ChangeCommunications CEO
Jo-Ann Mort, the founder and CEO, has a diverse strategic communications background in philanthropy, the Jewish community, electoral and progressive politics and elsewhere.
Jo-Ann was the director of communications for the Jewish Funders Network and created and directed the Communications Department for the U.S. Programs of the Open Society Institute, now the Open Society Foundations of the Soros foundations network, where she oversaw the communications and public education work and assisted grantees in their communications work.
For 13 years, she was director of communications for Unite and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, the predecessor unions to Workers United, an affiliate of SEIU. As associate director of communications for the American Jewish Congress in the early 1980s, she was also the founding director of the Women’s Commission, working with prominent feminist leaders in the U.S. and Israel to promote global women’s rights.
Jo-Ann was the director of the Democratic Agenda project, which promoted a progressive social and economic agenda inside the Democratic Party and was chaired by noted social activist Michael Harrington. Her background also includes press secretary for Carl McCall's campaign for New York State Lt. Governor, and senior staffer for two members of the New York State Assembly. She also worked in communications and publicity for Sarah Lawrence College and Farrar, Straus & Giroux publishers.
As a freelance journalist, Jo-Ann brings a particularly acute lens to work with journalists and editors. She is especially known for her writing and analysis about Israeli domestic life and Palestinians, and has reported from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza for the Chicago Tribune, the Forward newspaper, the American Prospect, the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, JTA, Foreign Policy magazine and more. A frequent contributor to national newspapers and magazines in the U.S., U.K. and Israel, Jo-Ann is also a regular contributor to tpmcafe.com, one of the most trafficked and well-regarded political blog sites on the web. She is a member of the editorial staff of Dissent magazine.
The co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel? (Cornell University Press) and editor of Not Your Father’s Union Movement: Inside the New AFL-CIO (Verso) and a contributor to numerous publications and anthologies, she has spoken widely at universities and in public forums in the U.S., Israel and Europe, for the Israel Women’s Network, the Socialist Group of the European Parliament, the Central European University Jewish Studies’ program, and more. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where she studied poetry, literature and philosophy.
Jo-Ann was the director of communications for the Jewish Funders Network and created and directed the Communications Department for the U.S. Programs of the Open Society Institute, now the Open Society Foundations of the Soros foundations network, where she oversaw the communications and public education work and assisted grantees in their communications work.
For 13 years, she was director of communications for Unite and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, the predecessor unions to Workers United, an affiliate of SEIU. As associate director of communications for the American Jewish Congress in the early 1980s, she was also the founding director of the Women’s Commission, working with prominent feminist leaders in the U.S. and Israel to promote global women’s rights.
Jo-Ann was the director of the Democratic Agenda project, which promoted a progressive social and economic agenda inside the Democratic Party and was chaired by noted social activist Michael Harrington. Her background also includes press secretary for Carl McCall's campaign for New York State Lt. Governor, and senior staffer for two members of the New York State Assembly. She also worked in communications and publicity for Sarah Lawrence College and Farrar, Straus & Giroux publishers.
As a freelance journalist, Jo-Ann brings a particularly acute lens to work with journalists and editors. She is especially known for her writing and analysis about Israeli domestic life and Palestinians, and has reported from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza for the Chicago Tribune, the Forward newspaper, the American Prospect, the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, JTA, Foreign Policy magazine and more. A frequent contributor to national newspapers and magazines in the U.S., U.K. and Israel, Jo-Ann is also a regular contributor to tpmcafe.com, one of the most trafficked and well-regarded political blog sites on the web. She is a member of the editorial staff of Dissent magazine.
The co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today’s Israel? (Cornell University Press) and editor of Not Your Father’s Union Movement: Inside the New AFL-CIO (Verso) and a contributor to numerous publications and anthologies, she has spoken widely at universities and in public forums in the U.S., Israel and Europe, for the Israel Women’s Network, the Socialist Group of the European Parliament, the Central European University Jewish Studies’ program, and more. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where she studied poetry, literature and philosophy.
View Jo-Ann Mort's profile