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 effectively – for over 25 years. Her career has included working with the CA State Legislature in Sacramento, the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C. and the National Democratic Institute in Washington, D.C. and Lilongwe, Malawi.
Since 2003, she has been back in California building and advising organizations and initiatives that work to improve policy and currently provides strategic advice to individuals, organizations and start-ups with an emphasis on multi/non-partisan collaboration and policy development.
In 2004, Zabrae developed and led the Commonwealth Club’s Voices of Reform Project, which was instrumental in building robust bipartisan support for statewide redistricting reform. Separately, she 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).
In 2007 she 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. In 2016 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.
Recent projects include designing methods for increasing access to civic dialogue that enable people to learn about critical issues together, discover being different can be both useful and fun, and share insights with policy makers in ways that can produce results.
She has an Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, a B.A. from Grinnell College, IA.
Pro Bono/ Volunteer Advising
Alameda County Elections Commission, Commissioner
Creating Citizens Commonwealth Club of California, Advisory Council Chair
New Hampshire Together, Advisory Council Member
California Common Cause, Advisory Board Member
Clients/Partners/Projects
Engaged California (CA Office of Data and Innovation/Carnegie Endowment)
Zabrae is one of three civic deliberation design experts advising the State in their development of a new flexible “digital democracy” model they can use to better engage the public on key policy issues. Their first pilot will seek 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.
Public Policy Institute of California's Economic Policy Center
Zabrae served as the primary consultant to the vice president and director of PPIC's economic policy center to conceptualize, design and then launch the center in February 2024. Led by PPIC’s Sarah Bohn, 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. Zabrae continues supporting the EPC Director in her efforts to ensure the Center is effective at providing relevant, actionable information in a timely way.
Zabrae designed the full arc of a statewide Citizens Assembly process in New Hampshire, and then led the organization and execution of the plan on behalf of The People. This work culminated in a three-day, in-person event in Manchester, NH, in June of 2024, where 50 delegates, demographically representative of the state’s population, deliberated and then agreed (with over 75% support) to support four reform proposals to improve state legislative representation and reduce partisan polarization in the state. Volunteers from the engagement are moving forward to secure the reforms identified and prioritized through that process, including the introduction of state legislation, and New Hampshire Together is planning subsequent local assemblies.
California Forward/Stanford's Deliberative Democracy Lab
On behalf of event cosponsor California Forward, Zabrae helped organize and project manage a Deliberative Poll on Climate and Energy Policy, and in this capacity was deeply involved with multiple facets of the project. (This was an America In One Room event) (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 it was sponsored by Helena.
The Economic Mobility Collaborative (CADream4All)
This was a handful of friends of varied political persuasions, who came together in the fall of 2016 in Half Moon Bay, CA, to do some brainstorming on what was working and what was not in our state, what needed more attention, and what (more) could be done to really move the needle toward greater economic security and freedom. (Zabrae and Lenny Mendonca issued the invitation and Zabrae continued to organize and facilitate the work going forward.) Everyone – all political stripes represented – agreed there was a moral imperative to secure progress on this front, and until that happens, it will block all else that is essential to building a productive, resilient and happy future society-wide – “life liberty and happiness”. We made some progress.
While the COVID crisis in March, 2020 forced this initiative itself into mothballs, the substance has lived in in the form of other work, as have the relationships formed. This issue is the flip side of a strong democracy: for a political system to persist, it’s gotta deliver.