Speaking

Invite Billy to speak at your campus or event.

Billy is on tour and booking events through Spring 2011.

Please contact: Jen Angel, Aid and Abet Agency (510) 910-5627

http://aidandabet.org/roster/billy-wimsatt/

Or contact Billy directly: Billywimsatt@gmail.com (646)346-0248 cell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/billywimsatt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillyWimsatt

Campus Speaking Biography
William Upski Wimsatt (AKA Billy) is author of, Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs: A Midterm Report on My Generation, and the Future of our Super Movement (Akashic Books).

Biography
Social entrepreneur, philanthropic advisor, public speaker, journalist, and political organizer, Billy serves as the Executive Director of Movement 2017 a platform to support progressive donors to find and fund the best local and national networks combining grassroots issue organizing and voting. He is also President of the Gamechanger family of organizations which supports innovation, collaboration, and new leaders to upgrade social movements for the 21^st Century. Projects include the Crazy Ideas Bank and the Movement Voter Project (MVP) which connects organic social movements and electoral politics; VOTE MOB (which has trained and/or supported more than 900 local organizers in 33 states since 2012); Student Power Networks supporting long-term multi-issue student organizing in more than a dozen states; and Local Vote (formerly TheBallot.org) a platform featuring progressive local voter guides in 50 states.

Political Organizing and Social Entrepreneurship

He has co-founded several organizations including Ready for Warren, a campaign to draft Elizabeth Warren to run for President (2015) and the Solidaire Network (2013) a progressive donor community.

In 2003, he co-founded the League of Young Voters & the League of Pissed Off Voters which organized 3000+ youth to create 300+ voter guides. The League impacted at least 29 state and local elections or pieces of legislation including helping swing the Washington State Governors Race in 2004 (by 127 votes) and to elect Senator Al Franken as the 60th Democratic Senator in 2008 (by 312 votes). The League is no more but the SF League is going strong and an NYC League was recently started.

In 2008, he co-created Vote Today Ohio and also created and ran the Ohio Youth Corps program for the Ohio Democratic Party/Obama For America, which trained and deployed 50 staff throughout Ohio.

In 2010, he co-founded Rebuild the Dream (which evolved into Dream Corps) with Natalie Foster and Van Jones. Over his career as a funder, donor adviser, and fundraiser, he has helped move more than 15 million dollars to social change.

He also co-founded the Active Element Foundation (1999); Generational Alliance (2005), and the Coffee Party (2009) – which, sadly, no longer exist.

Books and Journalism 

Wimsatt has written for Vibe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, The Nation, and published six books with 100,000+ copies in print including No More Prisons, Bomb the Suburbs, and its follow up companion: Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs: A Midterm Report on My Generation, and the Future of our Super Movement. 

He is also the editor and publisher of three anthologies: Another World is Possible: Conversations in a Time of Terror (2001): Future 500: Youth Organizing and Activism in United States (2002);  and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: the anti-politics, un-boring guide to power, with Adrienne Maree Brown (2004).

Education, Consulting and Public Speaking

He has consulted for dozens of organizations including Rock the Vote, MoveOn.org, Green For All, and Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing, and has completed Rockwood’s year-long course for executive leaders. A proud Oberlin college drop-out, he has lectured widely on leadership and social change from Yale and Stanford to the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, to MIT’s graduate school of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Awards and Honors

• Firecracker Book Award – Political Non-Fiction (1999)
• Best First Person Essay – Society of Professional Journalists, Chicago Headline Club (1994)
• Utne Visionary – Utne Magazine (1995)
• Power 30 –  The Source Magazine (2008)
• Finalist for “Most Valuable Organizer” – Rootscamp (2012)
• 21st Century Innovator – Midwest Academy (2015)