Abby Dobson

Candidate for President

I am deeply committed to the equality, dignity, and protection of women and girls everywhere, particularly for those who call New York home. I am a feminist, from head to toe. I believe in freedom for women and girls. To that end, fearless feminist advocacy on issues that impact women and girls, in ways big and small, is crucial to building a world where women and girls, of all backgrounds, can thrive and not just survive all manner of traumas. In fact, the older I get the more I regard shared models of leadership that privilege truly collaborative relationships and interactions, transparency, radical empathy, and bold visions for transforming cultures and systems at every level. Moreover, I believe in a notion of power that privileges relational and horizontal leadership that centers membership and every voice represented. I believe in the mission, work, legacy and promise of NOW-NYC and wish to continue supporting and steering the direction and vision of the organization.

By way of background, I earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor’s degree from Williams College in Political Science and History. I have over 15 years of professional experience in Corporate Immigration. While in college, I co-founded a women of color group. As a law student, I helped survivors of domestic violence in Washington, DC secure civil protection orders in the Sex Discrimination Clinic. As an activist, I use my voice in service of social justice movement building deeply inspired by intersectional movements for transformative societal change. As Artist-in-Residence with the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), I work on the #SayHerName campaign to end police brutality against Black and Brown women and girls. I recently joined the North Star Fund’s Let Us Breathe Community Funding Committee, an activist-led grant making body for the Let Us Breathe Fund that supports grassroots organizing demanding police accountability. I am also a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, a women’s chorus born out of the Women’s March that cultivate, shares, and embodies music-based activism to inspire community action in order to produce a just society.

I began volunteering with NOW-NYC in 2015. My association with the organization began when I became a member of NOW-NYC’s Activist Alliance, a year-long program for feminist activists focused on developing organizing and advocacy skills in service of women’s rights. During this time, I served as a founding member of NOW-NYC’s Intersectionality Committee co-developing and co-presenting an Intersectionality Workshop at the Annual National and New York State NOW Conferences in 2015 and 2016, respectively. From 2018 to 2019, I served as an At-Large Board Member with NOW-NYC. Since 2020, I have served as President.

Judi Polson

Candidate for Chair

My Goals for the Position: continue to build the strength of NOW-NYC; seek ways to keep NYC and New York State a haven for women by:

• Finding ways to maximize the impact of the efforts exerted by the Board and staff, as well as those of our time-and-money-strapped membership
• Continue to support proper financial and process oversight to ensure maximum benefit for the time and money spent by the Chapter, as well as maximum sustainability
• Continue to sharpen NOW’s communications focus at all levels

Please Read Before You Vote: I am eager to help build on NOW-NY’s successes and fight for more, by speaking truth to power and empowering all women.

• I have always been proud to call myself a feminist and have lobbied face-to-face with Jerry Nadler, Charles Schumer, and Kirsten Gillibrand, and had a lobbying relationship with former Senator Claire McCaskill. I lobbied several members of the NYS Assembly as part of NOW’s successful effort to end child marriage in New York State.
• I led NOW-associated delegations to the 2004 March for Women’s Lives and the historic 2017 Women’s March, as well as the 2018 and 2019 Women’s Marches in NYC. In 2020, I made 1,200+ GotV calls to battleground states.
• I have participated in clinic defense in the Bronx and Manhattan
• I am a resourceful team player who has, for 30+ years, negotiated corporate America’s bureaucratic minefields by focusing on results through strategy, execution, and partnerships.

Professional Associations

• 2021-present: National NOW Elections Committee
• NOW National Board, Northern District, 2016-2018. Served on National Campaigns: End the Criminalization of Trauma, Advance Voting Rights; contributor to the Structure, Process & Budget Committee
• Board Chair, NOW-NYS, 2016-present
• Board Chair, NOW-NYC, 2008-2009, 2011-2019
• Board Member at Large, NOW-NYC, 2010-2011
• Vice-President of Development, NOW-NYC, 2005-2007
• Director of Membership Processing, NOW-NYC, 2003
• Lifetime Member, NOW (NYS, NYC – committee work includes Repro Rights and Women in the Workplace)
• Member, Planned Parenthood (USA & NY)
• Member, Amnesty International Action Network
• Member, American Association of University Women (AAUW)
• Member, Feminist Majority Foundation
• Union member: Actors’ Equity Association (AEA); SAG-AFTRA
• Member, PMINYC (Project Management Institute, New York City chapter)
• Senior Member, Society for Technical Communication (STC)
• Contributor, New York Abortion Action Fund (NYAAF)
• Former Member, Strategic Leadership Forum
• Former Member, Toulaine Board of Directors

Arthur Lundquist

Candidate for Secretary

Having served the Board of Directors of NOW-NYC as Board Secretary from 2011 to 2018, as Acting Secretary from 2019 to 2020, and as Board Secretary again in 2020 and 2021, it has been a honor to be an active part of our Chapter Board or Women’s Justice NOW Board meetings. Thank you all for the privilege of putting my professional skills as a law firm secretary to the service of NOW-NYC and Women’s Justice NOW. To put my secretarial skills towards the tasks of taking notes at Board meetings, turning those notes into minutes, sending them around to our Board for additions and corrections, then to have them approved at the next meeting and put at last into the Chapter’s archives. And as we hopefully break away from the confines of Covid, I look forward to having those meetings in person again, and to once again spend the evening before each meeting slicing up vegetables and cheese for refreshments.

This, as well as my experiences as Membership Coordinator from 2008 to 2010, and as a NOW chapter member by lobbying in Albany, going on electioneering bus trips out of state, participating in national and state conferences, or attending protests, rallies, and actions – all at the side of our inspiring Board and chapter membership – have allowed me to proudly claim a personal part in NOW-NYC’s goals of fostering gender equality, choice, and bringing a supportive voice to those who struggle against gender-based violence, ignorance, and indifference. A part I hope to continue into this year and the years to come.