366. Michael Sheldrick with Paulin Basinga: From Ideas to Impact — Harnessing Pop Culture for Social Justice
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Release Date: 08/19/2024
391. Building a Bikeable Seattle: A Bike Everywhere Day Bash!
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Is Seattle on the cusp of a biking Renaissance? From Beacon Hill to SODO to the Waterfront and Downtown, the next few years will bring major improvements to Seattle’s growing network of connected and separated bike lanes and bike paths. That’s good news for people who want a safer, healthier, more equitable and climate-friendly city. Join Cascade Bicycle Club on Bike Everywhere Day for a conversation with climate journalist and bike advocate Paul Tolme, Biking Uphill in the Rain author and Seattle Bike Blog founder Tom Fucoloro, and Cascade Bicycle Club Policy Manager Tyler...
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390. Alec Karakatsanis with Erin Papworth: Copaganda—How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
What if everything you thought you knew about crime and punishment was shaped by those who profit from it? Join us for a discussion with civil rights attorney and author Alec Karakatsanis as he examines “copaganda”—the deliberate manipulation of public perception by police, prosecutors, and the media. Despite historically low crime rates, the United States imprisons far more people than it did just decades ago, driven by a sprawling and profitable punishment industry. Karakatsanis will explore how media narratives fuel fear, distort public policy, and divert attention from systemic...
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389. Shamichael Hallman: Meet Me at the Library — A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote Democracy
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
America is facing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, with troubling effects on our mental and physical health. We live in one of the most divisive times in our history, one in which we tend to work, play, and associate only with people who think as we do. How do we create spaces for people to come together — to open our minds, understand our differences, and exchange ideas? In his new book, Meet Me at the Library, Shamichael Hallman argues that the public library may be our best hope for bridging these divides and creating strong, inclusive communities. Public libraries are...
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388. Derek Thompson with Clayton Aldern: Abundance
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
From bestselling authors and journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a call to renew a politics of plenty, face the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built...
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387. Queering Talks: Out in Front—Radical Leadership in Queer Liberation
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
In Part Two of our , we will center the voices of those who have always led the way in liberation movements, claiming the spotlight for those who have consistently been “out in front” of struggles for justice, love, and equity, demonstrating that the margins have always been the source of radical change. Queering leadership is not just about reclaiming lost stories; it’s about futurism — imagining and building new realities. Leaders who live at the intersections of power systems have long envisioned new possibilities and turned them into reality. They’ve led us beyond the...
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386. Elie Mystal with Jay Willis - How Overturning Laws Could Help America
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Is there a current law on the books that you disagree with? How about ten? In Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America, New York Times bestselling author and legal analyst Elie Mystal argues not only that ten pieces of legislation are making life worse for millions of Americans but that they should be repealed completely. On topics ranging from immigration to gun rights to abortion and religious freedom, Mystal asserts that these are the worst of our ordinances and that the laws by which our nation is governed do not always reflect the will of the people. Dissecting...
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385. Lessons from Ending Apartheid: How to Resolve Deep Conflict
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Around the world and throughout history, bitter political adversaries have put aside their differences and worked together to create peace. In a conversation moderated by Jillian Youngblood, Executive Director of Civic Genius, hear two extraordinary leaders tell how they helped transform South Africa into a multiracial democracy, and what their experiences can teach us. Roelf Meyer is renowned for his pivotal role as the South African government’s chief representative in the negotiations to end Apartheid. Mohammed Bhabha was on the African National Congress team at the Convention for a...
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384. Yoni Appelbaum: Priced out of the American Dream
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Seattle home prices are notoriously sky-high, making this city a difficult place to afford and move to. How did Seattle and other U.S. cities become that way? Or, as historian and journalist Yoni Appelbaum puts it, how did the U.S. cease to be the land of opportunity? Pulling from his book, Stuck, Appelbaum explores how housing affects the very fabric of our society. For 200 years, people in the U.S. moved to new places for economic and social opportunity. But, Appelbaum argues that not only is this American Dream becoming more inaccessible, it hasn’t been available to many for a long...
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383. Ron Wyden with Liz Berry: It Takes Chutzpah
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
“If you want to make change, you’ve got to make noise.” A call to action in the political sense conveys boldness and focus. It’s about drawing attention and speaking loudly about one’s convictions, with a sense of urgency and persistence. To longtime outspoken advocate and US Senator Ron Wyden, that’s what you’d call chutzpah – and his upcoming book sets out to inspire that same quality of action-driven audacity in Americans of all ages. It Takes Chutzpah: How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change acts as a reflection of Wyden’s decades of public service and as a...
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382. Chris Hayes with Luke Burbank: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
You’ve probably been there: doomscrolling or otherwise distracted by devices. Many of us have lost focus before as our addictive phones consume our time or interfere with social situations. People bump into one another on the street, look down at their phones at restaurants, or check their mobile devices while spending time with the kids as continuous pings sound off in their pockets and purses. New York Times bestselling author, political commentator, and MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes posits that these phenomena are part of a larger issue of attention capitalism, and show how...
info_outlineIn April 2020, when the world was in the early months of COVID-19, you may remember the televised concert that Lady Gaga hosted called “One World: Together At Home.”
This star-studded show was put together by Global Citizen, an international social justice organization that used the program to promote and support healthcare workers and the World Health Organization. The program was remarkable in harnessing pop culture to promote social justice issues. Michael Sheldrick, a co-founder of Global Citizen, believes leaders must adopt concepts like this to tackle the challenges in today’s fractionalized culture.
Drawing from real-life examples, Sheldrick shares this strategy in his book, From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World. Sheldrick identifies key characteristics of successful change makers: they are leaders who are practical implementers, connectors, and networkers. Sheldrick also has concrete advice, such as avoiding demands for unwavering loyalty and winning arguments at all costs. He outlines step-by-step tools to foster connections and cooperation and examines past and current movements that have made lasting impacts.
Sheldrick believes that it’ll take huge social changes to make an impact on today’s biggest challenges. Lady Gaga’s online concert in April 2020 was one example of how Sheldrick puts this into action. Now, he wants to share his toolkit with individual changemakers, philanthropists, professionals, corporate foundations, and students. These are the people, Sheldrick argues, who can drive the real solutions in our tumultuous world.
Michael Sheldrick is a policy entrepreneur and Co-Founder and Chief Policy, Impact, and Government Affairs Officer at Global Citizen, where he spearheads campaigns to eradicate extreme poverty by rallying support from governments, businesses, and foundations. With a unique career bridging pop culture and policy, he has collaborated with renowned artists like Beyoncé, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, and political figures including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Sheldrick has co-produced influential social campaigns and events like the Global Citizen Festival in New York and the Guinness World Record-winning virtual concert One World: Together At Home, reaching millions worldwide and securing over forty billion in commitments.
Dr. Paulin Basinga leads the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s work in Africa. Previously, as the foundation’s director of health for Africa, Paulin led a team that developed and implemented country plans to advance the foundation’s health priorities in Africa. Earlier, he was the foundation’s country director in Nigeria, where he re-established critical partnerships and advanced the foundation’s health, nutrition, agriculture, gender, and financial inclusion priorities and aligned them with the Nigerian government’s Human Capital Development Agenda.
