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Nisha Anand, CEO of Dream.org, ran the playbook to help pass a legislation, which has seen 60,000 people return from prison. She grew up as the daughter of Indian immigrant parents in Atlanta, learned to be the bridge early, and now builds tables wide enough to make change that lasts.
Nisha explains:
00:00 Welcome to Green Shoots and Big Shifts
00:44 Introducing Nisha Anand, CEO of dream.org
01:21 From Atlanta misfit to activist and bridge builder
02:52 Justice at scale: legislation and the First Step Act
03:51 Building a big table and why it makes policy durable
04:41 Beyond tokenism: inviting the blind spots you cannot see
06:16 Green for All's origins with Van Jones and Oakland solar
07:47 Green infrastructure, reentry, and green jobs today
10:03 Equity as the door that opens for everyone
11:57 Practices and challenges of building broad coalitions
15:56 Common values behind unlikely allies
17:36 Making nuance cool again and modeling curiosity
19:00 Self-curiosity: asking why you react the way you do
21:33 What the podcast reveals: hope in science and startups
23:00 Connecting the dots across silos and conferences
25:28 What keeps Nisha going: her kids and the next generation
28:00 One word to leave with: perseverance
Learn more about dream.org:
Website - https://dreamcorps.us
Green Shoots & Big Shifts is hosted by Reetu Gupta, who started the show to have open, hopeful conversations about what it really takes to make sustainability part of how we live, lead, and work.
Each week, she talks with people doing innovative, meaningful work, turning ideas into action. From startup founders and corporate change-makers to community leaders - reimagining how business, society, and the planet can thrive together.
These are stories about innovation, collaboration, possibility, and the everyday shifts that move us toward a more abundant and resilient future.
you're listening to Green Shoots and Big Shifts
the show that spotlights the people and ideas
transforming our world for the better I'm your host
Reetu Gupta in every episode
I'll be talking with innovators and trailblazers
who are reimagining
our relationship with our planet earth
whether it's a small spark of innovation
or a sweeping shift in how we live and work
we'll explore the stories that give us hope
and the actions making a difference together
we are planting seeds of change and driving big shifts
for a healthier abundant sustainable future
hi welcome everyone this is your host Reetu Gupta
welcome to Green Shoots and Big Shifts podcast
today I have
Nisha Anand with me she is the CEO of dream.org
so Nisha welcome to you and thanks for joining
the podcast thank you I'm glad to be here so
yeah so I know we've talked
but I would love for you to share
why did you start dream.org what's what's your mission
what are you what's your focus
and I know today we're gonna go deeper into
one of your initiatives which is green for all but
I would just love to start with your background
and your your journey sure so I
I mean it's so hard to figure out how to talk about
why I'm at dream.org I think there are a lot of different paths
that LED me here but I grew up in Atlanta Georgia
and daughter of Indian immigrant parents
growing up in the 70s and 80s
in Georgia was very much a black and white town and
I was kind of in the middle
and in the south figuring out where I fit in was
just part of growing up and what I discovered
when I was young
was that I had this ability to be the bridge the bridge
between my parents the old world and the new the bridge
between
all of the different friend groups that I was part of
and that bridge building ethos
is certainly a part of dream.org
but the other part was something I Learned
growing up too which was
fighting for the underdog always being
one of the people that couldn't stand
things that were unfair
really didn't want to see people left out and left behind
because I related to that too as a kid
feeling like I was a misfit and not fitting in
and so through the years I experimented with a lot of different ways
of working for
that person the person that's left out and left behind
that underdog and I was an activist at a young age I
my name but underneath any cause
that really needed me I had been arrested
over a dozen times for different civil disobedience
I joined organizations after college
where I worked that were more community organizing
or more protest facing
and when I came to dream.org it was later in life it was after both of my kids
were born and I just knew
that for the rest of my life I needed to make sure
that I was gonna have the biggest impact
to the most people my mission
was the same still fighting for the underdog
but I had to think about it now that I'm entering
that second part of my life what is really
social change at scale what really is justice at scale
and it brought me to thinking about legislation
which is one way to enact something that can
change an entire course of for the country
whether you're looking at the IRA
the Inflation Reduction Act passed
for one of the bills that we passed or
you know hopefully if if that had gone you know fully
realized or one of the bills we passed the First Step
Act which is a criminal justice reform Bill
that we were behind
which has now seen 60,000 people return from prison
so no matter what I did in my history fighting for
you know that person
that was having their rights trampled on
in some way shape or form I didn't come to realize
what impact I could have until I got to dream.org
and what we do here is build
a really big table with as many different views
as we can fit at that table we ask you
to come to the table who you are will come
who are we are and we will design a solution
that works for the most people
and when you do that when you design
policy in that way with all the voices
included as possible
which also by the way some might call democracy
but when you build a solution that way it
