What We Heard, What We Learned, and What’s Next
Creativity makes leadership work. When leaders and their teams have space to imagine new approaches, they build better campaigns, stronger coalitions, and the stamina to keep going. But under the pressures most leaders face right now, creativity is often the first thing that gets squeezed out.
The Center for Artistic Activism has spent years helping leaders reclaim creative capacity. On Thursday, May 7, three members of our community shared how they’ve woven creativity into the way they lead and the campaigns their teams are winning. Plus we shared about our current offering for leaders. Read on for the recap of it all!
Event Recording
Unstoppable Voters: Leaders Accelerator
During the event, we shared about the Unstoppable Voters: Leaders Accelerator. This special program is for leaders in the U.S. who are eager to integrate creative methods into their 2026 civic engagement work. Applications are open now through May 17.
All three speakers credited the Center’s methodology with revolutionizing how they lead. Don’t miss your chance to join this year’s cohort!
June’s Event with Stacey Abrams
Our next event will be June 15, 3-4:30 pm ET, and feature Stacey Abrams on defeating authoritarian narrative cycles. Registration will open soon. Make sure you’re subscribed to our newsletter so you’re the first to know.
Speaker Stories
Dragon Heads and Culture Shift
Caroline Scown, Civic Engagement and Training Manager at the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) in New York City, talked about the shift her team made after she participated in the Unstoppable Voters Fellowship in 2024. Before the program, CPC’s civic engagement work was very typical: tabling events, rallies, resource handouts. Sometimes effective, but not unique or memorable.
Two questions from the Center’s training changed her approach: What do we want people to think, feel, and do? and How can I make this weirder?
It was 2024, the Year of the Dragon, and she decided to run with it. She bought dragon onesies and foam hats and wore them to every event. People who used to walk past her table started coming up to talk.
Her team fully embraced it, too. A colleague, unprompted, ordered an 8-foot inflatable version of the dragon mascot and declared it the team’s official companion at events. Her team now pushes her to be weirder and more creative. The willingness to experiment, to prototype, to fail and keep going has became permanent.
From Information to Imagination
Patrick Fisher, CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, described himself as a “Center for Artistic Activism super fan” and called his experience working with us “leadership-changing.”
For 21 years, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council has advocated for the region’s arts workers by producing research reports and presenting data to elected officials and funders. The data was often compelling, but the needle rarely moved.
Patrick participated in our 2025 leadership program. He arrived at the kickoff retreat running on fumes: strained capacity, tight finances, federal and state policy threats to arts funding, and a local election adding pressure. He left with his energy restored and a clear conviction that joy belongs at the center of advocacy work.
The campaign he developed through our leadership program, Building Fair Futures for Freelancers, took off faster than he expected. It grew into the Fair Deal Checklist and Index, a tool to improve conditions for arts sector workers who lack the protections of traditional employment.
Patrick’s biggest methodological takeaway: start by imagining winning. When he brought freelancers and the organizations that hire them together to shape the checklist, he led with that practice. By the end of those sessions, there was a palpable shift in the room, from skepticism to real energy and belief that change was possible.
Creative Planning in Atlanta
Roshani Thakore is the Director of Community Engagement and Culture at the Atlanta Regional Commission, a transportation planning agency. Roshani’s job is to make planning processes, which have historically excluded Black and Brown communities, meaningful and accessible to all.
She connected with the Center for Artistic Activism at our Making the Impossible Possible convening in Atlanta. She translated our creative practice tools into a guide her department could use. Her core principles: think in utopian terms to balance out the constant “no’s” of practical planning, and always start with the big goal and center people over infrastructure.
For a project in Little Five Points, a neighborhood facing development pressure, Roshani’s team designed a public engagement sculpture called The Big Five: a large “5”-shaped free wall where residents could tag and share what makes the neighborhood special. It started as a napkin sketch, went through a series of quick prototypes, and landed in the plaza at the Little Five Fest festival.
The project engaged the community and generated real input about what residents value: the neighborhood’s diversity, weirdness, small businesses, and sense of home. All of this will inform future planning and continue to make Atlanta planning more accessible and equitable.
What’s Next?
Transform your leadership — and your team’s success — through our 2026 Unstoppable Voters: Leaders Accelerator. A reminder to apply by May 17th.
Want to learn more about the work our Creative Leadership in Action speakers are doing? Check out their organizations: Chinese-American Planning Council, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and Atlanta Regional Commission.
