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Sanda Balaban
Executive Director, Project Pericles
Professional Background
Sanda Balaban is a remarkable advocate for youth civic engagement whose extensive career spans over two decades in the nonprofit, public, and philanthropic sectors. Her unwavering dedication to educational innovation, excellence, and equity has seen her conceptualize, launch, and lead numerous groundbreaking initiatives aimed at creating high-quality opportunities for students, teachers, and future leaders. With a passion for embedding civic responsibility into educational frameworks, Sanda has not only inspired countless individuals but has also significantly impacted the sectors she has engaged with throughout her career.
As a former Executive Director at Project Pericles, Sanda worked tirelessly to promote the principles of civic engagement, leadership, and social responsibility among college students, harnessing their potential to enact change in their communities. Her leadership continues to resonate with many as she forges strategic partnerships bringing diverse groups together for continuous improvement and collective impact. Sanda’s experience as Co-Founder and Director of YVote and Next Generation Politics exemplifies her commitment to fostering the leaders of tomorrow by ensuring young voices are not only heard but also actively engaged in the political process.
Sanda has an impressive history of roles within the NYC Department of Education, where she held various significant positions, including Chief of Staff and Network Leader for Empowerment Schools. Her strategic insight and experience in educational improvement initiatives positioned her as a vital contributor to enhancing learning experiences within urban education systems. Her ability to lead and innovate within complex educational environments speaks volumes of her expertise and vision.
Education and Achievements
Sanda Balaban’s educational foundation laid the groundwork for her impactful career. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College, majoring in English with minors in Education and Theatre, and a concentration in Women’s Studies. This diverse academic background equipped her with a deep understanding of the importance of communication and inclusiveness in education. Sanda further advanced her educational journey by obtaining her Master of Education (MEd) in Teaching and Curriculum from the prestigious Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she expanded her knowledge on how curriculum design and pedagogy can encourage civic engagement.
Sanda’s achievements are not just limited to her impressive educational background but also extend to her influential roles in various organizations. At Facing History and Ourselves, as the Director of Strategic Learning Initiatives, she worked on promoting critical thinking and ethical decision-making in schools, reinforcing her belief in the transformative power of education.
Her tenure at influential institutions such as the Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Ford Foundation further solidified her commitment to creating impactful educational approaches and her understanding of the intricacies involved in philanthropic efforts to uplift communities through education.
Achievements
Throughout her career, Sanda Balaban has emerged as a thought leader in the field of education, youth engagement, and public policy. Her strategic contributions and initiatives have not only advanced educational equity but have also ignited youth voices in critical civic discussions. She has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to transforming education into a more inclusive, effective, and equitable practice through her leadership and innovative approaches.
As an ardent proponent of civic education, Sanda's work emphasizes the need for young individuals to be informed, proactive, and engaged citizens. She has mobilized resources and crafted programs that empower youth to take charge of their futures and participate meaningfully in democratic processes. Sanda’s role as the founder of FLIP Consulting reinforces her dedication to enhancing educational innovation and her belief in harnessing the power of diverse stakeholders to improve educational outcomes.
In addition, her experience in autonomy and innovation zones within the NYC Department of Education has highlighted her ability to navigate complex educational frameworks, making her a valuable resource in discussions about reform and leadership development in schools. Sanda has been instrumental in creating systems that prioritize both student achievement and the development of their civic responsibilities, ensuring that education does not merely exist as a formality but as a transformative force in society.
In summary, Sanda Balaban stands out as a passionate advocate for youth civic engagement and educational innovation. Her extraordinary career journey reflects her dedication to nurturing the leaders of tomorrow and creating inclusive, high-quality opportunities for every student. As she continues her work at t
Highlights
Eric Liu is my hero and his brainchild Citizen University’s Civic Collaboratory is my happy place. And it can be yours too, at least for the length of time it takes you to read this FANTASTIC article by Drew Lindsay in the The Chronicle of Philanthropy to learn more about the Collaboratory—“mutual aid on steroids” as Eric calls it— and how it demonstrates what constructive, collaborative, cross-partisan democracy can look and feel like.
Need extra incentive to dig in? You can read about how the amazing Uma Kalkar and I pitched YVote’s Democracy Camp for national expansion—and garnered a $10k investment on the spot from the estimable Ian Simmons, along with a bevy of other great commitments and partnerships.
Need an ADDITIONAL incentive? There’s a glorious photo of another of my civic heroes, Lisa Kay Solomon, and me at Collaboratory.
Note: this is part of a wonderful newish section of the Chronicle called The Commons that was launched “to explore the ideas, conversations, and solutions for a fractured country.” I can’t recommend it highly enough but be forewarned that it’s addictive: I want to read EVERY article they publish. Check it out!
On this 4th of July, let us celebrate that so many are working to improve the country, rather than celebrating it as is.
Here’s something to buoy all of us up: yesterday YVote completed an amazing weeklong Democracy Camp for 54 civically curious youth from across 32 high schools, united in a quest to examine the foundations of democracy, to reckon with what James Baldwin referred to as “the beautiful and the terrible” of American history, to explore their hopes and fears, to analyze the growing threats facing democracy today, and to collaboratively explore and invent solutions to these challenges. They even created a DemocraTree, with the leaves signifying core problems, the trunk signifying the systems structures, practices, and policies that institutionalize the problems, the roots signifying the underlying historical causes of why these issues / structures exist--and importantly, they surrounded it with their takeaways and commitments for improvement. This vibrant crew defined what democracy means to them—AND what it will take to create a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational democracy suited to achieve equity and justice for the 21st century.
What it will take is young people with the commitment, optimism, energy, knowledge, and networks necessary to create the generational change we need. I’m happy to report that MANY are rising to the challenges—and the opportunities. So let us buck up at our BBQs today and forge forward in a shared quest for ongoing improvement tomorrow.
Kudos and big thanks to our AMAZING peer facilitators for bringing Democracy Camp--and democracy--to fruition: Chris-Ann Barnett, Emmanuel Annan Jr, Kenisha Mahajan, Ma-Sadio Faye, Muzahidul Fahim, Shreeya Thakur, Sonja Aibel and to our wonderful Democracy Fellow Heba Elkouraichi.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.