All progressive change-makers benefit from connecting with peers and amplifying each others’ voices.
Some organizations really do lead with love. When Jeanne Manford joined her gay son Morty at the 1972 Christopher Street Liberation Day March her handmade sign declared, Parents of Gays Unite in Support of our Children. That message moved many young people whose families were not there for them. Jeanne went on to become the mother of a movement, PFLAFG, that unites families, their LGBTQ loved ones and allies. The fierce love of these families and allies makes PFLAG a powerful force for protecting parents and children who are increasingly under attack in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill. As Diego Manuel Sanchez, Director of Advocacy, Policy, and Partnerships explains, PFLAG’s power is embedded in its grassroots infrastructure, more than 400 chapters and 250,000 members and supporters. And PFLAG creates opportunities for all of us to contribute to the change we want to see, including commenting on a new Title IX regulation that protects trans and other non-binary athletes. Diego is an extraordinary advocate and human being. Having turned to his own mother as a 5 year old to say that he was “born wrong” he demonstrates the power of claiming one’s true identity.
If you want to know how to protect and advance the rights of Latinos in Texas, ask Eric Holguin. A native son of Corpus Christi and Texas State Director of UnidosUS, the nation’s largest non-partisan champion of Hispanic civil rights, he starts with the facts. Without the state’s 11.4 million Latinos, who are critical to the workforce and especially well-represented in the civil service, energy and small business sectors, the economy would collapse and were it not for gerrymandering, Texas would be a purple state. Making progress in a state where political leaders maintain power by demonizing Latinos takes commitment, resources, and a strategy. Eric partners with UnidosUS affiliates, on-the-ground advocates for voting, education, reproductive, healthcare, immigration, and LGBTQ rights. He cultivates the next generation of Latino political leaders and most importantly, he engages with everyday community members who are moved more by values than by policy alerts. Standard messaging by political parties often fails to connect with Latino voters and will not motivate them to get to the polls. Votes must be earned, not taken for granted. Eric offers a roadmap to making change possible. Listen and celebrate how UnidosUS moves America forward.
Where To Listen
Today’s headline stories about jobs and the economy focus on remote workers facing a return to offices and thousands of professional hired by tech companies to deepen their capacities for artificial intelligence and machine learning. More commonplace injustices are being challenged by a growing movement for livable wages and paid family leave, against racial discrimination and immigrant exploitation and for the right to form a union. These and even worse abuses, including the pervasive use of child labor, were born in 20th century factories and mills. A profound desire to honor the contributions of millworkers is deeply rooted within Jim Warlick whose mother, the late Mary Hamilton Warlick, worked behind the same sewing machine for 33 years at the Garrou-Morgantan Full-Fashioned Hosiery Mill in Burke County, North Carolina. The newly unveiled Dignity of Work Monument recognizes those who toiled in the furniture, textile, and hosiery industries in conditions that would be entirely unacceptable today. Jim’s interviews with surviving millworkers reflect both the difficulty of the work and pride in what they accomplished. Lessons about their experience will become middle school curriculum, a triumph of truth in education that should inspire all of us.
with tackling inequitable conditions in non-profits with limited resources and recognition.
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how you are powering up your non-profit
I was propelled into community organizing when I was illegally evicted 30 years ago. I understand the challenges and potential of working for social justice in non-profits with finite resources and support.
I was launched into nonprofit policy advocacy 30+ years ago when my landlord, looking to maximize his profits in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood harassed, robbed and illegally evicted me from a property he owned. I quickly found neighborhood and statewide nonprofits, learned about tenant’s rights and how to advocate for policy change at city hall and the state capitol. Most importantly, I joined my neighbors who waged a successful years-long battle to stay in their homes.
Since then, I have worked in nonprofits with a social change mission as an organizer, fundraiser, policy advocate, program developer and executive director. I understand what it takes to be effective, stay solvent, and improve the lives of underinvested people and communities. I care, deeply, profoundly about the systemic and racial injustices that have marked public policy making and I know that nonprofits are critical to reimagining what can be. I started Power Station to amplify the voices of leaders who build community, influence and power. They are our pathway to progressive change.
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