Bio

Ai-jen Poo is a labor leader, award-winning organizer, author, and a leading voice in the women’s movement. She plays many roles in her leadership: she is the Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), Director of Caring Across Generations, a Co-Founder of SuperMajority and Trustee of the Ford Foundation. For the last 25 years, Poo has become a nationally recognized expert on elder and family care, the future of work, gender equality, immigration, narrative change, and grassroots organizing. She is also the author of The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. Poo has worked tirelessly using narrative and policy change to transform the care economy in the United States. Poo’s thought leadership emphasizes that the underlying premise of “care as infrastructure”: that caring for family, and taking care of children and the elderly are fundamental to the functioning of social and economic life.

Poo has won countless awards, including a 2014 MacArthur “Genius” Award, and was listed on Fortune’s 50 World’s Greatest Leaders and Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. She has spoken at hundreds of conferences and institutions, including TEDWomen, Aspen Ideas Festival, Skoll World Forum, and many others, and has appeared on Nightline, MSNBC, and Morning Joe, Het work and words has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan and many more. Ai-jen has been an influential voice in the #MeToo movement and attended the 2018 Golden Globe Awards with Meryl Streep as part of the launch of #TimesUp.

Impact

• Along with over 70 local affiliate organizations and chapters and over 200,000 members, the National Domestic Workers Alliance has passed Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in 10 states, the cities of Seattle and Philadelphia, and brought over 2 million home care workers under minimum wage protections.
• With collaborators, she popularized the frame of “care as infrastructure” coming out of the pandemic that has forever changed the national conception of the role of care in public life.
• Has leveraged pop culture, like in 2018, when NDWA became official partners with the film, Roma, which centers on the experiences of Mexican domestic workers.

Narrative change POV

Poo has attributed much of the success of the care movement to her and her organizations’ practice in storytelling. She says this was achieved by embracing what she calls, “narrative power” and connecting with people on an emotional level: “There’s what is factually true and then there’s emotionally true, and they’re not the same thing. It took me a while to kind of sort that out and the recognition that both truths are profoundly powerful in shaping our decisions, our behaviors, our actions, our choices, and that if we only exist in the realm of facts and those factual truths, we miss a whole terrain of decision-making and power.”

She also talks about what she calls a “braided strategy”; instead of thinking of policy and culture change as separate things, we have to think of them as braided together. She says, “[S]uccessful movements are moving on all fronts, really trying to build the muscle around telling the story of why things are the way that they are in the world on our terms…Just watching how elected officials have learned how to share their personal care stories through the culture and story-driven work..has been so moving, and I think that it’s been transformative for them to be able to bring their whole stories into who they are as leaders and then connect that to actual policy and systems change in this deeply emotional way.”

Bio

Aisha Nyandoro is transforming the way we think about wealth in the U.S. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of Springboard to Opportunities, a non profit organization serving families in Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, and Washington, DC. She leads the organization as its CEO through what she calls a, “radically resident-driven approach” to combat generational poverty. Nyandoro’s most renowned work has been spearheading one of her organization’s programs called Magnolia Mother’s Trust. Created in 2018, Magnolia Mother’s Trust gives $1,000/month checks to Black mothers living in affordable housing in Jackson, Mississippi for 12 months with zero strings attached.

In 2024, Nyandoro was recognized as a TIME100 Next honoree for her guaranteed income work. She has also been featured in NPR, Forbes, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence Magazine, NBC Nightly News, CNN and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Nyandoro is a fellow of Ascend at the Aspen Institute, the Highland Project, the Emerson Collective’s Dial program, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network. She is also a 2022 McNulty Prize Winner and the 2022 Disrupter Change Champion from Community Change.

Impact

• As the nation’s first guaranteed income program for Black mothers leading low-income households, the initiative has gained nationwide recognition for its success, sparking a public conversation about guaranteed income in the U.S.
• Initially piloted with 20 mothers, today Magnolia Mother’s Trust is the nation’s longest-running guaranteed income project. It currently supports over 400 families.
• Nyandoro has delivered two TED Talks, challenging us to reconsider what it means to be wealthy and encouraging us to listen to people to learn what they need most. Her latest talk has received over 800,000 views on TED.com.

