Looking back and leaning forward: 
News about BMSG’s next chapter

Reflections and gratitude from Lori Dorfman

This year marks my 33rd year at Berkeley Media Studies Group. It is time for me to step back from my role as director and hand the baton to our two new co-directors, Pamela Mejia and Katherine Schaff. My new title is co-founder; I will be with BMSG through the end of the year and maybe a little after — we’ll see. 

Over the past three-plus decades at BMSG, we’ve collaborated with so many courageous, committed, creative and, yes, fun-loving organizers, advocates, and public health practitioners fighting to ensure community conditions foster health instead of disease. Our partners are changing the story about public health issue by local issue, from taxing sugary drinks and protecting tenants from eviction during COVID to restricting junk food marketing targeted at kids of color, winning a moratorium on new alcohol outlets, and establishing the strongest gun laws in the nation. Thirty-three years is a long time — I could list more! We’ve also partnered with journalists who are eager to tell stories about systems change, hold power to account, and strengthen the connection between journalism and communities, which we know is fundamental to democracy itself. 

Of course, I’ve never been alone in this work. Since the first days when Larry Wallack and I opened our doors, BMSG has been blessed with staff and colleagues who are dedicated to seeing that everyone has a voice in shaping the decisions that affect their lives. And, as you know, we’re pretty methodical over here, so we have been carefully planning for this transition. In addition to leading their own teams, Pamela and Kathi have served on the leadership team with me for more than a year. They are both fabulously dedicated, compassionate, and thoughtful — not to mention wicked smart. Between them, they have more than 20 years of combined experience at BMSG that will propel us into the next decade and beyond.

I’m proud of what BMSG and our partners have built together. We started by honing the practice of media advocacy, the strategic use of mass communication to support community organizing and policy advocacy. We’ve helped advocates gain the confidence to testify before city councils, state legislatures, and Congress, and to make their case on the nightly news. Now, we’re leveraging what we’ve learned about framing public health issues to build narrative power so that our partners can make their stories the main stories people use to describe how the world works and how we can better it for everyone.

As public health faces dramatic funding cuts, orchestrated efforts to spread disinformation, and escalating attacks on racial and health equity, I’m grateful for the strength of our collaborations across many years and many issues. Our collective success over the long-haul depends on them. BMSG has never been just a job or a workplace. We consider all of our partners — past and present — part of our extended family and believe heartily that we are in this together.

So, while this isn’t goodbye, it is a big change, for me more than for BMSG. The work continues, and we’re glad to be in the fight with you.

Who knew 33 years could whiz by? 

Cheers,

Lori 

Carrying the mission forward: Thoughts from BMSG’s new co-directors, Pamela Mejia and Katherine Schaff

If you’ve ever met Lori Dorfman in person, you know that she has small feet (size 7) — but she has gigantic shoes to fill. Not only has she stewarded BMSG’s growth and evolution over the past 33 years, she’s been a foundational part of our own development: We’re both better leaders, thinkers, partners, advocates, and people thanks to Lori. She’s passed down everything — training activities, advice for handling challenging moments, her amazing ability to turn every problem into an opportunity, her reminders to find humor in even the hardest moments, her dedication to the unending self-reflection that is needed to really do the work to achieve equity, justice, and liberation, and her many, many stories. We’re inspired every day by her stories of small and big wins, the deep care that binds those in social movement work, and ways we can keep the light of hope going even in dark moments. We know we can never fill Lori’s shoes, but she’s approached BMSG’s leadership transition in the same intentional, thoughtful, and caring way she’s approached her career so that we can find our own path — in our own (slightly larger!) shoes — forward. 

We are immensely excited that these next steps forward will be together, as co-directors. One thing that makes our new roles exciting and easier is that we also have a “leaderful” organization, where every staff member brings a wealth of passion, experience, creativity, and drive for justice to the work. We’re lucky that a big part of our job is just clearing the way so they can do their best work. 

To make that happen, we’ve been working together as part of our leadership team for over a year, so our day-to-day as co-directors doesn’t look much different than this past year. And in some ways, this new phase of BMSG is actually a return to our roots in shared leadership, since Lori Dorfman and Larry Wallack, our founders, were co-directors for many years. In this new phase, we benefit from the wisdom of nonprofit leadership that has grown over the years. Our complementary strengths allow us to bring added capacity to BMSG, and we look forward to applying internally some of the same principles we work toward externally. For example, as co-directors, we can build on 11 years as friends and colleagues to center collaboration and continue to build BMSG’s internal culture, which encourages people to show up as their full selves.  

We are so grateful we still have more time with Lori and a slow transition, and we are excited to continue to bring our vision and experience to the work we care so deeply about. This transition moment is a great time for us to connect and reconnect with partners in person (if the stars align) or on Zoom — whether it’s around an agenda item, a project idea, questions about our next steps, or just to check in about how we are all meeting this moment. Whatever the topic, we’d love to hear from you to continue the conversations that have been happening over the past 33 years — and start some new ones. Please feel free to reach out to us at schaff@bmsg.org and mejia@bmsg.org. 

Supporting communities fighting to advance justice, liberation, and health is more important now than ever — we’re so proud to be in this work with you, and we're ready to move forward together. 

In solidarity,
Pamela and Kathi