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About You

Why are you applying for The Elevate Prize?

I am applying for The Elevate Prize on behalf of the thousands of women and men who have suffered workplace harassment and abuse in silence or been stripped of their careers for simply having the courage to come forward. Though profoundly personal to my own story, I believe that the challenge of NDAs and arbitration clauses is not mine alone to solve, but requires the full participation of the public, private, and corporate sectors. Funds awarded through the Prize would support the continuation of the labor movements of previous centuries, championing American workers and advancing their rights in the modern age through advocacy, education, and research. Building upon our early impact, the holistic programming and coaching for Elevate Prize winners would support Lift Our Voices in building organizational infrastructure at a critical stage of growth, and empowering us to transform a cultural moment into a social movement that will institutionalize equity in the workplace. The increased visibility and amplification provided by Elevate Prize media campaigns will enhance our society’s ability to address these issues openly and honestly, affecting change for future generations.

Tell us about YOU:

In 2016, I exposed the predatory character of one of the most powerful men in television, suing former CEO and Chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes. Less than a year later, my co-founder Julie Roginsky filed a similar suit against the network that had both protected and perpetuated an abusive work culture. Though Ailes was ultimately ousted and we were both awarded settlements, NDAs and arbitration clauses bound us and many others to silence. The psychological impact of not being able to share what happened to us was excruciating and we resolved to create a world in which no one would be rendered similarly voiceless again. Together, we co-founded Lift Our Voices in 2019 to create a seismic cultural shift where all current and former workers and volunteers are able to speak truth to power without adverse consequences and fear of retaliation. We envision workplaces where: all people are treated with dignity and respect and are free from sexual harassment; transparency is the norm and bad actors are no longer protected at the cost of those subjected to their behavior; and if harassed or discriminated against, survivors can exercise their fundamental right to avail themselves of due process in our judicial system.

Video Introduction

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Pitch your organization.

Today, approximately 60 million American workers are required to sign away their legal employment rights and access to the courts, dependent upon private arbitration for the resolution of any dispute with their employer, including sexual harassment, racial discrimination, LGBTQ+ discrimination, or any other human rights violations. Additionally, over one-third of the U.S. workforce is bound by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), denied the opportunity to speak publicly about the harassment or abuse they have experienced. While NDAs and arbitration clauses can and do hurt all employees, the practice disproportionately affects women, who are afflicted with higher rates of sexual abuse and harassment. Experts estimate that 75% of abuse incidents go unreported, yet “anywhere from 25-85% of women report having experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.” Women of color, who report workplace sexual harassment at 3x the rate of white women, are also more likely to be subjected to arbitration agreements. These experiences are not only traumatizing, but can be economically devastating. In the almost five years that have passed since my story became public, thousands of women have reached out to me with similar stories, the majority of which have never been able to work in their chosen professions ever again.

Describe what makes your work innovative.

The innovation of our approach is based upon the simplicity of our solution. While there are many levers available to address sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, Lift Our Voices believes that the eradication of NDAs and arbitration clauses is the most direct pathway for empowering workers and removing institutionalized bias. For this reason, we are laser-focused on NDAs and arbitration agreements, intentionally narrowing our mission for maximal impact.

Rather than working in opposition to business leaders, we see them as critical partners and engage them directly to disrupt the status quo and affect behavioral and cultural change. By promoting public policy to regulate the use of NDAs and forced arbitration at Federal, state, and local levels, our approach holds corporations accountable to these commitments.

Finally, our mission is borne of my own painful experiences with NDAs and mandatory arbitration clauses, so I am uniquely equipped to navigate the social, legal, political, and moral implications of this work. I intimately understand the internal structures that prevent employees from speaking up, and what it takes to not only bring issues of this nature to national attention, but to advance beyond public dialogue to action.

How and why is your organization having an impact on humanity?

We employ four interconnected strategies to give a voice to those silenced by NDAs and arbitration clauses.

Public Awareness

Our robust public relations strategy informs thought leaders, elected officials, corporate decision-makers, and the general public on the social and economic impact of NDAs and mandatory arbitration, advancing a national conversation and growing public will for the eradication of these practices

2. Corporate Culture Shift

We engage corporate leaders in taking responsibility for employee protections in their own companies, crafting a communicable narrative surrounding the great financial and brand opportunities that exist for the organizations who lead in transparency. Lift Our Voices equips companies with simple solutions to remove NDAs and forced arbitration related to harassment and abuse from their personnel policies.

3. Structural Change

To hold corporations accountable and effect lasting change, we influence policy makers and legislators to create local, state, and Federal laws that protect workers against NDA and forced arbitration abuses.

4. Leadership Development

We collaborate with business and law schools to develop curricula around best practices for NDAs and forced arbitration mandates. Together with these partners, we conduct qualitative and quantitative research around workplace safety and parity, and the impact of language in NDAs that protects workplace harassment.

Select the key characteristics of the community your organization is impacting.

Women & Girls
Low-Income
Middle-Income
Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your organization address?

5. Gender Equality
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth

Which of the following categories best describes your work?

Equity & Inclusion

Impact

How many people does your organization directly serve at present? How many do you anticipate serving in one year?

