Leaders & Social Change: Joanna Mikulski

Earlier this month, Joanna Mikulski stopped by for our Brainfood session to talk about how communication strategy can help social sector leaders achieve their goals, and why she’s an optimist about making social change happen.

Originally from Philadelphia, Joanna read Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace as a teenager and was deeply affected by the realization that young people like her were living in poverty. It inspired her to pursue a career in social justice, to help create a better and fairer society.

Working at the White House Office of Management and Budget, she advised senior government officials on education and labor policy issues and providing youth services to those in need. Now, with Assemblyfor, she helps to bridge the gaps between strategy, communication, and making social change happen. We sat down with Joanna after her Brainfood talk to ask her a few questions.

Describe what makes a good leader in 5 words

Listening (deeply), vision, humility, integrity.

What gets you excited?

Nothing gets me more excited than bringing together people and ideas from diverse fields to tackle a problem. What often gets lost in the news is that the global community has made great strides over the past few decades in tackling difficult challenges like ensuring children survive to see their fifth birthday, ending extreme poverty, and even reducing violence. This has happened because of commitment and engagement from high-level leaders in government, business, nonprofits, and philanthropy, but also because of the creativity of activists and entrepreneurs on the ground.

But, as we all know, we are still far away from a world where everyone has the chance to live a peaceful and prosperous life. This is very present in Berlin, where we’ve seen firsthand how war, poverty and oppression have forced so many to flee their homes. Moving forward, no single person, sector or institution is going to be able to make change alone.

That’s why I’m so passionate about helping leaders working on social change build bridges to influential allies and across disciplines like design that can offer new insights on how to solve problems.

What’s your proudest achievement with Assemblyfor?

In recent years, research from diverse fields, like social psychology and behavioral economics, has expanded our understanding of how the process of influence works, why we find one person or idea persuasive while another goes unnoticed, and what motivates us to action. Big companies do a great job of using this research to get us to buy things, but social change leaders don’t always have the same tools at their disposal. We focus on helping those leaders use research to develop more impactful communications strategies.

This can make a real difference, as we’ve seen with the initiative WithoutViolence, which I led before taking over Assemblyfor. Preventing violence against girls and boys is a critical issue that unfortunately has not been given enough priority over the past decade. Through WithoutViolence, we worked with global leaders working on this issue to develop more solutions-focused and action-oriented communications, and it has helped bring about significant results.

Keeping children safe is now a priority within the global Sustainable Development Goals, and leading organizations have also come together to form End Violence Against Children, a new global partnership that is spurring investment and action on this important issue.

Tell us one fun fact about the White House

In the West Wing, there’s a “Million Dollar Wall,” which got the name because of four priceless Norman Rockwell paintings hanging on it.

What advice would you give someone who really wants to bring about social change?

In recent years, we’ve seen an influx of creative and innovative entrepreneurs who bring new thinking to challenges like education, refugee integration, and healthcare. And, as I mentioned earlier, that’s great and exactly what’s needed!

But, in my experience, there’s a growing tendency among some to write off existing institutions, like the government and international organizations, and that’s unfortunate for two reasons. First, it’s difficult for a new solution to achieve broad scale without buy-in (and investment) from these types of organizations. Secondly, people working in these institutions can be an invaluable resource in helping new leaders figure out how they can have an impact and build on (not duplicate) work that’s already happening.

So my advice to new leaders is that before they start a new initiative, they should dig deeply into both understanding the problem they want to solve (starting by listening to those they want to serve) and where there are opportunities to build alliances with people and organizations who can help them make their solution a reality.

Thank you to Joanna for taking the time to speak to us about her work. If you’re interested in our Brainfood concept, or maybe even think you could teach us a thing or two as a guest speaker, then get in touch.