New BID Director Jason K. Angell Biography

Jason K. Angell most recently worked as the Executive Director of the Center for Working Families (“the Center”), a non-profit ‘Think-&-Act Tank’ that works closely with the Working Families Party and other community-based organizations, policy advocates, labor unions and elected officials across New York State to develop and implement ambitious policy reforms. While at the Center, Mr. Angell oversaw the development of the Green Jobs-Green Homes NY program model (put forward in a report published jointly with the Center for American Progress), which was signed into state law in October, 2009 as the Green Jobs – Green NY Act with $112 million directed to the program. It remains a leading example for building large scale public-private partnerships to catalyze energy-efficiency and has drawn attention for possible national replication.

In addition, while at the Center Mr. Angell became a leading advocate in the fight to make the New York income tax code more progressive, being called as an expert to testify before the NYS Select Committee on Budget and Tax Reform (with his arguments later cited in the official committee report). Based largely on the tax reform model put forward by the Center, New York passed historic income tax reform laws in 2009 that raised $3.64 billion in its first year. In addition, Mr. Angell led successful organization-building efforts, securing new private foundation support of over $700,000 by establishing relationships with leading funders like the Rockefeller Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and the Open Society Institute and raising the Center’s profile by organizing a State Policy Conference in 2009 attended by over four hundred key elected officials and policy-makers.

From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Angell was the founding director of the Collaborative for Building After-School Systems, located at The After-School Corporation (TASC) in New York City. The Collaborative is a joint effort by after-school leaders in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Providence and Washington, D.C., to change national policy in order to reform public education and increase support for after-school programs.

From 2003 to 2005, Mr. Angell worked as the lead community organizer on an initiative sponsored by Paul Vallas, CEO of the School District of Philadelphia, to create community action plans to reduce violence in public high schools. He also served as co-director of the Urban Voter Campaign in 2004, a partnership with the League of Women Voters and the Mayor’s Office of Philadelphia that helped increase voter turn-out by 15% over 2000.

From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Angell served as Director of Education Retention at the Native American Family Center in Portland, Oregon, where he designed and managed programs that helped hundreds of at-risk children and youth stay in school. Together with other partners, he founded a political advocacy group of community organizations that won $2 million dollars in additional county funding for children and family support services. As a result of this work, Mr. Angell was appointed by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to the State Advisory Team on Underrepresented and Minority Student Achievement.

Mr. Angell received a B.A. in Political Science and English from Vassar College in 2000 and an M.P.A. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2006. Born in New York City, Mr. Angell spent much of his youth in Garrison, NY, where his family has resided for eighty years. Mr. Angell is currently starting a sustainable farm with his wife Jocelyn Apicello in Garrison, NY, along with teaching course in politics and government at Bronx Community College at the City College of New York.