Lift Our Voices is the only organization laser focused on serving the 60 million Americans currently bound by forced arbitration and the one-third of all American workers who are currently bound by non-disclosure agreements. Overall, women workers (at 57.6%) and African American workers (at 59.1%) are the most likely to be subject to forced arbitration. Precisely because non-disclosure agreements are designed to be secretive, no precise demographic data exists for whom these provisions affect.

In the next year, we hope to pass federal legislation, about to be reintroduced in both Houses of Congress, that will ban forced arbitration for sexual harassment complaints and we will refocus our efforts on banning forced arbitration for other toxic work issues, such as racial and gender discrimination. One of the difficulties of quantifying the specific number of individuals who are affected by these provisions is that there has, to date, been scant qualitative and quantitative research on the numbers and demographics of those affected by forced arbitration and NDAs for toxic work issues. Our organization is seeking funding specifically to conduct this extensive research and quantify the specific numbers of those affected.

Describe your impact goals and how you plan to achieve them.

We measure progress by the following criteria.

1. Education:

· Initiate ongoing qualitative research (to study attitudes toward NDAs and forced arbitration) and quantitative research (to understand how many workers and which segments of the workforce are affected by these silencing mechanisms).

· Create a stakeholder map to quantify which corporations use these mechanisms and to determine whether corporate outcomes are correlated to their use and to the retention of traditionally disenfranchised groups.

2. Change Existing Policies

· End state level practices.

· Continue national legislative work to end these practices.

3. Educate Corporations

· Provide a corporate template to lift NDAs and forced arbitration.

· Foster corporate partnerships.

· Petition decision makers to end forced arbitration and NDAs for workplace toxicity.

4. Train the Next Generation

· Develop educational partnerships. (Currently engaged in partnerships with Stanford University Law School and the Clayman Center for Gender Research at Stanford and are in the process of developing a partnership with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.)

· Encourage business and law students to become advocates before they join the workforce.

· Change curriculum at law and business schools to include study of provisions that lead to workplace toxicity.

What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and how do you plan to overcome them? How would winning the Elevate Prize help you to overcome these barriers?

The current workplace paradigm is our greatest barrier. Today, a woman who experiences workplace harassment takes her complaint to HR. Internal alarm bells are sounded immediately and the woman is typically forced to either leave her position and sign an NDA or is contractually bound to secretive forced arbitration. In almost all cases, she loses not only her job but her ability to sound the alarm about workplace toxicity.

Eradication of forced arbitration and NDAs for workplace toxicity would prevent corporations from sweeping bad behavior under the rug and make the workplace safer for women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ communities.

The Elevate Prize would allow us to accomplish this mission in three ways:

1. Fund research to determine the scope of the problem, which would further our goal of enlisting elected officials and other stakeholders in our efforts;

2. Fund a national organization that could operate in all fifty states to further our mission at both the national and state levels;

3. Create curricula at law and business schools to train the next generation of leaders to spot and eradicate these pernicious employment clauses that have driven millions of Americans out of their chosen professions.

How would you leverage the larger platform, audience, and brand recognition as an Elevate Prize winner to further advance your impact?

Lift Our Voices was founded by Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, two former Fox News on-air personalities with significant media reach. We have had our work and mission covered by the New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, Mediaite, Buzzfeed, the Hollywood Reporter and other outlets. Our mission is also the subject of a documentary in production called In Her Own Words about the pernicious and real-life effects of forced arbitration and NDAs.

While our impact has already been great in the eighteen months since our founding, we acknowledge that the massive platform provided to us by the Elevate Prize would allow us to expand our work and to build state organizations that would significantly boost recognition of our mission across the country. It would allow us to create a “grassroots army” in each state that could address the eradication of toxic workplace provisions endemic to that specific state. It would greatly grow our organization and the focus on our mission and would lead to systemic change that would both contribute to the public good broadly and to the retention of women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ communities and other traditionally disenfranchised groups in the workplace.

Leadership

Financials & Partnership

If selected as an Elevate Prize winner, how will the funding help you achieve your goals?

Winning the Prize would allow our organization to grow into a national force that elevates the conversation about silencing mechanisms that drive millions of Americans out of the workforce. It would provide the kind of national publicity that would put stakeholders on notice about the changes we seek to effect. It would allow us to engage in robust research that quantifies the extent of the problem in the workplace today and provides data about the correlation between corporate outcomes and the use of these mechanisms. It would allow us to establish a grading system of companies that use these mechanisms, so that employees could truly understand the work culture before accepting a job offer.

Winning this prize would allow us to establish curricula at busines and law schools to train the next generation of leaders to create better workplaces. It would allow us to hire staff specifically dedicated to shareholder activism, so that we could use shareholder meetings to urge corporations to change their policies. It would, quite simply, be a game changer for our organization – and for the millions of American workers who have been silenced and driven out of the workplace through no fault of their own.

What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?

We currently partner with Stanford Law School to study legal remedies for forced arbitration and NDAs. We also partner with the Clayman Institute for Gender Research to create a case study about the effects of an organization that has voluntarily eradicated forced arbitration.

In which of the following areas do you and your organization most need support?

Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.)
Business model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, accessing funding)
Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
Leadership Development (e.g. management, priority setting)