Our Board of Directors

Daniel Stid is the Executive Director of Lyceum Labs, a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of political leadership at the local and state levels of government. For the 2023-24 academic year, he is a visiting fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He also advises philanthropists seeking to strengthen democracy, pluralism, and civic life. 

From 2013 to 2022, Daniel served as the inaugural director of the Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. Democracy Program. During his tenure, he led $180 million in grantmaking to 150+ grantees working across the ideological spectrum to shore up U.S. democracy in a time of worsening polarization. Earlier in his career, Daniel was a partner with The Bridgespan Group, a management consultant at BCG, a Congressional Fellow on the staff of the House Majority Leader, and an assistant professor of political science at Wabash College. Daniel is the author of The President as Statesman: Woodrow Wilson and the Constitution. He blogs at The Art of Association on the interplay between philanthropy, civil society, and democracy in America. 

Daniel has a B.A. from Hope College, an M.Phil. in politics from Oxford University, and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University. A Michigander at heart, Daniel grew up on a third-generation family farm in Ingham County. He is proud to have been commissioned an honorary Kentucky Colonel for his service to the Commonwealth.

Nadia J. Firozvi is an attorney, advocate, strategist, advisor, and consultant based in Washington, DC.  She currently serves as Senior Advisor with the Trusted Elections Fund and has other consulting contracts with nonprofits and private companies.  Prior to her consulting work, she most recently served in the Biden-Harris administration as Chief of Staff of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  Prior to her appointment, she served as Senior Director of the Just and Inclusive Society Program at Democracy Fund where she directed the program to support targeted communities and combat growing authoritarianism.  Nadia was also a member of the DHS Agency Review Team of the Biden-Harris Transition.  Before joining Democracy Fund, Nadia was a Policy Advisor in the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Domestic Policy Coordinator at the Arab American Institute, and Staff Attorney at the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center.  

She was a founding board member of Many Languages Once Voice and was a board member of The Nexus Fund.  She is currently a board member of More in Common US, an advisory committee member of 22nd Century Initiative, and a Political Partner with the Truman National Security Project.  

She holds degrees from Loyola University in Maryland, University of Baltimore School of Law, and American University Washington College of Law. 

Stephen Friedman, a Peabody and Emmy award-winning creator of social-impact campaigns, is the Senior Advisor to the CEO of Showtime and Paramount Media Networks, where he also produces documentaries and advises their Social Impact department. He teaches “Storytelling and the Art of Creating Social Impact Campaigns” at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Friedman serves on the Board of Directors for All Out, Genocide Survivors Foundation and More In Common. He advises SYPartners and Sidekicks, an AI social-impact business. 

Previously, Stephen was President of MTV for seven years. He spearheaded MTV’s transformation into the cultural home of the millennial generation with shows that included “Catfish,” “Teen Mom,” “Jersey Shore” and “Teen Wolf.”  During his 18 years at the network, he created MTV’s Social Impact Department, launched mtvU and led MTV2 and LOGO to record highs.

Friedman developed multiple “Choose or Lose” campaigns in partnership with Rock The Vote, and initiatives that addressed genocide in Darfur, as well as bias and stigma around mental health. He partnered with the Campaign to End Teen Pregnancy to ensure the shows “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” were cautionary tales. The National Bureau of Economic Research credited both series with driving one-third of the steep decline in the teen birth rate, which now stands at a record low.  Before joining MTV, Friedman served as a Director for the PEN American Center (the writers’ human rights organization). He holds a B.A. with Honors from Wesleyan University.

Mathieu is Co-founder and CEO of More in Common Global. Prior to helping launch More in Common, Mathieu was a co-founder of Make.org, one of the largest new civic tech companies in Europe and for several years was the Executive Director of New Cities, a think tank he helped launch on the future of global cities. Mathieu served as a Political Officer in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations for five years based in Southern Afghanistan, Lebanon and at the UN Security Council in New York. He also worked in the area of governance at the World Bank and has advised a number of political campaigns in France and the US. Mathieu is a graduate of the Kennedy School at Harvard and of the LSE. He is a dual USFrench citizen and lives in Paris with his family.

Ali is the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-partisan advocacy organization working with faith, law enforcement and business leaders to promote the value of immigrants and immigration. Growing up in California as the son of Pakistani immigrants, Ali quickly learned how to forge alliances among people of wide-ranging backgrounds, a skill that has served him extraordinarily well as one of the nation’s most innovative coalition builders. Before joining the Forum in 2008, Ali was executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, and he has served in leadership roles within public health and environmental organizations. Ali is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, holds a Master’s in Public Health from Boston University and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Ali lives in Washington, D.C. and is the author of “There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration,” (Prometheus, April 2017) and host of “Only in America” podcast.