Member Spotlight: Kip Dooley
Day Job:
I'm a freelancer with irons in several fires. I do communications and business development for a DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) training company, and communications for foundations. I'm also an educator and facilitator, and will be teaching a college course for the first time this fall!
What interests you about NGGC?
For all the flak that us millennials get (some of which is deserved), we are highly idealistic and socially engaged. Working in movements for social good as an educator, an organizer, a program coordinator and a writer / storyteller, I've seen firsthand how many of us are committed to addressing deep, existential crises. But as we grow older, how can we keep it up? Movements tend to lose people as we shift out of our twenties and into lives more focused on family and career than on social issues. I think more and more of us are questioning whether this needs to be the case -- and if there aren't some creative, new ways for us to continue honoring our commitments to the earth, to other humans, or to experiences like the arts, even as we grow further into adulthood. To me, NextGen is a way to connect with others my age around that question, and circulate some of the wealth that we've earned or inherited back into our immediate community here in Washington.
What’s a nonprofit cause you care a lot about?
The first nonprofit I connected with in the DC area was Life Pieces to Masterpieces. They're an arts-based empowerment program for Black and Brown young men in Northeast, and they have this way of energizing everyone who comes into their orbit - boys, families, volunteers, strangers - just being around them, you feel accepted, affirmed, and empowered. Check them out at lifepiecestomasterpieces.org, or IG @_lptm_
How are you staying inspired during quarantine? *
Long hikes in Glover-Archibald Park, reading and writing poetry, and playing way too much tennis.
Anything else you’d like to share with members?
I help run a weekly workshop on Race & Healing with Milagros Phillips, a national expert who lives right here in the DC area. I would love to connect with any of you around this work - and would love to see you at a Monday workshop! Feel free to email me at kipdooley9@gmail.com, or visit racehealer.eventbrite.com.