Narrative change POV

Nyandoro has focused on changing the narrative about people living in poverty by debunking harmful stereotypes. Pushing against the “handouts” narrative perpetuated through conservative media, she argues that cash can help poor families lift themselves out of poverty by investing in their own future. Nyandoro also emphasizes the underlying issues of power and dignity: When each Black mother receives cash, she has the wisdom and power to decide what her family needs. Instead of playing into narratives that poor Black mothers can’t manage their checkbooks, Nyandoro leverages the success of Magnolia Mother’s Trust to break through these misconceptions by giving them a platform to talk about their experiences through storytelling events. Nyandoro says, “In order to [shift the narrative], you have to change the narrator. And so the individuals who are most impacted by the work that you’re doing have to be the individuals who are front and center talking about the work.”

Bio

Angela Patton has built her career on creating safe spaces for listening to the needs of Black women and girls. In 2004, Patton founded Camp Diva to honor 5-year-old Diva Mstadi Smith-Roane, a friend’s daughter who was killed in a firearm accident, and with the mission to empower and build leadership skills for Black girls in Richmond, Virginia. In 2007, when Patton realized that a number of girls in Camp Diva couldn’t participate at the local “Date with Dad Dance” because their fathers were in prison, she launched a father-daughter dance in Richmond City Jail. This inspired other correctional centers to host their own dances for young girls with incarcerated fathers, and nearly 15 years later, was turned into an award-winning documentary, co-directed by Patton.

Patton built upon this work as the current CEO of Girls For A Change (GFAC), empowering adolescent Black girls to develop, lead, fund, and implement transformational projects in their neighborhoods. It has been nationally recognized as a unique, replicable approach.

In 2016, Patton was named “Champion of Change for Enrichment for Marginalized Girls” by President Barack Obama. This title was given to ten individuals who work to improve and empower the lives of marginalized girls through extracurricular and after-school programs. She also co-authored the book, Finding Her Voice: How Black Girls in White Spaces Can Speak Up & Live Their Truth, with Faye Z. Belgrave, PhD and Ivy Belgrave.

Impact

• First gained national attention when she delivered a TEDxWomen talk titled, “A father-daughter dance…in prison.” It was featured on TED.com, receiving nearly 1 million views.
• Co-directed “Daughters,” a documentary based on the father-daughter dance, premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, winning awards for Festival Favorite and Audience Choice (U.S. Documentary Competition), and received a Peabody Award in 2025.
• “Daughters” was bought by Netflix, covered by multiple media outlets like The New York Times and TIME, and featured on “must-watch” lists by Entertainment Weekly and others.

Narrative change POV

Patton talks about the power of strategic patience when it comes to receiving opportunities to share your work nationally. After her TED talk, she was approached by multiple filmmakers about the possibility of a documentary, but decided to wait. She said: “I had to lean into being patient; I received a great deal of people who were filmmakers…and journalists. And I was not ready for that. And when I decided to choose to go with the doc…I chose Natalie mainly because she was the first woman. And I liked what she said about the girl’s voices because all the other emails [sounded] like a ‘jail story.’”

Bio

For over 20 years, Bridgit Antoinette Evans has been one of the most influential strategists in narrative change work in the U.S. Her culture strategy work has contributed to what she calls a “new, hybrid culture change field” where creative and social justice leaders collaborate to craft and popularize stories that shape the narratives, values, and behaviors that define American culture.

Since 2017, Bridgit has been the CEO of the Pop Culture Collaborative, a philanthropic resource and funder learning community shifting the narrative landscape around people of color, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and Indigenous peoples in America – especially those who are women, queer, trans, and disabled. Their grantees have included some of the most influential social movements leads of our time, including Alicia Garza of Black Lives Matter Network, trans poet and comedian ALOK, and Tony-award winning Sarah Jones.

Evans often says her roots in her work as a professional Off Broadway actor and theater producer contributes to her passion for culture change. She has also worked at and with major institutions like the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Ford Foundation to develop culture change research and strategy design projects on pressing social issues, and her campaigns have involved some of the country’s most influential celebrities, like Beyonce, Viola Davis, Amy Poehler, and many more.

