Sally Kohn is one of the leading progressive voices in America today. She is a writer, activist, CNN political commentator and the host of the “State of Resistance” podcast. Before that, she was a Fox News contributor — and before that worked for over 15 years as a community organizer. Sally’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, New York Magazine, More Magazine, Elle.com, RollingStone.com, USA Today, Time, Afar Magazine and many other outlets. Her first two TED talks, which addressed the topics of practicing kindness online and finding compassion even for your fiercest political enemies, have garnered over 3 million views. Her second TED talk, based on her new book The Opposite of Hate, debuted this spring. Sally is also a popular keynote speaker and frequently leads media and speaking skills workshops for grassroots activists and corporate leaders.

Previously, Sally was Senior Campaign Strategist with the Center for Community Change, a 45-year-old hub of grassroots organizations across the country. Sally served as co-director of ideas and innovation for the Center, helping lead the pioneering Campaign for Community Values, producing a nationally televised Presidential candidate forum in 2008, developing a new media organizing project on health care reform in rural communities and spearheading several other initiatives.

Before that, Sally held a program fellowship at the Ford Foundation, helping to manage more than $15 million in annual grants to social justice organizations nationwide. She was also strategic advisor to the Social Justice Infrastructure Funders, a private network of 25 top program staff from some of the nation’s most prominent foundations, working to identify a shared strategy and coordinate grantmaking. Prior to that, Sally served as Executive Director of the Third Wave Foundation, the leading young women’s organization in the country. She was also a distinguished Vaid Fellow at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, where she published a groundbreaking guidebook for organizing campaigns to win domestic partnership benefits. Sally also worked as a consultant with the Urban Justice Center, publishing a report on the experiences of gay youth in the New York juvenile justice system.

Sally received a joint degree in law and public administration from New York University and was a Root Tilden public service scholar at the New York University School of Law. She received her undergraduate degree from George Washington University in D.C. Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, Sally now resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her partner, Sarah Hansen, and their daughter, Willa.