Participant Directory

President

FrameWorks Institute

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING. Susan Nall Bales is president of the nonprofit FrameWorks Institute, which conducts communications research on social issues, and a visiting scholar at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Her work with scholars from the social and cognitive sciences has led to the development of strategic frame analysis, a multi-method, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding public thinking. She has commissioned, written, and published numerous reports on how Americans view such diverse issues as child development, the environment, and foreign policy. A veteran communications strategist and issues campaigner, she has more than 20 years of experience researching, designing, implementing, and critiquing campaigns on social issues.

Progressive Legislative Action Network

http://www.progressivestates.org

filmmaker and progressive media strategist

Balcony Films and The Cause Company

Santa Monica,  CA

PROGRESSIVE ROUNDTABLE ADVISOR. Julie Bergman Sender began her career in 1982 as a film Executive at Warner Brothers. She then spent many years working as an executive and motion picture producer for director Sydney Pollack’s Mirage Enterprises. She then partnered with Jodie Foster in the formation of Foster’s Egg Pictures. After almost two decades of work in film and Producing over 10 films including the Agneiszka Holland directed “Washington Square” starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Albert Finney, Maggie Smith and Ben Chaplin, The Ridley Scott film “G.I. Jane” Starring Demi Moore and the Harrison Ford Starrer “Six Days, Seven Nights” Julie took a sabbatical from the rigors of traveling on location to raise daughter Emily, now eight. . Ms. Bergman Sender currently has her own Media production and consulting firm in partnership with her husband Stuart Sender, Dan Carol and Dean Hollander, The Cause Company, which specializes in marrying the storytelling tools from years of working in feature films with sound policy to create cutting-edge multi-media content, messaging and branding opportunities for a wide range of progressive institutions and organizations. You can see some of their recent work by going to the Balcony Films website. Ms Bergman Sender lives with her family in Los Angeles.

President

Mary Berryman Agard & Associates

Madison,  WI

I have a varied professional background having worked as a meat packer, early childhood educator, actor, director, planner, funding agent, and, for the last few decades,organizational development and special projects consultant. The thread connecting these endeavors is concern for justice in the quality of human experience and expression. My long suit is getting people and organizations connected,focused and moving.

Deputy General Manager and Managing Director, San Francisco Office

Fenton Communications

Parker Blackman has been lead communications strategist on many high visibility public relations campaigns. For the Evangelical Environmental Network's "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign, Blackman was instrumental in leveraging a modest campaign budget into $3 million to $4 million worth of free media, including features on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings" and "Good Morning, America." His strategic consulting for Arianna Huffington's Detroit Project, which made the controversial link between gas-guzzling SUVs and the indirect financing of terrorists, significantly raised the temperature of the debate. Blackman served as press secretary for Arianna Huffington's run for governor of California and worked during 2003 with Robert Kennedy, Jr., as communications advisor.

Chief Operating Officer

Media Matters for America

Washington,  DC

http://mediamatters.org/

PROGRESSIVE ROUNDTABLE ADVISOR. A member of the Media Matters team since the organization's conception, Darrin Bodner has more than a decade of government, campaign, nonprofit and corporate experience. Most recently, Bodner served as development director for the award-winning Off-Broadway Atlantic Theater Company. He also served as an adviser to former New York City Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone, as well as chief fund-raiser for Vallone's mayoral campaign. Bodner holds a bachelor of arts from Dickinson College.

Campaign for America's Future

Associate Program Director, Public Works: the Demos Center for the Public Sector

Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action

Bastrop,  Texas

http://www.demos.org

Patrick joined Dēmos in 2004 after thirteen years as Associate Director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, Texas and before that as a legislative aide in the Texas House of Representatives. Patrick has an MPA from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a BFA in Sculpture from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Patrick grew up in Washington. DC and has lived in Texas since 1982 He has raised four children together with his spouse Debbie.

Faith Voices for the Common Good

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING.

Executive Director

Rockwood Leadership Program

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING.

