Speaker 1: Check me out at the annual Black Effect Podcast Festival,
Speaker 1: happening Saturday, April twenty seven in Atlanta. Live podcasts are
Speaker 1: on deck from some of your favorite shows, including this one,
Speaker 1: Black Tech, Green Money, and also some of the best
Speaker 1: podcasts in the game like Deeply Well with Debbie Brown
Speaker 1: and Carefully Reckless. Atlanta is one of my favorite cities
Speaker 1: in the world. I've lived there for two years. Actually,
Speaker 1: in my worldview, seeing us successful in every industry and
Speaker 1: not having any limits on our potential largely was shaped
Speaker 1: by Atlanta. So to be there with you doing this
Speaker 1: podcast talking about how we build or leverage technology to
Speaker 1: build wealth. Come on, man, doesn't get better. I want
Speaker 1: to see you there. Get your tickets today at Black
Speaker 1: Effect dot comback Slash Podcast Festival. I'm with Lucas and
Speaker 1: this is Black Tech, Green Money. Deschante Parks is founder
Speaker 1: and CEO at one thousand More and that that makes
Speaker 1: it easier for people from underrepresented communities like the one
Speaker 1: she's from, to engage in politics the top of that
Speaker 1: is super important to everyone's well being in growth, but
Speaker 1: often difficult to participate in. Her approvised, digestible, nonpartisan Summer
Speaker 1: Reason legislation coming up for a vote written in a
Speaker 1: way that doesn't require a law degree to understand. You
Speaker 1: can also find the popular arguments for and against bills,
Speaker 1: and it also helps you connect with elected officials and
Speaker 1: participating in crowdfunding campaigns for organizations you care about. Her
Speaker 1: mission of civic empowerment started at Louisiana State University and
Speaker 1: she worked on the Senate campaign for now Vice President
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, and she has a Master of Public Policy
Speaker 1: degree from Harvard Kennedy School. And preparing to talk with her,
Speaker 1: my mind immediately went to lobbying and how the voice
Speaker 1: that people can be suppressed by big money. So I
Speaker 1: asked Deschante to break down how this happens time and
Speaker 1: time and again, both negatively and positively for the issues
Speaker 1: that might matter most to you.
Speaker 2: So I think we're actually kind of not even ever
Speaker 2: taught about lobbyists and lobbying. I think what happens is
Speaker 2: we hear it in the context of the big life
Speaker 2: has all this influence, and so we think we're separate
Speaker 2: from it. We think they're the enemy because they have
Speaker 2: all this influence and they have a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and maybe we feel like we don't have any right.
Speaker 2: The term lobbying comes from the men who used to
Speaker 2: stand in the lobby of the hotels where the elected
Speaker 2: officials who would stay when they came to DC to vote,
Speaker 2: because they would live in their districts most of the time,
Speaker 2: all over the country, and then they would come into
Speaker 2: DC to vote as a legislative body, and there would
Speaker 2: be men who literally hung out in the lobby of
Speaker 2: these hotels and would buy them drinks and would talk
Speaker 2: to them and would therefore have an influence on whatever
Speaker 2: they were voting on. That was a lobbyist. So the
Speaker 2: way that they still have influence really, I tell people
Speaker 2: all the time. The money is part of it, but
Speaker 2: what's even more important is lobbyists full time jobs are
Speaker 2: to talk to your elected officials. So while you're working
Speaker 2: nine to five, and then you get home from work
Speaker 2: and you got to cook for the kids, and you
Speaker 2: gotta exercise, and you're tired, and then you got to
Speaker 2: even make time to watch the news. Then you got
Speaker 2: to digest the news, form an opinion, then call. They're
Speaker 2: not even at the office to answer the phone at
Speaker 2: that point. Whereas lobbyists, this is all they do. This
Speaker 2: is our job, and by the way, it's not a
Speaker 2: bad job, right there. I have friends that are lobbyists.
Speaker 2: There are people who lobby for children's rights, you know,
Speaker 2: there are people who lobby for education and lobby for
Speaker 2: health care. You can lobby for all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: and so lobbyists are not bad people. What is potentially
Speaker 2: bad is this system that we've created in which it
Speaker 2: does create an imbalance and power when it's when organizations
Speaker 2: with a lot of money can afford to have people
Speaker 2: full time staying engaged with your elected officials when you
Speaker 2: don't have time to talk to them at all. So
Speaker 2: what happens is your elected official hasn't heard from you
Speaker 2: since the last time you voted, and they hear from
Speaker 2: lobbyists every single day. So that's just who has their attention.
Speaker 2: So that is that's what lobbying is. That's our relationship
Speaker 2: to lobbing as people. I created an app that completely
Speaker 2: dismantles that. So with one thousand more, you see every
Speaker 2: bill coming up for a vote, So actually coming up
Speaker 2: for a vote. There's a lot of bills that get
Speaker 2: caught up in in committee and those are honestly kind
Speaker 2: of a waste of our time because they're never going
Speaker 2: to get an actual vote. I put in every bill
Speaker 2: that's coming up for a vote. I write everything at
Speaker 2: a third grade level, because fifty four percent of Americans
Speaker 2: read below a sixth grade level. And also it shouldn't
Speaker 2: take you an hour to digest what a bill is.
