NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) – HeadCount, the nonpartisan, nonprofit voter registration organization has announced the appointment of environmental activist and philanthropist Jessy Tolkan as Chairperson of its Board of Directors. Tolkan will support HeadCount in furthering its mission to register voters and inspire civic engagement. She succeeds music industry vet Peter Shapiro, who recently completed his four-year term as Board Chair and will maintain a seat on the Board.
“I’ve spent the last two decades as a fighter for democracy and I couldn’t be more inspired and revved up to join HeadCount as their Board Chair during this critical moment in America,” said Tolkan. “HeadCount has been a trailblazer from the very beginning, and I look forward to supporting this organization in its next era of innovation and citizen engagement. ”
Tolkan is currently President and CEO of Drive Agency, a vehicle for decision-makers to influence their stakeholders to unlock social change in the world. Before founding Drive Agency in 2021, Tolkan served as Partner at PURPOSE and Co-Founder of Purpose Labs, which developed ground-breaking approaches to campaigning and collaborating with philanthropy to drive change. She remains a collaborator and senior advisor at The Purpose Climate Lab, which has raised and invested over $40 million in climate campaigning over the past six years.
She enters the role after a period of growth for HeadCount. In Shapiro’s four years as board chair, he helped more than quadruple HeadCount’s annual operating budget and saw the organization register over 600,000 voters – more than half the 1.2M voters the organization has registered since 2004.
Recently, HeadCount registered over 207,000 voters for the 2022 midterms, a record-breaking number for the organization during the midterm election cycle. Shapiro has produced multiple benefit concerts to support HeadCount, including performances by Jackson Browne, Questlove, Bob Weir, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, and Phil Lesh. In 2020, Shapiro and HeadCount’s Executive Director, Andy Bernstein, were jointly recognized as “Changemakers” by Billboard.
“Being the Chair of HeadCount has been a life highlight for me, and I look forward to continuing as a Board Member to support voter participation from as many people as possible in our elections,” said Shapiro. “I am super excited that Jessy, who has been a rock star in the broader activism space for many years, will be HeadCount’s next Chair. America is a stronger country when everybody votes, and we are going to keep fighting to achieve that goal!”
