David Cohen is a Senior Fellow at Experience Corps and Civic Ventures. He serves as an advisor to both organizations on matters of policy, program and civic leadership. The overarching theme is to help practitioners use the talents and experience of older Americans to the fullest, thereby enabling the whole society to benefit from their “experience dividend”. 

He serves as the Board President of Global Integrity. He serves as the Senior Congressional Fellow for the Council for a Livable World which brings him into lobbying on matters affecting national security, arms control and war and peace issues.

Prior to Cohen’s retirement from the Advocacy Institute he served as its Co-Chair from 2001- through 2005. He is a Co-Founder of the Advocacy Institute (with Michael Pertschuk).

At the Advocacy Institute, David Cohen pioneered the Institute's work in its international capacity building programs where he facilitated and led workshop and strategy sessions.

He counsels social justice movement groups in the U.S. and abroad to gain support for their public agenda. His work extends to countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Cohen actively participated in the Advocacy Institute’s work in its Leadership for a Changing World Program. It focused on recognizing little known and effective social justice leadership in the U.S.

Advocacy practitioners around the world have translated his writings on advocacy, civil society, leadership and lobbying into many different languages. His writings have appeared as essays in college textbooks and in major U.S. publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. He was a columnist for United Press International’s Outside View series.

In 2008, Save the Children’s International Alliance published David Cohen’s (co-authored with Louisa Gosling) Advocacy Matters: Helping Children Change Their World.

Later in 2008, the World Bank published Cohen’s essay entitled, The Power of Organized Citizens: Fighting for Public Integrity in its book Governance Reform Under Real-World Conditions: Citizens, Stakeholders and Voice.

In August 2007 the School for International Training/World Learning published Leadership for Social Justice, by Aqeel Tirmizi, Jeff Unsicker, Maliha Khan, Marla Solomon and Ken Williams with David Cohen and Nader Tadros. Cohen was acknowledged as providing “particularly valuable conceptual and strategic leadership” over the period of this innovative program.

In 2006 his essay The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Coming to Grips with US Failure was published in Hurricane Katrina: Response and Responsibilities.

He wrote the article on Common Cause for the Encyclopedia of the American Congress. A recent publication is a chapter in the Non-Profit Lobbying Guide (by Bob Smucker) entitled: Being A Public Interest Lobbyist is Something to Write Home About. It is used in graduate courses in Non-Profit Management.

In 2002, Cohen contributed From City Streets to Congressional Corridors: Insights From the US Anti-War Movement to PLA Notes issue on Advocacy and Citizen Participation, published by the University of Sussex.

He also contributed a chapter to the Urban Institute’s Exploring Organizations and Advocacy: Governance and Accountability entitled What Practitioners Can Tell Us.

In 2001, Kumarian Press published Advocacy for Social Justice: A Global Action and Reflection Guide. Cohen is one of three co-authors. The book is used in U.S. college courses and by social justice practitioners from Brazil to Bangladesh, Ukraine to Uganda.

Cohen has been an advocate and strategist on many of the major social justice and political reform issues in the United States since the early 1960s. These issues include civil rights, anti-poverty, modifying the Congressional seniority system, and reforming US political processes by eliminating abuses of power and the corrupting influence of money on American politics.

Cohen played a leading role in the fight for Congress to end its support for the Vietnam War. From 1984-92 he led the Professionals’ Coalition for Nuclear Arms Control-- physicians, scientists, lawyers, and social workers-- to stop the United States nuclear arms build-up and support arms control agreements and reducing the military budget. From 1975-81 he served as president of Common Cause, the largest voluntary membership organization in the United States working on government accountability issues.

Cohen’s contributions are recognized in biographies and histories of the period. He has been referred to as “a savvy activist” by journalist-historian John Jacob in A Rage for Justice. Aaron Wildavsky in Moses: The Nursing Father called Cohen a “student of leadership and a leader.”

The Encyclopedia of Political Parties and Elections in the United States noted that he is “widely regarded as his generation’s leading public interest congressional lobbyist and mentor of lobbyists.” He has an established “reputation for balanced judgment, scrupulous dealing, unrelenting patience and a gift for forming legislative coalitions.”

He has worked “to improve the effectiveness of democratic institutions…He never, in consequence, cuts corners in legislative combat, genuinely respecting and winning respect from those who disagree with him.”

He is an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration.

He is married to Carla Furstenberg Cohen and is the father of two adult children.

Ann Wiesner comes from a family of political enthusiasts who have run for elected office across the country on tickets that span the political spectrum. Ann followed in the family footsteps in 1979, when she ran for president of her seventh grade class. She was defeated in that race by sporty guy Scott Carlson, whose popularity won out over Ann's strong grasp of the issues.

Prior to her work with Grassroots Solutions, Ann worked in the non-profit sector for over fifteen years doing community organizing, leadership development, training, and communications strategy. A native of Wisconsin, Ann's got Bucky Badger tenacity and carries with her the motto of Green Bay Packer fans: "You just gotta believe."

Ann came back to her roots by joining Grassroots Solutions in the fall of 2000 and is now a principal with the firm. Grassroots Solutions is founded on the belief that in politics and public policy, people matter. As principal, Ann oversees the strategic direction of projects that seek to engage supporters, build comprehensive grassroots training programs, advance short- and long-term policy change, and strengthen the democratic process.

