D'Seanté Parks on Rewriting the Narrative of Political Empowerment

D'Seanté: 0:00

this wonderful economist, Jacoba Williams, did a study where she found that in the towns where there were higher numbers of lynchings there was still lower voter turnout amongst black voters compared to their white counterparts. So that tells us that there's also something to be said about the generational trauma. It could be that, maybe because that happened, your grandmother just said don't talk about politics, and so your parents just knew not to talk about politics, but they didn't even have the why anymore necessarily.

Ashley: 0:36

Welcome back to the United she Stands podcast, the show that brings kindness and women into politics. I'm Ashley.

Sara: 0:42

And I'm Sarah, and we're two women from Ohio who are here to become more educated about American politics and build a community so we can all get involved and make an impact together.

Ashley: 0:52

We hope will inspire and empower you along the way.

Sara: 1:08

Hello everyone and welcome back to the United she Stands podcast. Today we're sitting down with Desante Parks, who is the founder and CEO of 1000 More, which is a civic empowerment platform that helps break barriers to participation in politics. A little more about Desante here. After graduating from Louisiana State University with a degree in political communication, she started a decade-long career in communication and political strategy for public, private and nonprofit organizations. She has worked on federal, state and local elections, including on US Senate campaigns for Senators Mary Landrieu and Kamala Harris. How cool is that? I am very jealous and impressed. She completed a master of public policy degree at the Harvard Kennedy School and has contributed to several published works about the roots of propaganda in America and combating misinformation. Welcome to Desante. We're so excited to have you today. Welcome.

Ashley: 2:06

Thanks for having me. Awesome, all right. Well, we're going to jump into it. So do you want to tell us a little bit about just the path that led you to starting 1000 More? Why did you create it?

D'Seanté: 2:16

Yeah, well, the short answer is I had a dream about it. So I had a dream and I saw the app in the dream. I was actually quite played because, yeah, I was like sleeping and there was a lot of commotion outside. So I was like woken up from a nap. I walked outside. I was like why is everyone being so loud? And they were like we're about to stop this bill. And I was like, yeah, right, because at that point in my career this was like this was after the Trump election. So I was like feeling pretty jaded. So I was like, yeah, right, how are y'all going to do that? And this man was like we use an app. And I was like, show me the app. And he showed me the whole thing and I like asked questions about it. I very vivid dreams I was doing. I always like remember my dreams. So I woke up in the middle of the night and I was like, okay, I'm going to build this thing. And I was like I don't want to forget about it in the morning, so I need to take the first step right now. So I was like, okay, I'll buy the domain for it, I'll name it. I was like, well, what am I going to name it? It's like 430 in the morning. The timestamp on the on the domain receipt is like 432 am. I was like I'm going to name it after my favorite Harriet Tubman quote I freed 1000 slaves. I would have freed 1000 more if only they had known they were slaves. The idea is that people don't know what they don't know and this tool was going to show people what they didn't know. And yeah, I bought the domain and I just started to build it. I mean, I was I like was asking a lot of questions for a long time because I didn't know how to build an app. I don't work in tech at all, but you know, I had some really great advice from a friend who owns a tech startup who said don't ever be afraid to tell people what you're trying to build, because a lot of people think folks are going to steal their ideas, but most people don't even have the will to execute their own visions. So she was like just tell everyone who will listen and people some people will help you and some people won't. And that's what I've done.

Ashley: 4:08

That's awesome and I think on your website we read that you know part of your goal and part of kind of why this was created was like that there's lower voter participation in certain communities, typically tied to historical oppression. So can you kind of speak a little bit about how that played into creating 1000 more as well?

