News
Our values & servant leadership - Courage
In American culture, we often imagine courage means being a superhero and accomplishing a superhuman feat. In reality, courage is much less showy than this — it’s a sum of many smaller, daily acts. Courage is enacted when we choose, every day, to do what is right instead of making decisions from a place of fear.
I think about courage when I am working with our candidates running for office and staffers altering their lives to support their campaigns. It takes courage to uproot your life and move across the country to work for someone you don’t know. It also takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there into the arena and run for office. And once our candidates are in office, leaders with service backgrounds continue to put others first, acting courageously as elected officials even if doing the right thing is not politically convenient.
Why Politics? - Supporting the most incredible people I've ever met
Working in politics involves a lot of sacrifice — long months on the road, time spent away from family, and total dedication. Being on a campaign can be a long slog. It can mean working 18 hours a day, seven days a week. People with service backgrounds know what sacrifice entails and how to dedicate themselves to tough causes for little tangible reward, and that’s why we need them as candidates and campaign staffers. The more people we have with service-first mindsets in our politics, the bigger our impact will be. Politicians who have served put the interests of community and country over all else, and they are the ones who can lessen the partisan divide and rehabilitate our political system.
Our first virtual Staffing School was a success!
Last week we completed our first ever virtual Staffing School! Thanks to the 50+ attendees who joined us from across the country. We adapted the format of our programming to take place on Tuesday evening and all day Friday. We’re so grateful to see that stellar campaign staffers can be trained virtually!
Why Politics? To make stories like my family's possible
My parents met working at a grocery store when they were 15: my mom was the cashier and my dad was the bagger. They were working at Star Market to save up to pay their own way through college a few years later. Fortunately, they were able to do just that, attending public college and even obtaining graduate degrees with the money they earned working at that grocery store. It paid off: my Dad became a successful businessman in Boston and my Mom became an educator. Through the lives they built for themselves, they were able to provide my younger brother and me with incredible opportunities that they could not have dreamed of as kids.
Four effective ways to serve your community during the coronavirus crisis [Meaningful service you can do from inside your home]
This #NationalVolunteerWeek, the face of volunteerism has changed rapidly due to the coronavirus crisis. At New Politics Leadership Academy, we know that our community is always looking for ways to serve, and we wanted to connect our powerful community with ways to make an impact. So, while you may be stuck inside, here are four ways you can serve: