The Citizen’s 3rd annual Ideas We Should Steal FestivalTM will be held virtually, on the first four Tuesdays in December, from 5:30-7:30pm.
It will feature an exciting lineup of thinkers, problem-solvers and changemakers from across the country. See our confirmed speakers below and stay tuned—we’ll be adding to our line-up in the coming weeks.
Hope to see you there!
Cheryl Dorsey
Retired LAPD Sgt.
Roy Wood Jr.
Comedian
Black Thought
Co-Founder of The Roots/Artist, Actor, Writer, Producer
Ali Velshi
MSNBC host
Dalila Wilson-Scott
Comcast Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer
Wes Moore
Robin Hood CEO, Author
Randall Woodfin
Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama
Sarah Kunst
Cleo Capital Managing Director
Arne Duncan
Managing Partner at Emerson Collective, CRED Founder
Malik Tiger
CRED participant
Liz Dozier
Founder & CEO, Chicago Beyond
Michael Eric Dyson
Professor & Author
John N. Friedman
Founding Co-director of Opportunity Insights at Harvard University
Pedro A. Ramos
Philadelphia Foundation President and CEO
Wendy Jones
Youth Peace Center of Roseland Founder/Executive Director
Nick Hanauer
Civic Ventures Founder
Charles Ellison
theBEnote.com Publisher, WURD Radio Host
Shepard Fairey
Artist
Stefani Pashman
CEO, Allegheny Conference
Mayor Svante Myrick
Mayor of Ithaca, New York
Michael Chitwood
Volusia County Sheriff
Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti
Mayor of Scranton, PA
Cydney Brown
Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate
Jerry Ashton
Founder, Director of Education and Outreach, RIP Medical Debt
Paul Born
Tamarack Institute Co-CEO & Founder/Director, Vibrant Communities
Hank Willis Thomas
Artist
Hill-Freedman World Academy
with artists from World Cafe Live
Bret Perkins
Comcast Corporation Senior Vice President of External and Government Affairs
Jane Golden
Executive Director, Mural Arts Philadelphia
Commonwealth Youthchoirs
Bruce Katz
Nowak Metro Finance Lab Director
Bill Golderer
United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey President/CEO
Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker
President and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo
Omar Woodard
GreenLight Philadelphia Executive Director
Cheryl Dorsey
Retired LAPD Sgt.
Acclaimed author of autobiography Black and Blue: The Creation of a Social Advocate, Cheryl Dorsey is a Los Angeles native who joined the LAPD in 1980. During her twenty year career, she worked exclusively in patrol and specialized units in all four Bureaus within the City of Los Angeles and was assigned to the infamous gang unit Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (C.R.A.S.H.).
Roy Wood Jr.
Comedian
Roy Wood Jr.’s comedy has entertained millions across stage, television and radio. In addition to stand-up comedy, producing and acting, Roy is currently a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy and NAACP Award-winning The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. During his tenure, he has used The Daily Show’s brand of satire to shed light on serious issues including gun violence, police reform, LGBTQ+ discrimination, ICE deportations and PTSD in the Black community.
Black Thought
Co-Founder of The Roots/Artist, Actor, Writer, Producer
As co-founder of The Roots, a critically acclaimed solo artist, actor, writer, producer, and creator, Tariq Trotter—aka Black Thought—has quietly affirmed himself as one of the most powerful voices in hip-hop. He has won four GRAMMY® Awards and three NAACP Image Awards. With The Roots, he joined The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon as the house band. He has collaborated with artists from Eminem to John Legend and co-produced the multi-platinum GRAMMY® Award-winning Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hamilton.
Ali Velshi
MSNBC host
Host of MSNBC’s Velshi, Ali Velshi is an award-winning journalist whose accolades include a National Headliner Award and three News and Documentary Emmy Award Nominations. Velshi is a Citizen board member.
Dalila Wilson-Scott
Comcast Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer
Dalila Wilson-Scott serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of Comcast Corporation. In this role, Dalila oversees all Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiatives and philanthropic strategy for the corporation, including the company’s $100 million commitment to advance social justice and equality.
Wes Moore
Robin Hood CEO, Author
Wes Moore leads Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty forces in the nation. He is a combat veteran, social entrepreneur and author of New York Times bestselling The Other Wes Moore and Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, published this summer. He founded BridgeEdU, an innovative tech platform addressing the college completion and job placement crisis.
Randall Woodfin
Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama
Randall Woodfin is an attorney, politician and former president of the Birmingham Board of Education. As Mayor, he has defied his state’s Attorney General by removing a Confederate monument, and has invested in smart policing, inclusive economic growth, and instilling an ethic of customer service throughout all levels of local government.
Sarah Kunst
Cleo Capital Managing Director
Sarah Kunst is an investor and entrepreneur who has worked at Apple, Red Bull, Chanel & Mohr Davidow Ventures. Kunst has been named a Future Innovator by Vanity Fair, Forbes Magazine 30 under 30 and a top 25 innovator in tech by Cool Hunting. She has written for Techcrunch, Forbes, Wall St. Journal, Fortune and Entrepreneur.com.