Impact

• Moved over $30 million to support organizations doing culture change work through Pop Culture Collaborative.
• Led some of the nation’s most impactful narrative and engagement strategies in the last decade, including National Domestic Workers Alliance’s #BeTheHelp and GEMS’ Girls Are Not for Sale strategy.
• Moved some of the country’s most influential philanthropic institutions to invest in culture and narrative change, including the Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundation, and many others.

Narrative change POV

Evans is fascinated with what she calls “narrative oceans,” and encourages movements to expand their narrative strategies beyond the “one drop” approach: “If you imagine a bright purple drop of ink into an ocean, into a vast body of water, what happens to that brilliant purple drop is that it swirls in the waves. It may dance, it may look beautiful for a moment, and then the sheer vastness of that water is going to consume that narrative.”

She argues that if your “drop” is the metaphor, you must create a rainstorm for a long term culture strategy through an ecosystem of players: “[A]ll of these people working together are actually creating many, different experiences and touch points for millions of people to engage with. So instead of one interaction…they are actually engaging with…the podcast that they’re listening to and the Netflix show that they’re binging and the news article that they’re reading and the song that’s in their ear and the fandom that they’re absolutely obsessed with and the community that they’re engaged with locally all around them – they’re beginning to see this repetition of ideas and ways of being. That’s the ocean.”

Bio

Edgar Villanueva is a force. For the past 10 plus years, he has played a leading role in the call for reckoning in the philanthropy sector. His award-winning book, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, illustrates the ways philanthropy has evolved to mirror colonial structures, and challenges the sector to rethink the role of wealth in social change. Published in 2018, it explains U.S. colonial history, spotlighting the past and current reality of wealth and racism, and also how money should be used as a tool of healing, love, and belonging. In 2019, Villanueva established the Decolonizing Wealth Project and Liberated Capital, two initiatives with a goal to increase unrestricted funds to black, indigenous, and other communities of color.

As a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and queer activist, Villanueva often speaks about how his family history and background gave him an understanding of the urgent need for decolonization and healing. He serves as chair of the board of directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy, and a trustee of both the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Andrus Family Fund.

Villanueva has contributed to numerous publications, including The Washington Post, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and the Advocate. His work has also been featured in The New York Times, Vox, Forbes, and NPR. He also won a number of awards, including being named a 2020 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity and was on the 2021 Inside Philanthropy Power List.

Impact

• Catalyzed big shifts in philanthropy, shifting funding practices at major institutions such as Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and The Bush Foundation.
• Through The Decolonizing Wealth Project, influenced more than $600 million in new investment to organizations working on racial and economic justice through direct donor engagement.
• Through Liberated Capital, redistributed over $15 million to organizations largely led and serving Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, and addressing a variety of issues such as climate change and conservation, food and agriculture justice, and reparations.

Narrative change POV

Villanueva has an important perspective as an insider and outsider. He argues that when we feel strongly about an issue, it’s easy to fall into binary strategies. For example, it’s easy to look at the philanthropy sector in all its flaws and hypocrisy and feel like you want to speak out on it. It may seem easy to decide you have two choices – to tear it down mercilessly (i.e. a vicious critique), or to write something neutral and solutions-oriented so as to not offend anyone.

Edgar models a third way. He says you can be both fierce in your critique and solutions oriented. You can call people out and in. He says, “I can be mad about whiteness, I can be mad about oppression, all those things – but see this person with some time and attentional love as a potential conduit to try to change that, and the influence there if I can move someone along a couple steps towards equity, the profound impacts that it can have.”

But he also adds to proceed with caution: “[B]ut it takes deep healing. And some days I don’t feel like I can do it. I’m like, ’Oh my gosh, today I’m so triggered.’ But it takes deep healing and being in touch with your own community and self to be able to go into those spaces and minister to others. It is a calling.”

