Dominic Ramos-Ruiz is the founder of Citizenry, a civic discovery and matchmaking platform that uses Artificial Intelligence to connect people with aligned impact organizations in order to help them find focused and meaningful ways to get involved in their communities. Previously, Dominic led U.S. operations for The Conduit, the global community for social impact leaders and investors, where he built cross-sector networks across capital, culture, and social change. Earlier, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he worked at the intersection of finance, social entrepreneurship, and community development. As Co-Chair of the New York Fed President’s Advisory Council, he convened senior business and civic leaders to inform monetary policy and advance market-based solutions in low-income communities. Trained as an urban planner, Dominic has built his career inside the systems that shape cities, with experience spanning public agencies, real estate development, sustainability, impact investing, and civic institutions. His work has included partnerships with the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and Enterprise Community Partners, focused on more equitable, resilient, and connected urban growth. He serves on the boards of the Design Trust for Public Space and the American LGBTQ+ Museum, and holds leadership roles with MoMA’s Contemporary Arts Council and The Public Theater. He is also a longtime member of the Urban Land Institute and most recently served on the advisory board of ULI New York. On this episode of Good Standing, Ramos-Ruiz dives further into the minutia of AI as an effective impact tool, how community service opportunities can and should court the online dating crowd, and why civic engagement deserves the same attention and creativity as the arts & culture space.

Jacob Roundtree is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Economy and Society within the SNF Agora Institute, an academic and public forum at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The program is fully integrated into the university and operates as a multi-disciplinary center where JHU faculty, students, and researchers study and work to strengthen global democracy and civic engagement. A political theorist by training, now writing on political epistemology, enlightened democratic constitutionalism, and modern intellectual history, Roundtree is currently building the Civic Discourse Network, which seeks to unite similar university extension centers across America in one continuous dialogue and shared civic mission. Jacob received his PhD in political theory from Harvard in 2023, and a BA in philosophy, politics, and economics from Colby College in 2010.  His dissertation is a critical genealogy of the social theories of Hegel and Marx that raises the question of whether freedom is possible in the modern world given the complexity of capitalism and the modern nation-state. Roundtree is especially concerned with the contemporary problems of public ignorance, ideology, propaganda, elite dogmatism, and political polarization. He views these phenomena as the great obstacles to achieving a rational democratic society. Roundtree’s pedagogical approach is designed to help students and citizens combat the epistemic pathologies of present–day politics. He has deployed this approach in a range of courses dealing with the politics of truth, Marxism, German Idealism, Conservatism, race and politics, and the politics of technology. His current book project, "Crisis and Redemption-The Theory of American Democracy," diagnoses the essential source of our problems today as stemming from our collective subordination to oligarchic systems of power and proposes enlightened democratic constitutionalism as a new framework for ordering society that can lead us out of the morass in which we presently find ourselves.

Jason Finder is the Founder of Good Food Works, the food social enterprise incubator launched out of The Doe Fund, a leading New York City non-profit organization model for solving homelessness and criminal recidivism, perhaps best known for their "Ready, Willing & Able" program. Finder's past work in the community includes serving on Bushwick Food Cooperative’s Board of Directors for six years, with three of them as President. His latest venture is "Salad Days," which brings delicious, nutritious, high-quality, affordable salads (GFW's head chef managed Eleven Madison Park's food truck operation) to low-income communities. The simple, seasonal, affordably-priced, Michelin-worthy salads, are largely subsidized by selling at market price to corporate offices and private clients across the New York City area. Salad Days was incubated in Good Food Works after considerable boots-on-the-ground canvassing in communities across the five boroughs, many of them in so-called "food deserts," to determine their specific wants and needs. On this episode of Good Standing, we discuss breaking through stereotypes and presumptions to instead connect at a deeper human level. In an increasingly uncertain economy, good food, but perhaps more importantly, real access to it, will undoubtedly serve as a core foundational component to the healthy future of the United States. Whether you're a staunch MAHA disciple or lining up for Mayor Mamdani's city-run grocery stores, everybody wants and deserves to eat well and feel good.