Maya Rockeymoore

Activist, Artist, Change agent, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Idea generator, Project manager, Social entrepreneur, Writer/Editor

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore is President and CEO of Global Policy Solutions, a Washington, DC-based policy, program, and organizational development consulting firm whose mission is to advance social change strategies for the world. Dr. Rockeymoore leads a team of talented professionals dedicated to partnering with clients to develop strategic solutions that achieve maximum benefit for people, organizations, and communities. Working with non-profit organizations, foundations, governmental entities, and socially-conscious corporations, GPS manages grant programs and initiatives funded in excess of $13 million. As a part of her GPS client duties, Dr. Rockeymoore also serves as director Leadership for Healthy Communities, a $10 million national childhood obesity prevention program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The goal of Leadership for Healthy Communities is to proactively engage and support state and local policy leaders in the effort to build healthy communities and help reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. An Adjunct Professor in the Women in Politics Institute at American University, Dr. Rockeymoore has also served as the Vice President of Research and Programs at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), Senior Resident Scholar at the National Urban League, Chief Of Staff to Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), Professional Staff on the House Ways and Means Committee, and as a CBCF Legislative Fellow in the office of Congressman Melvin Watt (D-NC) among other positions. Dr. Rockeymoore’s areas of expertise include health, social insurance, income security, education, women’s issues and youth civic participation. She is the author of The Political Action Handbook: A How to Guide for the Hip-Hop Generation and co-editor of Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America among many other articles and chapters. Rockeymoore serves on the board of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and the National Association of Counties and is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. The recipient of many honors, she was named an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow in 2004 and is the recipient of Running Start’s 2007 Young Women to Watch Award. A regular guest on radio and television shows, Dr. Rockeymoore has appeared on NPR, CNN, Black Entertainment Television, ABC World News Tonight, Fox News, and C-SPAN. Her opinions have also been quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, LA Times, Boston Globe, Black America Web, and Houston Chronicle among other prominent national news sources.

civic engagement, linking people to the policy process, explaining policies to people, solving social, economic and environmental problems, family.

An idea worth spreading is that we need to eradicate public school funding by local property taxes in the U.S. I believe a better idea would be to aggregate property tax dollars at the state level (with a federal match to induce states to aggregate the dollars) and then redistribute dollars back to schools based on a fair formula that takes into account number of students, relative disadvantage/advantage of student population, need, etc. This approach would provide disadvantaged schools with a fairer opportunity to receive the resources they need to produce competitive students ready for college and the modern workforce.

public policy, health, education, income security, civic engagem

I've never been to a TED conference but I have heard Jacqueline Novogratz mention the gatherings during our meetings at the Aspen Institute. I have always been curious about the annual convening and expect to be invited to present one day.

painting, drawing, and singing