Bio

At the age of 41, Shannon Watts embarked up an unexpected path to becoming a leading voice for gun reform. After witnessing from her television screen the aftermath of the school shooting at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, Watts, a former communications executive and daughter of a gun owner, felt compelled to take action. A day after the shooting left 20 children and six adults dead, Watts galvanized the support of other outraged and grieving mothers through a Facebook group she created in order to unite them against gun violence. This group grew rapidly and eventually evolved into the development of a grassroots advocacy organization, Moms Demand Action, garnering millions of volunteers and passing hundreds of gun safety laws across the U.S. The organization is now part of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the United States with chapters in every state.

Watts has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year. She’s been a commentator on various news sources, including CNN, NPR and MSNBC, and has written opinion pieces for Newsweek, Time.com, and Marie Claire, and many others. She is also the author of multiple books, including Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, and her forthcoming book, Fired Up: How To Turn Your Spark Into a Flame and Come Alive at Any Age.

Impact

• Played a significant role in the U.S. gun reform movement through Moms Demand Action, with over 10 million volunteers, who wear signature red shirts and overwhelm state capitols with their demonstrations.
• Enacted over 500 gun safety laws across the nation, influenced corporate policies, and raised awareness about secure gun storage for millions of Americans.
• Activated mothers and other activists across the nation through her highly impactful media activism, with nearly 600,000 X (formerly known as Twitter) followers and over 200,000 Instagram followers.

Narrative change POV

Watts has many perspectives on how narrative can be a tool for change, but her take on her personal thought leadership journey teaches us something about the power of different public leadership styles – and specifically, those who are neurodivergent. ADHD was often a source of struggle for her in traditional school, but became her super power in the context of her activism against gun violence. She lived, breathed, and slept her work for a decade because of the hyperfocus that ADHD allowed her.

She said: “Now I know there is no one except maybe another woman with ADHD who was a mom who could have done what I have done for 11 years as a full-time volunteer, which is to wake up every single morning to get so enmeshed with the details of gun violence around the country every day, to tell those stories, stories that wouldn’t be seen by other people if I hadn’t made Twitter, my full-time job in addition to all my other work. It took such a huge amount of focus and determination – that was absolutely my ADHD for 11 years.”

Bio

Through their unwavering passion for climate change work, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine Wilkinson have shown the world what is possible through collective thought leadership. After a conversation at a climate conference dominated by white men, the two friends co-created a 2020 anthology, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. From this, The All We Can Save Project was born, an organization led by Wilkinson that leads workshops and convenings that have equipped thousands of climate activists to take action.

Individually and collectively, both women have played momentous roles in the climate world. Johnson is the co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and authored The New York Times bestseller What If We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. She has been one of the leading voices and policy experts on climate, including co-creating and co-hosting the Spotify/Gimlet climate solutions podcast How to Save a Planet, and co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. Featured in Time magazine as one of 15 “women who will save the world,” Wilkinson has authored multiple books on climate, including the New York Times bestseller Drawdown. She co-hosts the top 1% podcast A Matter of Degrees, telling stories for the climate curious with Dr. Leah Stokes. She is also the Executive Director of the All We Can Save Project.

Impact

• Ignited a national conversation about how women’s leadership can propel the climate movement forward, through multiple books and features in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and countless other major media outlets.
• Collectively garnered over 4.5 million views on TED.com through their talks on climate change.
• Influenced and advised on policy change and government decision-making on climate change at the national level.

Narrative change POV

Johnson and Wilkinson are living proof that collective thought leadership works – not only in their own partnership, but in the All We Can Save anthology that featured the words of 60+ women leaders on climate solutions. But it took a level of strategic positioning when Johnson was approached with a book deal.

When they brought up the idea of an anthology, it was met with skepticism: “[M]y literary agent was like, of course, sure, I’ll pitch whatever book you guys want to pitch. This seems great. But he was like, ‘This is going to be hard to sell and it is probably not going to make money, and you’re probably not going to get much of an advance to help you make it.’…I basically reached a moment saying, ‘Well, this has to be a two book deal. So whether you take my book and all, we can save or you get neither.’ Which in hindsight is a crazy thing that I did not fully understand…but I’m glad I did. It worked out.” The anthology sold over 120,000 copies.