Episode 1 - Michael MacHarg

Ashindi Maxton - Democracy Reform, Racial and Social Justice

Ashindi is an independent strategist and donor advisor in democracy reform, social and racial justice. She has developed funding strategies informing more than $100 million in investments from some of the largest foundations and individual donors in the United States  - including the Democracy Alliance, the Ford Foundation, The Women Donors Network, the Sandler Family Foundation, and PowerPAC.

Ashindi co-founded the Emergent Fund, a post 2016 election rapid response fund supporting organizing in the most impacted communities where Muslim, Black, immigrant, Latino, Asian, women, and LGBTQ leaders took the lead in decision-making and were the primary recipients of over $1 million raised in the first 100 days of the new Administration. In May of 2016 she also co-authored, with Urvashi Vaid, the first comprehensive report on high net worth donors of color titled, “The Apparitional Donor: Understanding and Engaging High Net Worth Donors of Color”.

She also piloted voter engagement projects geared at Asian American voting, voter registration in community health clinics and ran a witness search and data collection effort which proved to be pivotal in overturning the Pennsylvania voter ID law in 2012. 

Prior to all of this, Ashindi worked in education. She was the principal of an elementary arts charter school, a Spanish bilingual fifth grade teacher, and a policy fellow to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Education. She was also a Fulbright Scholar to the Dominican Republic where she published the first national study on race consciousness in Dominican children.

In addition to her work in philanthropy, Ashindi has served as the National Policy Director of the NAACP and the National Director of Political Partnerships for SEIU International. Ashindi serves on the boards of the Texas Organizing Project and Free Speech TV. She has been listed three times to Washington Magazine’s “Young and the Guest List” of forty and under geniuses, visionaries, crusaders and innovators shaping Washington's future” in addition to the “NAACP Power 40” list of most influential African-Americans under forty.

Ms. Maxton is a graduate of Vassar College and has a Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. It's hard to think of someone more accomplished in her field.  So grateful that she carved out time for us today.  Enjoy the show!

Episode 7 - Podcast Mashup - Between Two Millenials

Episode 6 - Peachy Myers - Community Engagement, Foundation Communities

At some point in time, every social innovator faces the daunting task of growing beyond their initial customers and inspiring the larger community.  Questions quickly arise in response to the challenge: How can we connect in a meaningful way to more and more people? How can we leverage our existing supporters to get the word out?    What does it take to create raving fans and evangelists for our product or service? To help us explore these questions and talk through tangible strategies any social innovator can employ, we reached out to Peachy Myers - Director of Community Engagement at Foundation Communities in Austin, TX.

After joining the original field leadership team for then Senator Barack Obama in 2008 and going on to serve in the White House ( the story of which we’ll be exploring in another podcast with Peachy), Peachy returned to the non-profit sector to design and deploy new ways to organize and support communities of change.  In this episode, Peachy walks us through ways in which we can proactively build social and financial support for our initiatives.  Using tangible examples from her work with Foundation Communities, Peachy provides real strategies and tactics that can be used to grow a community of supporters and committed evangelists willing to support your efforts over the long run.  Enjoy this unique look into how community organizing meets fundraising, volunteerism, and social support.

Show Notes:

Learn more about Foundation Communities here.

Learn more about the story of Cabrini Green here and here.

Find out more about the Ingram Scholar Program here.

You can find Peachy's (nearly) 100 favorite children's books here.

Tools You Can Use - Getting Started, Getting Unstuck, and Becoming More Efficient

This week we’re switching things up and launching our first Tools You Can Use episode. We’ve been trying to think of an efficient way to respond to the questions that have been coming in from listeners - and thought we would try this on for size.  

The most common question we’ve been asked is “how do you even get started?  I’m committed to a cause but not sure where to begin.” There are so many ways to begin, but here are three quick steps that come to mind:

Step 1: I’d read  “It’s not what you sell, it’s what you stand for” by Roy Spence.  

Roy does a great job of speaking to “how to fall in love with the problem” and letting that drive the arenas in which you innovate.  If you’re an organization that’s been around for awhile, it will help you return to that original problem and help inspire the next innovation.  If you’re a new organization, it will help you get off on the right foot.

Step 2:  Read “Jobs to be done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation” by Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman and David Farber.

This is a great tool and roadmap for understanding the jobs your customers need help with.  It’s outcome based innovation at its best and a staple on my bookshelf. 

If you want to start with the originator of this methodology, Read  “Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice” by Anthony Ulwick.  If you want to read the person who popularized the movement, read “Competing Against Luck” by Clay Christiensen.  Christiansen’s Milkshake story remains one of my favorite.  Who would have thought that 40% of all Milkshakes are purchased in the early morning?  Why people purchase them is what’s totally fascinating.

Step 3: Catch “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries.

