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This is part of our Community Cultivator series, which highlights how innovators across all sectors build and sustain global communities from the ground up.

James Steyer has spent his career advocating for small people, but he doesn鈥檛 care much for small ideas.

鈥淗e always wants to go big,鈥� says Ellen Pack, president of the second major nonprofit he founded, . (The first was , which focuses on policy solutions in California.) 鈥淗e has a million ideas. The trick is knowing which ones to grab onto.鈥� One of his more provocative recent ideas was to get the California legislature to support a broad consumer privacy law and retake legislative control over an issue gaining in public imagination. With deep political divisions, most doubted Sacramento could get the law passed, but in January, the California Consumer Privacy Law (CCPA) went into effect.

is the latest and greatest product to arise from Steyer鈥檚 idea factory. Launched at the end of March, soon after schools across the country were closing in response to the pandemic, this free online resource supports families and educators who might be attempting remote learning for the first time.

Earlier in the month, Steyer had set Wide Open School in motion and started working the phones to enlist leading education publishers, media and technology companies and nonprofits. Within a few days, he had secured the commitment of the American Federation of Teachers, Amplify, Apple, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Head Start, Khan Academy, National Geographic, Noggin, PBS, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, Time for Kids, XQ Institute and YouTube, among others.

In the first several weeks of the platform, more than a million people around the country have used Wide Open School. Pack calls it the Jim Factor. 鈥淧eople who care about our work, care because he does,鈥� she says.

Steyer credits his impact to two qualities. First, he explains, 鈥淚 like people.鈥� This is factually true, but it鈥檚 also a major understatement. He has an unmatched Rolodex of influential friends and relishes a steady stream of conversation (often peppered with more four-letter words than one might expect from a child advocate). Second, he recognizes ability in others. 鈥淚 hire people who are smarter and more talented than me,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd I stay out of their way.鈥�

Steyer grew up in Manhattan. 鈥淲e were very close, and very committed to justice,鈥� he says of his upbringing. (His younger brother Tom recently ended his unsuccessful and鈥攁ccording to Jim鈥攎isunderstood presidential campaign.) Their father was a lawyer in a prestigious firm; their mother taught in the Brooklyn House of Detention and a public school in the south Bronx. Following in her footsteps, Jim graduated early from high school and worked as a paraprofessional in a Harlem classroom before enrolling in Stanford University.

Stanford has steadily nourished Steyer鈥檚 intellect and social justice work. First as a student and later, for nearly 30 years, as a lecturer, the New York native has thoroughly embraced this West Coast institution. He cites Donald Kennedy, Stanford president from 1980 to 1992, as one of his inspirations. As a law student, Steyer started his first nonprofit, the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, which focused on housing and other poverty-related issues. 鈥淚 learned how to build something,鈥� he recalls. Before long, he directed his talents for board building and fundraising toward the child advocacy community.

In 1988, Steyer launched Children Now, which quickly attracted publicity for its report cards 鈥済rading鈥� how well California addressed the needs of its youngest residents. He fondly remembers when and landed on the front page of The New York Times. 鈥淔irst and foremost, he鈥檚 a champion for the poorest kids,鈥� says Pack. Steyer reveals that it鈥檚 a framing strategy. 鈥淲hen it鈥檚 about kids, more people are going to pay attention than if it were about poverty.鈥�

He calls Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children鈥檚 Defense Fund, a personal hero, citing the transformative impact of her advocacy. (She also introduced him to Liz, his wife and the mother of his four children.) Hillary Clinton also comes high on the list of child advocates he admires. 鈥淪he is a serious policy wonk,鈥� he says, 鈥淎nd don鈥檛 forget Chelsea Clinton, either.鈥�

Asked about Republicans, he mentions Jeb Bush and Margaret Spellings, an architect of the and later Secretary of Education under George W. Bush.

鈥淐hildren shouldn鈥檛 be a political issue,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his is the great no-brainer investment.鈥� He admits to sometimes feeling frustrated with the infighting and rivalries in the child advocacy sphere, noting, 鈥淲e鈥檙e all on the same team.鈥�

Norman Lear, the legendary TV producer and founder of People for the American Way, influenced the way Steyer uses media as a tool. Appreciation for the power of media has driven his advocacy and, by the same token, made him acutely aware of its unchecked power over children. His 2002 book The Other Parent condemned children鈥檚 television for becoming a “giant marketing machine” rather than a source of education or enrichment. His research for the book led directly to the formation of Common Sense Media in 2003.

The organization consists of three interlocked enterprises:

• rates TV shows, movies, music, books and video games. These ratings are what they are best known for.
• provides resources and resources for teachers, including lessons on digital citizenship for all ages. It also rates and reviews education technologies.
• champions digital equity and privacy, among other principles. Last year, it spearheaded a coalition calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Facebook had engaged in unfair or deceptive practices related to charging children for purchases made without parental or awareness.

In 2012, Steyer wrote Talking Back to Facebook, a kind of sequel to The Other Parent and the first major expression of social media鈥檚 deleterious effect on young people. The same year, he issued a major statement about the American trend of disinvesting in childhood.

鈥淚t鈥檚 morally wrong,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 economically insane. What are we thinking in our society when our youngest generation is the poorest generation in our world?鈥� The following June, the Clinton Foundation took on the phrase coined by Steyer when it launched its Too Small to Fail initiative.

Wide Open School remains Steyer鈥檚 most pressing concern for the moment. With the possibility looming that remote learning will be with us, in some form or another, for quite a while, Wide Open School will prove his knack for recognizing possibilities before the rest of the world catches up.

This story originally published on Early Learning Nation and is now archived on 蜜桃影视. Learn more here.