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Speaker 1: Black Tech, Green Money. Will Luca is here so glad to be with you guys for another episode. I have a good one for you today. They're all good, but this one is especially good because I've been looking forward to this one for.
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Speaker 2: A long time.
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Speaker 1: And Stephanie Brown James, co founder and Senior Advisor of The Collective, the largest network of organizations in the country dedicated to building black political power super important, including the Collective Pack, the super PACs in the Collective Education Fund. Before the Collector, she was National African American Vote Directive for Obama for America in twenty twelve, National Field Director for the NAACP, and Vice President of Training and Community Engagement at Emily's.
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Speaker 2: List, and through the Collective, she's.
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Speaker 1: Helped raise more than fifty million dollars from over two hundred thousand dollars and helped more than four hundred.
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Speaker 2: Black leaders win elected office.
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Speaker 3: Welcome, Stephanie, Thank you so much, Will for having me excited for the conversation.
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Speaker 1: Likewise likewise, and so I'm reading through your bio and I saw how you were involved in the NAACP in your teens, and it's no surprise that at least in some communities engagement with some of the organizations like the NAACP or the Urbanly even have struggled to engage you in recent years. And it doesn't mean that young people don't care, but you know, activities evolved, and so I wonder what your read is on this and how we engage today, how we can continue to engage on people.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because I actually just came back from the NAACP convention a couple of weeks ago in Chicago. The organization was celebrating ninety years of the Youth and College Division, which is how I joined the organization as a member of the Cleveland Youth Council in Cleveland, Ohio, which is also where I'm based at still.
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Speaker 2: Huh Toledo right here?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, house always somewhere, right, that's right, that's right. And so being back at the NAACP convention I haven't been in a few years into see one, just the number of young people that we're there and we're talking you know, anywhere from five year olds to twenty five year olds that were there that we're talking about issues that impacted them that we're figuring out how to organize both online but in person as well. It gave me a great sense of pride to see that the organization was continuing to attract young people.
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Speaker 4: But also you always think of, Okay, who's not in the room, And.
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Speaker 3: How do we get more of those young folks who may feel as though, you know, politics or civil rights or social justice doesn't have anything to do with their everyday lives.
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Speaker 4: How do we get them engaged?
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Speaker 3: And one thing I can say that I think it's different about some institutions.
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Speaker 4: I'll speak for NAACP because I.
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Speaker 3: Know it best, is they have taken a real active stance on supporting young people by having the infrastructure to have staff for them, to create opportunities for gatherings, to allow them to lead their own marches and mobilizations, to allowing them to have their own strategy that they develop and that is funded and supported. Derrick Johnson as the president, is doing a really great job with that because I can say when I was on staff and when I was a young person, that wasn't always the case where my voice, even as the National Youth and College Division Director was appreciated in every single room that the NAACP was able to operate in both internally and externally, and so to see that support being given in a real way with real investments, that is something that has to happen. And I'm glad to see a historic organization like NAACP continuing to do that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beautiful, And I want you to dig in a little bit of like what that support looks like because I think about we give a parallel with the church, and I remember when we had kids, what really harded to matter to us was did the church have a great youth program, like kids program, Because it's hard to be sitting in church and you know, you got this little thing, this little babysitting behind you. So if the church has a great kids program, it's a lot easier for families who are young to you know, to engage.
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Speaker 2: And so what does that support look like.
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Speaker 1: From these organizations that have been so you know, instrumental in our you know, evolving as people.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think one way is just to literally have the space to say that, you know, we have a youth in College division, we have a youth council, we have a college chapter, we have meetings that you can come to. Just creating opportunity for space is one big thing. You know, we see an issue with. You know, cities are trying to figure out how do we create safe spaces for our teens. You know, this is one avenue that you can come on a Sunday or Saturday afternoon to a meeting. You know, you have advisors there who can help guide you, but it is literally a place to meet with your peers. My first meeting, I only went when I was fourteen because they said pizza and boyd well, I assume voice we're going to be there. But I'm like, yo, that sounds cool, Like yeah, I'll come talk about issues, and so I think that's one too. You know, I mentioned staff infrastructure when I was you think college division director. We went from having eighteen staff when Jamal Bryant was director before me. Jeff Johnson was director before me. I got their staff got cut. We went from eighteen to six to two. Now being able to oversee organization within an organization because that's what the division was. You have to have people who are they are paid to assist these young people in developing.
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Speaker 4: Their plans and also training. How do you.
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Speaker 3: Organize an initiative to address what's happening in your schools? How do you have a mobilization how do you create policy change, how do you make sure people are registered to vote? That training is also important. And last thing I would say is exposure. Having young people, young leaders, you know, sitting up on the board of directors, being a part of the Image Awards committee to figure out how this show is going to be planned. Having a seat where the voices of young people actually makes a difference and it's heard is also, I think paramount when it comes to any organization wanting to include young people in the work that they're doing, because the young people are the work as well.
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Speaker 1: That's right, It's right. You've built this five entity network. It may even be more by now, but you've got this amazing organization pack super PACs Education Fund, And most people would have just started with an organization, you know why the architecture like walk me through, Like what does the structure let you do that?
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Speaker 2: One seagle? You know, no, doesn't.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, well we did start with one.
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Speaker 3: So the collective pack is ten years now, twenty sixteen. My husband, Quintin and I started the organization because quite frankly at the time, you know, we saw what happened in Ferguson, what happened in Baltimore with the unjust killings of black men at the hands of police. We also saw that so many of these cities were not represented by black leadership and policy positions of power, and so we thought, you know what a thing that we could contribute to this space is to help support black candidates who a lot of times don't get national support. And also just to show that listen, I'm in Cleveland, but I need to care what's happening in Baltimore and Ferguson, in Jema, Louisiana and Los Angeles.
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Speaker 4: I need to care about that.