Speaker 2: I spend an hour figuring out what the bill is.
Speaker 2: I write the summary at a third grade level, so
Speaker 2: you can spend a couple of minutes know what the
Speaker 2: bill is. You can see the arguments for and against.
Speaker 2: We're nonpartisan, and then you can take action on it,
Speaker 2: including calling, email and tweeting. There's a little scripts in
Speaker 2: case you're nervous about what to say, so the script
Speaker 2: is different if you're for or against. And then you
Speaker 2: also can donate to an organization that's advocating for the bill.
Speaker 2: Because when we crowdfund our dollars, we actually outspend the
Speaker 2: lobby here in America. So the lobby spends about three
Speaker 2: point five billion dollars a year. Americans spend five billion
Speaker 2: dollars a year crowdfunding philanthropy. So we're talking about things
Speaker 2: like GoFundMe, So we quite literally are bigger than the
Speaker 2: big lobby with our voices and with our dollars. But
Speaker 2: before one thousand more, there was no mechanism for us
Speaker 2: to crowdfund our dollars on policy, on every single piece
Speaker 2: of legislation. So people have already figured out that small
Speaker 2: dollar donations make a huge difference in politics. You know,
Speaker 2: when I talk about small dollar donations, we're talking about
Speaker 2: donations that are two hundred dollars or less. Those sorts
Speaker 2: of donations power campaigns. Campaigns can't win without millions in
Speaker 2: small dollar donations. We already know that. But before one
Speaker 2: thousand more, there was no mechanism to make a small
Speaker 2: dollar donation between election seasons. So you shouldn't only be
Speaker 2: participating during an election cycle. You should be anticipating between
Speaker 2: election cycles. Because that's how we hold our elected officials accountable.
Speaker 2: That's how we stay informed, so that number one, we
Speaker 2: can tell them what we want them to do, and
Speaker 2: number two, when they don't do it, we can hold
Speaker 2: them accountable when it's time to vote for them again.
Speaker 1: So you said something that I found really interesting, and
Speaker 1: perhaps it's you know, provides you an opportunity to build
Speaker 1: this technology, and that it takes hours and hours to
Speaker 1: digest what these legislative you know, documents say, and the
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist in me says, that's probably intentional. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's intentional, but I wonder what you think, Like,
Speaker 1: is it intentional that we can't understand this language?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, look, I didn't go to law school
Speaker 2: for a reason. I people who go to law school,
Speaker 2: I don't get it. I ended up getting my master's
Speaker 2: in public policy because I was like, y'all are learning
Speaker 2: how to work within a system that's broken. I don't
Speaker 2: want to learn how to work within the system. I
Speaker 2: want to learn how to change the system on a
Speaker 2: systemic level. And so I went and got my master's
Speaker 2: in public policy. But that said, yeah, I do think
Speaker 2: it's intentional. I think we have an education system in
Speaker 2: this country that rewards people that have money and punishes
Speaker 2: people who don't. So you are assigned a public school
Speaker 2: based on your zip code, and your zip code is
Speaker 2: assigned a tax bracket based on the cost of housing
Speaker 2: in that zip code, and based on that tax bracket,
Speaker 2: your school is allocated resources. So schools in the neighborhoods
Speaker 2: that have expensive houses get more resources than schools that
Speaker 2: have inexpensive housing. And so, you know, if we have
Speaker 2: an entire part of our society who's already not getting
Speaker 2: the funding that they need, maybe in their personal lives,
Speaker 2: so you know, their parents don't make a lot of money,
Speaker 2: people don't make a lot of money. Then in school,
Speaker 2: they're not getting the kind of education that would help
Speaker 2: them move in status at all. Help them help themselves,
Speaker 2: if you will, And then the people who are already
Speaker 2: in power get to stay in power. So the people
Speaker 2: who have money, they get a good education, they learn
Speaker 2: how to make more money, and those people tend to
Speaker 2: be people who have more access to politics. Even you know,
Speaker 2: when I was out on the campaign trail, and so
Speaker 2: my family's from Streetport, Louisiana. I was raised in Fort Worth, Texas,
Speaker 2: and people would tell me all the time, like, you know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what I say, It doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: I'm thinking. You think rich people think that rich people
Speaker 2: don't think that they know it matters what they say
Speaker 2: and what they think. Part of this is a mindset too,
Speaker 2: So yes, I think the way our education system is
Speaker 2: set up is the foundation for disenfranchisement. I think it
Speaker 2: is directly tied to civic engagement. And I think that
Speaker 2: the entire system was built in a way that protected
Speaker 2: the interests of at the time slave owners. That was
Speaker 2: that's when our country was founded, and it was founded
Speaker 2: with those ideals. It the way that laws were structured
Speaker 2: protected the people who already had power because the people
Speaker 2: in power were making the laws. And of course, over time,
Speaker 2: thank god, there have been revolutions and movements, but at
Speaker 2: its core, the way the system works still does reward
Speaker 2: people who already have money, who already have power, and
Speaker 2: it takes disruptive It takes disruptive movements or tools, in
Speaker 2: this case with one thousand more technologies to really flip
Speaker 2: things on its head. So, you know, I hear people
Speaker 2: all the time say, you know, we can't keep working
Speaker 2: within the same systems. Okay, fine, here's the deal. We're
Speaker 2: not going to see the lobby going anywhere in our lifetime,
Speaker 2: you know. And I say all the time, if I
Speaker 2: could go back in time and talk to the Native Americans,
Speaker 2: what I have been like, you should really start a
Speaker 2: yoga practice because there's some serious about.
