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Photo courtesy Sterling Speirn
Meet the reformer: Sterling Speirn, promotor of 31 fix-the-system ideas
Sterling Speirn is nearing the end of a multifaceted career at the intersection of good-governance, public service and philanthropy. Before stepping down as CEO of the congressionally chartered National Conference on Citizenship, he was on the 35-member American Academy of Arts and Sciences commission that released a sweeping 31-point plan in June for fixing what's wrong with democracy within six years. "It's a game plan and catalogue of a powerful ensemble of civic, cultural and political reforms that could inspire a democratic renaissance at this crucial moment," he says. Earlier he spent a combined quarter century running the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, what's now called the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Apple Inc.'s grantmaking. He's also been a community health center administrator in California, a legal aid lawyer in North Carolina, an Interior Department attorney in D.C. and a middle-school teacher in Cleveland. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
These days I'm a senior fellow at the Bridge Alliance, a network of 100 organizations strengthening democratic values through our national diversity.
<h4>Describe your very first civic engagement.</h4><p>Attending a public hearing in San Francisco of the Bay Area Air Pollution Control District in 1969. Being on Stanford's campus from fall 1966 to spring 1970 shaped my lifelong civic engagement — and bookended every contemporary issue our democracy faces today. We had demonstrations for racial justice and against wars, the launch of the modern environmental movement with the first Earth Day, and protests for equal rights for women and LGBT people. And I graduated shortly after the Kent State massacre.</p><h4>What was your biggest professional triumph?</h4><p>While at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, launching a $75 million initiative in 2010 to address institutional racism and promote racial equity. The late congressman John Lewis graced us with his presence at the public announcement.</p><h4>And your most disappointing setback?</h4><p>Struggling to replicate the pioneering work of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and bring midlevel dental aid therapists to mainstream dental offices throughout a country where 50 million don's see a dentist every year.</p><h4>How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?</h4><p>I am a connector of people and integrator of ideas. The breadth, depth and vitality of the nonpartisan democratic reform movement across structural reforms, cultural renewal and civic learning is inspiring. The array of intensely local community-based efforts, city and state initiatives — all the way to Congress and constitutional amendments — is the ultimate challenge for communicators and boundary-spanners seeking to portray these diverse efforts as a movement and to help build momentum, support and hope.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><h4>What's the best advice you've ever been given?</h4><p>From a mentor and atypical venture capitalist during my Silicon Valley days, when I was taking on a new leadership challenge: "Be yourself."</p><h4>Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.</h4><p>It would be "RepubliCrunch: a Balm for a Constitutional Democracy in Crisis." Vanilla ice cream with peppermint (red) and blueberry (blue) candy pieces and chocolate covered almonds. Yummy, and often leaves the tongue purple. </p><h4>What's your favorite political movie or TV show?</h4><p>"Dave," the 1993 comedy with Kevin Kline as the president (and his doppelganger) and Sigourney Weaver as the first lady<em>. </em>It's a movie from a kinder, gentler era — one where a good guy and common sense made for a thrilling Cabinet budget meeting and a love story to boot.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><h4>What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?</h4><p>My phone has long gone to its charger hours before bedtime. Without any Facebook, Twitter or Instagram apps, my phone and its headset are mostly for podcasts, live radio and the new daily diet of Zoom meetings.</p><h4>What is your deepest, darkest secret?</h4><p>I love singers and singing — and binge watching "Glee," Lady Gaga singing everything from "Born This Way" to "Shallow," and auditions on "America's Got Talent" and "The Voice." YouTube on my iPad helps get me through sleepless nights.</p>
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First-time voter Roxy Sprowl discusses what she learned about active listening in a Vote by Design workshop.
From apathy to agency: How to reframe elections for new voters
Solomon is on the faculty of Stanford University's design school and a creator of Vote by Design, an effort to promote civic engagement among younger voters by having them create presidential job descriptions.
<p>In the last presidential election, less than half of eligible young people voted. Why? </p>
<p>After all, countless initiatives have been launched to register and mobilize these voters. School lectures stress the importance of voting. Celebrities swamp social media with urgent pleas. And in some states, there are even drives to lower the voting age. Why then do young people reject their right, and responsibility, to vote? </p>
<p>The standard theories are that "young people don't care enough about their future" or "they aren't able to see beyond their own limited self-interest and make decisions for the greater good." But in truth, young people do care, and their interest is only increasing. In fact, the Census Bureau says people ages 18 to 29 were the only age group that increased its representation at the polls in 2016. </p>
<p>So, if they do care, then why don't they vote? Experience in running a new voter literacy program, with over 1,000 students from around the country, shows that the issue is not apathy, but a lack of agency. </p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>For too long, we have relied on history or civics classes to teach students how government works and the various roles that matter. We teach them that the president must be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. But memorizing the Constitution or historical timelines is not a proxy for learning how to be a deliberative voter. We teach them about past presidents like Lincoln and Washington. And we assume that these history lessons provide all the preparation they needed to cast an informed vote.</p>
<p>Here's what we don't teach them: How to identify the qualities they want in a president, and why, and how to overcome their biases and look beyond the campaign messages to identify a candidate with the qualities they seek. </p>
<p>Also, we certainly don't ask them to envision the worlds the candidate would shape or how their leadership qualities would allow them to prevail over the crises they are likely to face. </p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>That's why I was part of a team that created Vote by Design, a digital civics program created by educators for educators. It is designed to empower students to engage in the democratic process as independent and capable voters. We created it to ignite student agency, shift mindsets and build voter skill sets. It connects to themes of citizenship, civic engagement, inclusion and equity. </p>
