From Social Impact to Political Power: Catherine Vaughan on Abundance NY

In this episode of Generation Reset, Kerry Rodriguez sits down with Catherine Vaughan, co-founder of Abundance New York, to discuss how a former social impact consultant moved into electoral politics and began building a political ecosystem focused on making New York easier, faster, and cheaper to build.Catherine traces her path from global health and agriculture work in Rwanda and Ethiopia to Stanford, McKinsey, the Hillary Clinton campaign, Flippable, Swing Left, and eventually Abundance New York. After entering politics in 2016, she became focused on the leverage of electoral work — especially state legislative races, donor strategy, and the political infrastructure needed to support candidates who want government to deliver more effectively.The conversation explores:why nonprofit and social impact work can have limits compared to policy and electoral politicshow the 2016 election pushed Catherine deeper into the political arenathe “moneyball” approach to political giving and down-ballot raceswhy state legislative campaigns can offer outsized political impacthow Catherine and Ryder Kessler launched Abundance New Yorkwhat it means to build a political home for pro-abundance candidates and votersand how listeners can begin building their own political power locallyThroughout the discussion, Catherine argues that housing, transit, clean energy, public space, and government delivery are not separate issues — they are connected by the question of whether government can actually meet people’s needs. She also explains why political power is built not only through campaigns, but through media, advocacy organizations, donors, voters, community boards, and local institutions.This episode is ultimately about political activation, local government, housing, civic infrastructure, and what it takes to turn frustration with broken systems into organized political power.Generation Reset with Kerry Rodriguez is a podcast exploring political activation, civic engagement, and the forces that push people into — or away from — public life.Produced by the ContraSearch Network, a division of ContraSearch, Inc.