Speaker 1: To you know.
Speaker 2: No, I'd be like, we need to get y'all some guns.
Speaker 2: Where are the guns? Where are the bombs? You know,
Speaker 2: so we can bring water balloons to a gunfight, and
Speaker 2: I build one thousand more so we could have the
Speaker 2: same tools and flip this system on its head. That's
Speaker 2: the best I think we can do right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I wonder if there are more Deshonnete's out there.
Speaker 1: So I was doing some research before this, and I
Speaker 1: was reading this article from the National It's Toue of Health,
Speaker 1: and it was talking about how the more we have
Speaker 1: issues in the country, the more people feel disenfranchised and
Speaker 1: equality exists, people feel victimized, et cetera. The more they
Speaker 1: engage civically. And we're I guess post COVID. I think
Speaker 1: the I think they say we're post COVID. I mean
Speaker 1: we are post COVID, but we're out of the pandemic era.
Speaker 1: Do people still feel that level of engagement as we
Speaker 1: felt after George Floyd? Immediately after George Floyd in the pandemic?
Speaker 2: So what's interesting is it always is just ship, is
Speaker 2: the way I see it. So those people who are
Speaker 2: like politics doesn't impact my life, Okay, Well it's impacting
Speaker 2: somebody's life right now. I guarantee you. In fact, this
Speaker 2: dude told me a couple months ago. This dude was like,
Speaker 2: I don't vote. I just kind of do what's in
Speaker 2: front of me, And I was like, do you have
Speaker 2: running water at your house? Do you have trash pickup?
Speaker 2: Do you have women in your life? Do you ever
Speaker 2: get sick? Like you like, what do you? I don't
Speaker 2: know what that means. If you think politics doesn't affect you,
Speaker 2: you might be very rich, or you might be willfully ignorant.
Speaker 2: You want to believe it doesn't affect you because it
Speaker 2: is so psychologically difficult for you to confront that there
Speaker 2: are people that have a lot of power over your life.
Speaker 2: And that is really scary, and I know it's hard.
Speaker 2: I think a lot about civic engagement is tied to
Speaker 2: our willingness to confront some very difficult things about the
Speaker 2: way the world works that we live in. But no,
Speaker 2: I think I agree. I have not seen the stat
Speaker 2: that you're talking about. I agree that when people are
Speaker 2: personally impacted by a policy, there is outrage, and it
Speaker 2: tends to happen in communities. And what's important is, you know,
Speaker 2: as people try to build coalitions, they try to build
Speaker 2: coalitions across communities because we're bigger together. But also what
Speaker 2: I want to talk about is how even when we
Speaker 2: think we're seeing civic engagement, Like, what is civic engagement? Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you post something on Twitter, sure it's civic engagement.
Speaker 2: Even if you just watch the news, that is in
Speaker 2: theory civic engagement because you're engaging with what's going on.
Speaker 2: You're engaging with the news in your own home. But
Speaker 2: when we talk about civic engagement, that translates into action,
Speaker 2: and specifically legislative action. What sorts of things move the
Speaker 2: needle on that, and it's not talking on social media.
Speaker 2: I built this so that it integrates into social media.
Speaker 2: We built a web app and not a mobile app
Speaker 2: because I didn't think people would want to download a
Speaker 2: new app. I was trying to create something that could
Speaker 2: integrate into Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, So wherever people were,
Speaker 2: we met them where they were. And you don't even
Speaker 2: have to leave the social media platform you're on. You
Speaker 2: and your friends are talking about a bill. You drop
Speaker 2: a link to one thousand more to the bill in
Speaker 2: one thousand more. They click, They read a little a
Speaker 2: bit about it, they read the arguments for and against.
