jumpslide

strategies for social change

Email: erin@jumpslide.com

Erin

From street protests to stadium stages, Erin Potts has helped grow movements by grounding them in culture and community.

Erin’s work started in the 1990s when at 21 years old she co-founded the Milarepa Fund and the large-scale message concert series, the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, with the Beastie Boys. She later went on to create Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), a nonprofit that helped more than 1,300 musicians step into activism. Over thirty years, she’s designed culture-shifting campaigns, raised tens of millions for justice efforts, and forged unexpected alliances across sectors. She’s also an accomplished cultural strategist and researcher, having co-authored widely used texts in cultural and narrative strategy. Her work continues to shape how artists, storytellers, audiences, and organizers create change together.

Her work has been featured in Billboard and The New York Times, and she has been nominated for several prestigious awards, including the Reebok Human Rights Award and the Charles Bronfman Prize.

In 2026, Erin is launching Freedom Needs a Soundtrack, a campaign and audio storytelling project that celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts and the power of culture to spark collective action. She also continues her work as a consultant specializing in cultural and narrative strategies, including creative and content strategy, learning and evaluation, and professional coaching. She is frequently invited to give talks and lectures on the intersections of art, culture, and change.

Big projects I’ve led:

Select Publications:

All Medium articles can be found here.

Gen X Questioned Power. Now We Hold It. What We Do With It Matters.

The Storytellers’ Guide to Changing the World 2.0 and Field Companion. By Erin Potts and Kirk Cheyfitz.

This Beautiful Moment: Our Latest Report on Impact Storytelling. A report that maps and gives recommendations to the field of narrative and cultural strategies. By Erin Potts, Dom Lowell and Liz Manne.

At The Speed of Trust. Five ways to strengthen our narrative rapid response power. By Erin Potts and Tracy Van Slyke.

Hard to Make a Song ‘Bout Something Other than the Money, A Cultural Audit on Popular Music and Poverty

Expanding Visions of Gender in Popular Culture, a cultural audit

Culture Matters (author of chapter on earned income & cultural products)

“Musicians as Allies in Social Change”

Musicians Lend Their Creativity to Register Voters

The Many Crises of Nepal February 23, 2016

Select Interviews:

Gen X spent our youth questioning power. Now we actually hold some. I wrote about what that shift means — and what we might do with it. (link in bio.) 📸 by @dannybones64 Have a read and if it resonates, please share with other Gen Xers. and
when I first started working for Tibetan freedom in the mid-80s, there were only a couple of hundred Tibetans in NYC. today there are over 15,000 and there are Tibetan community centers, like the one I was invited to today on a block that the city of
big things are coming! spent the afternoon with one of the best music photographers/directors to ever look through a lens. thanks for all the stories (and boxes) @dannybones64 ! #comingsoon @freedomneedsasoundtrack
37 years ago today, I turned in my first research paper on Tibet. (Found it while preparing to share some of my concert archives through @freedomneedsasoundtrack) It's wild to think that when I wrote this report at 16, I was just starting to dedicate