is not just the right thing to do because it's
inclusive
but it's also durable it won't be easily overturned
when you have that amount of bipartisan ship
it doesn't get turned overturned easily
so I also feel like it's not just the right way to make change
it's not the most impactful way to make change
it's also like the lasting way to make it and
that's what we're about
at dream.org thank you for sharing that resonates
so much with me about like
having different perspectives at the table
I was just at a conference a
climate idea Aspen in Chicago
and one of the things that was
like I took away was the models and the business models
that worked for the last 200 years
you know post industrial revolution
may not work going forward and as we are building
these new models let's do it
right way by bringing different perspectives
and that means across generations and ages
demographics and it
you know it could be different in different ways
and it's not just like a token of like oh I have
representation from this group and yeah check
check box but really thinking
through how can we build for the next like 50
years hundred years so what you said
really really resonated with me yeah it can't be token
I think you hit on something that's really
important you can't just be checking
a box to have person at a table you have to be
when you're checking
off that box you have to be thinking
they know something I don't
they have access to a blind spot that I don't see
so when I'm inviting
them to the table it's not just a box it's because I believe
they're gonna tell me something I didn't know otherwise
and that's been true if you open yourself
up in that way and just don't think oh I'm you know
inviting this you know
executive from you know this company
cause I gotta have them represented
or I must have a Republican at the table
but you're like I gotta bring in someone that sees
the world differently than me
then you will get that so I think that's a really
important part of the puzzle yeah so
I wanted to ask you about green for all tell us
tell us more about that initiative what's your focus
through that sure so green
for all is the first of our initiatives it was founded
almost 20 years ago by Van Jones
and the idea was what he had noticed
he had worked most of his life in criminal justice
and he had been invited
to speak at a lot of these big green conferences
that exist that existed
in the world and he noticed that the green conferences
weren't talking about the communities that he was most
invested in and just saw this opportunity
what if the green jobs of the future that are coming
and I don't even think the word green jobs have been phrased
then but the idea that there is a green economy coming
a green future coming what if it solved
two things at the same time not just pollution
but what if it also could solve poverty
and that was the
idea that green for all took on is that we cannot
just look at one thing we have to look at it all together
and so the first initiative that green for all did
was take kids from Oakland
train them how to install solar panels
and install solar panels in kind of these
areas of the Bay Area
that were the first early adopters of home solar
and the image
of that where you see black youth from Oakland
learning these new skills and new trades and really
doing something that solves
poverty and pollution at the same time it was
groundbreaking and it
followed with a book by Van Green Collar Economy
then he went into the White House to look at green jobs
for the Obama administration
and that was at the heart of green
for all that's how it started what
makes green for all unique I think is that ability
to be in the middle there to really understand the
inside game which is the jobs
that are coming and the policy that's being enacted
but also to come from the communities
that we care about the ones that are often on the front lines
of climate change the ones
hit first and worst by climate change
should absolutely be the ones to benefit first from
the green future that's coming and so
that's evolved over the years and it is
a little bit at the whims of policy and what's possible
and right now we see a huge
opportunity with green infrastructure
of course it would have been accelerated
if the IRA was working
as it was intended but that future is coming
there are going to be bigger green
builds and green initiatives and how can we make sure
the cities that adopt this
can adopt it in a way that solves
a lot of different problems in the cities not just
hey there's this
building that everyone wants to build for this office
you know let's
do it in a green way but how can it actually solve
transportation issues that plague the community in a
in a solvable way
and how can we make sure that the people being employed
are from the communities
where these projects are being conceived and built and
yeah we're really excited to be involved in that way
one of the other things that we look at
just because of who we are and where we came from is
people coming home from prison
and how do they fit into the green future and
often when you look at what populations are hit
first and worst by climate change
which I think the climate
movement has done a great job of thinking
about for the last decade of course there's still more to do in terms of
our environmental justice colleagues and allies
have done a great job of framing that conversation
but a population that's often left out
is the one that experiences such high joblessness
which is people coming home from prison
and it's the main factor
of people going back into prison
is that job so we are still looking
at that how do we solve several problems at once
because we are fighting to get people home from prison
who shouldn't stay there
but we also have to fight for them to get a job
and with jobs shrinking and the workforce changing
and because we want to bring
about this future green economy
we really see a really clear
