of someone who found what they could give, and gave it.

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That trust is not accidental. Ten million organizations want to be on GlobalGiving's platform. Six thousand are. The vetting is the product. And what GlobalGiving gives back is remarkable: even small donors receive quarterly reports from every organization they support, the same transparency that once belonged only to million-dollar donors.

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Victoria has a theory: the decline of everyday donors in America is not just a fundraising problem. It is a democratic one. Giving raises voter turnout probability by 10 points. Volunteering raises it by 12. The small-dollar donor is not a consolation prize. She is the point.

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Technology, including AI, is changing what's possible for the nonprofits GlobalGiving serves. Victoria believes no organization doing essential work should have to scrape by without the tools it needs to thrive. That is the next frontier.

The action is simple: Find what you love, Give what you can. Together, it is enough.

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‍Action Opportunities

Find something you care about and give. Explore thousands of vetted nonprofit projects on GlobalGiving.org and support local change leaders working on issues that matter to you..

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Make GivingTuesday a family values ritual. Victoria sits down with her three daughters every GivingTuesday and they "shop" for causes together. Nearly half of all GivingTuesday gifts through GlobalGiving are under $50. If you want to raise generous kids, you have to start the conversation. givingtuesday.org

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Find your 'Camping Mom.' What is the thing that fits your life as it actually is that no one else is doing? It does not have to be grand. It just has to be yours. (Victoria's was being the Camping Mom and now she spends election day at the judge's table. What is yours?

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Make giving a habit. Pick 2–3 organizations or causes you care deeply about and consider setting up recurring gifts. Build giving into your budget and revisit it as your circumstances change. Explore GlobalGiving’s disaster response work and Community Aid Fund.

Featured Quotes

"And you're joining together with all of these other people. You know, over time, over two million people have given a billion dollars through GlobalGiving to organizations.” -Victoria Vrana

"People who give are 10% more likely to vote…and if you volunteer, you're twelve percent more likely to go to the polls…There's just this inextricable link between democracy and giving and generosity. And so we need to strengthen both sides of those things right now.“ -Victoria Vrana

“That threat of fear permeating the community, it really gave Minnesota and I think the community an opportunity to rise up peacefully, lovingly, loudly, relentlessly.“ -Mary Grove‍

In January 2026, the Department of Homeland Security deployed thousands of federal agents to Minnesota as part of "Operation Metro Surge." Steve Grove called it being "occupied by your own federal government."

What followed was unlike anything the country had seen: massive protests in subzero temperatures, faith leaders arrested at the Minneapolis airport singing "This Little Light of Mine," and a community that chose song over silence. By February 12, Operation Metro Surge was over.

The resistance worked.

"That threat of fear permeating the community really gave Minnesota an opportunity to rise up peacefully, lovingly, loudly, relentlessly." — Mary Grove

This episode is about what made that possible — and what every community in America can learn from it.

Steve Grove is CEO and Publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune, the state's newspaper of record. He is also the author of "How I Found Myself in the Midwest: A Memoir of Reinvention" (Simon and Schuster, 2025), a book about leaving his home state, spending 12 years at Google and YouTube, serving as Minnesota's Commissioner of Employment and Economic Development, and eventually coming back to run the institution his state needed most. Steve and Jama go back to Harvard's Kennedy School, where he ran a radio show and she was one of his guests.

Mary Grove is Managing Partner of Bread and Butter Ventures, a venture fund she co-leads in Minneapolis. She is the founding director of Google for Startups, a former investment partner at Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, and a board member of the Bush Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, and HealthPartners. She moved to Minnesota from California on purpose.

Together, Steve and Mary co-founded Silicon North Stars in 2013 to open tech careers to underserved Minnesota youth, "finding those future entrepreneurs."

When January 2026 arrived, everything they had built was tested.

Steve calls Minnesota's ICE raids "the most documented crisis in American history." The Twin Cities' compact geography meant nothing went unseen. Citizens with phones, journalists on the ground, and a local news organization that had spent years building the capacity to tell a story of this magnitude all converged. The Star Tribune was one of the primary sources the world relied on for credible coverage throughout. Jama became a subscriber the afternoon we recorded.

