By passionately infusing his life with action and transforming deliberation into movement, Josh Dean has explored his passion for social change through various civic tech startups and internships. Read on to learn more about Josh’s groundbreaking efforts throughout his four years at NYU.
Name: Josh Dean ‘16
School and Major: Stern for Marketing & Management
Hometown: Princeton Junction, NJ
HC NYU: You recently launched your project, Now It’s On Us, a rapid response platform to fight back against tragedy. Can you tell us more about this and what initially inspired you to take action?
JD: Now It’s On Us came about after years of frustration from seeing tragedies constantly breaking the news and the subsequent lack of action. We saw on social media that people so desperately wanted to help, but didn’t really know how to. For example, after the travesty in Paris, people changed their profile picture to include the French flag. While the value of posting on social media can be debated, there is always more that can be done to be supportive. So, we decided to create a platform where people can sign petitions, make donations to relevant non-profits, and even contact their elected officials directly after tragedies strike. I’m very lucky to have built a team of more experienced advisors as well as passionate NYU students like Fadumo, Esther, Shayan, and Ali. If interested in taking action, all you have to do is go to nowitson.us and enter your email. It’s set up so that then you will receive an email every time we launch a campaign.
HC NYU: You’re also part of the team at Bully Pulpit Interactive, the largest digital marketer of the Democratic party. What do your responsibilities consist of?
JD: I’m currently a Fellow at BPI. I mainly help out with direct marketing and strategy for nonprofits and political campaigns. I work with launching, targeting, optimizing and reporting on Google, Bing, Facebook and Twitter ads. The agency is run by some of the folks who helped run President Obama’s campaign in both 2008 and 2012. The work we do is really important, especially with the upcoming election, and it’s an honor for me to be a part of it.
HC NYU: The Stern Social Impact Business Challenge awarded your storytelling platform, Live to Give, first prize in 2013. What about your project was so different from the others?
JD: Live to Give was a storytelling platform created for those who wanted to raise money for charities. The platform allowed folks who felt particularly passionate about a certain cause to create a fundraising pages for themselves where they shared their stories. What was really unique about Live to Give was that we walked the users through the best way to tell their story, and how to really get behind the cause by compellingly persuading other people. We modeled our storytelling framework on Marshall Ganz’s tactics. Ganz was the mastermind behind Obama’s powerful grassroots campaign in 2008, where he taught field organizers how to tell their personal stories, rather than President Obama’s story, to connect with voters and persuade them to support him. The entire project itself took about two years, and ultimately our users ended up raising nearly $14,000 for nonprofits.
HC NYU: What do you think is the key to marketing to large audiences?
JD: I think that the key is to have a powerful message and story that people can not only empathize with, but also participate in. Take someone like Bernie Sanders, for example. His message and his call to action are crystal clear, and he taps into the emotions people across the country are feeling. He has become so successful at sharing his story because other people want to share it too. That’s why his campaign feels like more of a movement. People want to be a part of the Bernie Sanders story, and he lets them in.
HC NYU: As a graduating senior, what are your prospective plans after NYU?
JD: I’ll be joining Bully Pulpit Interactive full-time. We have some important battles to fight in the upcoming year. In the long-term, I hope to work for Senator Cory Booker again, but I want to build up my skill set and get some more experience first.
HC NYU: If you could give one piece of advice to underclassmen, what would you say and why?
JD: I think that the best advice I’ve gotten comes from a former boss of mine. I remember going to him, a little nervous about my future and whatnot, and feeling as if I needed to have everything figured out. He told me not to worry so much about finding the “right” job right away, but rather, to find my nakama. Nakama is a Japanese word for friend, but not just an ordinary friend. Nakama is a really intense version of the word “friend,” someone you grow alongside of and share a journey with. So, I think my biggest advice to underclassmen would be not to spend so much time thinking about the end goal or what job they want to land in ten years, but to try to really find people who have similar goals as them and are fighting the same fight as them, the friends they can grow alongside.
HC NYU: This year, you served as a Coordinator for Project Outreach, a one week summer program where incoming first year and transfer students learn about and engage in community service. How has this experience shaped you?
JD: I’ve been a part of Project Outreach ever since my freshman year when I was a participant in the program. Sophomore and Junior year, I served as a Peer Mentor, helping participants reflect upon their experiences, and this year I was Coordinator, where I managed internal and external communications. I can’t express in words the impact Project OutReach had in me at NYU. It has framed the way I do everything in my life really, from thinking about social issues and my personal role in addressing them to deciding what I want to do in life, and with whom I’d like to do that with. It’s where I found most of my best friends, including my amazing girlfriend, who I know I can rely on in any given circumstance.
And, just for laughs…
Ideal Superpower: Teleportation, so I could travel around the world.
Celeb Crush: Elizabeth Warren. No brainer.
Craziest Thing That’s Happened To You: For a fundraising event for Senator Booker that I was working, Oprah was the guest speaker. At one point she needed to change clothes, and I happened to be standing close by, so my boss nabbed me and made me be Oprah’s guard for a few minutes.
Follow Josh on social media!
Instagram: @joshdean1
Twitter: @_joshdean
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/deanjosh
Website: joshdean.me