CEO

Chambers Lopez and Gaitan LLC

Arlington,  VA

Lorena Chambers is the CEO and co-founder of Chambers Lopez & Gaitán, an advertising agency specializing in communicating with Hispanic consumers and voters. She was the Hispanic media consultant for Kerry-Edwards 2004 and the Democratic National Committee; the chief Hispanic media strategist for The New Democrat Network, the 2002 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Mark Warner's 2001 gubernatorial campaign. She designed and spearheaded first-time Hispanic marketing initiatives for California's Department of Corporations, Provident Bank, Chevy Chase Bank, Sodexho USA and the U.S. Social Security Administration. Her firm's roster of clients also includes the Sallie Mae Fund, Communities United to Strengthen America and the National Education Association. Before entering the field of corporate advertising and marketing, Ms. Chambers conducted research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and wrote about popular images of Mexicans in U.S. culture, 1890-1910. She is a graduate of L.A. Unified School District, UCLA and the University of Michigan.

Communications Director

Campaign for America's Future

Arlington,  Va.

http://www.ourfuture.org

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING. Toby Chaudhuri directs communications at the Campaign for America’s Future’s Washington headquarters. He works with progressive non-profit organizations, political campaigns and people in public office to develop messages and strategies to communicate with the public and influence public policy. Chaudhuri has managed more than $25 million in state and federal campaigns and has worked at the helm of national media operations. He fought corruption and helped to enact historic reforms directing strategic communications at Common Cause; took on corporate polluters to provide safe drinking water as a political appointee to President Clinton; and worked to elect several principled state and federal candidates including serving as deputy press secretary to Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Before joining America’s Future, Chaudhuri worked hard to protect sick and hungry children from the right wing as Marian Wright Edelman’s spokesman and media strategist at the Children’s Defense Fund.

New America Media

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING.

Executive Director

Glaser Progress Foundation

Managing Editor/Founder

Public News Service

Boulder,  CO

Lark Corbeil believes journalism is “ongoing adult education.” She grew up bridging divides, economically challenged and culturally privileged, with one foot in Topanga, California and another in Idaho. She has lived and worked in France, Israel, Taiwan and New York and returned to Idaho to start Public News Service in 1996 based on her experience with Reuters TV. Ms. Corbeil also co-founded Media in the Public Interest to help progressive non-profits hone their strategic messaging capability and incubate innovative media projects. Lark is a working mom and has over 25 years experience in news and communications

Managing Director

Progressive Communicators Network

Easthampton,  MA

Carolyn Cushing has worked for over fifteen years in social justice and educational organizations, focusing her work on organization and resource development as well as participatory learning, research, organizational processes, and facilitation. Carolyn has been the Network’s primary organizer since its inception in 2000. She also coordinated the participatory evaluation of Spirit in Action’s Circles of Change program, which is documented in the report Circles of Change: Transforming the Way We Do Change. Before joining the Progressive Communicators Network, Carolyn served dual roles at a community-based educational organization serving Western Massachusetts' immigrant, refugee, and migrant communities. As Fundraising Coordinator, she successfully diversified the organization's funding base (formerly all funding came from one source). In her final year, she coordinated the effort to raise a budget approaching a half million dollars from a mix of state funders, private foundations, local businesses, and individual donors. Carolyn also served as the facilitator of a two-year participatory action research project exploring how Welfare Reform, Immigration Reform, and the demands of the changing workplace impact adult learners and their ability to achieve their dreams and goals. She holds a M.S. in Management / Organizational Development from Antioch University.

Director

Berkeley Media Studies Group

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING. Lori Dorfman is director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group (BMSG), a project of the Public Health Institute. BMSG conducts research on how the media portray topics related to human health, such as early childhood development, youth and violence, and family violence. Lori is part of an interdisciplinary team that conducting workshops on violence reporting for newspapers and local TV news stations. She teaches a course for masters students on mass communication and public health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published articles on public health and mass communication issues, and consults for government agencies and community programs across the U.S. and internationally on a variety of public health issues. Lori has Masters and Doctorate degrees in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.

Executive Director

Arca Foundation

WEBSITE ACCESS ONLY; WILL NOT ATTEND CONVENING.