How One Mom Sparked a National Movement with Shannon Watts

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twelve years ago, Shannon Watts was folding laundry when breaking news stopped her in her tracks: a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. The next morning, she woke up with a fire inside her, and turned her grief and rage into action. That action became Moms Demand Action, now part of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country. In today’s episode, Shannon joins Jessi Hempel to reflect on the grassroots journey that began in her kitchen and grew into a national movement. Shannon’s new book, Fired Up, is a call to action for women everywhere who are ready to turn their spark into action, but aren’t sure where to start. Jessi and Shannon discuss: Shannon’s journey from corporate PR to grassroots activism The power of starting before you feel ready Why burnout can be a turning point How women, especially mothers, are the hidden engine of societal change Lessons from more than a decade of advocacy and organizing Join the conversation at Hello Monday Office Hours. Catch us Wednesday at 3 PM ET on the LinkedIn News Page. See you there.

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn News.
0:05.9	I just sat down where I was and spent the rest of the day watching this horrific news unfold.
0:11.3	That 20 children and six educators were slaughtered in the sanctity of an American elementary school.
0:15.9	I went to bed devastated, and at some point during the night, that turned into abject rage. I woke up,
0:22.9	and I didn't know what to do with myself. Facebook was a very big deal with middle-aged women in 2012,
0:27.1	and I knew how to start a Facebook page. From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jesse Hempel,
0:34.1	and this is Hello Monday. It's our show about the changing nature of work
0:37.6	and how that work is changing all of us.
0:41.5	Now today's episode begins with a moment. That moment we've all had where something in our
0:46.5	local community or in the larger world strikes us as so egregious, so tragic and terrible
0:53.2	and just off the hook that you can't not do something.
0:58.0	You feel you must take action.
1:00.8	Now here's the thing, in the larger world, a lot of us feel kind of powerless, right?
1:05.4	A lot of the time, the problems around us seem so big, and we ask, well, what can I do?
1:12.7	Well, the answer to that,
1:19.0	as you will hear today, is a heck of a lot. Our guest today took that moment and transformed it into a national grassroots movement. That's right, we have Shannon Watts on the show,
1:25.4	founder of Mom's Demand Action.
1:28.6	Today, Mom's Demand Action is a part of every town for gun safety,
1:32.5	the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country.
1:37.0	This organization has had such success at the ballot box in corporate America.
1:42.7	They're making our lives safer. But this isn't how Shannon's story
1:47.5	started. No. It started back in 2012 when she was a Mama 5 folding laundry watching the news.
	...

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