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Speaker 3: And so the collective we started by just you know, we wanted to raise funds to support black candidates running on a local, state, and federal level. We wanted to help train those candidates and their campaign staff because we need a lot more black folks working on campaigns, not just in the fields you know, staff, but also in you know, other positions. But then we quickly saw how money operates within politics, and we realized, all right, well, then we need to have a superpack, which the super pac allowed us to have a lot more leverage and raising unlimited amount of dollars because with the pack you could only raise up to five thousand dollars of a contribution from an individual, but with a superpack is unlimited resources. And so our super pack we started a couple of years later. Again we realized, wait.
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Speaker 4: A minute, if.
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Speaker 3: You want to play in voter engagement, it's important to support black candids, but you got to support black voters. Then we need to have an affiliated C four organization, which again can raise unlimited amount of money, but it's focused mainly on non partisan activity. And then there's you know, some other entities that we have. But I say that all to say is we realized we had to be everywhere.
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Speaker 4: We had to do all the.
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Speaker 3: Things in order to maximize the power that we were working to build, to build this black loitical power.
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Speaker 1: You know, if you think about our audience, these are technologists, business people, investors, people in the career trajectory black. And so I think about when the question is, like when the collective decides to like write a check to a candidate, like what happens behind the scenes, Like.
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Speaker 2: What is that due diligence looks?
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Speaker 4: Like?
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Speaker 2: What is what's between?
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Speaker 1: You know, Hey, we like this person too, We're actually gonna, you know, write a check. What's like that due due diligence that nobody sees.
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Speaker 4: It's a lot more than they used to be. I could tell you that.
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Speaker 3: You know, our first year, we started with six candidates that we endorsed. One of them was Kamala Harris when she was running for AG. Now we're up till we've already endorsed over one hundred candidates. We probably have about twenty five more that will endorse this for this election cycle.
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Speaker 4: So we have to.
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Speaker 3: Be very stringent and considerate about who we're writing a check to because we try to write a check to everybody in some amount. Not everybody's going to get a max out five thousand dollars check from us, But we try to make sure that we can be a national group that is getting resources from across the country pulling it together to support these candidates that we've endorsed. Now what that takes is a is a kind of a three step process. One is candidates have to apply for endorsement, be a collective pacta or because we want to know where they stand on issues of importance and impact to black communities of black people.
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Speaker 4: We're trying to progress forward.
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Speaker 3: Period from there, we evaluate the results you know, we look at their answers, we see what does their infrastructure look like on their campaign, are they already raising money, do they have staff that have black people on it, what other endorsements might they have? And then lastly, we have conversations with these campaigns and then from there we figure out, Okay, if we have five hundred thousand dollars, which we don't have. Let me see, in the past we have had it. It hasn't been a challenging title. But let's say we have realistically twenty five thousand dollars for this month, who are we going to give it to? Yeah, we look at, okay, who who is at certain points in their cycle, Who are the federal candidates that we know need to be competitive immediately, Who are some of the local races that again they may have a real competitive.
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Speaker 4: Need for some primary money. And we've kind.
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Speaker 3: Of figured it shorted out that way. A lot of conversation. Our team has a lot of conversation.
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Speaker 1: I mean, to run for a US Senate, I mean, you're talking about like a ten million dollar campaign.
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Speaker 4: You know, almost one hundred.
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Speaker 1: Oh oh, excuse me, one hundred geez.
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Speaker 3: Almost one hundred at least you're talking about at least on a low low end, it's fifty million.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, it's remarkable. So how do you reverse engineer that? Because I mean, obviously we don't have a lot of black people as senators. But how do you reverse engineer that?
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Speaker 3: Like?
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Speaker 1: How many donors at what levels? What timeline? Like, what does that machine have to look like in order to be victorious?
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, the great thing is that there's there's now multiple ways for a campaign to fund that type of operation. So you know, you have your institutional partners especially that's where the parties come into play.
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Speaker 4: So you know, you'll have a Democratic senatorial campaign committee.
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Speaker 3: That body of people provides resources to the city candidate. You'll have external dollars that may come from like us a pack, you have multiple packs.
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Speaker 4: You have labor unions, we write checks.
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Speaker 3: Then you have your big donors that you know are giving twenty five k and above. Typically they are giving those through separate packs to be able to contribute to a race. But the secret sauce is low dollar fundraising. This is what Barack Obama specialized in. This is what we try to hit home on is you have a person that is given twenty dollars a month for a year, maybe that starts to add up, and no small contributions when you stack them together. That's why it is about the collective. It's about pulling our money to support a candidate. A lot of times those low dollar numbers is what actually gives the most amount of bump to a candidate that has to raise fifty one hundred million dollars.
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Speaker 4: So I want to discount how important that money is.
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Speaker 1: There's a version of political fundraising that can feel like if people really like paid attention, like extraction, almost like you're taking money from a community and then you're putting it into media, buyed, you know, TV, print, all these things. How does how can it happen that you're making sure these things actually compound into power instead of just disappearing into newspapers.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think part of that is also we have to have campaigns stop disappearing. We have to have ecosystems, you know, rise and fall with one individual. I think this is why a lot of people are dismayed at our political parties because it feels like they are too transactional where we need to have. You know, I'm a fan of brick and mortar. I like when people have an idea of I can go here for this resource. You know, That's why I still like to shop in the mall sometimes. But you know, we need to have year round staffing of supporting voter engagement. We need to have people from the community being paid as staff on those campaigns. It's the people power, not just the media power that wins elections. You can look at a race like Karen Bass. Karen Bass was outraised like six times the amount by the billionaire that she was running against when she ran from mayor of Los Angeles, and she won. She won because she had low dollar contributions that still filled her campaign, but she got staffed from Los Angeles, from every corner of that city to be on her staff, folks who already had tentacles in the community.
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Speaker 4: That's where the investment needs to go, and it needs to invest.
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Speaker 3: We need to invest also in the organizations that's doing this work day in and day out.
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Speaker 4: You know, you have your D nine group, fraternity sororities.