D'Seanté: 4:24

Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, so I built a 1000 more for everyone. We need to have a more inclusive democracy, and our democracy has been built in a way that it's not inclusive. There are so many barriers, like even the fact that legislation is written in a way that's difficult for people to understand, so that, yes, part of the community. Some of the communities who have a hard time understanding legislative language are communities where there are poor education systems, and there are poor education systems because our education systems, publicly, are tied to tax brackets, and so what happens is the communities that pay higher taxes have better funded schools, and so those kids are getting a better education. And then in the communities where people are paying less taxes, the schools are less funded, and so that is perpetuating a system in which people who don't have resources are also not getting a good education and aren't able to catch up. And so we write everything in the app at a third grade level, because 54% of American adults read below a sixth grade level, so that in itself created access. But also you can read the app in 135 languages, because we have a lot of new Americans. We have a lot of people who come into this country and become citizens who are just more comfortable reading about these really complicated topics, sometimes in another language, and that's OK, and so I wanted to make sure the app was accessible in that way. So yeah, but it is true that in so many parts of our democracy, people are left out. So another example that a lot of people don't think about is elected officials don't make a ton of money for those jobs, and so in places like Louisiana, state level elected officials which typically you would become a state level elected official before you moved on to federal government there's a pipeline for these things. But sometimes, as people make below the poverty level, they make $20,000 a year or less, and when that's how much the job pays, people who don't have generational wealth and familial financial support can't take on those jobs if they're trying to feed their own families and trying to feed themselves. So a lot of people opt to not go into public service, because that's what it is, the public service job because they don't want to live in poverty. So that in itself we're talking about having a representative government. It's keeping a large swath of our communities out of government, so that's another way that people stay out and just in participation itself. Yes, this wonderful economist, jacoba Williams, did a study where she found that in the towns where there were higher numbers of lynchings, there was still lower voter turnout amongst black voters compared to their white counterparts. So that tells us that there's also something to be said about the generational trauma. It could be that, maybe because that happened, your grandmother just said don't talk about politics. And so your parents just knew not to talk about politics, but they didn't even have the why anymore, necessarily, and so they just told you just don't talk about politics. And now everyone gets all anxious about politics. I don't think we talk enough about the psychology of these things. When I was out on the campaign trail for 10 years talking to people about voting, what I saw was a lot of anxiety Am I going to make the right decision? Are these people going to listen to me? Does the system even work? But also some of that anxiety probably came from just your parents telling you don't talk about this stuff publicly. And there is a lot of historical context in this country and in others for folks who participate in politics and sometimes face repercussions, even like we're seeing this right now. People are speaking up about politics and they're losing their jobs for it. So it's real and those are forms of oppression? Yeah, definitely.

Sara: 8:21

Yeah, thank you for explaining that. That definitely jumped out when I was looking through your, through your website. So I know we've talked about the app a little bit, but can you just like give us a explain it? Like I'm five, just explain the app, what it does and how it helps break those barriers for participation.

D'Seanté: 8:41

Yeah, so it's a web app. You don't have to download anything, not a mobile app. You just go to 1000morecom. You can go to 1000moreorg to learn more about our organization and there will also be a button for you to go into the web app itself. But it's a platform that you can see every bill coming up for a vote in Congress, which means for the most part they're bills that have already made it out of committee. No-transcript. Again, we write everything at a third grade level because 54% of American adult tweet below a sixth grade level. You can see the summaries of each bill and you can see the arguments for and against the bill and you can decide if you're for or against the bill. And either way, whether you click for or against, you get the same options. You can call, email or tweet your elected official, give you a little script in case you're nervous about what to say, and you can donate to an organization that's advocating in the way that you said was your position. So that's super important because the lobby spends about $3.5 billion a year In the US. The Americans spend $5 billion a year crowdfunding advocacy just crowdfunding. So when we crowdfund, our dollars are bigger than the big lobby. Our voices are obviously bigger than the big lobby and truly I mean as much as the lobby can push. It's our votes that keep people in office, and if there was a mechanism in which we could be in touch with our elected officials as often as lobbyists are, they would likely be more responsive to what their constituency wants, because they don't want to lose your support between election cycles. So part of the reason why the lobby has a lot of power now is just because of the function of the fact that these people these are their full-time jobs. They can spend a lot of time talking to your elected officials whereas you have another job. You know you're doing other things. So a thousand more tries to make it as easy as possible to interact with your elected official on every single bill. You can see every bill coming across their desk. You can contact them really quickly. The average user time, whereas it's like four and a half minutes, it doesn't even take that long to take action. It takes like one minute. So that's people are likely interacting with about four bills when they come into the app. And yeah, and then there's the money piece too, which people have traditionally just been left out of. I think about it. Like what Robinhood did to Wall Street is what we're doing to the lobby. You know they didn't like actually change Wall Street. They just gave people access to it in a way that was much easier than it had been prior.

