Jim Shultz MC/MPA 1985 is founder of The Democracy Center, which for more than three decades has trained and supported activists around the globe in their quest for positive social change. The nonprofit has teamed up with organizations on five continents to have a profound impact on issues from immigrant and indigenous rights, health care, access to safe drinking water, and much more. He shares what motivates him, his proud moments, and the enduring value of his HKS community.
Why public service?
For me, public service has always been about citizen activism. This began when I was a teenager growing up in Richard Nixon’s hometown (Whittier, California) during his presidency and the Vietnam War. My reaction to that inspired me into a lifetime of involvement in politics.
What is the goal of your work?
I want to help the people who want to make a difference make the biggest difference they can. This focuses especially on helping people become more strategic in their advocacy and activism.
I believe in the wisdom of Sun Tzu in “The Art of War”: “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” I want people to have a real impact and not become just ineffective noise. We have a wonderful little guidebook on this, “The Art of Advocacy Strategy,” being used now all over the world.
What impact has your work had?
I’m very proud of all we’ve accomplished. Some examples:
In California, we helped a group of parents of children with cancer launch the first campaign to stop insurance companies from screening out people with preexisting conditions, something that eventually became law nationwide.
In Bolivia we helped people fight the takeover of their public water system by the U.S. corporate giant, Bechtel.
In Thailand we helped UNICEF win the country’s first ever nationwide child support grant. Here in Western New York (where I live now) we helped lead the campaign that won a statewide ban on facial recognition surveillance in schools.
What drives you?
I am inspired by young people just beginning their journeys in activism, like the young climate advocates I worked with in Sierra Leone last year. Right now, I am especially moved by Americans from all walks of life who are stepping beyond their comfort zones to defend democracy in this country, which is under attack unlike at any time in my lifetime. As institutions and officials cave in to the demands of a despotic government, smart and brave citizen power has never been more urgent.
How did your time at HKS influence you? What does the HKS community mean to you?
Even though it has been 40 years since we were all together at the Kennedy School, my classmates and I still think of it as one of the most meaningful years of our lives and still feel strong bonds with one another.
I was deeply influenced by faculty—I had including the good fortune of being among the first groups of students to take Professor Ronald Heifetz’s course on leadership. I was also influenced by conversations I had with guests, including a memorable discussion one afternoon with U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson about the power of metaphor to help explain complex issues to the public.
But the lasting influences also have a lot to do with our comradery as a class. Our time at the HKS was not only a profound personal experience, it was a collective experience, in ways that we still share four decades onward.