Giving Compass' Take:

• Erika Gregory shares her role in helping Richard Branson find his philanthropic focus on nuclear threats and urges others to do the same. 

• How can funders best work to address nuclear threats? Are you ready to tackle this issue?

• Learn about nuclear security innovation


In 1980 I left California to study theater. I did a year at NYU followed by four years in the drama division at the Juilliard School. I graduated with excellent training from a prestigious institution and a path of open doors.

Decades later, however, I know that the most important element of that experience had more universal value: when a diverse and well-trained ensemble performs to its fullest potential the effect is transformative. That’s true whether the ensemble looks like a gang of educators designing schools that serve all students or like a transdisciplinary team tackling dangers related to nuclear weapons.

“The fundamental driver of our success at Virgin has, and will always be, our people working together,” Branson once said. Maybe he’d seen this power too.

So that’s what I decide to talk about with Richard Branson and his crew.

Of course, I hit the usual talking points that everyone rolls out when they describe the nuclear threat landscape. That 14,000 nuclear weapons still exist. That the chance of an accident or a deployment has possibly never been higher. That the population working to make sure these things don’t happen is aging and dwindling, even as the threat becomes more complex.

I’d covered all of this in my 2016 TED talk as well, but my one regret about that talk is what I didn’t say. I focused on the threat when the real story is the opportunity. To envision a world that is more resilient and better equipped to manage conflict and to deter bad behavior precisely because we have moved beyond nuclear weapons. To begin an inspirational new chapter in the evolution of human affairs by declaring the year 2045 as the end of the nuclear weapons century. To build alliances and strengthen movements by understanding the points of intersection between nuclear dangers and climate change, social justice, and healthier democracies.

People love concrete examples. So I describe for Richard Branson and the group what it can look like for small but diverse teams to innovate the ways we talk about, teach about, and problem-solve around nuclear threat.

Creating a world free from nuclear weapons is the realm of the visionary and the iconoclast, but for some reason too few people like Richard Branson have set their sights on nuclear weapons.

Read the full article about focus on nuclear threats by Erika Gregory at NSquare.