What held wasn't improvised. Minnesota had what Steve and Mary call "muscle memory" and "civic exceptionalism." A thriving nonprofit sector, foundation boards that mobilized immediately, neighborhood networks that knew exactly how to scale. Mary describes Casa Maria, a food pantry that typically serves 50 families a week, scaling to 500 families a week during Metro Surge — last-mile delivery, to the door.

"I didn't know a single person who wasn't helping to the maximum of their ability," Mary says, "whether that's driving kids to and from school, food, shelter, last-mile delivery."

That kind of response does not happen without years of investment in community. The question this episode leaves every listener with: What are you building where you live, before the test arrives? Let us know.

Take action:

Subscribe to or donate to your local news organization. A free press comes at a real cost.

Find one organization in your community you know nothing about. Learn about it this week.

Participate in local government. Mary went to her neighborhood caucus for the first time this year. Find your version of that.

Subscribe to Steve's Substack "A View from Minnesota": stevegroveview.substack.com

Get the book: "How I Found Myself in the Midwest" by Steve Grove

Follow People in Common: jamaadams.com/people-in-common-episodes

People in Common is hosted by Jama Adams. New episodes every two weeks.

Key Themes

Early in his career, a future boss at Google.org gave Justin Steele one piece of advice: take a bet on yourself. He took it, and spent a decade directing $700 million in philanthropic grants. Even credentialed at Harvard and trained at Bain, he still got treated like an outsider inside Google's business culture for having just come from a nonprofit. He calls people who carry both worlds bridgers, people who can sit in the boardroom and the campsite and refuse to let either one erase the other.

Even someone who has spent his career solving for belonging fell into the same trap most people do: building the tech solution first and hoping connection would follow. When Justin and his wife Sally built the digital version of Outdoorithm, the platform solved logistics and discovery, where to go, what to bring, but a board member told him on a call that she still felt alone using it. He rebuilt it that weekend. His teenage daughter is now helping code the belonging layer, training a system to catch not just whether someone shows up in a comment section, but whether they actually feel safe.

Justin created an AI fundraising platform called Kindora because his own nonprofit needed ten thousand dollars for tent heaters and got nothing but noise back from the expensive tools on the market. So he coded an AI persona modeled as a program officer and set it loose:

• Reviewed 13,000 funders one by one
• Rejected 12,000, politely, at machine speed
• Narrowed the remaining 1,000 to 100 through historical grant data and mission fit
• Of 50 applications submitted, won $100,000

"This is a perfect example of human scale versus AI scale," as Jama puts it.

As Justin was making those funder calls, he and Jama met at a 2025 conference on responsible AI, where Justin first landed on the idea that became his company's founding structure, deciding not to take venture capital. That is also why the company's investment round is open to anyone, not just accredited investors. Be part of it here: wefunder.com/kindora.

Asked what keeps him going, he points to two things: conviction, and belonging, communities of people who reflect real values and make you feel, in his words, deeply alive.

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‍Action Opportunities

Try Kindora. Free to start at kindora.co/en/demos. If you have ever chased funding for a mission you believe in, “Kindora is like turning on a light in a dark room. They're like, wait, there are people out here who can support our work, and you're helping us bridge relationally and leverage our networks. 

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Get involved with Outdoorithm Collective. Fully supported multi-night camping trips for urban families at outdoorithmcollective.org, built to help any family find where they belong outdoors.

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Ask yourself Justin's question. What's standing between you and success in your mission? Build the small, rough version of the fix anyway.

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Featured Quotes

"I'm alive in a way I've never been alive, at least professionally...I wouldn’t work this hard for anyone else." — Justin Steele

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"What motivates me every day to keep doing it? The first thing is conviction, which we've already talked about, but the second piece is belonging. I think we all want to belong to something, find communities of people that reflect our values and make us feel alive, and to me, belonging is a big part of the reason why I do what I do." — Justin Steele

"To be part of a community, to be building for other people, to breathe something new into the world that means this much to people; the stories I get every day, of tiny little grassroots organizations who'd started to lose hope they were ever going to be funded to do the thing they believe in, because they just want to be doing the work." — Justin Steele

Bio

Justin Steele is Co-Founder and CEO of Kindora, a Public Benefit Corporation democratizing professional fundraising tools for every nonprofit. When he couldn't afford the fundraising tools that would help his nonprofit succeed, he coded something better with AI.

