Happy Birthday Galvanize USA! Celebrating 5 Years with 5 Questions
Galvanize USA turned five this month! To mark the occasion, we sat down with Founder and Executive Director Jackie Payne to ask her five questions about the last five years.
1. Looking back on the last five years, what are you most proud of?
We have become an organization that understands women and is able to connect and engage really genuinely. As a result, we’re able to be a trusted voice, an alternative to the disinformation they’re hearing, an alternative to hate. I don’t like people saying, “why are these people voting against their interests?” That is not true. We trust that women are acting in their own interests, we just don’t always immediately understand what they are. I’m proud that we took the time to really listen.
2. What has personally brought you the most joy in your role as executive director?
I love learning. I feel like we started this with a really open mind, like let’s try to look at all these different areas—neuroscience, behavioral science—and draw those together in a new approach to engaging with folks. It’s super fun for me to nerd out in the different sciences. But the really cool thing is when it all comes together and it works. This willingness to experiment and try and do it differently has resulted in true progress. Now we’re seeing the effects of it and I’m delighted!
3. You love learning—what’s one of the coolest or most important things you’ve learned in 5 years?
From a neuroscience perspective, we learned that none of us wants to change our minds or entertain new ideas. Our brains are all hired-wired to resist that change and that applies to all of us, our team too. There’s so much humility in that!
4. Just like we do in Galvanize USA team meetings: can you choose one word to describe how you feel about the past five years?
The word I feel is “purpose.” On purpose. As someone who has a certain vision for the world, I feel really clear that I am doing what I can to help achieve that vision, to help create an America that really works better. We are contributing something unique and filling an important need, and serving this purpose is really gratifying.
5. What does Galvanize USA want for its 5th birthday?
Well when you’re five, you go to school and become a big kid. You make friends and share with others. That’s what we want too! One of the things I have loved so much about the last five years is that coming into this space, we’ve made a bunch of new friends. We do this, they do that. We collaborate, we build off of each other, and we don’t waste time and money competing or repeating. Everything is possible if we’re all using our strengths.
