ABOUt Us Hi, We’re Crooked Ideas
Crooked Ideas a nonprofit working in partnership with your hopeful-but-anxious news-obsessed pals at Crooked Media. Our mission is to engage audiences around the biggest policy debates shaping our world.
What is Crooked Ideas?
Crooked Ideas brings to social issues what Crooked Media brings to politics: a proven formula for creating content that makes complex topics digestible and entertaining, with a clear pathway for helping people turn outrage into civic action.
With the support of our funders, Crooked Ideas collaborates with Crooked Media to explore and dive deeply into the most important issues of our time. We do this across the Crooked Media Network and with other media partners: via top podcasts in news, politics, culture and comedy that air all week long, original YouTube series, a daily newsletter, always-on social channels, and a slate of award-winning documentary podcast series. Basically, anywhere you follow Crooked Media, you’ll find us.
Crooked Ideas formed in September 2024 and launched our first campaign centered around climate – The Anti-Doom Initiative – with the goal of making the Inflation Reduction Act digestible and entertaining. In the two months leading up to the 2024 election, we reached millions of people, championing climate policy.
Meet The team
Executive Director
Kristen Joiner (she/her)
Kristen is an award-winning social entrepreneur, nonprofit executive, executive producer, and writer with over 25 years of experience using the power of narrative and community organizing to drive social change across climate, public health, and civic engagement. As an international consultant, her recent work has ranged from leading major program assessments across seven Pacific Island countries for UNFPA to designing and spearheading climate investment strategy for a New Zealand-based early-stage impact fund. Previously, Kristen served as Executive Director of Sustain Dane, a leading climate organization in Wisconsin, recognized by the Obama Administration as a national model for public-private partnership under her tenure. She co-founded Badger Rock, a green powered public middle school and urban farm designed to serve its local community. She is also co-founder of Scenarios USA, which pioneered a human rights–based approach to sexuality education through youth storytelling. Under the Scenarios brand, she co–executive produced 20 short films written by teens and directed by top-tier filmmakers, including Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Suits) and David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny). The organization’s work earned multiple honors, including the Novelli Award for Excellence in Applied Social Marketing, and helped shape global sexuality education frameworks now used by WHO, UNESCO, and UNFPA. Kristen co-authored Being Heumann and Rolling Warrior, the memoirs of the disability rights icon Judy Heumann. Being Heumann is being adapted into a feature film for Apple TV, directed by Academy Award–winner Sian Heder (C.O.D.A.), with Kristen as executive producer. Her writing has appeared in various outlets including Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ms. Magazine, Stuff and Pulling Together: A Handbook for Community Change. Kristen wishes she could spend every winter camped out on the shores of Lake Superior.
Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships & Fundraising
Emily McAuliffe (she/her)
Emily manages partnerships, policy, and fundraising efforts for Crooked Ideas. She previously worked in the Biden Administration, doing climate policy and public engagement at the White House and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Before that, she worked in Congress on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, most recently as a Legislative Assistant on the Environment Subcommittee. She began her career where most lifelong political nerds do: working on a Congressional campaign in New Hampshire. Emily is a big Duke basketball fan and when she’s not working or watching Duke basketball, you can find her running through Central Park or daydreaming about the next time she can lie on the beach with a good book.
Sr. Director, Impact Operations
Justine Howe (she/her)
Justine is Crooked’s Senior Director of Impact Operations where she works with the company’s nonprofit partners (like Crooked Ideas!) to turn their good intentions into real-world action. Justine first joined Crooked in 2018 as Office Manager, and has also served as their Chief of Staff and Director of Operations & Strategic Initiatives. Outside of work, she’s a certified yoga instructor, birth doula, aspiring Pilates instructor – and a mom. A Minnesota native, she regularly daydreams about jumping into Lake Minnetonka.
Marketing Manager
Carla Hawkes (she/her)
Carla is a Creative Strategy & Growth Consultant and the Founder of –And Counting, a digital growth consultancy based in Venice Beach, CA. She got her start in digital media at POPSUGAR, the #1 independent publisher for millennial women. As Vice President of Video, Carla oversaw POPSUGAR’S content strategy and helped scale the brand to an audience of 45M+ young people. Since venturing off on her own, Carla has launched growth strategies for high-visibility brands like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Vox Media, Mattel’s Monster High, and more. Carla is also a Founding Member of the nonpartisan voting organization, I am a voter. where she served as Co-Executive Director during the 2024 General Election. She loves to paddleboard and wants to keep our beaches and oceans Instagrammable.
Sr. Social Producer
Jon Millstein (he/him)
Jon is a writer and producer who has written digital videos for Funny Or Die, Clickhole, and Comedy Central, along with episodes of television for Disney TVA and Mythical Entertainment. He was a longtime head writer on Crooked’s What A Day podcast and did live comedy for years at LA’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Jon is also an avid hiker, skateboarder, and an undergraduate neuroscience major who is currently exploring the limits of the human brain’s attentional capacity as Senior Social Producer for Crooked Ideas. He was recently refused entry to a trail in the Eastern Sierras for forgetting to pack a bear canister.
Social Media Associate
Jessica Zubia Calsada (she/her)
Jessica is a writer focused on climate change and politics. She began her journalism career creating short-form, educational environmental pieces through her own passion project, and later started writing for Impact Media. In addition to writing, Jessica has managed social media accounts for environmental nonprofits, including Intersectional Environmentalist. With Crooked Ideas, she creates social-first graphics that break down climate news or highlight positive climate stories, and manages the organization’s social media. Outside of the environmental online space, Jessica is usually reading a memoir, watching a dramedy, or listening to KCRW.
How to support us
Crooked Ideas is committed to building support for the biggest issues of our time. If you want to help us power the next big idea or have a media inquiry, get in touch:
info@crookedideas.org