ABOUT
About Progress Humanity
Progress Humanity is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2016 with an ambitious vision: a world without violent conflict.
We believe violent conflict is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Data science and forecasting can help identify emerging instability, anticipate how a conflict may develop and reveal possible pathways toward prevention, de-escalation or resolution. Strategic communication can turn that understanding into constructive action.
Lasting peace, however, requires more than ending an immediate crisis. It depends on economic opportunity, trusted communication and stronger relationships among communities, institutions and countries. Music, film, television, sports and other shared cultural experiences can create common ground, reduce distrust and make cooperation easier. Cultural attention can also encourage tourism, investment and local economic activity.
Progress Humanity brings these elements together—analysis, communication, culture and economic development—to help create the conditions necessary for greater stability and lasting peace.
Cassandra Campbell, Founder & Executive Director
Cassandra Campbell founded Progress Humanity in 2016 while completing her Master of Public Administration at the University of San Francisco and completing several special studies on international conflict at UCLA. The organization grew from the intersection of her graduate study of conflict and public policy and her earlier career across music and entertainment, technology and strategic communications.
While traveling internationally for music tours and live events, Cassandra saw how quickly music, entertainment and shared cultural experiences could create common ground among people from very different countries and backgrounds. Her work in technology also introduced her to the growing potential of data science and forecasting.
After arriving in Washington and considering her next career move, Cassandra began exploring how those experiences could contribute to international affairs and public policy. Through conversations with government and diplomatic communities, she discovered a significant disconnect between Washington and the entertainment industry. Government institutions understood the global reach of artists and popular culture but often had no clear way to engage them. At the same time, artists traveling internationally could face security, political or cultural questions without knowing whom to contact.
Cassandra founded Progress Humanity to bridge that divide and bring together the fields that had shaped her work: data science, forecasting, strategic communications, public policy, culture and economic development. Her study of conflict and the Arab Spring strengthened her conviction that these disciplines could be used together to anticipate violent conflict and identify opportunities to prevent it, reduce it or help bring it to an end.
Cassandra is a longtime member of the Recording Academy and the National Press Club.
The Bourdain Effect
Following Anthony Bourdain’s death, Cassandra was struck by the response from diplomatic representatives around the world. Their tributes reflected something larger than admiration for a television personality: Bourdain had become a trusted cultural intermediary, introducing global audiences to countries and communities through storytelling that felt personal, respectful and authentic.
The economic impact of his work was not intentional, but it was widespread and remarkably durable. Embassy representatives described a recurring pattern across the places he featured: increased tourism, greater international interest and new visibility for local businesses. Restaurants, cafés and neighborhoods continued to receive visitors who had discovered them through his programs, sometimes many years after an episode first aired. What began as authentic cultural storytelling had produced an unplanned but meaningful economic effect.
Drawing on her graduate training in public administration, she formalized that recurring pattern as the Bourdain Effect™ in 2021. The framework examines how trusted international media exposure can generate recognition and economic activity that support tourism, local development, foreign direct investment and GDP growth. Within Progress Humanity’s broader mission, those outcomes can expand opportunity, strengthen local economies and help reduce economic conditions that contribute to instability and violent conflict.