Speaker 2: They choose, if therefore against, they can call, email, tweet,
Speaker 2: or donate, go right back to scrolling very quick so
Speaker 2: that translates into actually letting your elected official know and
Speaker 2: believe it or not that matters. People think that it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if you call your elect official, and it
Speaker 2: absolutely matters. These people want to be re elected and
Speaker 2: they know that it's only your votes that can do that. Now,
Speaker 2: the money that they get from some of these big donors,
Speaker 2: they will use it in like TV ads or digital
Speaker 2: ads on social media when your vote. But if you
Speaker 2: are already knowledgeable about their track record, if you've already
Speaker 2: been paying attention, it's going to be very difficult to
Speaker 2: get your vote. And they know that. So when you're
Speaker 2: talking online, they do see that. When you're calling their office,
Speaker 2: they see that it doesn't take long and they're just telling,
Speaker 2: you know, how many calls did we get today about
Speaker 2: that infrastructure bill or about that education bill, about that
Speaker 2: healthcare bill? How many calls did we get today? And
Speaker 2: then they're like, Okay, people really care about this. It
Speaker 2: moves to the top of the agenda because when you're
Speaker 2: not saying anything, then they don't even know how much
Speaker 2: the people in their district care about this. And again,
Speaker 2: those lobbyists are talking to them every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm gonna throw two things at you, And
Speaker 1: I hate to do that because you should just give
Speaker 1: one question, but you give me so much there and
Speaker 1: so one, I've heard less people say that it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter to them, and more people say that their one
Speaker 1: vote won't make a difference. So I want you to
Speaker 1: speak to that. And then on top of that is
Speaker 1: i've heard this phrase of all politics is local, and
Speaker 1: so if the important things that actually may make a
Speaker 1: bigger difference to me are my local elections versus the
Speaker 1: federal ones, even though the federal ones do have impact,
Speaker 1: but the ones to your point, you know, is your street,
Speaker 1: are the potholes you know covered up? You know, are
Speaker 1: the women in my life able to go get healthcare, etc?
Speaker 1: Can you talk about how it's important, how that one
Speaker 1: vote does make a difference, and the other things you
Speaker 1: should do beyond just that one vote, and how local
Speaker 1: politics matters to your everyday life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, first of all, people aren't wrong. So bring
Speaker 2: your friend, you know, bring your whole family, bring your friends,
Speaker 2: you bring whoever, because I mean, you're not wrong. One
Speaker 2: vote is one thing. But when we talk about anything
Speaker 2: in life, right like, especially when we're talking about public policy,
Speaker 2: when we're talking about a democracy. How do you think
Speaker 2: we get to those millions of votes? Those are all people,
Speaker 2: those are all individual people, those thousands of votes. There
Speaker 2: have been elections that were decided on one vote. There
Speaker 2: was one in Louisiana recently. So this stuff is real.
Speaker 2: Like that person who thought my vote doesn't matter, that
Speaker 2: would have tied it, and if they had brought their friend,
Speaker 2: it would have been two votes, and then maybe the
Speaker 2: other person would have won. This stuff is consequential. Also,
Speaker 2: you're not wrong bring more than one person. That's why
Speaker 2: people are out here building coalitions. So I think that
Speaker 2: the intuition there is right in that you want to
Speaker 2: try to advocate for your position so that you have
Speaker 2: more people on your side. And honestly, most of us
Speaker 2: are hanging out with people and spending time with people
Speaker 2: who agree with us anyway, and so you just need
Speaker 2: to get them to the poll or to the phone
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. So there's that.
Speaker 1: And so to your point of hanging out people who
Speaker 1: are like you, So if you're one vote, if you're
Speaker 1: one person with think to your vote doesn't matter, you
Speaker 1: probably got ten friends who think that same thing. So
Speaker 1: that's actually ten votes and not.
Speaker 2: One exactly exactly, which is amounting to millions of votes.
Speaker 2: And then you know, also so in this election, you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't even have a Democratic primary. People didn't even
Speaker 2: get a choice for who the Democratic presidential candidate was
Speaker 2: going to be. People are very upset about that. So
Speaker 2: people think, you know, I don't like either of the candidates.
Speaker 2: I don't want to vote at all. And I'm saying
Speaker 2: you need to vote at least independent, vote for someone else,
Speaker 2: because they need to know that you matter. They need
Speaker 2: to know that you're paying attention because then next time
Speaker 2: they will be actually vying for your vote. If you
Speaker 2: just don't show up at all, they think that person's
Speaker 2: not even going to get off the couch. I don't
Speaker 2: have to listen to them at all. And you can
Speaker 2: see it is public record who is a voter. It
Speaker 2: doesn't tell you who they voted for, but you can
Speaker 2: see every time a person has voted. So if you're
Speaker 2: if you are calling your elected officials office, you are
Speaker 2: in theory, more likely to be listened to if they
Speaker 2: know you're a voter, if they know that you vote
Speaker 2: every single time, So go out and vote for somebody,
Speaker 2: vote for something, because it really just signals to them
Speaker 2: that you have some kind of value in what they want,
Speaker 2: which is to get re elected. And also, by the way,
Speaker 2: that's not the only thing. There's all types of civic engagement,
Speaker 2: you know I mentioned earlier. So also not publicly shaming
Speaker 2: them on social media. That's a way to get their attention.
Speaker 2: All like any kind of civil disobedience. There's a reason
Speaker 2: why people shut down interstates because money moves on interstates.
Speaker 2: If people can't get to work, if shipments can't get
Speaker 2: where they're trying to go, that disrupts the economy. There's
Speaker 2: power in that too. So there's all sorts of power
Speaker 2: in civic engagement. And you know, we can signal to
Speaker 2: elected officials in all kinds of ways. Voting is one
Speaker 2: of them, calling is one, emailing, social media stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and then your other question.