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Speaker 3: You have your civil rights groups, but you also have those local community groups that have formed. You know, you have listen, I know some bridge clubs and some car clubs that are collecting dollars and they give it to support a candidate, we need to figure out how can we also pay back into what they're doing, and as they are mobilizing folks within their communities too.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so a lot of our entrepreneurs, black entrepreneurs particularly are just figuring out how their dollars equal power politically, and some of them are maybe from this conversation realizing that they're they have power, and so why what would you advise? Is like the smartest like to say they have a thousand dollars that they could deploy politically and what should they expect it to do?
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Speaker 4: Mm hmm yeah, I mean if you have one thousand dollars, I mean one is do something.
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Speaker 3: Let's just start there. Everybody can do something. Please do something. Even if you don't have physical money. You have I'm sure a tangible skill that can be utilized by a campaign.
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Speaker 4: Let's say you are an.
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Speaker 3: Artist and you can do flyers or you can you know, create something for a campaign that can be an inkinme contribution. So think about how your talents can be monetized as well to be supportive and not just your physical dollars. But let's say you have one thousand dollars, you know, maybe there is one candidate that is speaking to you. We like to say, fine, who respects, reflects and represents your community well, and try to help them get into office because you like their policy prescriptions.
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Speaker 4: You think that they're going to be able to represent you.
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Speaker 3: Well, write them a check, and write them a check early as soon as you feel like, oh yeah, I can ride with them, cut them a check and that can be the whole thousand dollars. Or you see a couple of people that you know what I need to give to my school board person and my city council person. So I'm gonna give them ease five hundred dollars. But guess what with that five hundred dollars? Hey, I need a meeting with you. Hey, when you win election, I need a meeting with you. Hey, do you think we can, you know, continue to be in dialogue. Hey, what's the number of your chief of staff? So when I have a question or I need to you know, I can call and reach.
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Speaker 4: Out to you.
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Speaker 3: People of service are supposed to be of service and approachable and there for you as a voter. So don't just give your money and walk away. That is an investment in that individual who is hopefully your choice to invest back into your community. But you have to have that continual accountability relationship with them so that they're hearing you, but they're also responsible to what your needs are as well, and that should be attached with whatever contribute should you give.
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Speaker 1: If you can make a business case for that founder who's saying, hey, you know, politics ain't really my lane at least right now, because I'm here it's down building my thing, Like what is that business strategic mistake? Or you know, what is the error they're making in judgment regarding their cap table, their industry or get kids inheritance that they're trying to build this company to be able to provide.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, everything, everything is touched by politics, and not necessarily politics, but definitely policies. And so as you're looking at, you know, building a company, do you.
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Speaker 4: Have a capital you need to get started?
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Speaker 3: Well, if an administration is constantly cutting access for small business owners to get the capital they need, or if we have tax rates that are not favorable for you know, new entrepreneurs, if we are cutting you know, DEI programs and access for a woman owned or a black owned business to have access to resources.
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Speaker 4: That is a policy decision that was made. So therefore you.
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Speaker 3: Should care about who was making the policies because it may not be one that is benefiting you. So you know, I every single thing from what kind of water quality you have to what curriculum your kids may get in school is decided by somebody.
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Speaker 4: So do you want to let.
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Speaker 3: The decisions that impact your life be decided by somebody who does not care about you or your community? Or do you want to have a say so on who that decision maker is? We say the change of laws, change of law makers. We're not happy with how the laws or policies are impacts on our businesses our community, then guess what we have a say and who the decision makers are going to be in our lives. And that's how whether it's from a business perspective or from just a personal perspective or family perspective, is how you should look at what politics is and how it plays a role in your life.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so much around the conversation we have when we talk about black wealth building is like individual moves.
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Speaker 2: Like real estate, equity.
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Speaker 1: Crypto even and you operate at like a collective level like what's the leverage that individuals leave on the table by never pulling the capital into like you know, we're doing this together to build some political power.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you can. Look.
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Speaker 3: I think a good recent example is you had which all those things you just mentioned are touched by policies, crypto, all that stuff by policies, and too many of the policies are made by people that ain't black. A whole another conversation, well for another day, But what I would say is if you look at I think two really good examples is when we're black women, when with black men. When Kamala Harris was running for office, you know, within twenty four hours of her announcing she was running or you know she was taken over I guess and running, they raised each over a million dollars for her. So now that collective group of individuals has an opportunity to say, hey, on behalf of black women or black men from across the country that have donated a million dollars to you, First and early, we need to have a conversation with you. We need to have an audience with you because this is the issues that we care about and we want to know what you're going to do.
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Speaker 4: About it. That's an example of why we start a collective.
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Speaker 3: If Stephanie Quinton were to walk into a room with the Democratic Party or with you know, the leaders in Congress and say, hey, we they may listen to us, but to have the backing of the collective pact that has raised over fifty million dollars from our entire ecosystem of organizations that have trained over fifteen hundred candidates and campaign operatives, like to have the power of the collective behind us gives us a different platform for a conversation where we're seeking accountability back to the Black community. And so I think that and that can happen even on the local level. You see groups come together, concerned citizens for blah blah blah blah blah, come together, pull their resources, pull their voices to then have a different type of conversation than you could. Perhaps it's just one individual.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think I was talking to represent justin Peerson. I think it was about a week ago. He's talking about showing up and being involved, and I think about, you know, grew up in a church, and I remember you really only saw certain candidates when it was time to run, And I wonder what your thought is on how to not that the engagement doesn't stop at the ballot box, but this is you know, this is a year round, you know thing. How do you process that? How do you encourage because I'm sure there's got to be some training or some help assistance in helping these candidates learn how to move you know, as representatives and community leaders and et cetera. How do you think about that sort of thing?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we actually so in twenty I think eighteen was our first campaign school that we hosted. Like I just mentioned, we've trained over fifteen hundred candidates and operatives and part of that is a cultural base training of how do you run and win as a black candidate. And part of that is to say, listen, as black candidates, we definitely can't take our community for granted and think that we're just going to come in at the very end of a campaign and ask.
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Speaker 4: For their vote.
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Speaker 3: But the same is true with people outside of our communities. Like you know, in my church, you just.
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Speaker 4: Can't do it. If we ever seeing you all year, you can't come. You can't come like we're not allowing it.
