Power Station: The Social Activism Podcast for Progressive Non-Profits

In the movies, small business owners are often depicted as avatars for what we admire: people following a dream, continuing a family legacy and serving a beloved community. But the real life version of entrepreneurship is more complex. Not everyone has a friendly banker, access to capital, or the capacity to generate a business plan. For people of color damaged by systemic racism in policymaking and banking, the barriers can seem insurmountable. These inequities led to the creation of Community Development Financial Institutions, for decades a source for capital and technical assistance in underserved communities. In this episode of Power Station, Shannan Herbert, the inspiring new CEO of Washington Areas Community Investment Fund (WACIF), shares the stories of those who have walked through WACIF’s doors, become part of an educational cohort, received a loan, learned how to create a marketing plan and most importantly, joined a lifelong community of practice. WACIF’s rich history of investing in Black and Brown communities in Washington DC and surrounding municipalities is now enhanced by the Racial Justice in Underwriting initiative, which is changing how the business of lending is perceived and done. Hear her!

Our nation is bitterly divided over its vision for democracy or whether to remain a democracy at all. Increasingly, elected leaders on school boards, state legislatures and Capitol Hill, are using their policy making powers to further marginalize vulnerable constituents.. The discord, amplified relentlessly on social media, often tells only a portion of the story. We hear less about the problems-solvers, the nonprofits that meet human needs, engage communities and generate solutions to systemic problems, from hunger to housing and homelessness. The Urban Institute, founded in 1968 to advance President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, enriches these organizations and all sectors with rigorous research and unimpeachable data about an array of societal challenges. It also convenes stakeholders, from municipal leaders to academics and people with lived experience, to share research findings and discuss strategies for advancing equity. This episode features Urban Institute Senior Fellow Samantha Batko, whose community informed research answers critical policy questions about housing and homelessness. We start with this unsettling truth, that on any given night in America some ¼ million people experience unsheltered homelessness. Sam is a tremendous champion of housing justice rooted in evidence-based data. Hear her.

In 1990, 60 disabled men and women with disabilities put their wheelchairs and mobility aids aside and crawled up the steps of the U.S. Capital and into the Rotunda. Once inside they chained themselves together and announced that they would not leave until the House passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Dara Baldwin, consummate policy advocate and inspiring disability justice activist was not aware, until attending their 50th anniversary event, that the Black Panthers conceived of and helped implement the chaining strategy. This fact, and the contributions of many Black disabled leaders, from Rep. Barbara Jordan to Don Galloway have been expunged in movement storytelling by white nonprofit executives. Dara’s new book, To Be a Problem, A Black Woman’s Survival in the Racist Disability Rights Movement, brings light to the entrenchment of white privilege and racism in the sector. And it corrects the record about the historical and ongoing impacts of people of color in the disability community. The book is also hopeful, imagining a new wave of activism where Black disabled people are at the center of the movement for Black Liberation. Dara has given us a rare truth-telling narrative for our times.