 Eric started the Minimally Viable Product movement and his book does a great job of how to test your ideas in the real world before leaving your day job.  It’s straight-forward, practical, and... a little in your face.  Super practical, however, and the final step to engage in after you’ve identified your problem and the jobs your customers want to be done.

Next question:  “If I wanted a sense of what a start-up might look like…and the things I might expect - what should I read?

We’ve got two books for you:

1) "The Hard Thing about Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz.  It reads like a compendium of blog posts, but Ben doesn’t pull any punches and talks about the stark world of leadership and what it can entail. Besides, any book that starts every chapter with quotes from 90s hip-hop has to be awesome.

2) “The Everything Store” by Brad Stone.  This is Amazon’s story and Brad does a great job of speaking truth about what it takes to succeed.  I think most social innovators believe that the reason for their existence should be enough for people to get excited about their product or service.  While Amazon may not be a social enterprise in the traditional sense, this story will give you a sense of what it takes to make a big impact.

Next Question: “Any recommendations on how to get “unstuck?”  I’m stuck in a job that I don’t find fulfilling and want to get started on something more meaningful.

Love this question, but I also understand the overwhelming feeling being stuck can create inside one’s self…. and the unshakable fear…. that the clouds of malaise may never lift.   I think my single favorite book on this subject is “Let Your Life Speak,” by Parker Palmer.  With a wisdom that can only come from experience, Palmer speaks with a raw authenticity that is rare and of profound service to its reader.  It’s a short book, but don’t let that fool you.  Hal Cato mentioned this on his episode - so we know it's a winner!

The other book that’s been helpful to me in this regard is “Pivot” by Jenny Blake.  Jenny started up Google’s internal global coaching practice and has a ton of very practical tips on how to make your next pivot.  Whether it's considering financial implications, honing your ideas, or teaming up with a mentor - Jenny does a good job of covering the bases.  She also has a great Podcast - with episodes you can pick and choose from based on your immediate questions.

Next Question:  What is your favorite tool these days?

SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM!  Lately, I've been really impressed with the suite of software that Adobe has been generating.  Right now I’m diving head first into Adobe Illustrator.  I always thought that the tool was too complicated for novices like myself, but my tip is to download the application - which you can get pretty reasonable on a subscription basis - and then head over to Adobe Stock where you can search for infographic templates.  When I’m pulling together presentations, I’ll purchase a template that is closest to what I’m trying to portray and then edit it directly in illustrator without having to start from scratch.  If I run into trouble, there are a ton of quality YouTube videos on any feature you want to learn more about.  There is a learning curve, but you’ll start to get professional-grade presentations which help set your story apart.

Final Question:  What’s one efficiency trick you can share?

In the end, life is all about prioritization...but if I have to pick an efficiency trick lately...it would be maximizing your audio time.  If I’m running, driving, or in an airport, I’m almost always listening to a book or podcast.  The combination of exercising and listening to a book always generates new ideas for me and helps produce practical improvements I can usually apply to what I’m working on.  Leveraging audiobooks in contexts where I’m waiting around for one reason or another helped me finish an extra five or six books last year.

The other two big life hacks I’m a fan of are sleep and meditation - but we can cover those on a future episode!

If you’d like more tips and tricks on a regular basis, join our email list at twogoldenfish.com. Just click on “Join The Tribe” when you hit the website.  We’ve got a pithy newsletter that goes out every two weeks and includes a number of things on what we’re reading, doin

Episode 5 - Lidija Sekaric - Sunshot Initiative

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Lidija Sekaric about ways to disrupt an industry and leveraging government resources.  Lydia has held a number of progressive positions within the Department of Energy over the last eight years.  As a Director, Deputy Director, and Group Manager in the SunShot Initiative, Lidija managed a portfolio of $1B in project funding in solar research and development. She helped drive the near and long-term solar program strategy, out-year budgets, and new initiatives. 

As a Senior Technical Advisor for the Under Secretary for Energy, Lidija oversaw strategic projects involving $4B in renewables, fossil, nuclear and grid technologies at the Department of Energy. 

In our discussion, we focus on the significant progress made under the SunShot Initiative. When SunShot was launched in 2011, it set a goal for solar energy to become cost-competitive with traditional forms of electricity by 2020 without subsidies. This goal set cost targets at $0.09 per kilowatt hour for residential photovoltaics (PV), $0.07 per kilowatt hour for commercial PV, and $0.06 per kilowatt hour for utility-scale PV. In May 2016, SunShot released a series of eight research papers that examined the progress made toward the SunShot’s goals. It found that, just five years into the initiative, the solar industry had already achieved 70% of the progress toward the 2020 goals, spurring the department to determine new targets beyond 2020.

We talk with Lidija about the innovations behind their success and where they had to pivot in order to hit their goals in an increasingly volatile political environment.

Show Notes:

Learn more about the Department of Energy's  Sunshot Initiative

Speaking of Home Towns...here's Lydia's

Most Gifted Books:  Anything by Barbara Kingsolver