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Speaker 3: Because the expectation that we have said in the beginning is we need to be in relationship with you as someone who either is running from our community.
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Speaker 4: Like we should at least know who you are. We've seen you before, we know some of your work.
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Speaker 3: And if we have it, let's have a conversation so we can see where you stand on different policies as opposed to you just platforming with a speech on Sunday morning because.
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Speaker 4: I didn't came for the word.
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Speaker 3: I didn't come to hear you pontificate and probably not give me any policy solutions. So that's where our relationship comes into play and us having you know, a lot of dialogue before they even get.
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Speaker 4: To the pool bit, you know, with folks who say one of our votes.
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Speaker 1: That's a great segue to this question. I think about relationship like you and Quinn run this, he and your husband run this as a married couple, and you know, there's I'm sure that comes with its own set of you know, unique characteristics. And like I wonder how you, you know, choose to divide and conquer. If you divide and conquer, like you know, this is your thing over here, I'm gonna do this thing over here, Like how does that work?
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Speaker 4: It's tough? I ain't a lot to you. It's tough.
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Speaker 3: We just celebrated our fourteen year anniversary on Monday. Eighteen years together. We met through NAACP, and so I think it started. It's good that we started with a similar foundation in understanding the power of civil rights and social justice and we portrained on that to then also realize that that has its limitations and that we have to be involved in policy making and choosing who decision makers are. And so that foundation was there. I will say that the divide and conquer is a real thing. Quentin is an absolute genius when it comes to raising money. I feel like my genius lies in being able to produce the impact that we want to see. So between programming and fundraising, those are our two different you know, strengths works well together. We have an amazing team that supports us. But yeah, it's not always easy. And as a matter of fact, we tell our team don't assume that just because you told Quinton that.
00:25:16
Speaker 4: Staff vice versa. Because also when we're working we treated as a business. We are business partners. We're husband and wife and we're.
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Speaker 3: Parents first, but we are business partners and we treat it in a professional way that it goes, which is why thankfully we have great staff that could be mediators a lot of time, you know, just just helping those situations where maybe we're not seeing eye to eye and we need a third voice to help us, you know, really come to a consensus on something.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: You know, every founder hits a moment where the thing that they're building almost breaks. And I wonder if you can tell like a story and like a near death moment for the work that you're doing now and what you did is survive.
00:25:57
Speaker 4: It yesterday, I'd be honest.
00:26:07
Speaker 3: I mean, this is probably the toughest fundraising cycle we have ever had in ten years.
00:26:13
Speaker 2: Wow.
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Speaker 1: And when everything that is going on like we would be activated.
00:26:21
Speaker 3: You know, well, I find comfort in knowing that we are not alone in this. I have, you know what, let me back up and also say what I love to be able to survive the hard times is that many of my friends are also you know, presidents or leaders of organizations, and so we can have these transparent convos with each other and lean on each other.
00:26:44
Speaker 4: So I know that this is not just a challenge for us.
00:26:48
Speaker 3: Fundraising across the board is tough for all these organizations.
00:26:54
Speaker 4: So I would say, now is a.
00:26:55
Speaker 3: Is an interesting time and just having to be really smart about how we're our resources. But all ten years has been a grind. It's been a grind in different ways. You know, when Trump was elected it definitely switched both both times, it made donors kind of recoil and feel as though woe is me when we're saying no, this is the time to pounce, you know, this is the time to build the infrastructure to support.
00:27:24
Speaker 4: So a lot of prayer, a lot of prayer, a.
00:27:28
Speaker 3: Lot of guidance from people who have been in similar situations, but also just focusing on the mission, like what we are doing is a worthy mission to be there for black people period. And so with that as our foundation, we just we ride the waves. We keep our head down, we work, we work hard, and you know, thankfully God has been able to bless us and get us out of some sticky situations. But you know, you also let those times do come. What they say, you can't appreciate at the sunshine out the rank right umbrella.
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Though, yeah, it's a fact. In the two minutes I have left, I can't let you go and don't asking you about AI and its impact on politics, policy, in our communities. You know, so often we get promised by companies, you know, hey, I'm going to bring I don't even this is not even just about data centers, but it's like, we're going to do this thing in your community. It's going to create jobs, and it's going to do this and then they get all these benefits from the government. And I wonder what your thoughts are in general about how AI is changing the conversation and what we should be paying attention to.
00:28:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that especially as black people, I don't think we have the luxury to not engage. So I want to say that first, like, we need to know how AI operates, We need to know the players behind AI. We need to know how to utilize it for our best use, so we don't have the power to be like, nah, that ain't my thing. No, it's here, it's here, it's going to be here for a while. Also, I have found it to be very beneficient with a lot of words, especially when you have a small staff. It's been able to and also help with organization and being able to, you know, put in financial spreadsheets and they can not only assess and analyze, but also give you some things to think about and how you structure your business, and so I found great use in that. However, and this goes back to there are people though that are deciding how AI impacts all of us, and we need to know who they are. We need to know who's funding them, and we need to have a seat at those tables as well as those policy decisions are being made and talked about. And so again, we don't have the option to not engage and play at play in the game. We got to be in the game. We got to have a referee in the game. We got to you know, be able to figure out how the field is made, all of it.
00:29:54
Speaker 4: I think it's important. And follow the money as well. Follow the money.
00:29:59
Speaker 3: You see a lot of money now coming from crypto to candidate campaigns.
00:30:04
Speaker 4: What is their agenda? You know, work to make.
00:30:06
Speaker 3: Sure your campaign is not co opted by someone's agenda just because they're waving some dollars in your face. Knowing who is funding those things, because it could be someone that has ulterior motives. But again, just being aware and understanding I think is really important. But again, you know, I think AI is here to stay in like, let's use it to our best benefit.
00:30:26
Speaker 1: Stephanie Brown James, thank you so much for Journey.
00:30:28
Speaker 4: Thank you. Will Lucas appreciate it absolutely
Speaker 1: Black Tech, Green Money. Will Luca is here so glad to be with you guys for another episode. I have a good one for you today. They're all good, but this one is especially good because I've been looking forward to this one for.
