Alyssa Smaldino

Alyssa Smaldino

Alyssa Smaldino

Alyssa Smaldino is Senior Associate at Living Cities, where she manages field-building and learning activities that support public servants to apply an anti-racism lens in their work.

She previously worked in global health leadership development, most notably as Executive Director of GlobeMed, which organizes and trains students and grassroots leaders in the movement for global health equity. She is a graduate of the Executive MPA program at NYU-Wagner and holds a degree in Public Health from George Washington University.

Alyssa is a facilitator, community organizer, and activist committed to advancing racial equity and abolishing harmful systems such as the prison industrial complex. Her multifaceted experiences have given her exposure to many different fields of thought, helping her draw connections across sectors and borders to creatively imagine and build toward a more equitable future. Across all of her work she centers her values of courage, love, and equity to reduce social harms and build grassroots power.

Alyssa Smaldino

Contributing Articles

Holding Space to Reckon and Reimagine: An Interview with Evelyn Burnett

AS: The Closing the Gaps Network (CTG) was very intentional about partnering with you specifically, and with Third Space Action Lab (TSAL), as we leaned into our values of grounding in history and honoring the past labor that you and others did to organize Living Cities to even talk about race, let alone center an anti-racist perspective in this way. …

Political Education as Anti-Racist Practice

A core question the Closing the Gaps Network (CTG) team has been holding over the past year and a half has been, How might we test and practice the work that we are expecting of public servants who take part in the CTG network? This has led us to shift our performance measures to track our own behavior change alongside …

Ending White Supremacy Culture: Honoring the Labor that Got Us Here

Living Cities has learned that to do racial equity work with authenticity, we have to embrace a new way of working. It has to start with us, at the level of individual staff and project teams. As we set about creating a new network to advance anti-racist practices in local government, we are seeking to intentionally defy the norms set …

CHECKING IN WITH OUR HUMANITY V2

CHECKING IN WITH OUR HUMANITY V2 OVERVIEW Embedding racial equity into an organizational culture requires intentional work everyday. On a personal level, it can require a lifetime of studying, learning, and unlearning. There are many ways to incorporate thoughtful reflection and “racial equity pauses” into your processes in your day-to-day. At Living Cities, we have, for example, compiled playlists with …

Centering Equity, Transforming Systems: A Profile on Maia Jachimowicz

As part of our series highlighting alumni of Living Cities’ cohorts, we spoke with Maia Jachimowicz, who currently serves as the VP for Evidence-Based Policy Implementation at Results for America. Maia worked with Living Cities when she was the Policy Director to the City of Philadelphia in the Mayor’s Office. We reflected on her experience in that role, how working …

Centering Equity, Transforming Systems: A Profile on Joann Massey

As part of our series highlighting alumni of Living Cities’ cohorts, we spoke with Joann Massey, Director of Business Diversity & Compliance for the City of Memphis. We reflected on her experience in this role, how her work with Living Cities has impacted it, and what we can learn from our collaboration to improve future cohort experiences for public servants. …

Ending White Supremacy Culture: A Resource for Cultivating Abundance Mindset

Living Cities has learned that to do racial equity work with authenticity, we have to embrace a new way of working. It has to start with us, at the level of individual staff and project teams. As we set about creating a new network to advance anti-racist practices in local government, we are seeking to intentionally defy the norms set …

Centering Equity, Transforming Systems: A Profile on Daro Mott

As part of our series highlighting alumni of Living Cities’ cohorts, we spoke with Daro Mott, who currently serves as the VP of Process Improvement and Execution at Farm Credit Mid-America. Daro worked with Living Cities when he was the Chief of Performance Improvement for the City of Louisville. We reflected on his experience in that role, how his work …

Ending White Supremacy Culture: A Resource for Reckoning with History

Living Cities has learned that to do racial equity work with authenticity, we have to embrace a new way of working. It has to start with us, at the level of individual staff and project teams. As we set about creating a new network to advance anti-racist practices in local government, we are seeking to intentionally defy the norms set …

All in This Together: Ending White Supremacy Culture Starts With Us

Living Cities has learned that to do racial equity work with authenticity, we have to embrace a new way of working. It has to start with us, at the level of individual staff and project teams. As we set about creating a new network to advance anti-racist practices in local government, we are seeking to intentionally defy the norms set …

An Invitation to Center Race in Government Responses to COVID-19

We are asking how to best move the long-term work of closing racial gaps in income and wealth through partnership with city governments, while acknowledging and affirming the immediate crisis that public servants are addressing. We are committed to our vision of a united, multi-sector movement for racial equity, while recognizing the importance of physical distancing and grieving the imminent …

White Women: It’s Time to Rewrite Our Narrative as Anti-Racists

As a white woman from a conservative Pennsylvania town, I was disappointed but not shocked to learn that 53% of white women voters chose to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. My hope at the time was that those women would pay close attention over the next four years to the ways that Mr. Trump’s decisions …

What Does Racial Equity & Inclusion Look Like for the Public Sector?

Where do we go from here? That is the question. There was a training, or a book, or a conversation with a person you trust that broke down systemic racism for you. Now you can’t unlearn what you know but you don’t know what to do next. This is a place many find themselves in as they develop their racial …

What Does Racial Equity & Inclusion Look Like for You?

Through our Racial Equity Here initiative, we learned that there are “spark plugs” everywhere, at every level, who are working to normalize, organize and operationalize racial equity in institutions. At Living Cities, we are committed to advancing racial equity and inclusion (REI) in our institution and partnering with others to operationalize REI in the public and philanthropic sectors. We continue …

Contributing Resources

White Women: Its Time To Be Anti-Racist

As a white woman from a conservative Pennsylvania town, I was disappointed but not shocked to learn that 53% of white women voters chose to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Organizing for Racial Justice: A Timeline

Since colonizers arrived in what is now the United States, indigenous people, Black people, and other people of color have been organizing for justice and liberation. This timeline highlights some of the battles for racial and economic justice, particularly those that have happened within the context of institutions. It is incomplete, as we know that there are people organizing in …

500 Years of the Racial Wealth Gap: A Timeline

Explore the interactive timeline! Choose “Download this document” to download the citations and sources, with links to further reading. The experiment of America is over two centuries old. Throughout our history, systems were designed that isolate and separate us, and that empower a select few—based on the invention of race—with the privilege of innovation, creativity, and power. Policies, laws and …

Closing the Gaps Webinar Series

The reality of COVID-19’s scope and impact is just beginning to sink in and in many ways is still unknown. At Living Cities, we are doing our best to hold the complexities that come with racial equity work, particularly in a time of global pandemic. Join Living Cities and public sector peers on April 1, April 8, or May 5, …

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