<p>In the curriculum, we ask students to choose qualities they care about in a president, rather than focus on their policies. And we ask them to respond to a specific challenge — a geopolitical crisis or a natural disaster, for example — as if they were president, drawing on these previously identified qualities.</p>
<p>Immediately, students are able to see how the qualities and values they've selected show up in the types of decisions a president must make under pressure. They begin to realize the choices and decisions leaders have to make often have nothing to do with the policies they espoused in a campaign. They also soon realize no president is perfect, or can possibly have all the background and expertise needed for the role, but all presidents are called upon to step up and reveal themselves for the leaders they are. </p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>The results of this brief exercise are extraordinary. How students think about the roles and qualities of the president are often transformed. </p>
<p>"I used to think our political system had gotten hopeless," they report. "Now I think ... there are many possible ways to return to compassion and integrity."</p>
<p>"I used to think that I had no idea about who our president should be and why it matters," they add. "Now I think presidents should represent all the people, to present a unified front in order for people to trust them with a country." </p>
<p>And finally: "I used to think what my friends and family thought. Now I think for myself." </p>
<p>These are not the reflections of apathetic people. They are the reflections of people who had been so unprepared and confused they didn't even want to vote. And they are the reflections of people who have now learned how to vote. They turned their so-called apathy into agency. </p>
<p>These are young people who will vote next month — and likely every election thereafter. </p>
<div></div><p>Vote By Design's team believes in the power of young people. We believe they care about this world and our future. We believe they should speak up and vote for the changes they wish. We believe young people not only deserve the right to vote, but deserve the right to learn how to vote. And it is our job to teach them.</p>
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IssueVoter
Meet the reformer: Maria Yuan, who's put issue knowledge and advocacy a click away
It took a decade for the germ of an idea to develop into the launch of IssueVoter, right after the last presidential election. Four years on, creator Maria Yuan says her interactive civic engagement and voter education tool has more than 2 million subscribers dispersed across all 435 congressional districts. The concept came to her during her one stint as a political operative, running a 2006 Iowa legislative campaign, and took flight after getting an MBA and working as a startup consultant and investment bank analyst and recruiter. Her answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
Legislative information on the issues subscribers say they care about, plus translations of bills into layman's terms and an easy way to express views to members of Congress. Also, a personalized scorecard about lawmakers' votes, so they can be more informed in the next election!
<p><strong>Describe your very first civic engagement.<br></strong></p><p>My second-grade teacher in California did a simple activity that has stayed with me until this day: mock voting! We were asked to cast our votes for president. I wrote mine on a small slip of paper, folded it and placed it confidently into our classroom's homemade secret ballot box. The teacher announced the votes and showed us a map of the country, and I got a taste of democracy and civic participation at 7 years old. I felt empowered and included. Plus, it was fun!</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p><strong>What was your biggest professional triumph?</strong></p><p>About 15 years later, I went to manage a successful campaign for an open state Senate seat in Iowa, a state known for its voter engagement. (I always say, if you want to meet famous politicians then don't go to D.C., go to Iowa.) Still, like everywhere else, people get super engaged in campaign season but disengage during the off-season. This makes no sense: You would never promote employees without seeing their work, yet that's what we do when we re-elect people without paying attention to what they've been up to.</p><p>So what I learned was that politics and campaigns completely overshadow what's important — the policy. We are a nation built on laws, and policy is what affects every single issue you care about. Policy is what can create the better world we all desire.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p><strong>And your most disappointing setback?</strong></p><p>I learned that I wasn't inspired to continue working in politics, which had been the plan. I even had job offers to work on other campaigns afterwards.</p><p><strong>How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?</strong></p><p>Unfortunately, it's our identities that influence the way others see us — unconscious or not. It's my experience, skills and personality, rather than my identity, that influence the way I work. </p><p>I am results-oriented and a driver. I am a verbal processor, thinking aloud. I disliked being micromanaged, so I give members of my team a ton of autonomy. I enjoy bringing people together behind a common goal and believe measurable impact can be accomplished efficiently, and at great scale. I am a strategic thinker and can see the big picture. I have tons of new ideas.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p><strong>What's the best advice you've ever been given?</strong></p><p>You can't quit. That's what mom said when I didn't get the lead in a children's "mini actors" class. It was a lesson in perseverance but also a reminder that other people depend on you.</p><p>My favorite advice right now is from Toni Morrison: If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.</p><p><strong>Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.</strong></p><p>One where you have to mix red and blue sections together for it to taste good? Maybe not. The best ice cream is Mexican Vanilla at Amy's in Austin, Texas, my home town. A blend of Madagascar vanilla bean and Mexican orchid, it needs no improvement.</p><p><strong>What's your favorite political movie or TV show?</strong></p><p>Actually I don't watch a lot of political TV or film. But I do remember liking "The Newsroom," the HBO series about a fictional cable news channel handling real news in the recent past.</p><p><strong>What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?</strong></p><p>Check my calendar for the next day and set a time to wake up — though I usually get up before my alarm anyway. </p><p><strong>What is your deepest, darkest secret?</strong></p><p>I used to have a restaurant blog that was exclusively reviews of the huevos rancheros and tortilla soup at places I visited. </p>
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How to Make a Voting Plan: A Family Affair
Organizers: JPMorgan Chase & Co. and College to Congress
Join JPMorgan Chase & Co. and College to Congress for a virtual event on how to make a voting plan, engage your family, and navigate voting during a pandemic.
Location: Webinar