Arne Duncan
Managing Partner at Emerson Collective, CRED Founder
Former chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is on a mission to improve the lives of young adults in Chicago. Through CRED, which he founded in 2016, and building partnerships with local business leaders, community organizers, and nonprofit groups, Duncan aims to provide outreach, therapeutic, education, and employment opportunities for the young men most likely to be engaged in gun violence.
Malik Tiger
CRED participant
Malik Tiger is a 22-year-old father of three children ranging in age from one to three years old. He has been on the streets since age 12 and in 2014, was shot six times. In 2015, he was arrested on a gun charge and has spent about a year in jail. Malik has been in Chicago CRED—a program working to reduce gun violence through street outreach, coaching and counseling, workforce development, and advocacy and prevention—for the last six months and is making significant improvement. He’s ready for a change!
Liz Dozier
Founder & CEO, Chicago Beyond
In 2016, former teacher and principal Liz Dozier launched Chicago Beyond, an impact investor that backs the fight for youth equity by fueling organizations, individuals, and learning. Since its inception, Chicago Beyond has invested more than $30 million in local nonprofit organizations and community leaders that fight for all youth to achieve their fullest human potential.
Michael Eric Dyson
Professor & Author
Dr. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor, a New York Times contributing opinion writer, and a contributing editor of The New Republic, and of ESPN’s The Undefeated website. He has written more than 20 books, including Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, expected to be released this December. Former president Barack Obama noted: “Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison.”
John N. Friedman
Founding Co-director of Opportunity Insights at Harvard University
John N. Friedman is a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Brown University. His research brings together theory and data, harnessing the power of large administrative datasets to yield policy-relevant insights on a wide range of topics, including taxation, healthcare, and education quality. Friedman also worked as special assistant to President Obama for economic policy at the National Economic Council from 2013-2014.
Pedro A. Ramos
Philadelphia Foundation President and CEO
Pedro A. Ramos has spent his career guiding organizations through critical inflection points and redefining how those organizations support and communicate with the communities they serve. He has worked as Vice President & Chief of Staff to the President at the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia’s City Solicitor, Managing Director, President of the Board of Education and the Chairman of the School Reform Commission.
Wendy Jones
Youth Peace Center of Roseland Founder/Executive Director
Wendy Jones, is a loving wife, a proud mother of four young men, a devoted educator and a youth advocate. In 2006, she founded the Youth Peace Center of Roseland, a nonprofit organization as a direct response to youth violence in the Roseland Community, and with her husband Rogers Jones, began to serve young people between the ages of 16-26 linking youth and families to services and resources across the city. Currently, she is the first community partner of Chicago CRED.
Nick Hanauer
Civic Ventures Founder
Nick Hanauer is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist and the founder of public-policy incubator Civic Ventures, co-founder and partner in Seattle-based venture capital firm Second Avenue Partners, and the host of the podcast Pitchfork Economics. Hanauer has founded, co-founded, or funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries. He is now one of the world’s most provocative thinkers about our society’s growing inequality, the dire consequences that increasing inequality creates for our democracies, and how to fix the system.
Charles Ellison
theBEnote.com Publisher, WURD Radio Host
Charles Ellison is a veteran strategist, analyst, award-winning commentator and Principal of B|E Strategy. Publisher of theBEnote.com, Ellison is widely known as Host/Executive Producer of “Reality Check” on WURD (Philadelphia) while serving as Creator/Managing Editor for the ecoWURD.com environmental justice journalism initiative. He is a Senior Fellow at the Council of State Governments Eastern Regional Conference, Council on Communities of Color.
Shepard Fairey
Artist
In 1989, Shepard Fairey created the “Andre the Giant has a Posse” sticker that transformed into the OBEY GIANT art campaign, with imagery that has changed the way people see art and the urban landscape. His work has evolved into an acclaimed body of art, which includes the 2008 “Hope” portrait of Barack Obama, found at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. His works are in the permanent collections of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Victoria and Albert Museum, and many others.
Stefani Pashman
CEO, Allegheny Conference
Stefani Pashman became the CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and its affiliated organizations–the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, the Pennsylvania Economy League of Greater Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance–in 2017. Among other roles, she served as CEO of Partner4Work and its predecessor, the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, and in Governor Rendell’s Administration as well as in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Mayor Svante Myrick
Mayor of Ithaca, New York
At age 24, Svante Myrick won a mayoral race to become the youngest mayor in Ithaca history and its first mayor of African American heritage. Myrick has been in the forefront of welcoming refugees to Ithaca, vowing to uphold the Paris Climate Accord, and supporting the Green New Deal. He is working with the community for police reform and has garnered international attention for supporting progressive drug policies. He is now serving his third four-year mayoral term.
Michael Chitwood
Volusia County Sheriff
Michael J. Chitwood is the Sheriff of Volusia County, Florida. He is a graduate of the Philadelphia Police Department, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant and received 58 official commendations for valor, bravery, heroism and merit. He is known for his reform efforts, including implementing ICAT, Integrating Communication Assessment Tactics training.
Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti
Mayor of Scranton, PA
Prior to being elected Mayor of Scranton, Cognetti advised the Pennsylvania Auditor General on oversight of public school districts, care for older adults, criminal justice reform and student debt. She previously served as a director on the Scranton School Board and in the Obama administration from 2009-2012 as a senior advisor to the Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department.
Cydney Brown
Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate
Cydney Brown is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate. She is a Junior at the Abington Friends School, and loves that there are no limitations with writing. Cydney wrote a book of poems entitled “Daydreaming,” and wishes to inspire people to stand up for what they believe in.
Jerry Ashton
Founder, Director of Education and Outreach, RIP Medical Debt
Jerry Ashton is a four-plus decade veteran of the credit and collections industry and the co-founder of RIP Medical Debt. While participating in Occupy Wall Street, activists raising awareness about unpayable medical debt caught his attention. Inspired, he enlisted fellow industry executive Craig Antico to join him in providing support for the group’s work, and in 2014 Ashton and Antico created the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt. As of this fall, RIP’s debt forgiveness tally was $2.7 billion in forgiven medical bills for over 1.8 million individuals and families.
Paul Born
Tamarack Institute Co-CEO & Founder/Director, Vibrant Communities
Paul is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Tamarack Institute, a 30,000-member learning community, and the Founder and Director of Vibrant Communities, a Collective Impact movement including Cities Reducing Poverty and Cities Deepening Community that is now active in over 400 cities. A large-scale community change facilitator, Paul is the author of four books including two Canadian best sellers. Paul grew up as the son of refugees that worked together to survive and then thrive. This experience is what made him deeply curious about and engaged in ideas that cause people to work together for the common good.
Hank Willis Thomas
Artist
Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual artist working primarily with themes related to perspective, identity, commodity, media, and popular culture. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad including the International Center of Photography, New York; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; Musée du quai Branly, Paris; and more. His collaborative projects include Question Bridge: Black Males, In Search Of The Truth (The Truth Booth), The Writing on the Wall, and For Freedoms.
Hill-Freedman World Academy
with artists from World Cafe Live
Hill-Freedman Records, the record label of Philadelphia public high school Hill-Freedman World Academy, has just released its 4th album, THINGS THAT MATTER, featuring 20 original student songs. Co-produced by Hill-Freedman Records and Philly music nonprofit World Cafe Live and featuring collaboration with ArtistYear, the album shows the power of students speaking up about their world. The Music Technology program at Hill-Freedman, under the dynamic leadership of teacher Ezechial Thurman and principal Anthony Majewski, has sparked city-wide partnerships across many sectors, all dedicated to lifting student creativity.
Bret Perkins
Comcast Corporation Senior Vice President of External and Government Affairs
Bret Perkins has managed local government affairs—implementing the company’s regulatory and legislative initiatives at the local level, developing political strategy, and grassroots communications—while Comcast grew from operating in 2,500 communities to 6,000 communities. In 2008, Bret received the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s Vanguard Award for Young Leadership.
Jane Golden
Executive Director, Mural Arts Philadelphia
Jane Golden has been the driving force of Mural Arts Philadelphia since its inception in 1984, overseeing its growth from a small city agency into the nation’s largest public art program and a global model for transforming public space and community through art. She has developed groundbreaking programs that transform practice and policies related to youth education, restorative justice, environmental issues and behavioral health.
Commonwealth Youthchoirs
Commonwealth Youthchoirs (CY) transforms the lives of young people through the power of singing together. Encompassing five award-winning programs – Find Your Instrument!, Garden State Girlchoir, Keystone State Boychoir, New Jersey Boychoir and Pennsylvania Girlchoir – CY fosters a profound love of singing and provides outstanding music education and unique performance opportunities. Visit cychoirs.org.
Bruce Katz
Nowak Metro Finance Lab Director
Katz is co-founder and director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University. With a focus on public reforms and private innovation in cities, Katz advises global, national, state, and regional leaders. He has written two books on the rise of cities and city networks and how cities are the world’s leading problem solvers, including The New Localism, with former Citizen board chairman Jeremy Nowak.
Bill Golderer
United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey President/CEO
Bill Golderer, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, oversees the organization’s work to fight poverty by investing in youth success and family economic stability. Golderer is the senior pastor at Arch Street Presbyterian Church and the founder of Broad Street Ministry. He lectures and teaches coursework at institutions including Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and is a Senior Fellow at Penn’s Fels School of Government.
Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker
President and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo
Since 2005, Dedecker has led the Community Foundation’s strategy to create meaningful community change, bringing together partners including Say Yes Buffalo and the Greater Buffalo Racial Equity Roundtable. In recognition of her civic sector expertise, she was appointed to the White House Council on Service and Civic Participation and named co-chair of the U.S. Committee of the United Nations International Year of the Volunteer.
Omar Woodard
GreenLight Philadelphia Executive Director
Omar comes to GreenLight with a decade of experience working in venture philanthropy, management consulting and foreign and U.S. government relations. He is a Fellow at the Institute for Emerging Health Professions at Thomas Jefferson University, a Fellow at the Association of Black Foundation Executives, and received the Hansjoerg Wyss Award for Social Enterprise from Harvard Business School.