About Rashad Robinson

For more than two decades, Rashad Robinson’s strategic campaigns, narrative interventions, and movement leadership have played a critical role in winning real change for real people. Today, he advises foundations, nonprofits, and leaders across media, politics, government, and business as they work to improve their impact on the world, design effective campaigns, develop innovative media strategies, help their organizations grow and change, and unlock the power of communities to bring about progress.
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Rashad's work and insights are regularly featured in broadcast, print, and social media, in outlets as varied as CNN, MSNBC, BET, NPR, NewsOne, OWN, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Essence, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Guardian. He has also been profiled by Fast Company, Ebony, The Root, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
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In 2020, Rashad co-led the largest advertising boycott in history: a $7 billion boycott of Facebook and Instagram. Before same-sex marriage was legal nationally, he led the successful effort to get more than one hundred local and regional newspapers to accept same-sex wedding announcements. He has worked to bring about more authentic portrayals of LGBT people and ensure more accurate representations of both Black people and the criminal justice system across news and entertainment media. He took on financial and media corporations that enabled right-wing extremists to gain political power, while helping to increase the turnout and power of Black voters in critical elections, and cofounding a coalition of progressive organizations in the aftermath of the 2016 election that proved essential for staging a comeback in the 2018 and 2020 elections. Starting in 2015, Rashad was instrumental to launching the movement to elect a new generation of local prosecutors, leading to dozens of victories across the country and subsequent reforms that measurably reduced mass incarceration and many other injustices that have been foundational to the system. He continues to build and lead projects designed to reach more people, build more power, and win more change for communities across the country.
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Rashad also served as co-chair of the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder. He won a Webby Award for Best Political Podcast in 2020 and has received numerous other honors from organizations across the social change sector. He received honorary doctorates from Georgetown University and St. Mary College of Maryland. Under his leadership, Color Of Change was featured multiple times on Fast Company’s List of Most Innovative Companies.
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For nearly 14 years, Rashad led Color Of Change, transforming the organization from a small start-up into a powerhouse of Black activism and a national force for social change driven by millions of members—capable of winning change in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Hollywood. Before COC, he led the advocacy and programmatic work at GLAAD during a period of achieving major cultural and political progress for LGBT people. In every role, his passion is helping people make sense of the moment and how to take strategic action.
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