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Speaker 2: A long time.
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Speaker 1: And Stephanie Brown James, co founder and Senior Advisor of The Collective, the largest network of organizations in the country dedicated to building black political power super important, including the Collective Pack, the super PACs in the Collective Education Fund. Before the Collector, she was National African American Vote Directive for Obama for America in twenty twelve, National Field Director for the NAACP, and Vice President of Training and Community Engagement at Emily's.
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Speaker 2: List, and through the Collective, she's.
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Speaker 1: Helped raise more than fifty million dollars from over two hundred thousand dollars and helped more than four hundred.
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Speaker 2: Black leaders win elected office.
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Speaker 3: Welcome, Stephanie, Thank you so much, Will for having me excited for the conversation.
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Speaker 1: Likewise likewise, and so I'm reading through your bio and I saw how you were involved in the NAACP in your teens, and it's no surprise that at least in some communities engagement with some of the organizations like the NAACP or the Urbanly even have struggled to engage you in recent years. And it doesn't mean that young people don't care, but you know, activities evolved, and so I wonder what your read is on this and how we engage today, how we can continue to engage on people.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because I actually just came back from the NAACP convention a couple of weeks ago in Chicago. The organization was celebrating ninety years of the Youth and College Division, which is how I joined the organization as a member of the Cleveland Youth Council in Cleveland, Ohio, which is also where I'm based at still.
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Speaker 2: Huh Toledo right here?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, house always somewhere, right, that's right, that's right. And so being back at the NAACP convention I haven't been in a few years into see one, just the number of young people that we're there and we're talking you know, anywhere from five year olds to twenty five year olds that were there that we're talking about issues that impacted them that we're figuring out how to organize both online but in person as well. It gave me a great sense of pride to see that the organization was continuing to attract young people.
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Speaker 4: But also you always think of, Okay, who's not in the room, And.
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Speaker 3: How do we get more of those young folks who may feel as though, you know, politics or civil rights or social justice doesn't have anything to do with their everyday lives.
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Speaker 4: How do we get them engaged?
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Speaker 3: And one thing I can say that I think it's different about some institutions.
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Speaker 4: I'll speak for NAACP because I.
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Speaker 3: Know it best, is they have taken a real active stance on supporting young people by having the infrastructure to have staff for them, to create opportunities for gatherings, to allow them to lead their own marches and mobilizations, to allowing them to have their own strategy that they develop and that is funded and supported. Derrick Johnson as the president, is doing a really great job with that because I can say when I was on staff and when I was a young person, that wasn't always the case where my voice, even as the National Youth and College Division Director was appreciated in every single room that the NAACP was able to operate in both internally and externally, and so to see that support being given in a real way with real investments, that is something that has to happen. And I'm glad to see a historic organization like NAACP continuing to do that.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beautiful, And I want you to dig in a little bit of like what that support looks like because I think about we give a parallel with the church, and I remember when we had kids, what really harded to matter to us was did the church have a great youth program, like kids program, Because it's hard to be sitting in church and you know, you got this little thing, this little babysitting behind you. So if the church has a great kids program, it's a lot easier for families who are young to you know, to engage.
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Speaker 2: And so what does that support look like.
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Speaker 1: From these organizations that have been so you know, instrumental in our you know, evolving as people.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think one way is just to literally have the space to say that, you know, we have a youth in College division, we have a youth council, we have a college chapter, we have meetings that you can come to. Just creating opportunity for space is one big thing. You know, we see an issue with. You know, cities are trying to figure out how do we create safe spaces for our teens. You know, this is one avenue that you can come on a Sunday or Saturday afternoon to a meeting. You know, you have advisors there who can help guide you, but it is literally a place to meet with your peers. My first meeting, I only went when I was fourteen because they said pizza and boyd well, I assume voice we're going to be there. But I'm like, yo, that sounds cool, Like yeah, I'll come talk about issues, and so I think that's one too. You know, I mentioned staff infrastructure when I was you think college division director. We went from having eighteen staff when Jamal Bryant was director before me. Jeff Johnson was director before me. I got their staff got cut. We went from eighteen to six to two. Now being able to oversee organization within an organization because that's what the division was. You have to have people who are they are paid to assist these young people in developing.
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Speaker 4: Their plans and also training. How do you.
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Speaker 3: Organize an initiative to address what's happening in your schools? How do you have a mobilization how do you create policy change, how do you make sure people are registered to vote? That training is also important. And last thing I would say is exposure. Having young people, young leaders, you know, sitting up on the board of directors, being a part of the Image Awards committee to figure out how this show is going to be planned. Having a seat where the voices of young people actually makes a difference and it's heard is also, I think paramount when it comes to any organization wanting to include young people in the work that they're doing, because the young people are the work as well.
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Speaker 1: That's right, It's right. You've built this five entity network. It may even be more by now, but you've got this amazing organization pack super PACs Education Fund, And most people would have just started with an organization, you know why the architecture like walk me through, Like what does the structure let you do that?
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Speaker 2: One seagle? You know, no, doesn't.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, well we did start with one.
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Speaker 3: So the collective pack is ten years now, twenty sixteen. My husband, Quintin and I started the organization because quite frankly at the time, you know, we saw what happened in Ferguson, what happened in Baltimore with the unjust killings of black men at the hands of police. We also saw that so many of these cities were not represented by black leadership and policy positions of power, and so we thought, you know what a thing that we could contribute to this space is to help support black candidates who a lot of times don't get national support. And also just to show that listen, I'm in Cleveland, but I need to care what's happening in Baltimore and Ferguson, in Jema, Louisiana and Los Angeles.
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Speaker 4: I need to care about that.
