Mandana Dayani, Creator and Co-founder, I am a voter.
Shannon Watts, Founder, Moms Demand Action
Moderator: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

MPW Next Gen 2023 - Mobilizing the Next Gen Of Voters

Conferences

Our next founders are inspiring political change through advocacy. They're harnessing public partnerships and social media to raise awareness on issues that affect many Americans. Madonna Diani is the creator and co founder of I am a voter, a nonpartisan organization that aims to increase voter turnout and raise awareness around civic engagement after the tragic shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut in 2012, Shannon Watts, founded Moms Demand Action, a grassroots organization fighting against gun violence. They are joined by my colleague, fortunes editor at large, Mikal Lev. OK. So, um I want to start by asking you both about your personal journeys and we heard just a little bit about what your organizations do but, but tell us your personal stories, what led you to start them? So, and Donna, I'll start with you and you've done a lot in your career. You don't have to go into everything but tell us what matters for getting you to this point. Yeah. Well, thank you for having us here today. Um So I, I was born in Iran. Um and we fled, I would say when I was almost six years old and went to, you know, to Italy and then gained asylum to come to New York. Um So we have an organization called, I think that experience fleeing my homeland, coming to America was incredibly formative, not just in my patriotism for America, but also just this deep connection to refugees and what that experience is like. Um And really lived my whole life in this like pursuit of the American dream. My brother became a surgeon and I was told I had to become an attorney. And so, um I became a lawyer which I did not enjoy. And then I worked as uh as a talent agent and then I worked in fashion and entertainment and tech and I've had a lot of careers which I guess is for a different panel. Um But a few years ago when I saw, I was, I just had my second daughter and I saw the child separation policy unfold on television. Um It was incredibly just triggering to see, you know, that this country that had saved my family. Like I remember arriving at New York, I remember holding my mom's hand. I remember like this feeling of like, OK, we're going to be OK that the most vulnerable population in the world would come to America in pursuit of freedom and we would rip their Children out of their hands and in many cases, lose them. Um And I felt like this can't be right. And I got on a plane, I went to Torneo Texas. And I was like, it just felt that there was something broken in the humanity in our country. And so I went in this pursuit of how I could apply all the things that I did to help and met with different members of Congress and Senate. And everyone kept being like, well, if you want to make change in here and here and here and here, we just need higher voter turnout and obviously not knowing anything. I was like, that's not going to be hard. Um Think about how many brands and films me and my friends launch every year, like, like how hard is this? Um And so I did what I always do when I need to figure something out and I emailed all the smartest women that I know and we all came together and really started to build the beginning of this movement called I'm a voter um C A joined the town agency as our co founder. And yeah, it's been crazy. Shannon. Can you share your story? Yeah, I mean, I think there's some, some similar themes in there, which is, you know, I was a stay at home mom of five, living in a suburb outside of Indianapolis when the Sandy Hook School shooting happened in 2012. Um I had really never been politically active. I was in corporate communications. I was taking a five year break and like, I'm sure so many of you in this room I sat down and just sobbed as I watched the news that 20 Children and six educators have been slaughtered in the sanctity of an American elementary school. And like Madonna said, you know, this idea that humanity was broken, that Congress would likely do nothing after that happened. And I thought, ok, there has to be something like mothers against drunk driving, which was so influential to me growing up in the eighties. Um But for gun safety and I went online and uh I found a bunch of think tanks run by men in Washington DC. Uh I found some city and state organizations also mostly run by men. I knew I wanted to be part of a badass army of women. It's who I've seen get so much done in this country over and over and over again. So I started a Facebook page. I had 75 Facebook friends. I had no Twitter handle and I just wrote that it was time for women to rise up against the gun lobby and that went viral and it has turned into the largest grassroots movement in the nation. We are twice the size of the N R A now with 10 million members and we have passed over 500 good gun laws. We've stopped the N R A S agenda 90% of the time every year in state houses for the last eight years. Um And we've elected hundreds of our own volunteers to office So, um I, since, since you brought some of this up, I think it's a good segue. You know, there's, we see, we all read the news. I think it impacts us every time. I hope it does. Um But uh, you know, I think it's easy to walk away from reading all of that and thinking there's just, there's no progress made and you, you have a different take on it. So can you share with us a little bit more about, you know, why you do see progress there? Uh Just to be clear, special interests want you to feel hopeless and helpless. They want you to believe that this is the way it's going to be, that you're going to always have to put gun lobby profits above public safety if you go back in time, you know, that's not true. Otherwise people would still, you know, be encouraged to drink and drive. Um People would still have unregulated opioids like special interests have power until they don't and they are losing power. You know, I would not have woken up every day for the last decade and done this work as a full time volunteer. If I didn't think that we weren't winning, we are the NRA is weaker than it's ever been. They are hemorrhaging political power and dollars and meanwhile, we are stronger than we've ever be. And I, I was giving some examples in the intro of how much progress that we've made you know, last summer after the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, we passed the bipartisan Safer Communities Act in Congress. Why is that such a huge deal? Because when I started doing this work in 2012, a