“Civil rights don't erode only because people attack them.
They erode because the rest of us quietly decide they're someone else's story.”
About Kristen
In every job she’s held, Kristen has believed the same thing: change happens when you listen to people's actual lives - and everyone counts.
Kristen’s work in social change led her to Judy Heumann, and the five years they spent co-writing Being Heumann.
Over a hundred hours of interviews with Judy and her peers, and extensive archival material, she immersed herself in the movement and the woman at its center - captivated by trying to understand how Judy and her co-leaders changed the world. Being Heumann is now a feature film from Academy Award winner Siân Heder (CODA), with Judy and Kristen as executive producers. Kristen also co-authored Rolling Warrior, Heumann's story for young readers, used in classrooms nationwide.
Her writing has appeared in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere, and she speaks at universities, nonprofits, and conferences on social change, storytelling, and her work with Judy. She is now at work on a memoir about moving to New Zealand with her husband, his ex-wife, her ex-husband, his new wife, their combined kids, and the dog - while co-writing Judy's story - and what it all taught her. She lives in Auckland, where she runs, plays frisbee with her kids, and volunteers for local candidates, because she decided democracy was also a door you knock on.
Kristen first experienced the power of this belief on the Texas–Mexico border, as a young community organizer alongside Sister Gerrie Naughton, an Irish Sister of Mercy who knocked on hundreds of doors to build a community organization run by, and for, the women of the border colonias. She carried the conviction to West Africa, shaping gender and population programs with the Ghanaian and Senegalese parliaments - where a youth-storytelling project changed how she thought about change itself. Back in New York, she co-founded Scenarios USA with producer Maura Minsky. Based on what they heard from young people, they built their program in two parts: a critical-thinking curriculum that got teenagers talking about gender and power - instead of sitting through a lecture on the birds and the bees - and then a chance to write their own stories. It helped transform the field of sex education - and produced more than 20 short films written by young people, directed by Hollywood filmmakers, broadcast to millions - and informed a framework later adopted by UNESCO worldwide.
Kristen went on to lead organizations across environmental, education, and civic life. As Executive Director of Sustain Dane in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, she brought the mayor, the school superintendent, and major corporations to the same table - a climate partnership the Obama Administration recognized as a national model. She co-founded Badger Rock Middle School, a green-powered public school and urban farm, and served as the Founding Executive Director of Crooked Ideas, Crooked Media's nonprofit partner.
Judy Heumann and Kristen sharing a sunny moment.
Kristen’s blended family In Italy.
Sister Gerrie Naughton (left) at a candlelight gathering.
Judy Heumann - the mother of the disability rights movement, who had time for everyone. A trip down the block with Judy usually involved at least four or five chats with the people you saw along the way, from the doorman to the bus driver to her former intern. Judy used to say that “a collective problem cannot be solved individually,” and she knew how to lead in a way that made people believe change was possible.
Kristen’s Blended Family - three different households, three kids. They taught Kristen how to not write people off and what it looks like when you put your judgment aside, and keep the kids at the center. She watched two fathers share parenting and refuse to make the kids’ love a competition, and is grateful for it.
Sister Gerrie Naughton - an Irish Sister of Mercy who rode the dirt roads of the border on a mountain bike in purple sunglasses. Knocking on one door at a time, she met a small group of Mexican immigrant women who became the team that launched ARISE Adelante, a social movement disguised as a community organization. Gerrie used to tell the women, “God didn’t skip over anyone when she was handing out gifts.” Gerrie and the women of ARISE taught Kristen what it looked like and felt like to work in solidarity with people who’d been told their whole lives that they didn’t count.