Soman Chainani wrapped up a three-week, 40-school national tour and sat down with Jama to talk about the Young World playbook. The New York Times bestselling author wrote a thriller about a teenager who accidentally becomes president. This conversation covers the four things every young person agrees on, what to do when you realize no one is coming to fix it for you, and how anyone, teenager or not, can answer the People in Common question: what do you want the world to look like, and how do you make that happen?

WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY

Soman's school presentations have a structure: doom first, then hope.

He opens with reality. Your phone is profiling your insecurities to sell you things. AI is designed to prevent you from thinking. The political class has traded on young people's futures for decades. "The tracks are gone." The contract that said do the right things and your future is secure? Broken. And no one in power is fixing it.

But there is hope. You have the numbers. You can throw out the people who should never have been there.

The Revolting Youth platform, from the book and from the tour, comes down to four things every young person agrees on:

- A livable planet

- An economic future not crushed by debt

- No more kids getting killed at school

- Not surrendering humanity to AI

"They want a planet, they want a roof over their heads, they don't want to be shot at,and they would prefer to stay human."

One proof of concept Soman carries: Zohran Mamdani. Soman was the personal assistant to Mamdani's mother when Mamdani was 12 years old, a kid with a beautiful smile who wanted to play soccer. That kid is now Mayor of New York City. Soman tells students there is probably one like him in every room of 300. And the other 299 matter just as much. You do not have to be the kid who knows who the Secretary of State is. You have to be willing to show up for the kid who does, vote for them, and back them across all lines.

Soman chose writing over running because of the numbers game. "I almost can have more impact this way." The goal on tour was simple: get kids to open the book. He believes the rest follows.

The question he ends with is for everyone: "Think about what you want the world to look like and then how do you make that happen? For me it was writing fiction. But you might have other ways of getting there."

The old question was what do you want to be in this world.

His new question: what world do you want?

TAKE ACTION

Run for Something. Visit revoltingyouth.org and sign up through Run for Something Civics to explore running for local office: school board, city council, library board, or any seat that has been held too long by the wrong person. Any of you could get rid of them "because you have more friends."

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Register to vote. Confirm your registration or register for the first time at revoltingyouth.org via Rock the Vote.

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Read Young World as a playbook, not a fantasy novel. Buy the book, use the free discussion guide (link in show notes), and read it with people you want to activate.

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Find a Zohran and back them. Think of one young person in your community who should run for something local. Back them. Show up. Cross the clique line.

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Ask yourself Soman's question: "What do you want the world to look like?" (Not "what do you want to be in this world?") What if you ran the world...

ABOUT SOMAN CHAINANI

Soman Chainani is the New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good and Evil series, which has sold over 4.5 million copies and was adapted into a Netflix film.

He has visited more than 800 schools telling students the same thing: you have more power than you have been told. His new novel, Young World (Penguin Random House, 2026), is a "primal scream" YA political thriller about a teenager who sparks a global youth revolt, built around a real partnership with Run for Something and Rock the Vote to turn readers into candidates and voters.

Overview

Brad Newsham is a travel writer and self-taught organizer who has spent 20 years staging human banner events on Ocean Beach, where thousands of people lie in the sand to spell out a political message, photographed from above, with music instead of speeches and dancing instead of marching. No staff. No permission required. Just people creating something beautiful together. This conversation is proof of concept for what People in Common is trying to do: inspire people to joyful collective action. 

Action Opportunities

• Attend — RSVP at mobilize.us/indivisiblesf/event/953531

• Create your own banner — Templates, tips, and instructions at humanbanner-sf.com/backyard-banner

• Donate to Human Banner-SF — Venmo @Brad-Newsham (code 8294) or PO Box 31006, San Francisco, CA 94131

• Browse 20 years of banners — humanbanner-sf.com/our-history-of-banners. Then share it with someone who says protests don't work.