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Speaker 3: And so the collective we started by just you know, we wanted to raise funds to support black candidates running on a local, state, and federal level. We wanted to help train those candidates and their campaign staff because we need a lot more black folks working on campaigns, not just in the fields you know, staff, but also in you know, other positions. But then we quickly saw how money operates within politics, and we realized, all right, well, then we need to have a superpack, which the super pac allowed us to have a lot more leverage and raising unlimited amount of dollars because with the pack you could only raise up to five thousand dollars of a contribution from an individual, but with a superpack is unlimited resources. And so our super pack we started a couple of years later. Again we realized, wait.
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Speaker 4: A minute, if.
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Speaker 3: You want to play in voter engagement, it's important to support black candids, but you got to support black voters. Then we need to have an affiliated C four organization, which again can raise unlimited amount of money, but it's focused mainly on non partisan activity. And then there's you know, some other entities that we have. But I say that all to say is we realized we had to be everywhere.
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Speaker 4: We had to do all the.
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Speaker 3: Things in order to maximize the power that we were working to build, to build this black loitical power.
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Speaker 1: You know, if you think about our audience, these are technologists, business people, investors, people in the career trajectory black. And so I think about when the question is, like when the collective decides to like write a check to a candidate, like what happens behind the scenes, Like.
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Speaker 2: What is that due diligence looks?
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Speaker 4: Like?
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Speaker 2: What is what's between?
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Speaker 1: You know, Hey, we like this person too, We're actually gonna, you know, write a check. What's like that due due diligence that nobody sees.
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Speaker 4: It's a lot more than they used to be. I could tell you that.
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Speaker 3: You know, our first year, we started with six candidates that we endorsed. One of them was Kamala Harris when she was running for AG. Now we're up till we've already endorsed over one hundred candidates. We probably have about twenty five more that will endorse this for this election cycle.
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Speaker 4: So we have to.
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Speaker 3: Be very stringent and considerate about who we're writing a check to because we try to write a check to everybody in some amount. Not everybody's going to get a max out five thousand dollars check from us, But we try to make sure that we can be a national group that is getting resources from across the country pulling it together to support these candidates that we've endorsed. Now what that takes is a is a kind of a three step process. One is candidates have to apply for endorsement, be a collective pacta or because we want to know where they stand on issues of importance and impact to black communities of black people.
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Speaker 4: We're trying to progress forward.
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Speaker 3: Period from there, we evaluate the results you know, we look at their answers, we see what does their infrastructure look like on their campaign, are they already raising money, do they have staff that have black people on it, what other endorsements might they have? And then lastly, we have conversations with these campaigns and then from there we figure out, Okay, if we have five hundred thousand dollars, which we don't have. Let me see, in the past we have had it. It hasn't been a challenging title. But let's say we have realistically twenty five thousand dollars for this month, who are we going to give it to? Yeah, we look at, okay, who who is at certain points in their cycle, Who are the federal candidates that we know need to be competitive immediately, Who are some of the local races that again they may have a real competitive.
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Speaker 4: Need for some primary money. And we've kind.
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Speaker 3: Of figured it shorted out that way. A lot of conversation. Our team has a lot of conversation.
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Speaker 1: I mean, to run for a US Senate, I mean, you're talking about like a ten million dollar campaign.
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Speaker 4: You know, almost one hundred.
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Speaker 1: Oh oh, excuse me, one hundred geez.
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Speaker 3: Almost one hundred at least you're talking about at least on a low low end, it's fifty million.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, it's remarkable. So how do you reverse engineer that? Because I mean, obviously we don't have a lot of black people as senators. But how do you reverse engineer that?
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Speaker 3: Like?
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Speaker 1: How many donors at what levels? What timeline? Like, what does that machine have to look like in order to be victorious?
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Speaker 3: Well, you know, the great thing is that there's there's now multiple ways for a campaign to fund that type of operation. So you know, you have your institutional partners especially that's where the parties come into play.
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Speaker 4: So you know, you'll have a Democratic senatorial campaign committee.
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Speaker 3: That body of people provides resources to the city candidate. You'll have external dollars that may come from like us a pack, you have multiple packs.
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Speaker 4: You have labor unions, we write checks.
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Speaker 3: Then you have your big donors that you know are giving twenty five k and above. Typically they are giving those through separate packs to be able to contribute to a race. But the secret sauce is low dollar fundraising. This is what Barack Obama specialized in. This is what we try to hit home on is you have a person that is given twenty dollars a month for a year, maybe that starts to add up, and no small contributions when you stack them together. That's why it is about the collective. It's about pulling our money to support a candidate. A lot of times those low dollar numbers is what actually gives the most amount of bump to a candidate that has to raise fifty one hundred million dollars.
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Speaker 4: So I want to discount how important that money is.
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Speaker 1: There's a version of political fundraising that can feel like if people really like paid attention, like extraction, almost like you're taking money from a community and then you're putting it into media, buyed, you know, TV, print, all these things. How does how can it happen that you're making sure these things actually compound into power instead of just disappearing into newspapers.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think part of that is also we have to have campaigns stop disappearing. We have to have ecosystems, you know, rise and fall with one individual. I think this is why a lot of people are dismayed at our political parties because it feels like they are too transactional where we need to have. You know, I'm a fan of brick and mortar. I like when people have an idea of I can go here for this resource. You know, That's why I still like to shop in the mall sometimes. But you know, we need to have year round staffing of supporting voter engagement. We need to have people from the community being paid as staff on those campaigns. It's the people power, not just the media power that wins elections. You can look at a race like Karen Bass. Karen Bass was outraised like six times the amount by the billionaire that she was running against when she ran from mayor of Los Angeles, and she won. She won because she had low dollar contributions that still filled her campaign, but she got staffed from Los Angeles, from every corner of that city to be on her staff, folks who already had tentacles in the community.
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Speaker 4: That's where the investment needs to go, and it needs to invest.
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Speaker 3: We need to invest also in the organizations that's doing this work day in and day out.
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Speaker 4: You know, you have your D nine group, fraternity sororities.