pathway and so we've been experimenting a little with that too
with our what we call our Green Reentry cohort
which is training just a few people at a time into
green jobs
you know it is kind of getting back to our roots
for sure yeah yeah that's
I can see how that work is so so very impactful and
tying back to what we were talking earlier again
it's if we solve
for green economy the same way we solved before
it's not it's not sustainable
and it's probably not gonna be a solution
which works for everybody and I I also wanna like
pinpoint on this fact about like you know people
again tokenism talk like solution for everybody
but in my mind it's not about tokenism
in my mind is if it is a solution for everybody
as you said it'll stick and then secondly
I do truly believe it'll be something that will
take us to models of futures
where we are not creating
recreating the problems of today
I don't know if you can hear the applause
they're applauding hahaha
training so hard
behind me it was almost time perfectly
applauding you were yeah it yeah I do I do
agree with that yeah
wholeheartedly and I think that that is
part of why I've been
who I've been you know you can't hide
who I am if you meet me you'll know I'm a progressive
you know within a few minutes of talking to me about politics
but one of the things that
is a real bedrock of my progressivism is the idea of
equity and what that means to me is that if you think of the
person most excluded
from this and you bring them into the conversation
that usually opens up the door to everyone
if you look at who this doesn't work for the most
you're going to come up with something of
what will work for the most and that's you know for us
having people who've been impacted by the criminal
justice system in a lot of these conversations
they will see things
that the typical table of policy makers doesn't see
even when we're talking not just about criminal justice
but climate about tech about AI policy
which is you know what everyone is talking
about right now huge view
point opening is possible right
yeah yeah completely agree like talking about changing
subjects a little bit but talking about building
a big table
right it is it is not an easy thing to do as you
bring these sometimes unlikely allies together
it would have been
you know some practices
that you have adopted that have worked
in building and maintaining these broad coalitions
and maybe what have been some some challenges
yeah or any areas of growth
yeah
I think you already hit on the biggest one is what is the intention
behind it is it just to say I did it and check a box
is it just because you know your funder wants you to
if your reasons aren't true it's just not gonna work
but if I come to the table authentically
and unapologetically who I am not trying to hide
you know I say hey this is where I am here's where I am
but if I say that and I authentically mean it
when I say and I welcome
people who are completely different than me that shows
it's infectious my curiosity
of who they are and why they're at the table fuels
their curiosity about why me or the next person
or the other person at the table is there
you have to model
the behavior you want and look it's not popular
I think folks that have tried
to bring people together throughout history
are the ones who have been targeted for not just
some of the most horrific things in history
hate crimes and assassination
but you know they're often called all
sorts of different names for being sellouts
and it's because it actually is the harder thing
I think staying in your lane and only working
with people who think like you is comforting
and it means you never have to compromise
your values are really
strong but you don't get things done
and for me democracy is about us being different
and it could just be cause where I came from this immigrant
misfit no one else feeling or looking
like me in Atlanta
growing up maybe there's a way that I know we have to
accept our differences we have to love our differences
we have to really respect where people are coming from
and it's okay
and that's really hard in this age of polarization to say it's
okay if you think about it differently
when we did this bipartisan work on
I came to the table because
I see a criminal justice system
that is incredibly racist since it since it's inception
and I feel like a lot of the system
has been built that way and it's happening
in a really unequal and very much racist kind of
policies that get carried out now
most of the Republicans
we worked with would never say anything
like that that is not why they're at the table
they're not at the table because they think it's
it's a racist system that's been unfair and unequal
they see a system that is bloated is taking
a ton of taxpayer dollars
and not making citizens any healthier
healthier they see especially with the religious right
who believe who are anti death penalty
believe in second chances and redemption
they see a prison system that doesn't offer that
you have libertarians who see a prison system that is
over incarcerating people trampling on their rights
for marijuana for instance has been a cause
that libertarians
have been really strong on very different reasons
that they're coming to the table
than I am right but we can still get something done
because we want the same type of changes
we want this system to be shrunk cause it's not working
and so that's okay
when you're building a table
and around green policy we've seen this time and time
again there are a lot of unlikely allies military bases
are now slowly experiencing the water level rise
it is a global security issue if you told me
if you told young Nisha who is an activist
on environmental causes hey
one day you're gonna be wanting the military
at your table to solve this I would have laughed
like really
like include the military why do they have an interest
but one their bases are sinking
making the world insecure
as water becomes more of a scarce resource