quarter of all Democrats in Congress had an a rating from the NRA today, not one does. And in fact, 15 Republicans signed on to that bipartisan Safer Communities Act. So we are making huge progress. Hopefully, you saw that in the last couple of weeks, we've passed assault weapons and sweeping gun reform legislation in places like Washington and Michigan and Colorado. And now Minnesota, these are places that were solidly red or purple a decade ago. Um So I, as you can tell, have a lot of hope around this issue and I just simply don't believe that any of us in this room are willing to send our loved ones into public places, not knowing whether they'll come home. Um Please raise your hand by the way at any point if you have questions or, or comments. Um But uh a, a big theme of this conversation is women pushing for change, right? And, and you talked about how you kind of called your, you know, your boardroom, you called the women that you are your, the smart women in your life. Um And, and one of them was Shannon. I'd love to hear more about just your relationship, how you guys connected in the uh vacation together. Now, apparently so. Um, yeah, when I, you know, when I was starting, I'm a voter. I didn't, I really didn't know what I was doing in many ways. I, I knew how to build a brand and I knew how to get people engaged and how to make people feel something. Um, and I was Deborah, who's one of the women who helped found I'm a voter and I were together and she asked me like, well, how do we figure out organizing grassroots movements? And I said, I don't know, we call Shannon Watts. How do we talk to Shannon Watts? And she, I was like, let me D M her. And um four days later I was at the airport and, uh, Shannon and my phone rings and it's like, hi, Madonna, this is Shannon Watts. You would think Beyonce was calling me. I mean, she, to me was like the biggest, like celebrity of all time. And so, and that's just what she does. She's amazing. And we got on the phone and I, you know, she became my mentor and one of my closest friends, but it really was, hey, Shannon, is it weird? I mean, we're 25 women. Am I supposed to care? Are there men that are supposed to be a part of this? And she's like, what are you talking about? Um, and you know, it really, all of us do this as volunteers. All these are the most incredible women. And so that it's so funny because it took so late in my career for me to embrace vulnerability. And, you know, I was the person that I always thought like no one was gonna come to my birthday party. So when we started, I'm a voter and we developed this idea and these toolkits and I emailed, I wanna say like 1000 people I had worked with across all of these different sectors, the panic and fear in me of like, oh my God, what is everyone going to say? And, and I just share that it was overwhelmingly positive that the response was thank you so much. No one has ever asked. Um And that was so important to me because I realized how many people have such incredible skills that they can put towards activism and the issues that they care about, but are so rarely asked or provided opportunities to show up. And I think by us creating a place and a mechanism for companies and brands and influencers and, and communities to participate. I mean, like we now engage with hundreds of brands and thousands of communities and people in cities. And um I think that's what you've done so incredibly well with moms demand action was just creating an opportunity and a mechanism for people to just get off the sidelines. Um Obviously, everything is so politicized and polarized now and what you're both doing when it comes to, to gun violence, um You know, voter voting rights. Uh all, all of this civic engagement um somehow has become so politicized. Um And I wonder if you have any thoughts on just how you carry on these conversations, how you get in the right rooms. Uh And you reach out to different people and, and I wanna start with you because I know when we were talking earlier, you brought up your family's traditions of Shabbat dinners uh to uh anybody who's been to a Shabbat dinner, I think every culture, every religion has a version of that, of course. But, but talk, talk a little bit about what Shabbat has to do with all of this. You know, I sometimes I feel like that same theme of we've lost humanity. Like, you know, with Shabbat dinner, you sit across from people that don't agree with you all the time, your crazy uncle, you know, we all have them, right? Yeah. And you learn to find common ground. And I think in some ways and I think that you do this so brilliantly with your work. But I, you know, I talk to companies about this all the time, which is like if you actually zoom out there's so much that we agree on and so much of that is within the values. And so like if you can say, hey, as a company, we agree that we want our employees and our customers to feel safe, we can all agree on that, right. And so maybe the mechanism in which that appears is something that we can discuss. But sometimes there, there's just so much more common that we share and this ability to just have conversation, have disagreement, learn from each other. Um has been so helpful in applying weirdly in, in this work. Um And, you know, I talk to companies so much and, and obviously a big part of Judaism is giving back and we talked about stuff and, and, and these incredible virtues and you know, trying to explain to companies that, you know, doing good is good for business. You know, customers more than ever. Now see that the purchasing decisions they make as an extension of their values. Like we make a choice every day between Patagonia and North Face. And so we know that that is a signal to others about our values. And so when we do that and we're putting our money for something, we expect brands to have our backs and we expect them to show up, we expect them to do good and it ultimately affects your profitability, like you're making all these investments in technology and efficiency, but it helps with employee retention, it helps with customer retention because at the end of the day, like you can have super clear like modern packaging and you can ship within 24 hours, but your customer is going to care if you're hurting someone that they love and those things are not separate, like to be a brand that exists and thrives particularly with the younger generations that cares more than any other generation and is more diverse than any other generation. These values that we talk about are inherent in your brand and your success. And while we're going over to you, um Shannon just real quick, same, same