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Speaker 3: You have your civil rights groups, but you also have those local community groups that have formed. You know, you have listen, I know some bridge clubs and some car clubs that are collecting dollars and they give it to support a candidate, we need to figure out how can we also pay back into what they're doing, and as they are mobilizing folks within their communities too.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so a lot of our entrepreneurs, black entrepreneurs particularly are just figuring out how their dollars equal power politically, and some of them are maybe from this conversation realizing that they're they have power, and so why what would you advise? Is like the smartest like to say they have a thousand dollars that they could deploy politically and what should they expect it to do?
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Speaker 4: Mm hmm yeah, I mean if you have one thousand dollars, I mean one is do something.
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Speaker 3: Let's just start there. Everybody can do something. Please do something. Even if you don't have physical money. You have I'm sure a tangible skill that can be utilized by a campaign.
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Speaker 4: Let's say you are an.
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Speaker 3: Artist and you can do flyers or you can you know, create something for a campaign that can be an inkinme contribution. So think about how your talents can be monetized as well to be supportive and not just your physical dollars. But let's say you have one thousand dollars, you know, maybe there is one candidate that is speaking to you. We like to say, fine, who respects, reflects and represents your community well, and try to help them get into office because you like their policy prescriptions.
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Speaker 4: You think that they're going to be able to represent you.
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Speaker 3: Well, write them a check, and write them a check early as soon as you feel like, oh yeah, I can ride with them, cut them a check and that can be the whole thousand dollars. Or you see a couple of people that you know what I need to give to my school board person and my city council person. So I'm gonna give them ease five hundred dollars. But guess what with that five hundred dollars? Hey, I need a meeting with you. Hey, when you win election, I need a meeting with you. Hey, do you think we can, you know, continue to be in dialogue. Hey, what's the number of your chief of staff? So when I have a question or I need to you know, I can call and reach.
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Speaker 4: Out to you.
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Speaker 3: People of service are supposed to be of service and approachable and there for you as a voter. So don't just give your money and walk away. That is an investment in that individual who is hopefully your choice to invest back into your community. But you have to have that continual accountability relationship with them so that they're hearing you, but they're also responsible to what your needs are as well, and that should be attached with whatever contribute should you give.
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Speaker 1: If you can make a business case for that founder who's saying, hey, you know, politics ain't really my lane at least right now, because I'm here it's down building my thing, Like what is that business strategic mistake? Or you know, what is the error they're making in judgment regarding their cap table, their industry or get kids inheritance that they're trying to build this company to be able to provide.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, everything, everything is touched by politics, and not necessarily politics, but definitely policies. And so as you're looking at, you know, building a company, do you.
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Speaker 4: Have a capital you need to get started?
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Speaker 3: Well, if an administration is constantly cutting access for small business owners to get the capital they need, or if we have tax rates that are not favorable for you know, new entrepreneurs, if we are cutting you know, DEI programs and access for a woman owned or a black owned business to have access to resources.
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Speaker 4: That is a policy decision that was made. So therefore you.
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Speaker 3: Should care about who was making the policies because it may not be one that is benefiting you. So you know, I every single thing from what kind of water quality you have to what curriculum your kids may get in school is decided by somebody.
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Speaker 4: So do you want to let.
00:19:00
Speaker 3: The decisions that impact your life be decided by somebody who does not care about you or your community? Or do you want to have a say so on who that decision maker is? We say the change of laws, change of law makers. We're not happy with how the laws or policies are impacts on our businesses our community, then guess what we have a say and who the decision makers are going to be in our lives. And that's how whether it's from a business perspective or from just a personal perspective or family perspective, is how you should look at what politics is and how it plays a role in your life.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, so much around the conversation we have when we talk about black wealth building is like individual moves.
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Speaker 2: Like real estate, equity.
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Speaker 1: Crypto even and you operate at like a collective level like what's the leverage that individuals leave on the table by never pulling the capital into like you know, we're doing this together to build some political power.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you can. Look.
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Speaker 3: I think a good recent example is you had which all those things you just mentioned are touched by policies, crypto, all that stuff by policies, and too many of the policies are made by people that ain't black. A whole another conversation, well for another day, But what I would say is if you look at I think two really good examples is when we're black women, when with black men. When Kamala Harris was running for office, you know, within twenty four hours of her announcing she was running or you know she was taken over I guess and running, they raised each over a million dollars for her. So now that collective group of individuals has an opportunity to say, hey, on behalf of black women or black men from across the country that have donated a million dollars to you, First and early, we need to have a conversation with you. We need to have an audience with you because this is the issues that we care about and we want to know what you're going to do.
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Speaker 4: About it. That's an example of why we start a collective.
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Speaker 3: If Stephanie Quinton were to walk into a room with the Democratic Party or with you know, the leaders in Congress and say, hey, we they may listen to us, but to have the backing of the collective pact that has raised over fifty million dollars from our entire ecosystem of organizations that have trained over fifteen hundred candidates and campaign operatives, like to have the power of the collective behind us gives us a different platform for a conversation where we're seeking accountability back to the Black community. And so I think that and that can happen even on the local level. You see groups come together, concerned citizens for blah blah blah blah blah, come together, pull their resources, pull their voices to then have a different type of conversation than you could. Perhaps it's just one individual.
00:21:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think I was talking to represent justin Peerson. I think it was about a week ago. He's talking about showing up and being involved, and I think about, you know, grew up in a church, and I remember you really only saw certain candidates when it was time to run, And I wonder what your thought is on how to not that the engagement doesn't stop at the ballot box, but this is you know, this is a year round, you know thing. How do you process that? How do you encourage because I'm sure there's got to be some training or some help assistance in helping these candidates learn how to move you know, as representatives and community leaders and et cetera. How do you think about that sort of thing?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we actually so in twenty I think eighteen was our first campaign school that we hosted. Like I just mentioned, we've trained over fifteen hundred candidates and operatives and part of that is a cultural base training of how do you run and win as a black candidate. And part of that is to say, listen, as black candidates, we definitely can't take our community for granted and think that we're just going to come in at the very end of a campaign and ask.
00:22:54
Speaker 4: For their vote.
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Speaker 3: But the same is true with people outside of our communities. Like you know, in my church, you just.
00:23:01
Speaker 4: Can't do it. If we ever seeing you all year, you can't come. You can't come like we're not allowing it.