and we have more of these global weather events
we are looking at
major insecurity so yeah the military has an interest
they're not doing it for the same reason I'm doing it but they're gonna have some answers
at the table and they're gonna have some
desire to see some changes and so
yeah I really really like your framework and
what I'm hearing is
it's not even like common interest like common
interest like security
but like in your previous example
around criminal justice there was like
common values too like there were common values
around you know making sure there's dignity
you're not trampling on someone's rights
making sure you're giving people second chances
making sure you know
they are not being unjustly prisoned so you know
from a high level it's hard to see but if you like really
really try to look you can see there's a lot of
commonality you just have to interesting I haven't yeah
I haven't thought about it that way
of course when your values
are aligned it's much easier to work together right
so figuring out how to explain it as similar values
is interesting yeah yeah
and I would I would argue
even when your values are similar
sometimes it's hard to work together I've seen
that happen in my career like you want
all are like we believe in this we want this but then
everyone has their little agendas and interests
and they can still you know
there might be a different way that they are not coming
together so I think it's can be challenging in both
it's just I know you and I have talked about how this
like the art of being nuanced and living in the gray
we've kind of like lost it and yeah and we started
talking about like how do we make that cool again
you know from like
have you I know some of the coalition
building you're doing it's
it's hard work but you are bringing people together
but yeah just you know even if you want to
spitball about it like what are some ways
to like make it cool again I wish I knew
because what people will see is a snapshot
for instance if we use the previous scenario
let's say I'm working with
the military on green solution
I'll see a picture of me activist and military
and that tells a million stories
that people think if that's the snapshot
they get whether it's social media or
a headline of a newspaper
or something it will immediately read
I don't know for some people on the left sell out
what's happening she must
be getting paid she's just greenwashing
you know these institutions
that are horrible polluters which in a lot of cases
and what we're doing in the green
work we are gonna be working with horrible polluters
because they're the ones that need to change right and so right
you'll get labeled with a lot of this moving forward
and so how do we get people to read past the headline
or how do we get people what would it be even better
is if they see it they get curious first
instead of judgmental
first and that is not the world we're in
World War in a snap judgment and with the polarization
feeling like it's life or death
because for some people quite honestly in the US
it does it is life or it has been
life or death this polarization has caused
a lot of violence
and a lot of terror in the streets in the US so it is
high consequence but if we live in that elevated state
of us and them we'll never get to the solutions we need
that work for the whole world and so you're right
I don't know how to make people stop and get
to a place and I you know I guess I should be a little bit more of a historian
and looked and seen when has nuance been
nuance or curiosity been
more common than snap judgment
because I'm sure there are times in history
when that has been the prevailing force
and what caused that I do think there is some modeling
from the top if everybody in power
is a authoritarian polarizing figure that will sit down
you know when you had JFK and starting the Peace Corps
service an international service
being there for the world was more
important than the individualism
that came in the Reagan era
that you do have influence in that way
I don't obviously it's not that simple
but we do have to do a global turn
away from this polarization
to the next era or it's I mean it's devastating
what it's doing to us yeah and if we make it
if we make curiosity I'd say the easy
answer is to start with yourself
to just keep modeling curiosity
yeah you can never go wrong with asking questions
with digging deeper yeah I like that yeah and
people are still gonna judge me
yeah so some people are always gonna judge
and it's also as you were saying that it's also about
curiosity
about my own self right if I read that headline
and I react a certain way
being curious about like what stories am I making up
could there be another story
like not even about the story it's like what am I
how am I reacting why am I reacting this way and I
guaranteed like not everyone has the luxury or not
every time you'll have the luxury to stop and pause
and think that way but when you can it's it's victory
you know
yeah the more you come back to it it's it's it's
to me it's that's
victory yeah I agree I think that self curiosity
is something you can do a
practice it in bed when you're doom scrolling too
like why did I react
that way I think that that's a great tip
you know I'm gonna use that next time people ask I'm gonna
use your example how about you stop and
ask how you feel why you're reacting
what's causing that
uh huh uh huh
um I know we've
talked about a lot of different things um anything
that you wanna share you know anything
we haven't talked about yet well I mean
I would love to know cause this has been a
new journey and shift for you too
what you've been discovering
doing these interviews and what's been kind of the big
and doing this podcast what has been the big questions
this is me getting curious
like what are the things that seem most unsolved
are most needing attention hmm
that's a really good question
what I have seen that they are