Ashley: 11:10

And so that's what we're doing. Yeah, I love that analogy and I we both have signed up for your site and I've poked around and you're absolutely. Everything you said is so 100% true. I was in there for like a couple minutes. I was like able to look at some bills, able to quickly like you know, you enter your information when you sign up so quickly able to hit that like contact button or you know yeah, I think it was the contact button and then right away all of my representatives were listed who I could contact, how to get a hold of them. The script, it was so easy to use and I love to you guys are nonpartisan, right. So, to your point, whatever way you want to feel about it, the facts are just laid out there and then you get to kind of decide for yourself. So I think that's a huge, just nice thing to see. Whenever that's not always the case. It's very hard to sometimes find nonpartisan information. So, yeah, kudos to you on the app. Yeah, it's so well done. Me and Sarah were poking around on it this week.

Sara: 12:02

So yeah, it's awesome and such an amazing, yet like easy concept but so beneficial. And I really love the piece about explaining everything at a third grade reading level because that is something even for me like I'm educated and like I have a college degree and I get so nervous and so confused reading just like with political terms. I'm like it's like I'm really into like the finance world, so I really appreciated that Robin Hood reference, but like it's like how folks in finance they have all these crazy terms just to confuse you, because it's really not that difficult and that's how I feel like towards politics too. And that was probably one of the biggest, the most scary things for me. It was like how can I even begin to understand this? Like it's all these different, all these crazy words I've never heard before and yada, yada, yada. So I think that's super important. I love like it's so beneficial for me that it's at that reading level Because I'm like cool, I can, I can understand this and also it's not even about really.

D'Seanté: 13:08

So I have a journalism degree. My first degree is in journalism from LSU, political communications. That's the first thing they tell you like day one of journalism school. They're like you need it, you're supposed to write everything at a third grade level. It doesn't make sense to try to over complicate things when the real goal is not to use your brain power to decipher what is being said. It's to decipher is it actually good for your community or bad for your community. That's where I want the brain power to go. So, yeah, I mean I have a master's degree from Harvard and I want to read things at a third grade level because I want to use my energy thinking through more complicated things. Yeah, making things as easy as possible for people to understand it doesn't actually like make some of these tougher decisions much, you know, much easier. But that like the barrier shouldn't be there, right? We're just removing every barrier possible. I think of government as sort of it's a collection of rules that we've all agreed upon to live by so that we have the best society for all of us. That's the hard work. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, sure, sifting through big words.

Ashley: 14:11

Yeah, just yeah, just super accessible, like you said, it's really great. So definitely encourage everyone to go out and check it out. And we'll have we'll ask you later for the info, but we'll have all the stuff linked in our show notes as well. So, moving on just a little bit, kind of because you kind of started talking about the lobby, full-time lobbyists, big lobby for just you know, anyone who isn't kind of in the day-to-day world of politics could you just explain what is the big lobby or what do lobbyists do Like, how do they impact policies in our country and why is it your goal to kind of disrupt this?

D'Seanté: 14:42

Yeah, so first, I have to say lobbyists get a bad rep. Not all lobbyists are bad. You could literally be a lobbyist for early childhood education and your job is to talk to elected officials every day to try to convince them to provide more funding for early childhood education. That person would also be called a lobbyist. That person is obviously a hero, right? So, to be clear, lobbyists are not bad. They've gotten a bad rep. Now, when people think of the big lobby, they think of folks like the NRA. And it's big because it's big money. But yeah, you know, an organization like the NRA has a lot of resources to hire people to take meetings with elected officials and you know those meetings look like. They look like breakfast, lunch and dinners. They look like just you know, meeting at the office. They look like it's really, it's just like a job. That is relationships. That's what lobbying is. It's holding relationships, it's having conversations. To be clear, I'm not a lobbyist, nor have I ever been a lobbyist, but that you know that's kind of what lobbyists do. So when I first created this app, I was thinking like, oh, I'll just give people basically like access to be their own lobbyist, like lobby for yourself, kind of is how I was thinking about it. Like the original idea, the original tagline was welcome to the lobby, and people hated it. People hated it. Everyone was like I don't want to be in lobby, so lobbying is so bad. And I was like, ok, well, do you like to advocate for yourself? And they were like yeah. And I was like, well, this is an advocacy tool. So then that you know, and so that's what we're doing now. Crazy how that rebrand works, yeah.