Speaker 1: Local that's right involvement here.
Speaker 2: Okay, So people talk about that because you are I mean,
Speaker 2: it's fractions or so, like out of one hundred people.
Speaker 2: If it's if you're one in one hundred, then you
Speaker 2: have a lot more impacts there. Then if you're one
Speaker 2: in a million, you just have more impacts. There's more
Speaker 2: of a chance that you know, your vote could be
Speaker 2: the change could be sort of the tipping point. Uh,
Speaker 2: And yes, local politics is really important, and a thousand
Speaker 2: more of course wants to do local politics eventually. Right
Speaker 2: now we only do federal We've only been doing this
Speaker 2: for a short amount of time. But you know, I
Speaker 2: would say that these things all work together. So America
Speaker 2: has a very decentralized democracy, which means that it's not
Speaker 2: one central government that makes all the decisions. It's decentralized.
Speaker 2: We have the federal government, then we have our state governments,
Speaker 2: then we have our local governments, and they all work
Speaker 2: together in different ways. So if y'all will remember like
Speaker 2: when California made marijuana ly, but then the federal governments
Speaker 2: that marijuana was not legal. Remember that, and that caused
Speaker 2: a lot of confusion and they were like, well, you
Speaker 2: could still be arrested if you're driving with it whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, it like depended on the circumstances of an arrest. Well,
Speaker 2: that's that's sort of how our government works together. The
Speaker 2: government also, the federal government can protect you from in
Speaker 2: just laws locally. So a historical example of this is,
Speaker 2: you know, the federal government. Oh, the Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 2: that schools had to be integrated, and states still didn't
Speaker 2: do it. You know, again, my family's from Louisiana. My
Speaker 2: dad was in the first integrated class of his high school.
Speaker 2: My dad's not that old, he's like fifty something. So
Speaker 2: the federal government had to step in because state governments
Speaker 2: were violating people's rights. And we see sort of the
Speaker 2: same thing, the same concept when we talk about like
Speaker 2: access to abortion. You know, when that thing happened in
Speaker 2: Alabama where the court there ruled against the IVF clinic
Speaker 2: and everyone with this was just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and everyone was like, IVF is going to be legal.
Speaker 2: The federal government tried to put in place protections for
Speaker 2: IVF so that it would then say that your local
Speaker 2: government could not take that right from you. So they
Speaker 2: all work together because there are going to be times
Speaker 2: that you agree more with your local government. There are
Speaker 2: going to be times when you agree with more with
Speaker 2: your federal government. And you know, people talk about states
Speaker 2: rights versus federal rights. There's a lot of Southern states
Speaker 2: that are like, we want the federal government to stay
Speaker 2: out of it. You know, we want states to be
Speaker 2: able to make these decisions, and the decisions tend to
Speaker 2: be decisions that are infringing on other on individual rights.
Speaker 2: So yes, politics is local. The more local some thing is.
Speaker 2: I By the way, I love working in municipal government.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite place to work because you can move,
Speaker 2: you can change something so quickly, you can get that
Speaker 2: whole filled. You can you know, if there's a water issue,
Speaker 2: you know what happened in Flint, for example. You can
Speaker 2: very quickly put policies in place to protect people if
Speaker 2: you're working in an efficient municipal government. So I love
Speaker 2: municipal government. It's just I want people to understand how
Speaker 2: all these things work together. It's important to vote on
Speaker 2: every level totally.
Speaker 1: So from a tech CEO perspective, you know, when people
Speaker 1: think about and I don't know if what your goals
Speaker 1: are personally in building a technology, but I'm imagining there's
Speaker 1: you know, a part of it is you know, benevolent,
Speaker 1: and part of it is also there's an opportunity there.
Speaker 1: I'm imagining you can you can correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: And so community work is not something necessarily people think
Speaker 1: about when they are trying to find a lot of wealth,
Speaker 1: but I wonder I believe first that you can do
Speaker 1: well while doing well? So can you speak to how
Speaker 1: you find find wealth you know, unicorn opportunity with your
Speaker 1: one thousand more company working in community, I want you
Speaker 1: to speak to that the motivations here well.
Speaker 2: First of all, I never wanted to build a tech
Speaker 2: startup at all. I grew up very poor. We did
Speaker 2: not even when everyone else got the Internet, we didn't
Speaker 2: get the Internet right away. So I was very much
Speaker 2: behind the curve. Like I missed AOI ao whatever that
Speaker 2: was called that in semester. I missed all that like MySpace,
Speaker 2: like I missed it like I used to have to.
Speaker 2: When I was at my friend's house, I was like, ooh,
Speaker 2: y'all got the Internet. Let me, how do you do this?
Speaker 2: Like I So, I never considered myself tech savvy at all.
Speaker 2: What happened was I was working in politics. What I
Speaker 2: always did want to do with civic engagement. What I
Speaker 2: really wanted to do was have a political talk show
Speaker 2: that was funny and entertaining for black people. I wanted
Speaker 2: it to come on right after one o six in
Speaker 2: Park because I knew no one was going to tune
Speaker 2: into my show on purpose. I thought maybe they would,
Speaker 2: you know, still be finishing their snack as one of
Speaker 2: the park was ending, and maybe they would just hang around.