Key Takeaways

You Can Do This

Brad Newsham has no nonprofit status, no institutional backing, no paid staff. He is a travel writer who in 2006 was sitting at a kitchen table with his daughter, saw Google Earth for the first time, and was literally lifted out of his chair by a vision: big letters on Ocean Beach, the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, a thousand people lying in the sand. He spent 10 weeks working out the logistics, paid the first $3,500 out of his savings, and 20 years later has staged 37 banners with as many as 7,000 people each time. The lesson is that you could be Brad.

When a union board voted down a proposal he believed in, Brad vowed that if he ever cared that much about something again, he would design it so he didn't need anyone's permission. Now he inspires thousands, no permission required. 

Joy Is the Strategy

Brad designed events he would personally want to attend, with art, music, costumes, and families welcome. The result: people don't want to leave. 20 years on, participants keep aerial postcards from early events on their walls.

"This is so much fun. People don't want to go home. The music is basically a demand from our participants now."

The Wilderness Years Are Real

Brad received a death threat that kept him off the beach for six months. Two banners during the Biden years got zero media coverage. He went three and a half years without a single event and believed the chapter was over. Then his co-organizer Travis texted him one word: "Beachable?" 14 banners later, 9,000 are on his email list. Lesson: it is okay to pause.

The Model Is Replicable by Design

A San Diego organizer saw a photo of a 2017 RESIST! banner, cold-emailed Brad, and got grid instructions in return. 500 people showed up in San Diego. Santa Cruz organized their own after April 2026. Walnut Creek. Washington D.C. His ‘Backyard Banner’ concept brings the model down to 10 people in a backyard with a selfie stick. Brad actively helps people start their own wherever they are - this could be you!

• You need: 10 people, a flat surface, a way to photograph from above

• You do not need: a beach, 1,000 people, a permit, a budget, or anyone's permission

"Given this country we all love, who gets an excused absence?... I feel so much better being engaged than I did in the brief times that I've sat on the sidelines and just wished this would all go away."

What It Feels Like

Connectivity is the point. Standing in a letter with strangers, passing a message down the line, waiting for a drone, laughing while lying flat on cold sand. Brad walked hand in hand with a man dressed as Mr. Rogers through a crowd of 5,000 people. He describes standing on the seawall watching 40 or 50 volunteers running the event without him needing to direct any of it, and feeling something he didn't have words for. That is the thing collective action can do.

"I swear I heard this 50 times from other people before I let these words come out of my mouth: people have called us the face of the resistance."

Key Takeaways

The Isolation Trap

We're stuck. Millions of us share the same concerns. We even agree on most goals. But isolation prevents action.

Shaka Senghor understands isolation better than most. Nineteen years in prison. Seven and a half in solitary confinement.

During the pandemic, successful investors and professional athletes called him for help navigating their own isolation. His insight: we all carry hidden prisons. Grief. Anger. Shame. Trauma. Self-doubt. These invisible barriers hold us back more than any external circumstance. When we recognize this shared truth, it changes how we treat ourselves and each other.

This is what People in Common addresses: the isolation that keeps people stuck despite shared goals. Community creates possibility. Shaka's work shows what happens when we move from individual concern to collective action.

Freedom Is an Inside Job

"I was incarcerated before I ever was arrested and I was free long before they let me out of prison. Freedom really is an inside job."

This is the foundation of everything Shaka teaches - and why it matters right now when so many of us feel stuck. After his second parole denial following 18 years behind bars, he faced a choice: surrender to despair or transform from within. He chose hope.

Through daily practices of journaling, meditation, and creative expression, Shaka discovered that "the most important is the conversation I have with myself." Internal dialogue shapes everything.

Hidden Prisons We All Carry - And Practices That Free Us

The practices that sustained Shaka through solitary confinement work for everyone. When people say they're too busy for the work that would end suffering, Shaka pushes back: "Intention creates the time." He journals whether for 10 minutes or an hour. The practice matters more than the duration.

He says the unhealed part of us causes harm "until people are courageous enough to say, I'm going to break the cycle."

Respect and Curiosity Bridge Everything

Whether he's talking to Oprah Winfrey or Joe Rogan, Shaka approaches every conversation with respect and curiosity. Not because he agrees but because he'll have a conversation with anyone, as long as it's not "performative...I would rather us be completely disagreeable and authentic. That's an interesting conversation."