Sara: 16:27

Yeah, but we actually did an episode early on about how to lobby and it was all around like how to be a good lobbyist. Like I honestly didn't even know that it had like a negative connotation to the word so. But now I understand when you say the NRA and big money of the sort. So I'm even learning a lot here, you know the history of lobbying.

D'Seanté: 16:53

Are you interested in that?

Ashley: 16:54

Super interested. I don't know if I'm interested.

D'Seanté: 16:56

Yeah, so the reason why they're called lobbyists and the reason why it's called lobbying is because back in the day, the original lobbyists they were men who sat in at the like hotel bar or the lobby, in the lobby of the hotels, where the members would stay, because members had houses in their districts but they would stay at hotels when they would come to DC to vote, so they would literally just hang out in the lobby and these really important conversations would happen in the lobby, and so they started calling them lobbyists.

Ashley: 17:24

That's so interesting. It means they're oftentimes like kind of take the world of politics and refer it back to the world of business or corporate America, because that's where we're at for most of our days and that's just like the golf course to me. Like that's what it is. Yeah, like, right. Well, that happens on the golf course, making decisions where some people are left out.

D'Seanté: 17:44

Yeah, and that's when golf happens, also in politics. Yeah.

Ashley: 17:48

But yeah well, that's interesting. That's a fun fact, Not so fun fact. I don't know, we debate on what's fun facts, but it's an interesting fact.

Sara: 17:58

So I know you talked about the average time that users spend on your app. It's like four and a half minutes, so that's probably about interacting with four different bills. Do you have any more like specific success stories with your app?

D'Seanté: 18:13

Yeah, that one's super wonky. I don't think anyone cares about that, but yes, so our successes don't happen in a bubble, and so I can't say like, because of a thousand more, this policy change, because there were a lot of things happening. But I will tell you that when the of all day shooting happened, we had just kind of gotten the app to a place where people could crowd fund and all that. So it's really the first time we saw people able to use all of the features, and I spent that whole day on social media engaging with people. The theory of change for this app was that we would take energy happening on social media without people having to leave social media. They could make a real impact. And so people were on social media saying why aren't our elected officials doing anything? Nobody is doing anything. And I was like that's not true. There's a bill and it's already passed one chamber and needs to pass the next one, and if it does, then the president will sign it into law, so you can call your elected official right now and urge them to bring it to a vote and urge them to vote on it. And so I was just literally responding to people saying that and I realized in it works. Like people use the app. We like quadruple the amount of users we typically have and I think we had, honestly, at that point we're getting like 50 users a week and we have like 300 users in a day. Wow, and people were actually using. And so the NRA was against the bill and I think we put every town in for the bill to crowdfund and people were donating to every town and so it was just cool to see it all work. And I realized like really a huge part of this app is just combating people feeling powerless. Like in those moments where people are feeling such despair, you know there's nothing we can do. No one's trying to help, because it's also not true. There are so many wonderful elected officials, so many and I really try to remind people of that they're really really good humans working on the hill. Yeah, there are some bad actors too, like in anything in any job, and especially, I would say, you know, when we talk about politics, sometimes it attracts people who have large egos and so because of that, sometimes folks don't always make the best decisions for communities and instead are making the best decisions for themselves or their careers. But there are also really good people too, and it's important to remember that things are not as bad as they sometimes seem and we have a lot of power over tipping things toward the right direction. So when the Valdeshuding happened, it was really great to see the app working, people using it, and right now we're seeing a lot of people use the app to call for a ceasefire and actually I'm also seeing people use the app to call and say we don't want a ceasefire. I've had people like slide in my DMs and be like no ceasefire for XYZ reason and I'm like, okay, well, I built an app that you can use to also say that you can say whatever you want to say. It's a nonpartisan app. The app is to empower people. I believe in democracy very much and I believe that people know what's best for their communities. So, and I believe that there are a ton of platforms where people are already having conversations. So I intentionally did not create a platform for that. I created a platform where it plugs into those conversations that are already happening. So, yeah, I would say those are two times when we saw a surge in use and the success is so, first of all, the bill ended up passing. That was the first time in decades I think three decades that America had passed gun legislation. So that was a success because the legislation actually passed. But I also think it's a success in itself when people take their power back.

