Getting to Know You Series: Meet Marissa Martin of The Advocacy Institute
Editor’s Note: We’re back with a new installment in our occasional Getting to Know You series, where we introduce you to our grantee partners, network members, and philanthropy colleagues who have interesting stories to tell. Today we’re chatting with Marissa Martin, Executive Director of The Advocacy Institute.
Elisabeth Rapport (ER): Tell me a bit about your professional background and what led you to The Advocacy Institute.
Marissa Martin (MM): I moved to NYC over 10 years ago to work for a political consulting firm. There I learned a great deal about everything that goes into running political and issue based campaigns. I also saw first-hand a gate-keeping dynamic that exists when it comes to accessing elected officials. Unfortunately, political work was not enough to pay off my student debt and live in NYC, so I transitioned to a job with a major financial firm. But while I enjoyed a steadier paycheck, my sense of purpose and justice was not fulfilled, especially as I saw people’s lives fall apart during the 2008 economic recession. To get back to my roots in civic engagement and social justice, I left my job to attend the School of Social Work at Hunter College (now Silberman School of Social Work).
During my time in school, I worked with Asian Pacific American organizations in the city such as MinKwon Center and the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families. This work opened my eyes to the inequities in political access experienced by communities of color in NYC. I also experienced how isolating it can be as a woman of color in policy and government spaces. I continued my advocacy work in the field of youth services, education, and health advocacy, followed by a short period working in government, where I witnessed similar patterns of inequity. All of these experiences inspired me to get involved with the Advocacy Institute to build advocacy skills, knowledge and power within our communities and the larger social justice sector.
ER: You are a Licensed Social Worker. Talk to me about how your experience in the Social Work field, especially with your expertise in Community Organizing, Planning, and Development, inform your work today.
MM: When I entered social work school, I knew I wanted to focus on macro level social work and the systems we navigate everyday. Growing up in a mostly white suburb of Philadelphia, I was raised by a Irish-Scottish Christian family where discussions about voting and engaging with elected officials were common in our house. As a Korean-American adoptee who knew no other culture, I developed a lot of assumptions about people’s trust in and engagement with government, and once I graduated from high school and lived in different parts of the world, I became acutely and abruptly aware of the systemic racism and inequity that exists, especially when it came to political power and decision making.
I made the decision to get my LMSW and maintain it over the years because I believe that social workers bring a unique perspective to policy advocacy work centering on people and the intended and unintended impact policies have on communities. My social work background also drives me to meet communities where they are in order to build and shift power.
ER: AI is creating a more effective social justice community of activists and advocates, together with over 1200 organizers in New York who use your resources to reveal who holds power, who works for them, and how they fit within the legislative landscape. What are your current most pressing organizational goals, and how are you going about achieving them?
MM: Over the last three years since I have joined the Advocacy Institute, we have worked to hone in how we are serving the movement, double down on where we are successfully supporting advocates and organizers across New York State, and identify ways we can deepen our partnerships and programs. This year, our current most pressing goals are to solidify our infrastructure and prepare to grow, deepen our partnerships with organizations and campaigns across the state, and launch a new leadership development cohort program that will strengthen organizations’ capacity to run effective advocacy campaigns and increase the influence of those directly impacted by injustice, especially communities of color, on state policy-making. We continue to build on what we heard through our strategic planning process last year and are developing a program design to be responsive to the needs on the ground. We are also increasing our staff capacity to be able to deliver more programming and deepen membership support
ER: The past two years have changed the way all of us live and work in so many ways. How have the pandemic and our nation's reckoning with racial justice affected your work?
MM: Over the past two years, our work took on a special urgency with each political crisis our members and their peer organizations faced. Because of our model, we were quickly responsive to our members’ needs, providing digital trainings and powerful visual and data tools to map power, serving as a hub for information sharing for movement organizations, and deepening our member support. With the increased focus on racial justice along with a new crop of new progressive electeds on the local and state level, AI has been uniquely positioned to give critical information to BIPOC-led groups, drawing from the expertise and experience of the majority-POC AI team.
AI is unique in being the only organization dedicated to building capacity for legislative advocacy specifically. As the Executive Director of AI, I lead our work to guide advocates and organizers to respond effectively to the constant changes in our unstable political landscape, building on my own life experiences as an Asian-American woman, adoptee, social worker, and legislative advocate.
This work is vital to fighting the root causes of oppression, enabling a world where BIPOC, immigrant, LGBTQ, and other historically marginalized communities will have the tools to build power, win big changes and transform the oppressive systems of government.
ER: New York has recently experienced significant shifts in leadership -- both at the state level, from disgraced Governor Cuomo to Governor Hochul, and at the city level, from Mayor DeBlasio to Mayor Adams. How do these changes impact the work you and your member organizations do?
MM: These changes deeply impact the work we do and the work of our member organizations. Before these changes occurred we supported members in proactively building relationships with new decision makers and strategizing how to introduce their organizations and campaigns to those who may not be as familiar. Additionally, we continue to hold conversations about what to expect with the changing executive offices and how transitions often impact the local and state legislative and budget processes. We are also constantly updating our diagrams and tools to reflect the constantly changing landscape and sharing out timely information as we receive it to keep our members informed.