This practice of genuine curiosity bridges supposedly unbridgeable divides. His work on criminal justice reform with both parties proves it:

"When you start getting into how do we save kids dying from opioids and fentanyl, how do we allocate taxes well, how do we make sure people are being taken care of in our community? Those conversations without a doubt are always the same. We really want the same thing. We just don't know how to get there."

The Literary Lounge: Individual Liberation Made Real

On February 3rd, 2026, the Shaka Senghor Literary Lounge opened at Michigan Central Station in Detroit. His actual handwriting covers the walls - journals from prison, his first piece of fiction written on Michigan Department of Corrections paper.

Books helped set Shaka free. Now he's built infrastructure where 1,000+ young people annually discover that same freedom. Individual liberation leads to collective transformation.‍‍‍

Action Opportunities

• Read "How to Be Free" and subscribe to the "Hidden Prisons" newsletter at shakasenghor.com
• Watch "Why Your Worst Deeds Don't Define You" (TED Talk with 1.8M views)
• Visit and support the Shaka Senghor Literary Lounge
• Practice the work that frees you and others: journal, have "the most important conversation" with yourself, approach difference with respect and curiosity, recognize the hidden prisons others carry and let it change how you treat them

• Join People in Common's listener-matching system to connect with others ready to act locally (email [email protected] or reply "MATCH" to any episode post)

Action Opportunities

• Start something local this week: You don't need a budget, a board, a brand. Just one or two people who know good people, a room with good coffee, and the discipline to show up. Jama's playbook is available -- email her at [email protected] to request it.

• Try the problem-solving format: Gather five to ten people you trust across different industries. Give one person with a real problem 45 minutes of the group's focus. Watch what happens. The framework is simple, the trust, curiosity, and a little bit of structure is key.

• Share this episode with someone who's overwhelmed: Know someone who cares deeply but feels overwhelmed by the stakes or the scale? This episode is for them.

• Connect with Jama: Follow her work at jamaadams.com or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/jamaadams. If something in this episode sparks an idea for your own corner of the world, please share.

• Follow People in Common: New episodes drop every other Tuesday through November. Each one is a different answer to the same question: What can WE do? Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

Key Takeaways

‍This episode is a little different. Jama's friend and Innovators community member Jon Bonanno turns the microphone around and interviews her -- and they end up going somewhere unexpected.

Two years ago, Jama co-founded a monthly gathering in her hometown: entrepreneurs, builders, and community leaders, once a month, helping each other work through real problems. No budget. No pitch. Just a tight structure, a room full of generous people, and one rule: bring something you haven't figured out yet.

One meeting became a community of 44. Twenty-two gatherings. Ten structured problem-solving sessions that changed real businesses, careers, and civic projects. A restaurant owner raised non-dilutive capital weeks before opening day using an idea the group generated in 45 minutes. A founder navigating a complex merger said a single session was "one of the most impactful things that shaped my trajectory as a leader." A group on the other side of the country adopted the model using Jama's documents, and held a successful first session without ever having seen it in person.

The conversation covers how the community started, the "Help Me Solve This" framework, and what 25 years of coalition-building at the highest levels (Giving Pledge, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the launch of a national Responsible AI Framework) taught Jama about what actually moves people. The answer keeps coming back to the same thing: values, trust, and showing up for each other.

Near the end, Jama says something she keeps coming back to. When enormous stakes make any effort feel inadequate, the antidote is not doing more. It is doing something local. That is where it all begins. And it is replicable anywhere -- including your town, this week, with people you already know.

"We spend the same amount on maintaining our parking facilities as we do on running elections."

Elections are "the load-bearing beam of democracy and the civil rights issue of our time." Tiana Epps-Johnson, CEO of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, uses technology to prevent that beam from cracking under coordinated attacks targeting 8,000 election offices that represent the scaffolding of our democracy.

‍Action Opportunities

Support CTCL's work: Donate to the Center for Tech and Civic Life at techandciviclife.org to help protect election infrastructure and support officials under threat.