like a variety of people across corporations
startups not for profits working on solutions
from different angles and in different ways
and in different sectors of
you know we talk about climate as this big umbrella
but it has like so many different sectors and that
really gives me hope because people are building
like you know building businesses
around a mission of decarbonization and they are
you know using in one example like science
to do that so it it reminds
me of like similar to how we were talking about nuance
like going it it gives me hope
but it also reminds me of an era where basic
science and research
was adding so much value to humanity versus
just generating me too products so that's one thing
and then I've just enjoyed to
with talking it just gives me so much hope and joy I
love that hope I love that hope peace
I think that yeah science
being used to solve difficult problems and also like
on my end of things policy
being used to solve difficult difficult problems
instead of just being used to beat down or bludgeon
or make a point which is what policy has done recently
those are huge turns that we need
in your example I think the thing that makes me nervous
is who's connecting these dots
what comes out of these big conferences
we have where we do have every sector together
how are we moving forward because I believe the best
solutions
are that okay you go to the big conference you realize
there are huge titans
of industry whether it be science and corporations
and community organizations and Ngos
and everyone is solving different pieces of the puzzle
you're putting together different pieces
but is it actually connecting
and that is where we need more help we need full
we need full like city wide
solutions that are all of it
because it is so easy to get just siloed
and keep pushing in your lane and when you do that
that very narrow focus of like I have this one science
solution that has to come it'll miss how this
revelation might be hurting a different part
so yeah I guess I'm coming back to the that table
building and that connective tissue really
being what's needed
right now but I love the hope of science coming through
man
I want that
story to break through I want that to be breaking news
I see it exactly exactly
you know yeah my feed
is showing me all of these incredible things that are happening
but the rest of the world doesn't know it and certainly our policymakers
don't know it uh huh yeah I and I
yeah I feel like I don't
like not feel I don't have an answer to your bigger
question but that's something I've been thinking
about and I'm hoping other people are thinking
about it too that how do we make these conferences
the one I went to was great
because there was actually dialogue
but how do we make these other
places we meet more effective in actually moving
things forward
and not take like 10 years to get somewhere
because we we don't have
the time and yeah I don't know whose
responsibility it is like who can start it
I would say government but government
moves so slowly so yeah yeah it's it's a good question
yeah I'd like to see every conference have a mandate
for an outcome by the end of the conference
you know there used to be that especially when UN
conferences
like they're drafting a document by the end or something like that and
you know it gets done and
everyone's working on it but even just Aspen's ideas
like in the climate conference has been
phenomenal like what is the outcome you're asking
everyone to participate in by the end yeah those are
important questions but I mean yeah yeah yeah great
problem solve lots of problems to solve lots of
lots of problems to solve um well
again this has been great I do want to ask you
on the topic of hope on a personal note what
what keeps you like
like what gives you hope what keeps you going
and navigating these big problems
and and challenges as a as a leader I mean
this is gonna sound like something everyone
says but it is my children
my kids are now they're 18 and 21
my son is in his senior year of college and
he is smarter than me he is he has deeply cared
about the world's problems
since he was little and he's going to do
amazing things to solve the world's problems you know
and I see it with my daughter too she's starting college
this year and she's doing the law societies and justice
pro university of Washington is where she'll be
and I see my kids grew up in Berkeley
they went to Berkeley High all of these Berkeley kids
have a fire in them to change the world so yes
they give me hope and just watching it with my own son
seeing like the changes that they're making
and the things that they care about they're different than me
he knows things I don't know
that's inspiring that's hopeful but honestly
I love the science I totally geeked out with the
solutions
that are coming out cause there are some really cool things and we need something
that's bigger than us to
save us right now yeah I completely agree
like I have lots of hope from
this generation Gen Z Alpha whatever
the next generation is because I've seen
at like 2122 there's so
some of them I've not seen all of them really mature
really grounded and I can say like I wasn't at 22
I was living in a totally different era
22 was very different so yeah and I feel they
they also know the reality of the world
and they still know how to live through it
which is very much very much
needed so with that I want to really thank you
for for being on the podcast um
the last question I have for you if there was one word
that you wanted to leave the audience
with I think it's perseverance
that you just keep going the punches and persevere
like I'm so glad
that my life moved as it did and changed and
that I adapted
and I tried new things and through it all just keep
trying to bring about the world you wanna see
yeah perseverance yeah thank you for sharing that word
perseverance and thank you Nisha
for being on the podcast
thank you to the audience for listening yes thank you