December 2017 - Impact Public Service Fund

As the #MeToo movement continues to spread to touch so many people and industries, sexual relationships are all over the news today. We believe it is appropriate to share the following stories that shed some light on yet another point of confusion.

The first story, a short story entitled Cat Person demonstrates the ambiguity of the word “relationship” itself. It originally appeared in the New Yorker, and you can read it here.

Jessica Bennett then expounded and expanded on the Cat Person story in her essay When Saying “Yes” Is Easier Than Saying ‘No’ in the New York Times Sunday review. Whether or not that cleared things up for you or confused you even further is something we’d love to get your comments on.

Our 5th Impact Forum was held on September 14, 2016 at Civic Hall, NYC’s foremost center for civic technology & innovation, on the topic of Elections. Election Systems are best understood by the rules and incentives constructed around them. Evaluating the United States’ and New York’s Electoral Systems reveals a series of important policy choices that will shape what our electorate will look like in the coming decades. Impact Elections will dig into key question such as: How does money predict elections? How will technology shape voting of the future? Does the current voting system fundamentally fail certain segments of our country’s population? What can voting systems from other nations tell us about options for change?

Impact Experts composing the panel at Elections included: Ann Ravel (Federal Elections Commissioner), Gustavo Rivera (New York State Senator), James Bopp (Plaintiff’s Attorney for Citizens United v. FEC), Richard Briffault (Professor, Columbia Law School), the legal advisor to Stephen Colbert’s Presidential Campaign, the President of the NYC Campaign Finance Board, and more.