Adam Stofsky

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2009

Adam Stofsky

New Media Advocacy Project

New York, New York, United States

Civil and Human Rights

The Bold Idea:

The Bold Idea: Empower defenders of human rights and social justice by integrating video and internet social networking into their advocacy strategy, enabling them to win their legal cases and organize communities.

Existing advocacy models that use litigation as their cornerstone are increasingly resource intensive but often do not yield correspondingly higher impact results. Meanwhile, human rights caseloads are increasing worldwide. In 2007, 79,000 cases were pending in the European system, 1,500 were filed in the Inter-American system and 33,000 civil rights cases were filed in U.S. federal courts. As a result, justice is often delayed. Over 2,000 of those U.S. cases have been pending for three years or more.

New Media Advocacy Project will pioneer strategies for using video in courtrooms, legislatures, and communities. It will use social networking to give advocates an unprecedented connection to their client communities, allowing them to locate the best witnesses and gather evidence. N-Map will empower its clients to speak to the legal system in their own voices to help them win cases, persuade legislators, and achieve specific advocacy goals.

Biography:

Adam Stofsky discovered the power of new media advocacy when working in Nigeria on a massive forced eviction case, which had been stalled in court for fourteen years. He produced a documentary, advised by local lawyers, which allowed the evictees to tell their story and advance their case. Adam continued to develop his new media advocacy ideas at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, where he used new media to secure positive results for Katrina victims, employment discrimination plaintiffs, and minority voters. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
I was shooting a documentary about a human rights case in Nigeria that I was working on as a law student. During an interview with one of my clients, a leader of a community whose town had been demolished by the Lagos government in the name of "development," I realized how circumscribed and stifling the legal system can be to defenders of human and civil rights. My client's impassioned works in front of a camera were incredibly persuasive and powerful. I committed myself to using whatever tools I could find to help my clients speak directly to the legal system, in their own voices, in their fight for justice.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
When I was just out of college, I traveled around Eastern Europe, tracing family roots. Most of my grandparents' families were killed in the Holocaust, and I had wanted to return to their homes to see if I could find any trace of their lives. What I found instead, were countries struggling with new human rights issues, from the transition to democracy to large influxes of refugees from the Balkans and Asia. I think that the experience of growing up with a constant awareness of oppression, conflict, and the possibility of redemption from these things, gave me the ability to identify with contemporary human rights problems, and commit myself to helping to take them on.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
N-Map's innovation lies in its drawing upon both the visual and social powers of new technology in new ways to actually win cases and achieve specific advocacy goals. Media has been used to fight for human rights for years, but it is normally used in the service of media-oriented goals—exposing human rights violations, and documenting them. N-Map takes this to the next level by merging knowledge of legal tactics and procedural rules with knowledge of a wide range of new media to help its clients secure concrete changes in their lives. N-Map's other innovation lies in drawing upon the social networking power of the internet to improve lawyers' and advocates' ability to communicate with their clients, locate witnesses, gather evidence, and create a platform for advocates worldwide to share their own work and assist each other with their new media advocacy issues.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?
Patience. For me, the key to success as a social entrepreneur is knowing when to launch a particular project, given one's own skills and development, and the state of competing organizations. Launch too early, and you won't be ready. Launch too late, and you may have missed your opportunity.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
My Favorite Things by John Coltrane has been for two decades the album I've listed to most. It never gets old and constantly evolves.

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
For anyone interested in politics or civil rights history, The Master of the Senate by Robert Caro is the best. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner is my favorite work of U.S. literature.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?

• talkingpointsmemo.com
• pitchfork.com
• pandora.com
• fivethirtyeight.com
• facebook.com
• echoinggreen.org (especially around selection time!)

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
Just before I left my internship in Nigeria during my first summer in law school, my client, a community leader, asked me to sign a contract that I would continue to represent the interests of his people. He told me that every year, dozens of Americans and Europeans visited his community and promised that they would continue to advocate on their behalf—and most of them never did a thing. He admonished me to either simply say goodbye and not make false promises, or to really commit myself. I signed the contract, and seven years later I am still working on their case. But his very serious challenge—that commitment really means commitment—still motivates me today.