Foundation: NationBuilder CEO Jim Gilliam on How to Build a Movement

In the newest episode of my Foundation video series, I talk with NationBuilder Founder and CEO Jim Gilliam, a two-time cancer survivor and activist. Jim discusses growing up in Silicon Valley, how he made the jump from filmmaker to tech entrepreneur, and the power of community action to turn ordinary people into leaders.

Jim on the catalyst for building social movements:

You can’t build a movement if you only talk to a few hundred people a week. What you have to do is find and build a leadership capacity in those few hundred people that you talk to, and then they go out and talk to other people as well….

You connect it all the way back down to something that I can do right now. That’s the power of organizing. The thing is, it applies to everything. I believe it is core to what the Internet can provide. All the social media, all the connectedness…all of it is laying the foundation so we can organize.”

Kevin Rose is a general partner at Google Ventures. You can watch Kevin’s prior Foundation episode, an interview with Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube and founder of AVOS, here.