00:23:07
Speaker 3: Because the expectation that we have said in the beginning is we need to be in relationship with you as someone who either is running from our community.
00:23:18
Speaker 4: Like we should at least know who you are. We've seen you before, we know some of your work.
00:23:22
Speaker 3: And if we have it, let's have a conversation so we can see where you stand on different policies as opposed to you just platforming with a speech on Sunday morning because.
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Speaker 4: I didn't came for the word.
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Speaker 3: I didn't come to hear you pontificate and probably not give me any policy solutions. So that's where our relationship comes into play and us having you know, a lot of dialogue before they even get.
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Speaker 4: To the pool bit, you know, with folks who say one of our votes.
00:23:49
Speaker 1: That's a great segue to this question. I think about relationship like you and Quinn run this, he and your husband run this as a married couple, and you know, there's I'm sure that comes with its own set of you know, unique characteristics. And like I wonder how you, you know, choose to divide and conquer. If you divide and conquer, like you know, this is your thing over here, I'm gonna do this thing over here, Like how does that work?
00:24:12
Speaker 4: It's tough? I ain't a lot to you. It's tough.
00:24:15
Speaker 3: We just celebrated our fourteen year anniversary on Monday. Eighteen years together. We met through NAACP, and so I think it started. It's good that we started with a similar foundation in understanding the power of civil rights and social justice and we portrained on that to then also realize that that has its limitations and that we have to be involved in policy making and choosing who decision makers are. And so that foundation was there. I will say that the divide and conquer is a real thing. Quentin is an absolute genius when it comes to raising money. I feel like my genius lies in being able to produce the impact that we want to see. So between programming and fundraising, those are our two different you know, strengths works well together. We have an amazing team that supports us. But yeah, it's not always easy. And as a matter of fact, we tell our team don't assume that just because you told Quinton that.
00:25:16
Speaker 4: Staff vice versa. Because also when we're working we treated as a business. We are business partners. We're husband and wife and we're.
00:25:25
Speaker 3: Parents first, but we are business partners and we treat it in a professional way that it goes, which is why thankfully we have great staff that could be mediators a lot of time, you know, just just helping those situations where maybe we're not seeing eye to eye and we need a third voice to help us, you know, really come to a consensus on something.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: You know, every founder hits a moment where the thing that they're building almost breaks. And I wonder if you can tell like a story and like a near death moment for the work that you're doing now and what you did is survive.
00:25:57
Speaker 4: It yesterday, I'd be honest.
00:26:07
Speaker 3: I mean, this is probably the toughest fundraising cycle we have ever had in ten years.
00:26:13
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:26:15
Speaker 1: And when everything that is going on like we would be activated.
00:26:21
Speaker 3: You know, well, I find comfort in knowing that we are not alone in this. I have, you know what, let me back up and also say what I love to be able to survive the hard times is that many of my friends are also you know, presidents or leaders of organizations, and so we can have these transparent convos with each other and lean on each other.
00:26:44
Speaker 4: So I know that this is not just a challenge for us.
00:26:48
Speaker 3: Fundraising across the board is tough for all these organizations.
00:26:54
Speaker 4: So I would say, now is a.
00:26:55
Speaker 3: Is an interesting time and just having to be really smart about how we're our resources. But all ten years has been a grind. It's been a grind in different ways. You know, when Trump was elected it definitely switched both both times, it made donors kind of recoil and feel as though woe is me when we're saying no, this is the time to pounce, you know, this is the time to build the infrastructure to support.
00:27:24
Speaker 4: So a lot of prayer, a lot of prayer, a.
00:27:28
Speaker 3: Lot of guidance from people who have been in similar situations, but also just focusing on the mission, like what we are doing is a worthy mission to be there for black people period. And so with that as our foundation, we just we ride the waves. We keep our head down, we work, we work hard, and you know, thankfully God has been able to bless us and get us out of some sticky situations. But you know, you also let those times do come. What they say, you can't appreciate at the sunshine out the rank right umbrella.
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Though, yeah, it's a fact. In the two minutes I have left, I can't let you go and don't asking you about AI and its impact on politics, policy, in our communities. You know, so often we get promised by companies, you know, hey, I'm going to bring I don't even this is not even just about data centers, but it's like, we're going to do this thing in your community. It's going to create jobs, and it's going to do this and then they get all these benefits from the government. And I wonder what your thoughts are in general about how AI is changing the conversation and what we should be paying attention to.
00:28:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that especially as black people, I don't think we have the luxury to not engage. So I want to say that first, like, we need to know how AI operates, We need to know the players behind AI. We need to know how to utilize it for our best use, so we don't have the power to be like, nah, that ain't my thing. No, it's here, it's here, it's going to be here for a while. Also, I have found it to be very beneficient with a lot of words, especially when you have a small staff. It's been able to and also help with organization and being able to, you know, put in financial spreadsheets and they can not only assess and analyze, but also give you some things to think about and how you structure your business, and so I found great use in that. However, and this goes back to there are people though that are deciding how AI impacts all of us, and we need to know who they are. We need to know who's funding them, and we need to have a seat at those tables as well as those policy decisions are being made and talked about. And so again, we don't have the option to not engage and play at play in the game. We got to be in the game. We got to have a referee in the game. We got to you know, be able to figure out how the field is made, all of it.
00:29:54
Speaker 4: I think it's important. And follow the money as well. Follow the money.
00:29:59
Speaker 3: You see a lot of money now coming from crypto to candidate campaigns.
00:30:04
Speaker 4: What is their agenda? You know, work to make.
00:30:06
Speaker 3: Sure your campaign is not co opted by someone's agenda just because they're waving some dollars in your face. Knowing who is funding those things, because it could be someone that has ulterior motives. But again, just being aware and understanding I think is really important. But again, you know, I think AI is here to stay in like, let's use it to our best benefit.
00:30:26
Speaker 1: Stephanie Brown James, thank you so much for Journey.
00:30:28
Speaker 4: Thank you. Will Lucas appreciate it absolutely