Volunteer as a poll worker: The single thing that most increases confidence in elections is a positive interaction with your local poll worker. Be that person. Get a front-row seat to democracy in action.

Share accurate information: Combat chaos by helping people in your networks understand how elections actually work‍.

Subscribe to CTCL's newsletter: Stay current with election administration stories, trainings, best practices, and updates from the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence at techandciviclife.org/our-work/election-officials/electricity

Connect with Tiana: Follow her work on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/tianaej 

Key Takeaways

‍1. Elections are the scaffolding holding democracy together. The 8,000 election offices nationwide operate as an interconnected web, the load-bearing beam of how we make decisions as a country. But this infrastructure runs on massive resource gaps - from $2 per voter in some jurisdictions to $60 in others - and officials increasingly under attack for doing their jobs. When the foundation cracks, everything falls.

2. Chaos itself is the weapon. Tiana draws a parallel to tactics used in the tobacco industry: when you can't win on facts, you make things so confusing that people give up and look away. Make the system overwhelming enough that people disengage entirely. The pattern is clear: 2016 cyber attacks, 2018 disinformation, 2020 pandemic exploitation, 2022 vitriol driving officials out, 2024-2025 foreign interference. Each wave designed to overwhelm, confuse, and break trust in the systems holding us together.

3. Translation work is the antidote. Tiana takes overwhelming election systems and helps people understand and engage with them - the same work this podcast tries to do with activism. CTCL publishes civic information accessed over 200 million times. Making the invisible visible, the complex actionable. Meeting people where they are with what they actually need.

4. Building networks vs. building walls. In 2022, Tiana launched the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, an $80 million, five-year program bringing together election officials, technologists, and designers across all 50 states. Officials from red counties and blue counties work together because they share something more fundamental than politics: commitment to protecting democracy's infrastructure through peer support rather than top-down mandates.

5. Defending democracy comes at a personal cost. In 2020, CTCL distributed $350 million to help local election offices run safe elections during COVID. The attacks that followed were unprecedented. Staying focused on mission when protecting democracy makes you a target requires resilience most of us don't have. Tiana and thousands of election officials do this work every day, often without recognition, frequently under threat.

Carolina Lopez leads the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions (PLEJ), a national network supporting the officials who run elections for more than 123 million Americans. When election officials face threats, natural disasters threaten polling places, or misinformation spreads, Carolina and her network are the first responders. It's all about "agility, resilience, and network."

We talk about why elections matter to everything we hold dear, how PLEJ builds trust across deep political divides, and what it looks like when Republicans and Democrats work together to protect the foundation of our democracy. Carolina shares stories from her decade running elections in Miami-Dade County, explains how peer support works when officials come under attack, and offers concrete ways we can all show up for the people protecting democracy at the local level.

The conversation gets real about the challenges election officials face, from armed interference to misinformation campaigns. And it also highlights an incredible network of dedicated public servants who refuse to be divided, who show up for each other across partisan lines, and who are more prepared than ever to protect our collective ability to participate in democracy.

Action Opportunities

Be a Prepared Voter: Ensure your voter registration is accurate. Confirm your polling location. Check your local election office website.

Support Your Local Elections:

Become a poll worker (there's a critical shortage) at powerthepolls.org

Follow your local elections office; they're the subject-matter experts in your community

When your local office is strapped for resources, show up: write a proactive op-ed, volunteer, send a letter to the board, or speak at a budget hearing

Support the Work:

Donate to PLEJ at taketheplej.org

Follow @taketheplej on social media to stay informed

For Election Officials:

PLEJ-eligible election offices: Consider joining the network

All election offices: Access PLEJ's nonpartisan, publicly available resources and operational forecasting tools at taketheplej.org

Key Takeaways

In a world where the integrity and efficiency of elections are crucial, Carolina Lopez is a beacon of hope and innovation. As the founding executive director of PLEJ, she is leading a transformative movement that connects large election jurisdictions across the United States.

1. The Birth of PLEJ: A Network for Election Officials

Carolina Lopez founded PLEJ to create the first national nonprofit network for large election offices. The goal: foster collaboration and share best practices on things like "How do we get [voters] in and out the door quicker?"