Speaker 2: Maybe I would be funny enough that maybe people would
Speaker 2: stick around and get the news of the day. That's
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do. So I got a degree
Speaker 2: in political communications from LSU, which was the journalism school.
Speaker 2: I produced the first public affairs show on Tiger TV,
Speaker 2: and then I ended up needing a job. In my
Speaker 2: life took a different direction. I you know, I graduated,
Speaker 2: I got a job offer, I took it. I was
Speaker 2: working in politics, and I was very obsessed about how
Speaker 2: do we get people to pay attention, how do we
Speaker 2: get people to absorb information, how do we get people
Speaker 2: to take action, and especially people like the people where
Speaker 2: I'm from. So I knew that that had something to
Speaker 2: do with like the intersection of pop culture. You know,
Speaker 2: like if some celebrity was talking about a thousand more,
Speaker 2: I would have a lot more weight than me talking
Speaker 2: about one thousand more, a girl who just spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time working in politics. And that's what I
Speaker 2: was doing. I was working in politics all over the country.
Speaker 2: I worked on Kamala Harris's usn and campaign in California.
Speaker 2: I was on Jason Candor's usn A campaign in Missouri,
Speaker 2: mary landrews USNA campaign in Louisiana. All over the country
Speaker 2: working in politics, I end up and down the ballot
Speaker 2: as well. There were lots of other races. But I
Speaker 2: would always hear people say, why do we only hear
Speaker 2: from these people when it's time to vote, And I'd
Speaker 2: be like, no, you don't have to. And I would say, like,
Speaker 2: just call me, just text me. And I just was
Speaker 2: very obsessed about this. And one night, I and this
Speaker 2: was at a time in my life when I was
Speaker 2: just feeling very hopeless about the state of politics. I
Speaker 2: was like, I've dedicated my whole life to this. I
Speaker 2: don't think I'm making any difference. I'm not even doing
Speaker 2: the job I originally wanted to do. I don't know
Speaker 2: that I'm helping people. I don't even know that these
Speaker 2: people that I've worked for are really upholding the values
Speaker 2: that I wanted them to or hope that they would.
Speaker 2: And I was just I was, you know, I was
Speaker 2: feeling very frush and very hopeless about what I was doing.
Speaker 2: And one night I had a dream and I saw
Speaker 2: one thousand more in the dream. So in the dream,
Speaker 2: there I was taking a nap. There was like a
Speaker 2: ruckus outside. I walked outside and was like, why are
Speaker 2: y'all being so loud? I'm trying to take a nap.
Speaker 2: And this man was like, we're about to stop this bill.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, right, how are you going
Speaker 2: to do that? Because I'm thinking I dedicated my whole
Speaker 2: career to this and I don't even know how to
Speaker 2: tell you to do that, So how you think you're
Speaker 2: going to do it? And he was like, we use
Speaker 2: this app? And I was like, what app? Show me?
Speaker 2: And he showed me the whole thing. And I woke
Speaker 2: up in the middle of the night and promised God
Speaker 2: I would build it. And I've been building it ever since.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't even about it wasn't about money. But
Speaker 2: that said, this is a billion dollar idea, right, This
Speaker 2: is the GoFundMe of politics. What the Robin Hood app
Speaker 2: did to Wall Street is what we're doing in politics.
Speaker 2: This is absolutely a billion dollar business. And I am
Speaker 2: so grateful and can't wait for that moment. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you can do good while doing good, and
Speaker 2: I think, really my only advice about that is I
Speaker 2: think there was so long that I was like, why
Speaker 2: am I doing this? Like why am I out on
Speaker 2: the campaign trail this, I'm not on TV, I'm not
Speaker 2: doing what I want to do at all. I didn't
Speaker 2: know why I was doing what I was doing, and
Speaker 2: it made me really sad. And then I think one
Speaker 2: day God just showed me a very clearer vision of
Speaker 2: what I would be doing, and stuff started making sense,
Speaker 2: Like A thousand more would not be what it is
Speaker 2: if I hadn't spent all that time on the campaign
Speaker 2: trail talking to tens of thousands of voters, hundreds of donors,
Speaker 2: you know, thousands of politicians and community leaders and things
Speaker 2: like that. It took all those perspectives and it took
Speaker 2: all of that experience for me to build what I did.
Speaker 1: I love that. I was reading an article about how
Speaker 1: there's so many more black people, young black people specifically
Speaker 1: investing in the stock market, and while the title, I'm like, yes,
Speaker 1: we should be doing that. Then I read the article
Speaker 1: and they were like, what the problem is? Where we
Speaker 1: get our education about what socks to invest in comes
Speaker 1: from mostly social media, and I'm like, yeah, that's probably
Speaker 1: not great because we invest in stuff that we don't
Speaker 1: have education about. And I wonder what your thoughts are
Speaker 1: on are we doing that same thing for the things
Speaker 1: that we vote for.