Sara: 21:48

Yeah, and just from them experiencing that, once you know going into the app, once the next time something comes up that they're super passionate about them, on a contact their representatives about, they know exactly where to go and you know who they're going to be telling their friends and their family and it's just a domino effect from there. So that's, that's so incredible. I love those examples.

Ashley: 22:11

Yeah, that is really incredible. So your app is incredible. We just want to ask you kind of like, what is your vision for the future? What is next for a thousand more, If anything, you know? Do you have any kind of plans in the works or future developments?

D'Seanté: 22:23

Yeah, so many plans, so many future development. So people have asked for a long time. I never wanted it to be a mobile app because I thought no one wants to download a political mobile app. But people have asked for so long. Now I'm like fine, I'm going to give you all a mobile app and we will see if those download numbers are low. Remember everyone who asked for it. But we are going to have the tech team today to get an update on that. So it should be out in like six to eight weeks. We're running into the holidays, so we have that. We also there's a separate interface where your elected officials can see a dashboard where they're seeing how their constituents are telling them to vote on every single bill. They also can see which bills are most important to their constituents. So, like, if you live in like a farming you know district, then perhaps you know the agriculture bill is getting way more traction than it would in like I don't know, like the New York City district or whatever you know. So we are getting we're trying to get elected officials on. Like the whole point of the app was to connect people to their elected officials. So, you know, we're really working on introducing elected officials to this, onboarding them so that they have this dashboard again, so that they're casting more representative votes, and we have some other cool features for them, like they can message their constituents and things like that. So we're working on that. And then also, with 2024 election right around the corner, we are working to provide hyper personalized voter guides for people. So voter guides are really popular right now. Most voter guides are single issue. The idea is that the more you use our app, the more we'll be able to tell you how in line your elected official is with your interest and not, and then we could also show you how aligned with their opponent you are or not, and from there you can choose which candidate is best for you and you could sort of opt into either like signing up for their email is donating to their campaign. But either way, whoever you chose to support in the election, we can make it into a voter guide so that when you go into the voter booth it lists all the candidates that you said that you wanted to support, based on your interests, and we can collect those. So it's like the more use the app, the more beneficial and accurate it will be for you.

Ashley: 24:36

So I love that. I already know where Sarah's going to go with this. We're both like data people. We work with data and I in our IT job so I'm like so intrigued by the data you're capturing the back and what you're doing with it. But we'll save that for maybe a different conversation.

Sara: 24:50

That is so fun. And actually what I was going to say is I cannot wait for that because we just had you know, there was an election in November and I this is the first time that I like sat down and researched all of the candidates on my running for my local city council, all the candidates running for school board, and it was relatively easy, right. They all have websites or Facebook pages etc. Or, you know, have done interviews or articles, but just having it all in one place, like on your app, that's incredible. I love that. That would have saved me. I mean, it really did not take me long, but that would have saved me even more time and it would have been just as useful. So that's really exciting.

D'Seanté: 25:34

To be fair, ballotpedia does a good job of this already. I would love to just partner with them Like they have. I'm not trying to recreate the will at all. A thousand more is really just centralizing a bunch of information that already exists. And the truly, the two things I think we're doing different than others are we do rewrite everything at a third grade level and then also the crowdfunding piece. Nobody is doing the crowdfunding piece, but yeah, if anyone from Ballotpedia is listening, call me.

Ashley: 25:59

Well, we'll plug them. We'll plug them and see if we can. Yeah, we will. But yeah, I agree, the crowdfunding piece is huge because so many times I felt like how do I know what is the best order to give to her, how do I know what is the order making the biggest impact? Like that's been a hard one, I think, even as we've been more and more involved in the day to day, like it's just sometimes hard to know who to find. So I think the crowd sourcing pieces are really really unique and really valuable piece to your app.

Sara: 26:26

Yeah, I agree. So switching gears a tiny bit, we are curious about your experience as a female entrepreneur in the political space. We are actually a serial entrepreneur and I am kind of getting that bug and of course we're both female. And then there's the political kind of layer that of course is, you know, a little more male dominant. So just what is your experience been? What are kind of those highs and lows for you?

