Good Standing

From growing up with a traveling anthropologist father and a mother devoted to performing arts and special education, Dan J. Gordon has naturally developed a passion for performing arts education. In 2014, he created Gordon Education Initiatives for the Performing Arts to produce educational media for kids with a focus on varying cultural expressions. This nonprofit now has numerous film programs which include, Take the Stage, a bi...

Dominic Ramos-Ruiz is the founder of Citizenry, a civic discovery and matchmaking platform that uses Artificial Intelligence to connect people with aligned impact organizations in order to help them find focused and meaningful ways to get involved in their communities. Previously, Dominic led U.S. operations for The Conduit, the global community for social impact leaders and investors, where he built cross-sector networks across ca...

Jacob Roundtree is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Economy and Society within the SNF Agora Institute, an academic and public forum at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The program is fully integrated into the university and operates as a multi-disciplinary center where JHU faculty, students, and researchers study and work to strengthen global democracy and civic engagement. A political theorist by training, now writing ...

Jason Finder is the Founder of Good Food Works, the food social enterprise incubator launched out of The Doe Fund, a leading New York City non-profit organization model for solving homelessness and criminal recidivism, perhaps best known for their "Ready, Willing & Able" program. Finder's past work in the community includes serving on Bushwick Food Cooperative’s Board of Directors for six years, with three of them as Pres...

Edward Poteat is a born-and-raised, New York-based affordable housing advocate, activist, and developer. He is the founder and President of Carthage Advisors (LLC), a leading creator of workforce and affordable housing across the Tri-State and New York City region, working to expand access to quality affordable housing and economic opportunity. Ed, who named his development firm after the city from which the famed general Hannibal ...

Robin Kang is a multidisciplinary artist, weaver, and energy healer. Her work explores the intersection of ancient wisdom, ecological awareness, and technological innovation. For Kang, weaving serves as a bridge between traditional craft and computational processes, envisioning a balance between technology and organic systems. On this special episode of Good Standing, Robin joins Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez, an Indigenous Quechua weav...

Suhail Arastu is the Director of Advancement for the San Antonio-based nonprofit, Musical Bridges Around the World (MBAW), which promotes global arts and cultural understanding by providing free, world-class musical performances and educational programs to the public. It focuses on serving underserved youth, senior citizens, and military personnel, while expanding horizons, awareness, and empathy for all involved. Arastu attended U...

Dwayne R. Norris is the Co-founder & COO of Soulful Synergy, a New York-based, minority-owned workforce development and consulting agency focused on creating economic opportunity, social equity, and environmental sustainability. They specialize in training for clean energy and construction jobs, providing workforce planning, and supporting MWBEs (a certification for businesses that are at least 51% owned, operated, and controll...

In 2003, Scott Neeson resigned from his role as President of 20th Century Fox International where he oversaw the worldwide release of blockbusters like Titanic, the Star Wars prequels, the original live-action X-men films, Braveheart and more, in order to help change the lives of impoverished children and their families working for less than a dollar a day on an unforgiving landfill in Steung Meanchey, one of the poorest areas in&n...

Ashley Zelinskie is an artist into "space stuff." Behind an accessible, childlike joy for astronomy and the infinite wonders of planetary science and all things astro, is a deep desire to engage with hard science through the playful prism of artistic exploration and humble proximity intervention. Her works span a variety of media, from sculpture, canvas and print works, to digital art, VR, and holograms. Each artwork is created usi...

Not many natural-born networking gurus go as hard as Gary Su, while somehow remaining so consistently sweet. Breaking onto the scene as the formative manager and "confidant" of the multi-award-winning musical prodigy Jon Batiste (The Late Show with Steven Colbert), Su (Gary-get it?), has since organically amassed a huge network of contacts, which DK Kim, an experienced marketing and sales professional, has since leveraged into a wi...

Charlie Fisher is a European researcher, architect, and founder working at the intersection of community land trusts, regenerative land use, and decentralized governance. He co-founded Transition by Design, a cooperative architecture practice in Oxford, and spent over a decade building affordable housing infrastructure through the Oxfordshire Community Land Trust and the Collaborative Housing Hub. He's been a member of Dark Matter ...

Patricia Lizarraga is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of the Hypatia Women CEO Index & ETF (ticker: WCEO),  impact investing in American public companies with women CEOs under the thesis that women leaders tend to outperform their male counterparts at the highest executive level. Yet, only 10% of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are currently women. On this episode of the Good Standing podcast, we discuss exactly why...

Haym Gross, District Chairman of NYC2030, an organization focused on clean energy initiatives and boasting partners in multiple cities across America, returns to the Good Standing podcast with David Klatt, CEO of Logical Buildings (smart building & energy tech) and its mobile application GridRewards, which provides monetary compensation directly to New York City and Westchester County residents (Con Edison customers) for reduci...

For over 30 years, JazzReach, the national, Brooklyn-based nonprofit, founded by composer and drummer Hans Schuman, has brought the magic of high-level live jazz to over one million students across 42 states. Schuman, our featured guest on the latest episode of Good Standing, launched the organization after selling his late grandmother's Steinway piano for much-needed seed money. Since 1994, JazzReach has been helping audiences of ...

The "bad boy" winner of Project Runway season 3, Jeffrey Sebelia, is now the seasoned good guy Design Director of Urbane & Gallant, a new Los Angeles-based menswear line brought forth by CEO, Founder, and entrepreneurial activist, Andrew Park. The stylish gents recently joined the Good Standing podcast to discuss how their new fashion line firmly rebukes notions of "greenwashing," going several steps further to ensure that all ...

Earlier this year (2025) saw ChaShaMa's last-ever annual fundraising gala. For three decades, this wild and storied event, often taking place in repurposed New York City commercial real estate and featuring dozens of diverse artists and performers, raised funds for creatives at all stages of their careers to help place them in studio, retail, and exhibition spaces, more often than not, completely free of charge. On this episode of ...

Darin Carter is a computer scientist, cyber security specialist, and advocate for how innovative technologies can catalyze impact. He leads Community Engagement at Coinbase, and works closely with Stand With Crypto, an advocacy effort led by Coinbase that has successfully passed significant legislation to make the crypto industry safer and more trusted. Darin helped create campaigns that use new technologies to solve difficult real...

Gregory Thornbury, Executive Director of Silver Art Projects, an art residency program located in the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, joins Silver Art Senior Fellow, artist Jared Owens on the Good Standing Podcast. The pair discuss what it takes to sustain a successful, yearly art residency program, a special component within Silver Art dedicated exclusively to "Justice-Impacted" artists, and generally what it means to thriv...