Justin Ruben: Organizing 5 Million People

Justin was recruited to join Green Corps by his brother, Adam, an alumnus of the Green Corps Class of 1993. Together they have transformed MoveOn from an online action center into a grassroots organizing power-house.

Justin has 13 years of experience as an organizer in the environmental and labor movement.

After graduating from Datmouth College, Justin got his training with Green Corps in the class of 1997.  After graduating from Green Corps, Justin worked with Pesticide Watch in California as a community organizer, helping neighborhoods deal with the health impacts of pesticide pollution. 

Justin also worked as an organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union in New Haven, CT while getting his Masters Degree from Yale Forestry School.

In 2004, Justin took over the position of Organizing Director with MoveOn. As Organizing Director, Justin supervised the organization's day‐to‐day online and offline campaign work. He was a primary architect of MoveOn's field organizing program, helping launch MoveOn's initial organizing efforts in the 2004 elections and creating MoveOn's network of local member councils. In 2006, he ran MoveOn's "Call for Change," a voter turnout effort that recruited more than 100,000 volunteers to make a total seven million calls to voters in key House and Senate districts, helping tip Congress to the Democrats.

And in 2008, he supervised the email organizing component of MoveOn’s electoral program, which turned out a million MoveOn volunteers for the Obama campaign.

Last winter, Justin took over as the Executive Director of MoveOn. One of his first jobs as the new ED-- a private meeting with the White House and President Barack Obama. Since February, MoveOn has been working to assist and broaden the President's agenda, including health care reform and building a clean energy economy.