D'Seanté: 26:56

So most of my experience as an entrepreneur is actually in the tech space. This is a tech product, so I'll speak to that. I will say right now I'm getting more into I mean, I'm selling it to government officials and, like I've tried to sell it to advocacy orgs, like just because advocacy orgs can, they can like opt in to be crowdfunding on the app. So you know, I've had those conversations, but I think I feel like it's like two different answers. So I'll start with tech, because this is a tech product. So I've been a tech entrepreneur for the last couple years. How was my experience? Honestly, I feel really blessed. I feel really lucky. Like I was older, you know, when I I went to Harvard when I was 29. So I had the dreams at some point right before that, like maybe you know, I don't know like maybe like 28, right, but I had a career I had actually been through. Like what was much harder was working on the campaign job. That's hard. This is not as hard. The scariest part of this is I don't have a roadmap. No one's built anything like what I'm building and so I there's no, there's really a sense of like am I doing the right thing, the best thing, the most efficient thing in any given moment. But so also I had already gotten accepted into Harvard. Like I don't want to pretend, like I had some, like you know, I had the dream I had a friend who already owned a tech startup that had already raised like millions in a seed round. I think she was the first black woman to ever raise like millions in her seed round or A round or something from the South, and she was my sorority sisters, savitra Wilson. So I had her and I then had Harvard, and so while I was at Harvard, there's so much money floating around campus I was able to do like pitch competitions and things like that. And when, like a thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there, I literally met a man who I just, you know, following the advice I was telling him about my dream that I had had, and he was like, oh, I used to be a tech product manager, you need a roadmap. And he like helped me build a roadmap and I just like executed it by myself. I hired a graphic designer and the first graphic designer I reached out to she was like, oh, my husband owns a tech startup, so I know how to make a clickable prototype, I was like, oh, this is perfect. Here's the thousand dollars Harvard just gave me. Do what you can with that. So you know, I think for me, honestly, I things have really fallen into place. It's not always easy building something that doesn't exist, taking something that's inside my head, I say all the time like I saw the end of a thousand more. Like I saw people celebrating in the street because they had successfully stopped a bill, and so I've seen the end and it's like, how do I get to that that? You know, that is challenging, but things seem to fall into place when they need to fall into place. On this, and in terms of me being a woman, I mean I have to say right now there are so many resources. Like I'm a Camelback fellow. Camelback is based in New Orleans. They support social entrepreneurs from minority and underrepresented backgrounds. I'm an Echoing Green fellow, so you know. Same thing Slawson and Cohen, grid 110. So that's the other thing. Like being a part of all these fellowships have been immensely helpful. Like I have so much community of other entrepreneurs and other women entrepreneurs and women of color and black women and black people, and yeah, it's been, it's been great.

Ashley: 30:22

That's awesome. I love that so much. All right, I think we're gonna start to wrap up. We just a couple more questions. We try to ask this, I think, to kind of anybody in the political space that we do interviews with. So Are you hopeful for the future of politics in america? Why or why not? And I feel like I kind of know how you're going to go, based on just how the conversations went.

D'Seanté: 30:39

But Well, the funny thing is we posted something on instagram. That Drake thing that went viral was like combination or like are you hopeful or fearful, or like combination? No, combination. I'm definitely scared of some stuff and I'm hopeful. I believe we have to have hope. Um, especially, I mean, I'm a black woman. So I, if I don't have hope, I need to get out of here. Yeah, right, safer. Um, yeah, no, I I am. I'm hopeful, but I think one thing that's really important to note is I've really stopped focusing on like trying to fix the broken Things and try, and instead I'm trying to just like really build even better things, like I'm trying to like Outrun the bad rather than stop and deal with the bad and face it and try to understand and try to because that's where I was for a long time Right, like, how can I just like understand this? How can I unpack this? You know, but what did aji lord say? You can't dismantle the oppressor's house with the tools of the oppressor. Hmm, she might have said the master's house with the tools of the master. But you know, yeah, I'm just trying to build some new stuff with some new tools. I'm trying to create new tools for people so that we can build something better together, and so, um, yes, I'm very, very hopeful.

Sara: 31:56

I love that. That's great to hear. We we are also both hopeful, but we also see and have fear as well. But overall, especially talking to folks like you Like there's so much good out there and so many people Fighting the good fight, as we like to say um, and it's just so inspiring and really fills our cup and gives us even more hope, which is Always needed. You know you never have too much hope, or these days, um. So again, starting to wrap up, can you just give our listeners like a one to two liner on why they should get engaged in politics using your app?