question. Um you, you, you also know how to like stick it to people when you want to for sure. So it's not all, you know, let's all gather and hug each other. But, but how do you just very quick take away is what you've learned on reaching across to people who may not agree with you all the time. You, you know, people always talk about gun violence prevention as though it's polarizing. It's actually not 90% of Americans support background checks. It's only polarizing among gun extremists and I'm not wasting my time trying to get gun extremists to support what we're doing. I'm trying to get what has been the silent majority to use their voices and their votes on this issue when we ask volunteers why they come. But then stay staying is the harder part with a volunteer base. It's two reasons. One they feel we're winning and that's because we celebrate wins. We talk about the fact that we're winning and two, it's because they find their people, right? Even in the toughest of states, the reddest of states where this can be a different issue in gerrymandered state legislatures are volunteers find their people and those people become the best friends that they've ever had. So, there's a, there's a reason that they keep coming back and it's, it's to find the people that they want to spend their time with. That's so funny. That's what you just asked me before. And you said, what's the most rewarding work I've ever done? And I said I'm a voter because it led me to these people in my life that I have today and that's completely changed my life and you didn't find them at the law firm. Apparently I did not. Ok. Question over here, please stand up. I am Jennifer a couple of so, first of all, um Thank you for um tackling these issues in the ways that you are tackling them and your optimism around them is actually incredibly refreshing. Um The question I have for you because whether it's on this big stage that you sit on or in smaller stages where we're tackling different issues, how you were dealing with or addressing the amount of progress that you think you're making or that you see yourself making because you've been working on this, as you said for many years. And I think when you sit and try to think about how much progress have I actually made to achieving what we're trying to achieve. How are you thinking about that? How are you um, not getting discouraged? Um because we're taking steps forward and taking steps back. Like, how do you stay motivated and stick to it because you believe you ultimately get there. Like, I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Yeah. I mean, from my perspective, you don't get involved in any activism, but especially activism where you're taking on one of the largest, most powerful, wealthy, special interests that's ever existed. Right? You don't get involved in that and think I'm going to win this overnight. Although I kind of did, like you were saying, I thought, oh, this won't be that hard. Um Little did. I know I'm really grateful. I was so naive at the beginning, but we have come up with several mantras in our organization. One of them is keep going. Our volunteers actually get that tattooed on them. Um And then the other man like a real tattoo. Oh Our volunteers get tattoos every year. We have gun since university and all, a lot of the groups go get tattoos, our brand saying it's a thing. Um I've escaped that so far. But this idea of losing forward, right? Making sure people don't feel defeated when they experience those losses because we were very much David versus Goliath. And what we have said is yes, we're gonna lose, we're gonna win more than we lose. But when we lose, we're going to learn how to lose forward. So the next time we win and just for an example in Arkansas. When we started doing this work, we were really having a hard time getting a chapter there. Guns on campus. Sailed through the state legislature, the governor signed it standing next to an N R A lobbyist. It so incensed women across the state of Arkansas that our chapter grew exponentially, so quickly that we went in and carved out an exemption so that you could not bring your guns to a tailgate where alcohol is served. I mean, hello. So then the next year, two volunteers ran for office. One of them beat the guy that put the guns on campus bill forward by 12 points. A retired nurse who became a monster man, a volunteer. None of that would have happened if we hadn't lost originally on the guns on Campus Bill. So we really are always telling stories and I think Madonna would agree. A lot of activism is storytelling. What is our narrative? Our narrative is that we are winning and we are going to win if we don't give up? Take one more, very brief question over here. The story thing is such a big deal. I'm Britt. A and thank you for everything that you're doing. I think it's not just about um fighting the fight against those that want to have their weapons with them all the time. It's also the mental health piece of it. I have a 10 year old boy five years ago or so. He was going to kindergarten. I remember driving him to school on the second day of kindergarten and he says to me in the back seat, mom, we had a lockdown drill yesterday and I didn't even know how to react. And I said, what do you mean you had a lockdown drill? And he explained that they hid in the closet. Uh And they had to be super quiet because there might be bad people in the building, something like that. I start crying in the front seat as I'm driving him to school, totally unprepared for any of that. And fast forward to today, 10 years old every day. He says to me when I drop him off at school. All right, mom, I love you don't die today and he just is continuously focused on potentially bad things that could happen. And I don't even think he even realizes that it could be a mass shooting or something like that. But it's all of these things that are, are creating that anxiety for young people which we know then they grow up and then we have these mental challenges with older people, young adults who are trying to process their anxiety, their issues, et cetera. It's all connected. So what do we, what can we all do about it? You have, you have 10 seconds. I wish we can do about it. I think we all expect other people to do the work for us and we read the news and we hope that other people are getting involved and the reality is we all have to be activists. Walker says activism is a rent I pay to live on the planet. We aren't numb as a nation. We are traumatized. And so I would just ask you to become volunteers. Thank you so much for being here and, and sharing some hope with us. Yeah. Thank you.