Sonoma Speaker Series

The Sonoma Speaker Series had a stellar year in 2023. Its been an incredible journey, and we are managing to do this work as an all-volunteer non-profit organization. We are beginning to attract many more speakers with name recognition, and we are proud to say that every event sold-out! We usually ended up with a waiting list of people hoping someone would cancel so they could get a ticket. Our event in September, featuring NY Times Op-Ed columnist, David Brooks, sold out in 4 hours! We kept our audiences fascinated and engaged by offering a wide array of topics that not only interested them but made them think differently afterwards. We kicked off the year with Career FBI Special Agent, Katherine Schweit, who authored the book, Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis. She offered parents some great advice while our country was in the midst of a massive amount of school shootings.Javier Zamora, author of the NY Times bestselling memoir, Solito, shared his own harrowing journey to the US as an unaccompanied nine-year-old, giving us all a unique and unforgettable glimpse into the realities of child migration.Internationally renowned humanitarian photographer, Lisa Kristine, took the stage in April. For more than 30 years she has documented indigenous peoples and social causes in more than 150 countries across six continents. Her work navigates the emotional landscapes of her subjects and their environments, driving awareness around causes such as human trafficking, indigenous wisdom, and global unity.Since our audience is mostly adults with an average age of 45-80, Dr. Eric Verdin was extremely popular. He is President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. The Buck is the first and the largest independent research institute in the world that is focused solely on aging. At the Buck, his lab studies the relationship between aging and the immune system.In an effort to broaden our base and attract a younger set of people, we hosted Kevin Roose. He writes and speaks frequently on topics including automation and artificial intelligence, social media, disinformation and cybersecurity, and digital wellness.Our events featuring these next three speakers were by far our fastest sell-outs. David Brooks, Jared Diamond and Kori Schake had the audiences engaged, enlightened, and on their feet giving multiple standing ovations. Our on-going partnership with Readers Books, our local independent bookstore, has continued to be a positive spark for their retail sales, as well as a positive incentive for authors to accept our proposals, as their books are sold in the lobby before and after their speaker presentation.We have also been able to increase the amount we can pay speakers, due to an influx of donations and sponsors. This attributes to getting more and more well-known people to take our stage. We are excited for the future, as we now believe anything is possible!