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Daniela Lapidous
Progressive organizing strategist | Prior: Chief of Strategy at Green New Deal Network
Professional Background
Daniela Lapidous has established herself as a formidable leader in the progressive organizing and political realms, specifically focusing on climate justice and environmental advocacy. As the Chief of Strategy at the Green New Deal Network, she played a pivotal role within the Executive Team, contributing her strategic insight to drive initiatives that culminated in the successful passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark legislation encapsulating various environmental justice provisions.
In her position at the Green New Deal Network, Daniela showcased her exceptional management skills by overseeing key directors, including the Legislative & Political Director, Organizing Director, and Communications Director. This comprehensive leadership ensured a cohesive approach towards strategy development, engaging efficiently with a diverse range of stakeholders. Her efforts included spearheading a significant $11 million re-granting program aimed at empowering over 24 state-based coalitions in their climate justice campaigns, which not only better equipped them for immediate challenges but also fostered long-term relationships across the progressive network.
Education and Achievements
Daniela’s academic foundation plays a critical role in her professional journey. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Sustainable Development from Columbia University, a premier institution known for its commitment to environmental and global equity education. This educational background has informed her work and understanding of complex sustainability issues. Prior to attending Columbia, she completed her schooling at The Harker School, where her passion for environmental advocacy and organizing began to flourish.
Throughout her career, Daniela has been instrumental in numerous initiatives that illustrate her commitment to sustainable practices and community engagement. Before her tenure at the Green New Deal Network, she served as Campaign Coordinator for NY Renews, where she led the coalition through the passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2019, recognized as the nation’s most ambitious legally-binding climate targets. This experience not only solidified her expertise but also established a vital blueprint for future legislative efforts.
In 2020, she extended her skills to the national stage during the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, where she was a key member of the distributed organizing team. There, Daniela adeptly managed over 100 volunteers, ensuring effective support and facilitation across various organizing methods, such as phone banking, text banking, and distributed door-to-door campaigning.
Notable Positions
Daniela's career is marked by a diverse range of roles that highlight her ability to adapt and thrive in organized settings.
- Chief of Strategy at Green New Deal Network: As part of her leadership duties, she designed comprehensive strategies and managed pivotal funding programs to further climate justice initiatives.
- Field Director at Green New Deal Network: Here, she honed her organizational strengths, closing gaps in communication and engagement across initiatives.
- Deputy Field Director at Green New Deal Network: Daniela managed projects and campaigns, ensuring alignment with overall strategies while facilitating stakeholder collaboration.
- Help Desk Director for Bernie Sanders For President: She provided crucial support to volunteers and staff, enhancing the campaign's operational capacity.
- Campaign Coordinator at NY Renews: Her success in driving legislative change is exemplified by her work here, where she directed a multi-faceted coalition towards achieving significant climate policy advancements.
- Research Lead at Ayni Institute: Daniela’s analytical skills contributed extensively to climate change research and initiatives, further proving her dedication to the cause.
- Campaign Fellow at ClimateTruth.Org: Focusing on digital organizing, she acquired valuable experience in mobilizing communities for climate advocacy.
- Summer Research Intern at Sabin Center for Climate Change Law: This role helped shape her understanding of legal frameworks surrounding environmental issues.
- Organizer and Co-Founder of Columbia Divest for Climate Justice: Her leadership was vital in mobilizing student action towards divestment from fossil fuel industries, representing a significant stride in campus environmental activism.
Skills and Expertise
Daniela's career demonstrates a rich tapestry of skills and expertise, particularly in areas such as:
- Strategic Planning and Development: Daniela efficiently crafts and implements tactical initiatives that align with broader organizational goals.
- Coalition Building and Management: Her ability to foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders is unparalleled, facilitating successful partnerships that advance climate justice.
- Campaign Coordination: From grassroots organizing to major political campaigns, she exhibits an impressive command of campaign management principles.
- Communication and Training: Daniela frequently engages in training and capacity-building efforts, equipping individuals and organizations with the tools needed to succeed in advocacy efforts.
- Digital Organizing: With a strong grasp of technological tools and digital strategies, she enhances outreach efforts and expands the impact of climate justice campaigns.
Personal Mission and Vision
At the heart of Daniela Lapidous’s professional journey is a deep-seated commitment to tackling climate challenges and advocating for justice in environmental policies. She actively seeks to integrate the voices of marginalized communities into the conversation around climate change, recognizing the need for equitable solutions that uplift those most affected by environmental degradation.
In her personal endeavors, she continues to inspire emerging leaders in the climate justice movement, serving proudly as a mentor and advocate for progressive strategies that can propel meaningful change. Her vision encompasses a future where communities across the country engage actively in sustainable practices while paving the way for systemic reforms that prioritize ecological health and social equity.
Conclusion
Daniela Lapidous exemplifies the qualities of a dedicated and innovative leader in the progressive political landscape. Her vast experience, underscored by a commitment to environmental justice and community engagement, positions her as an influential figure in the ongoing fight for climate advocacy. With a track record of legislative successes and strategic coordination, Daniela continues to leave an indelible mark on the movement for a sustainable future, inspiring others with her vision and relentless pursuit of impactful change.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.