D'Seanté: 32:34

Yeah, well, you should get engaged in politics anyway, whether you use my app or not, because when you can see if your power, who wins and this is a real question um, I've actually been surprised at the amount of answers I've gotten to that question. But you know, if listeners can just reflect on that, who wins when you concede your power, that's it, that's all I have to say about it. My app just makes it as easy as possible, truly like that's what I'm working on. If you ever find an easier app, I encourage you to use that. I want you to use what's best for you, but I really do believe that ours is the best. We really make it as easy as possible and the really cool thing is we're an agile startup, so we're building this for the people. When people give me feedback, I change. I literally changed all of my branding early on because people didn't like it. Like people. There was a time when people were like we don't like the colors. I was like they're done, we're never going to see those again. Like you, tell me what you need me to build and we're going to build it.

Ashley: 33:29

That's a great I mean that's a great approach to take. I feel like you can't really go wrong with that. All right, so before we ask you the last question, is there anything else you want to say top of mind about the app, about the state of politics in America? Anything else, I think?

D'Seanté: 33:42

just give yourself grace, as you are building better political habits, just like going to the gym or going to therapy or anything that you do consistently to better yourself or better the life of your family or anything and especially when it's something new, you know just, it's gonna hurt a little bit at first and I think different people have different relationships with politics for different reasons. Maybe explore that, like how does it make you feel? What are your earliest memories of politics? What? What's the thing that you're scared of? And what does it look like if, instead of running away from it, you run straight through it? And the more you do this, the easier it will become. And the more you do this, the more you'll realize Government is just a bunch of people. They're just humans, just like you. They're not smarter than you, they're not mentally stronger than you, they're not more emotionally, they don't have a higher ecu than you, they're not more emotionally intelligent than you. They're just people and you have every right to do what's best for you and yourself, your family, your community, and you should exercise that at every point. So you know just as you are working toward that goal. Just give yourself a lot of grace.

Ashley: 35:01

I love that piece of advice. I think on the internet especially and we'll talk about your social media handle in a minute but on the internet especially, like we see so much messaging around like it's a privilege to ignore this or it's a privilege, like you know, and there is a lot of privilege in that, but me and Sarah always talk about it. Almost. It almost feels shameful then to like and it pushes people out. It's like if you care about an issue, that's perfect. Focus on that issue, right, like you can't be in all places at once and so, just as like current news and stuff comes up, I think the idea of grace is just very, very powerful. As someone who you know is maybe trying to get into politics or trying to understand a situation, um, when they feel like maybe they're not doing enough or not acting or whatever, like that grace piece I think is so big. So I really love that.

Sara: 35:45

Yeah, me too.

Ashley: 35:46

All right, our very last question when can our listeners learn more about your organization and use your 1000 more app? But I know you said it earlier, but if you could just kind of plug it again and we'll make sure everything is in the show notes.

D'Seanté: 35:57

Yes, so to learn more about the organization. It's 1000 more one, zero, zero, zero more One thousand more dot org and from there you can also go into the platform. You also can go directly to the platform at 1000 more calm, and you can find us wherever you are on social media. That's the idea of this. We want to meet you where you are. So we're on instagram at 1000 underscore more underscore news. Uh, we are on tick tock at 1000 underscore more. Um, twitter and threads is the same as instagram. So 1000 more news with the underscores. And I am at dashante, at dsca nte. That's me.

Ashley: 36:42

Awesome. Yeah, we'll link all of your stuff in the in the notes and we follow your instagram account and you do such a great job of just quick, easy digestible Information at a level everyone could understand, so appreciate all of your effort on that platform too. Thank you, I'm glad y'all like it.

Sara: 36:58

Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for being here today and for everything you're doing with your app and just for society today. Like I said, it's people like you that give us a whole lot of hope, and we're just very, very honored that you took the time to sit down with us today. So thank you so much to shante.

Ashley: 37:14

Thank you all for having me. Yeah thanks, and thank you everyone for tuning in this week. We hope you enjoyed and we will catch you next week.

Sara: 37:27

Thanks for joining us for today's episode. We really appreciate the support.

Ashley: 37:31

We would also really appreciate it if you hit the follow button and share this episode with anyone you think would enjoy it and we'd like to thank kevin tanner, who edited this episode.

Sara: 37:40

If you're interested in learning more about him and his services, his website and instagram are in the show notes With that we'll see you next week.