2. The Village of Support: A Unique Approach Carolina describes a collaborative environment where election officials can share knowledge and resources. This collaborative approach not only enhances problem-solving but also builds a community among election officials, enabling them to navigate challenges more effectively.

3. Addressing Challenges to Elections

Carolina highlights the importance of preparedness, especially in the face of threats, whether natural disasters, pandemics, or cybersecurity threats. She emphasizes the need for early detection of potential issues. "How do you communicate transparently?"

4. Continuous Improvement: Learning from Each Election

"You're only as good as the last [election]." PLEJ serves as a platform for learning and sharing experiences, helping election officials adapt and grow with each election cycle. The focus on best practices ensures that every election is more efficient and voter-friendly than the last.

Carolina Lopez is all about the power of collaboration and continuous improvement in elections. By fostering a support network among large election jurisdictions, PLEJ makes elections more efficient and ensures that the voices of voters are heard and respected. In an increasingly complex electoral landscape, the principles of transparency, preparedness, and community support are essential.

Picking up where they left off dancing on stage, Baron tells Jama: "I think that's what dance has taught me is just like sports, be comfortable being uncomfortable."

Baron Davis is a two-time NBA All-Star who led the league in steals twice and now invests in 26+ companies. He founded Business Inside the Game (BIG), connecting athletes, creators, and entrepreneurs, and Sports, Lifestyle in Culture (SLIC), which empowers creators through original content and IP development.

Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

"I was just having fun. I was just kind of doing something that people wouldn't expect. I think it's overall just conquering the fear, like living outside your comfort zone." Baron's philosophy isn't just about movement. It's about taking action despite fear and learning faster by throwing yourself to the wolves.

Show Up Ready, No Matter Who Shows Up

"I was ready for 400 people but only four people showed up. If I'm ready like this every time, you never know when the 40 to the 400 are going to show up." You don't wait for perfect conditions. You show up prepared, stay consistent, and welcome whatever comes as a chance to learn rather than failure. Baron talks about the reality checks, the days that aren't the greatest. The question is: how do you overcome? How do you continue to push through? The answer is readiness. Present moment awareness. Always be learning.

The 5%

"The 5% in the corner having a good time become the gravitational pull for the other 95%." Change doesn't happen by convincing everyone. It happens when a core group is so aligned and energized that others naturally want to join.

Media That Honors People

Too much media focuses on "argumentative, debating, knocking people down" instead of honoring people's stories, their sacrifice, their full humanity. Baron's calling for media that celebrates the complete story. Where people come from, what they've sacrificed, who they are. "A lot of that makes up your story and your DNA." Quality and substance over noise.

Learn From Mistakes

"Here are the mistakes that I made...Here are the ways that I would definitely tell you to go the other way." The most valuable thing you can give someone isn't just your wins. It's the honest account of what didn't work, how you learned the hard way so they don't have to. Real roadmaps.

Baron's Leadership Lessons

"Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable"

"Champions are made when nobody's around, when you're putting in the work behind closed doors"

"Throw me to the wolves. I learn faster when I'm around wolves and sharks"

"There is no failure, only incremental stages on the way to success"

Action Opportunities

Learn more: Business Inside the Game at bigsummits.com and @BIGsummits, SLIC Studios at slicsports.com, @BaronDavis on Instagram

Be part of the 5%: Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Practice curiosity. Show up ready. Give someone the ball.

Support entrepreneurs: Invest in companies from underrepresented founders. Attend BIG Summit events. Amplify creators through SLIC. Support companies that serve everyone, not just shareholders.

Chapters

00:00 The Power of Dance and Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

02:54 Cultural Shifts and the 5% Influence

05:53 Leadership vs. Individual Talent

08:40 The Responsibility of Storytelling

11:32 The Impact of Information Overload

14:34 Legacy and the Future of Culture

19:53 The Value of Storytelling in Community

22:17 Building Beloved Communities

23:51 The Shift in Community Engagement

26:20 Reevaluating Personal Values and Community

29:16 The Entrepreneurial Journey and Community Support

32:02 Navigating Entrepreneurship and Investor Relationships

34:56 Meeting People Where They Are

36:56 "There is no failure, only incremental stages on the way to success"