Speaker 2: I think that is such an important question, so I
Speaker 2: think we do. I think all people get a lot
Speaker 2: of information from social media. I think that is a
Speaker 2: symptom of people not trusting mainstream media, as they have
Speaker 2: in for a very long time, and for good reason.
Speaker 2: People don't trust media. Oftentimes people don't trust their governments.
Speaker 2: So that's all fair, and I think what's important is
Speaker 2: people finding sources who they can trust. And I built
Speaker 2: one thousand more of the way that I did because
Speaker 2: education is the foundation of it. Journalism is the foundation
Speaker 2: of it. Again, my degree is in journalism, so I
Speaker 2: built it so that it's all these summaries, all these
Speaker 2: bill summaries are read by me. I make sure that
Speaker 2: I have a team of people, of course, but I
Speaker 2: make sure that they are a fair representation of what's
Speaker 2: in the bill. I make sure that they're written in
Speaker 2: a way that does not require a law degree to understand.
Speaker 2: And I made sure that it was easily shareable because
Speaker 2: I did want this to first and foremost be a
Speaker 2: source of information that in itself breaks barriers. It gives
Speaker 2: people a trusted source of information so that they can
Speaker 2: even just verify what they're saying on social media. If
Speaker 2: you hear it first from a friend, that's fine, but
Speaker 2: you need a place to verify the information. And I yeah,
Speaker 2: I think people get a lot of their news from
Speaker 2: social media. I don't think it's always a bad thing,
Speaker 2: but I think that there needs to be a real
Speaker 2: education on media literacy. You know, how do you know
Speaker 2: if something is factual? You should If you hear from
Speaker 2: a friend, that's fine, but you should check it. You
Speaker 2: should check the source. A lot of times people don't
Speaker 2: even ask the source. I always will say where did
Speaker 2: you get information from?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I know, I'm a witness. You do ask that.
Speaker 1: I love it. I want to talk about how like
Speaker 1: when you get an idea like this, you said it
Speaker 1: can't he in his dream, which I love that. And
Speaker 1: you said you were not dreaming to be a tech
Speaker 1: entrepreneur growing up, So like what is this step? Like,
Speaker 1: how do you had this dream? I had this idea,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to go build it. How you do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So again I think God had put everything already
Speaker 2: in place and I didn't even know it. So I again,
Speaker 2: I want to Lsu. I'm in an aka who wants lsu.
Speaker 2: So my profile it was just a couple of lines
Speaker 2: before me. It's a Vitral Wilson who built Resilia, and
Speaker 2: so she's like, my friend, that's my sister, Like you know,
Speaker 2: so I asked her. She was the first person. I
Speaker 2: was like, I had this crazy dream and no, I
Speaker 2: had already bought the domain at this point, but I
Speaker 2: was like, what do you think about this? And she
Speaker 2: was like, I think it's brilliant. And the advice that
Speaker 2: she gave me is tell anyone who will listen. Most
Speaker 2: people want to hold their ideas close to the vest
Speaker 2: because they think that someone's going to steal their idea.
Speaker 2: She was like, most people can't even execute their own visions,
Speaker 2: much less yours, So tell anyone who listened. I had
Speaker 2: already been accepted to Harvard at the time, so I
Speaker 2: started my master's in public policy at Harvard, and I
Speaker 2: was just telling anyone who listen. Now again, I know
Speaker 2: that's a huge opportunity that most people don't have. Was
Speaker 2: Harvard is just throwing money. If you get into Harvard,
Speaker 2: they're throwing money everywhere. So yeah, there was like, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple thousand dollars here and they're a pitch competition.
Speaker 2: There was a class I took at the Business School
Speaker 2: at HBS where they give you two thousand dollars to
Speaker 2: execute a business plan. And I took the class twice,
Speaker 2: like you know, and I ended up meeting. So the
Speaker 2: first step was I ended up meeting a dude in
Speaker 2: my class who he was a lot of people are
Speaker 2: in transition at Harvard, going from one career to another.
Speaker 2: His first career had been in projects like product management,
Speaker 2: product tech, products management. So he was like, do you
Speaker 2: have a product roadmap? I was like, I don't even
Speaker 2: know what that is. And he was like, look, you
Speaker 2: should make a prototype. I'm like, what's a prototype? He's like,
Speaker 2: hire a graphic designer to draw a picture of what's
Speaker 2: in your head. Wow, that makes so much sense. I
Speaker 2: literally asked my girls back in Louisiana do we know
Speaker 2: any graphic designers? Hired Morgan Hilliard, who is a black
Speaker 2: woman graphic designer who happened to I didn't even know.
Speaker 2: I hired her because I thought she was a good
Speaker 2: graphic designer. Her husband owned a tech startup. Wow, so
Speaker 2: she was like, I know how to make a clickable prototype.
Speaker 2: I said, oh, we next level with it. I gave
Speaker 2: her the money Harvard had given me, because at the
Speaker 2: time I think I'd gotten like maybe twelve hundred dollars
Speaker 2: or something. So she made a clickable prototype for me,
Speaker 2: and then I gave that to a software developer. The
Speaker 2: software developer built it. I mean we built it together. Obviously.