Ann’s clients have included groups working on cancer issues, education policy, tobacco control, disability issues, health care reform, workers’ compensation reform, civic participation, social justice, and anti-poverty policy. Some of these clients include ARC Hennepin-Carver, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, the North Carolina Justice Center, The University of Pittsburgh, ClearWay Minnesota, The American Cancer Society, The Illinois Network of Charter Schools, The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, Minnesota and Illinois Community Action Associations, and Medtronic, Inc.

Susan Dentzer is the Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, the nation’s leading journal of health policy, and an on-air analyst on health issues with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Dentzer assumed the job of Editor-in-Chief on May 1, 2008, after a decade as the on-air health correspondent for The NewsHour. Health Affairs, which has been called the nation’s health policy “Bible,” is a peer-reviewed journal that appears bimonthly in print with additional online entries published weekly at www.healthaffairs.org. The journal and website, based in Bethesda, MD, are published by Project HOPE, the health education and humanitarian assistance organization that operates programs in 36 countries around the world.

At The NewsHour, Dentzer led a unit dedicated to providing in-depth coverage of health care and health policy and Social Security. The unit, begun in 1998, was funded by grants from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and, beginning in 2005, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dentzer was the recipient of multiple awards. In 2007, she received the American Society on Aging National Media Award for a two-part series on our current understanding of the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, efforts under way to speed treatments to patients, and the enormous burden faced by caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. The unit's December 2005 and April 2005 pieces, "Wounded Soldier" and "Wounded Warrior," about a paralyzed and brain damaged soldier who was severely wounded in Iraq, won the 2005 Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism from the Association of Health Care Journalists. The same pieces also earned both a CINE Golden Eagle and New York Festival award.

Dentzer's October 2004 Health Unit piece, "Osteoporosis," received a first-place Gracie Allen award for public television news from American Women in Radio and Television. Her two part investigative series on importation of prescription drugs, broadcast in March 2004, earned a second place prize for radio and television programming from the American Health Journalists Association. Coverage in 2002 of the "Eden Alternative" approach to nursing home reform garnered a 2003 Gabriel Award from the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals. And a 1999 report on schizophrenia earned the 2000 Robinson Electronic Media Award from the American Psychiatric Association.

Prior to joining The NewsHour in 1998, Dentzer was chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report, where she served from 1987 to 1997. In a series of columns and stories for U.S. News, she reported extensively on the debate over reforming and partially "privatizing" Social Security and over such health policy issues as regulation of managed care. Before joining U.S. News, Dentzer was at Newsweek, where she was a senior writer covering business news until 1987. Dentzer's work in television has included appearances as a regular analyst or commentator on CNN and The McLaughlin Group.

Dentzer's writing has also earned her several fellowships. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University for the 1986-87 academic year, she studied health economics and other disciplines. A U.S.-Japan Leadership Program Fellow in 1991, Dentzer conducted research on U.S.-Japan economic relations and the effects of the aging Japanese population.

Dentzer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council, the world’s largest membership organization of groups involved in global health She also serves on the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee, the nonprofit organization that works in relief, rehabilitation, protection, post-conflict development and resettlement services for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression worldwide. At IRC, Dentzer heads the Board's Health Committee, which oversees the organization's health programs in 25 countries. In February 2008, she traveled to Syria and Jordan as part of an IRC delegation reviewing the situation of Iraqi refugees who have fled to these countries as a result of the ongoing war in Iraq.

Dentzer is also a member of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured as well as the advisory board of the California Health Benefits Review Committee and is a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. Dentzer is also on the board of directors of the Friends of the National Institute for Nursing Research.

A graduate of Dartmouth, Dentzer holds an honorary Master of Arts degree from Dartmouth and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Muskingum College, New Concord, Ohio. She is a member of the Board of Overseers of Dartmouth Medical School. Previously, she served on the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees from 1993 to June 2004 and was the first woman ever to serve as Chair of Dartmouth's board from 2001 to 2004. She is also a former trustee of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, having served in that capacity until 2004. In 2007 she received the Dartmouth Alumni Award, the highest honor given to Dartmouth alumni for service to the college.

Dentzer, her husband and their three children live in the Washington D.C. area.
 

Andy Goodman is a nationally recognized author, speaker and consultant in the field of public interest communications. Along with Storytelling as Best Practice, he is author of Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes and Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. He also publishes a monthly journal, free-range thinking, to share best practices in the field.

Andy is best known for his speeches and workshops on storytelling, presenting, and strategic communications, and has been invited to speak at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton, as well as at major foundation and nonprofit conferences. He currently serves on the faculty of the Communications Leadership Institute, which trains nonprofit executive directors and grantmakers.

In 2007, Al Gore selected Andy to train 1,000 volunteers who are currently helping the former Vice President engage more Americans in the fight against global warming. In 2008, Andy co-founded The Goodman Center to offer online versions of his workshops and additional communications and marketing classes to nonprofits, foundations, government agencies and educational institutions across the U.S. and worldwide.

When not teaching, traveling, or recovering from teaching and traveling, Andy also serves as a Senior Fellow for Civic Ventures and is on the advisory boards of VolunteerMatch and Great Nonprofits. For more information about his work, please visit www.agoodmanonline.com and www.thegoodmancenter.com.