About Zabrae Valentine
Zabrae has worked to engage policy makers and the public in actions that strengthen the nuts and bolts of democracy – so that it can respond to the needs of the public – for over 25 years. She’s worked in the CA State Legislature, the U.S. Senate, and with the National Democratic Institute in Lilongwe, Malawi. Over the past decade, she’s advised and supported organizations and initiatives in the non-profit sector in California and elsewhere including designing and executing cross-partisan civic deliberation in numerous forms on issues of broad public concern.
Her strengths are in problem solving and transforming ideas into workplans that can be executed and produce change. Her experience includes being a non-profit founder, leader and advisor; strategic planning and execution; team management; political strategy; engaging policy makers and the public in non-partisan dialogue for clear problem-identification; and promoting strategies that stimulate strong civic literacy and informed engagement with all levels of government.
Zabrae was part of a four-person team that proposed, designed and launched CA Forward and the CA Fwd Action Fund, which she co-led until 2012, and from 2004 - 2011, she was active in building robust bipartisan support for statewide redistricting reform and was a key player in drafting, campaigning for, and ensuring the successful implementation of the Voters First Act (which shifted control for state political redistricting from the state legislature to an independent citizen's commission). From 2016 to 2020 she organized and co-led the Economic Mobility Collaborative (CADream4All), a bipartisan statewide coalition of professionals from a wide range of backgrounds and expertise identifying concrete actions that could improve economic opportunity in the state. Over the past several years she has advised numerous groups on how to design deliberative engagement, including civic assemblies, so that the results are best positioned for impact (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Post: When Civic Deliberation delivers positive results, people come back for more).
When not doing the above Zabrae may be hiking in the East Bay hills with her younger son and husband, trying to persuade their dogs to bark less, or weighing the pros and cons of humans vs. shelled reptiles with Leslie Ann the tortoise. She has a Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. from Grinnell College.
Pro Bono/ Volunteer Advising
The Commonwealth Club of California’s “Creating Citizens" Project, Advisory Council
League of Women Voters elections education volunteer
Alameda County Elections Commission, Commissioner (2023 - 2025)
Clients/Partners/Projects
Zabrae currently advises the Bloom Project on multiple facets of its work to design and launch tools and systems enabling communities to identify and implement inclusive, well-informed solutions to locally-identified challenges, that also can propel broader change at the state or national level.
This has included work on initial pilots in Central Oregon and Utah, with deep capacity-building and strategic guidance in Utah specifically related to the development of multiple forms of local civic engagement, including structured community forums with representative samples of the local population participating in world café style discussions, and most recently (Sept 2026) a two-day “Solutions Forum”.
The Utah Common Ground Solutions Forum convened a demographically representative sample of three counties (making up 60% of the state’s population) with a 60/40 split of right to left leaning voters participating, on the topic of what the public’s role should be in AI-related policy-making. This work has been led by a local steering committee of highly committed civic leaders dedicated to ensuring the recommendations produced by Solutions Forum delegates are acted upon. The project is now transitioning to the implementation phase of its work.
The Oakland Assembly on Transforming Vacant Spaces
Zabrae currently serves as an advisor to the Oakland Civic Assembly on Transforming Vacant Spaces. Other staff to this project include super individuals associated with PolicyLink, UC Berkeley's Possibility Lab, the Democracy Policy Initiative at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. The Assembly (which convened over the weekends of Aug 22-23, Sept. 12-13 and Oct. 3-4, 2026) was deftly organized and led in terms of design parameters, management and implementation by Healthy Democracy.
Zabrae advised Change.org in the summer and fall of 2025 when the organization was exploring the potential to develop a deliberative engagement program; this included advising on program-wide considerations, as well as providing guidance, materials and co-leadership in the execution of their first pilot for this work in Kansas City, on the topic of reducing youth violence.
Engaged California (CA Office of Data and Innovation/Carnegie Endowment)
Zabrae was part of a three-person expert-practitioner team that advised the State of California on how to design a method of engaging the public, either regionally or statewide, on policy questions that can inform the governor’s office, the state legislature and other policy makers. Their first pilot sought to assist Californians affected by the 2024/25 Los Angeles area fires in determining what is needed beyond the initial emergency response, both for effective recovery as well as forward-looking rebuilding and preparation for future resilience. CA has since enacted AB 2103 (Irwin), establishing this program as part of the Office of Data and Innovation, requiring the office to “design, establish, and maintain a platform for ongoing dialogue between Californians and state government and to establish best practices for its use”.
Zabrae assisted CVF in the development of a Universal Service Benefits Package designed to create stronger pathways into public-service careers for young people. This included researching and developing potential benefits and partnerships and leveraging existing state programs and other resources, with a focus on reducing cost-of-living barriers and increasing long-term economic security for young Californians. The proposed package integrated career development, education, housing, healthcare, childcare, financial and digital literacy, savings and wealth-building, and civic participation, and included the development of a framework for assessing options based on value to participants and feasibility of implementation.
Public Policy Institute of California's Economic Policy Center
Zabrae advised the current vice president and director of PPIC’s Economic Policy Center during the Center’s development, helping shape its design and focus on policy questions related to expanding economic security and opportunity through work, and continued advising the director through the Center’s launch and first year. (The Economic Policy Center provides nonpartisan data and research with a labor market focus, to help policy makers understand how the state’s economy affects both businesses and workers, and where there may be opportunities for greater economic well-being.)
New Hampshire Together (website has been taken down)
Zabrae provided a recommendation for the design of a 50-person statewide Citizen Assembly with the potential to grow into a flexible national model designed to show popular support for a host of common-sense policy positions across the US. The project included working intensively on the development of an online platform to support small group dialogue, and co-project-managing (with Martha Madsen) implementation of the state pilot that included supporting community meetings throughout the state, managing a statewide poll, testing a range of recruiting methods, developing online dialogues, developing policy backgrounders, and assisting with a three-day convening in Manchester (June ‘24) on improving trust in elections, improving political responsiveness with an emphasis on the state legislature, and reducing extreme political polarization through electoral reform.
California Forward/Stanford's Deliberative Democracy Lab
On behalf of event cosponsor California Forward, Zabrae supported the Deliberative Democracy Lab in project-managing the America In One Room Deliberative Poll on Climate and Energy Policy, and in this capacity was deeply involved with multiple facets of the project. (May 2022 - Dec 2022). Immediately following this project, she designed and ran a pilot of Stanford’s online deliberative platform to test its viability as a “civic knowledge building tool”. This was called “Table Talks”, and was sponsored by Helena.
The Economic Mobility Collaborative (CADream4All)
CADream4All started as a group of colleague-friends of varied political stripes, who came together in the fall of 2016 in Half Moon Bay, CA, to do some brainstorming on what was or was not working in our state (CA) and what (more) could be done to move the needle toward greater economic security and freedom. Zabrae co-convened (with Lenny Mendonca) the group, which quickly grew into a network of policy/political leaders working to identify an evidence-based policy agenda to bring lasting economic security and opportunity to all Californians.. We made some progress. When Covid struck in early 2020 we were in the process of executing a plan to consolidate support statewide for a comprehensive, cross-partisan reform agenda addressing shortfalls in education and childcare, healthcare, employment, housing and community, and civic participation.
Economic security is the flip side of a strong democracy: for a political system to persist, it’s got to deliver.