(Illustration by iStock/santima.studio)
When Isabel Coronado was 7 years old, her mother was arrested and incarcerated for two years. Coronado’s mother went on to become a civil rights attorney in service of her tribe, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. But it wasn’t until taking a leadership role with the American Indian Criminal Justice Navigation Council that Coronado connected her childhood experience to her own life’s work.
“The first time I shared my story in the prison I couldn’t stop crying,” she says. “I realized that I needed to continue this journey in criminal justice reform to break the cycle of generational trauma.”
As a member of Next100’s inaugural class of “policy entrepreneurs,” Coronado is poised to do just that. A program of the progressive think tank The Century Foundation (TCF), Next100 seeks to empower a new generation of leaders to reshape domestic policy. Billed as a “pop-up” think tank, Next100 capitalizes on its small size (just one full-time staffer plus the fellows), willingness to try new approaches, and location outside the echo chamber of Washington, DC, to meet a need in the marketplace for innovative policymaking and fresh leadership.
“Our goal is to build on the tremendous young, diverse energy we’re seeing all over the country and create space for new leaders to drive policy change,” says Emma Vadehra, executive director of the program, which will be based in New York City. “People who historically have been left out of policymaking—because of their age, identity, educational background, or the professional opportunities afforded to them—should be driving our policy research and ideas. This is policy by those with the most at stake, for those with the most at stake.”
Of the 740 total applicants, 78 percent who disclosed their race identified as people of color, 27 percent were immigrants or first-generation Americans, and almost two dozen were undocumented. The first class of eight fellows is comprised primarily of people of color.
Starting in July 2019, the program provides full-time jobs, benefits, and mentorship for the fellows through May 2021. They will lead their own research and action agendas in areas such as climate change, childcare, education, immigration, and labor. Coronado will tackle criminal justice reform with an emphasis on Native American communities, while activist Marcela Mulholland will create policy that sits at the intersection of climate change, criminal justice, and racial equity. Formerly undocumented immigrant Rosario Quiroz Villarreal will work to expand educational opportunities for migrant and low-income children.
“Growing up undocumented was my greatest obstacle, but having the privilege of a college education opened many doors,” says Quiroz Villarreal. “I am now seeking to leverage my privilege, because attending college and then finding work despite being undocumented was the result of a community effort on my behalf.”
TCF conceived the program in spring 2018 to celebrate its history of facilitating era-
defining policy solutions, from shaping The New Deal in the 1930s to suing US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos over for-profit colleges. But President Mark Zuckerman says Next100 is more than a marker of the past—it’s meant to be a harbinger of the future. “For our centennial anniversary, we wanted to take that legacy to the next level and invest in the freshest, boldest, most disruptive ideas out there,” he says. “When we looked around, we saw that those ideas were coming from the next generation.”
TCF also saw that the newest leaders needed more support. “A lot of young people are becoming activists, starting organizations, even running for office—but there are too few opportunities for them to go directly into building a policy agenda,” Zuckerman says. “It’s rare for traditional institutions to turn over significant resources to invest in a newer, younger, different brand of thinkers.”
“This approach has the potential to move the needle,” says Andrea Benjamin, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, Columbia. “For those of us who conduct research with diverse communities, having policymakers who come from those communities could change the way we think about potential outcomes, define success, and ask our research questions.”
Vadehra is committed to doing it the right way, but admits that the goal is an ambitious one. “We want to be a real springboard for these leaders, to impact policy discussions and outcomes, and to learn new ways to develop leaders, policy development, and influence,” she says. “Any one of those will be hard to do effectively—we have two years, and we want to do all three.”
To that end, scaling up will be key. Next100 is fully funded for the next two years, and Vadehra and her team are working to secure backing to expand the program and tap some of this round’s applicants. But perhaps the best way to extend its reach is to convince other institutions to make similar investments in progressive policymaking.
“We hope other established institutions and foundation investors gain confidence that the next generation is ready, willing, and able to tackle big problems,” Zuckerman says.
This article appeared in the Fall 2019 issue of the magazine with the headline: "The New Policymakers"
Read more stories by Kenrya Rankin.