Speaker 2: We even had to create our own language because I
Speaker 2: didn't speak any of his coding language. He didn't know
Speaker 2: anything about politics. So we started talking about it like
Speaker 2: we were building a house. Like we'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're in the living room. There's three different doors. This
Speaker 2: is like the user experience, and yeah, we just truly
Speaker 2: I think just being solutions oriented got me through this.
Speaker 2: There was I knew there was always an answer, so
Speaker 2: I just would talk to anyone who listen. I asked
Speaker 2: a lot of questions, and I did what people told
Speaker 2: me to do, and I, you know, got some of
Speaker 2: the money. I went for the money and was able
Speaker 2: to pay people who could help me build this thing.
Speaker 1: So in my view, you've got like two challenges. One
Speaker 1: is to get people to use it. Too is you
Speaker 1: got to convince people that getting engaged is worth their time,
Speaker 1: and so can you give your pitch for why you
Speaker 1: should really be engaged. This is your platform.
Speaker 2: It's life or death. It's literally life or death. I
Speaker 2: mean it might not be life or death for you
Speaker 2: the moment, but it could be. I had an uber
Speaker 2: driver who told me he wasn't politically involved, and I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, fine, we start talking. Turns out his
Speaker 2: daughter's on insulin. I'm like, did you know there's a
Speaker 2: bill right now moving on insulin? And he's like, no,
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that. He did not even know
Speaker 2: that his daughter's life depended on him being politically aware.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's a there's a lot of people
Speaker 2: like him, a million people like him, And when those
Speaker 2: people come together and make it clear that this is
Speaker 2: a priority for the community that these elected officials represent,
Speaker 2: then things get done. And in so many ways, right
Speaker 2: like the war on drugs, people being imprisoned wrongly, these
Speaker 2: are these are people's lives, uh, And some people are
Speaker 2: impacted more than others. But I'm sure you can, when
Speaker 2: you really think about it, think of a way that
Speaker 2: politics or policy has impacted you, or your family, or
Speaker 2: your community. So what I would say is, don't be
Speaker 2: afraid of that. Don't run from that confront why it's scary,
Speaker 2: and know that there are people who you can trust,
Speaker 2: and that I've created a way for you to engage
Speaker 2: from the comfort of your own home, so you can
Speaker 2: in a very safe environment. Just start tinkering with this,
Speaker 2: Start reading about you know, a couple of bills. Try
Speaker 2: to call. You're alone in your home. If you call
Speaker 2: and hang up one time, no one's gonna know, you know,
Speaker 2: Just call again. Read the script verbatim. If they ask
Speaker 2: a follow up question, I don't have anything to say.
Speaker 2: Just try. Just try. And the first time you do it,
Speaker 2: it's going to be scaring. The tenth time you do it,
Speaker 2: it's not. And that's like anything in life. You are
Speaker 2: a person who matters in this democracy, even if, by
Speaker 2: the way, even if you're not a citizen, if you
Speaker 2: live in this community, if you live in this country,
Speaker 2: you are important to this democracy. And you just need
Speaker 2: to believe that. The thing is is I know it,
Speaker 2: Your elected officials know it. The media knows that everyone
Speaker 2: knows it, and they are banking on you to believe.
Speaker 2: People who are currently in power are banking on you
Speaker 2: believing that you have no power that's the easiest way
Speaker 2: for them to take your power is to convince you
Speaker 2: that you have no power. So if you think you
Speaker 2: have no power, ask yourself who told you that, why
Speaker 2: do you think that? And then know that it's not
Speaker 2: true and take your power back. Get on one thousand more.
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Speaker 1: Tech on the Black Effect podcast Network in iHeartMedia. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas, with additional
Speaker 1: production support by Sarah Ergan and Love Beach. Special thank
Speaker 1: you to Michael Davis and Kate McDonald. Learn more about
Speaker 1: my guests and other tech this weepons and innovators at
Speaker 1: afrotech dot com. Enjoying Black Tech, Green Money, share up
Speaker 1: to somebody go get your money, peace and love. Check
Speaker 1: me out at the annual Black Effect Podcast Festival, happening Saturday,
Speaker 1: April twenty seventh in Atlanta. Live podcasts are on deck
Speaker 1: from some of your favorite shows, including this one, Black Tech,
Speaker 1: Green Money, and also some of the best podcasts in
Speaker 1: the game, like Deeply Well with Debbie Brown and Carefully Reckless.
Speaker 1: Atlanta is one of my favorite cities in the world.
Speaker 1: I lived there for two years. Actually, in my worldview,
Speaker 1: seeing us successful in every industry and not having any
Speaker 1: limits on our potential largely was shaved by Atlanta. So
Speaker 1: to be there with you doing this podcast talking about
Speaker 1: how we build or leverage technology to build wealth. Come on, man,
Speaker 1: doesn't get better. I want to see you there. Get
Speaker 1: your tickets today at black effect dot comback Slash Podcast
Speaker 1: Festival