Samantha McCann

Samantha McCann builds and scales programs at the intersection of journalism, democracy, and civic health. She is currently Managing Director of Democracy Notes, a trade publication and field-building organization serving the U.S. democracy space.

Previously, she spent over a decade at the Solutions Journalism Network as a senior executive who helped grow the organization fivefold in staff and sevenfold in budget. She built a global network of thousands of journalists and hundreds of newsrooms, designed the competitive LEDE Fellowship (2% acceptance rate), created a train-the-trainers curriculum now used by 300+ certified trainers in 44 countries, and designed SJN's sell-out flagship event, The Solutions Journalism Summit. She also served as COO of Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative, a $4M nonpartisan research initiative tracking political violence and improving community resilience in the U.S.

Samantha teaches a core class at Columbia University (SIPA) on organizational strategy and leadership for social impact (DP Lab II), and is a Sulzberger Executive Leadership Fellow (Columbia Journalism School). She has spoken at conferences and universities in more than a dozen countries. She designs and leads strategy sessions, retreats and large-scale convenings for journalism and civic sector organizations through The Joinery Collective, her facilitation practice.

Samantha holds an M.P.A. from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and a B.A. in Political Science from Seattle University.

Education

• MPA, Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs
• BA in Political Science, Seattle University