welcome folks we're going to give it a a few seconds to get let people get into the room here so we'll we'll get started here shortly welcome excited to have you [Music] here right right well I think we're at three so Marta is it okay if we get started that'd be fine super great to meet you great so um good afternoon everybody welcome thank you so much for for joining us today for our 20 23 series finale of the conversations at the Washington Center um if you don't know by now conversations this
um event uh series is an alumni exclusive series that brings you um up close and personal with your fellow alumni uh experts to discuss timely topics that shape our world my name is Melissa Curr and just a little bit about me I attended TWC in 1999 which seems like forever ago um and I live in Cincinnati where I'm the brand where I'm a brand Communications manager for proactor and gamble I'm proud to serve as a Midwest uh Regional representative of the alumni Leadership Council of TWC um so we'
d love to hear from you all and so if you would like we'd love to have you start adding introductions in the chat so uh we G to drop your name if you can uh TWC year and then where you're joining from um and you are um also welcome to drop your LinkedIn profile as well and I think I can even do that myself but I might have to do that you know as we as we get started so um the leadership alumni the um the leader the alumni Leadership Council that's hard to say I launched earlier this year with 14
Regional Representatives who support and help plan and execute the Washington Center's alumni programming both locally reg regionally and then also virtually so before um I introduce today's special guest and speaker um I want to share a a couple quick housekeeping tips so as you um already probably know this event is being recorded um we are we have the chat room open and um so please add your comments and questions and feedbacks as we as we go along um and we're going to have our conversation
with Mara here shortly we will um hopefully have some time for a couple questions you all also sent in questions ahead of time so we we got those ready to go as well so now um it's time to introduce our excellent speaker uh Dr Marta L tiato who was a 1981 Washington Center alumni as well as an active member of the Washington Center board Marta has served as president and CEO of consumer reports since 2014 and prior to joining CR Marta served at the Ford Foundation the Aspen Institute the partne
rship for public service and the office of Senator Bill Bradley of uh New Jersey you'll also want to check out Marta's latest book called buyer aware harnessing our consumer power for a s a safe fair and transparent Marketplace which Chronicles the importance of consumer rights in creating an inclusive economy and strong democracy Mart is an expert on issues facing consumers and has been featured in several major Outlets including CNN men Forbes Marketplace morning report New York Magazine's piv
ot podcast in USA Today just a few of my favorite Publications she's earned a PhD in political science from Yale and a bachelor's from Fairley Dickinson University so Marta welcome thank you for being here oh thank you Melissa it's terrific to be back and to be in room with so many remarkable TDMs yes we have a we have a a proud community so it's it's good to get together so um so I'm going to jump in and and get started here so we have a few questions Marta um and so to start us off could you s
hare um with everyone how your path brought you to Consumer Reports and why you decided this was an important time to write a book on consumer power well first thank you so much for having me and uh for all of you in the room thanks for taking the time some of you maybe you're on the west coast but some of you are here and so it's a work day so your secret is safe with me um we can all be in this room together um what how did I come to Consumer Reports it's a great question I certainly didn't uh
grow up saying one day I want to be uh the CEO of consumer reports but I did grow up uh saying to myself um regardless of which path I took I take I want to make a difference uh I I want to contribute uh to society I I want to leave something behind that is better and mainly in gratitude and I think that totally stems from my own life Journey my origin story my parents immigrated to the US from Cuba when I was uh a little girl and they left everything behind because they believed in an idea uh
they believed in Democratic freedoms and economic equity and that they could coexist and Thrive and in the middle of a revolution they saw that promise dissipate and so they came to the us and that was a tremendous sacrifice i' like to say that my biggest break was their biggest heartbreak uh because it must have been incredibly hard to leave with four toddlers uh and to you know blaze a new Trail but it it just makes you so aware of how fragile even what you think of as a democracy or as in gov
ernment institutions are and so it made me so curious about um Washington and about how one has to create a healthy democracy and and so I I thought it was an interesting time for myself to write uh a book by our aware to tell that larger story about our democracy that I think um it really can only flourish if we have a Marketplace that is fair and that's just for everyone and so the book uh tries to reveal what what's holding us back how can we as consumers Forge a path for Change and and it wa
s also um a recognition that we're at a Crossroads the balance of power um has tipped in more in favor of of corporate power and putting more power in the hands of companies not the people in charge and we live in a in an age where so many of the consumer protections that we fought so hard for in our 87e history are at risk because they don't apply um to what has become a very new reality and that's the digital Marketplace so um I do think that we are at a new frontier where we can sort of pave
a path for the kinds of Consumer Protections we need you know as as um as digital citizens and that's what the book is it's it's really a handbook and A playbook for how to grow your Consumer Power yeah and I know that you joined um in 2014 and so you've seen this evolution of um like the big four I know in your book you talk about the big four um and and I know you talk in your book about uh your family and your origin story so that's that's a great um piece of of the book if you all want to ch
eck it out um and you mentioned about democracy and you know we we are in a Frau time in our democracy and um we know that there's very little trust in institutions or or even the government and how do you um can you share a little bit of how you see you know this idea of consumer rights as civil rights yeah know that's that's like the question I get asked most often because I talk about so many things in the book and I also make this I I put a stake in the ground and I say consumer rights are c
ivil rights and so people hear that and they're like what do you mean by that Marta and I think it's pretty straightforward um I I think both consumer rights and civil rights are inextricably linked if you think about our civil rights uh that's the ability for us as Citizens to fully participate in social and political systems and when you think about what are consumer rights I think it's really about having the guarantee that you're treated fairly in a critical part of those systems and that's
the marketplace like everyone deserves a fair Shake in the marketplace regardless of where you live the color of your skin your gender whoever you choose to love um and I think we as consumer Advocates know otherwise that not everybody is treated fairly that the marketplace is not trans parent and if you think of the marketplace as the place you go to to reach your aspirations to get a college loan uh to get you know car insurance if you drive a car you have to have car insurance well how is the
marketplace treating you are you being guided into a loan that's going to put you in a whirl pool of debt uh what we know from our investigations uh in 2017 we did an investigation with propublica and we found that uh car insurance which all all of us need to have if we want to drive a car um you think about car insurance as like oh well the premium that I pay is related to how good of a driver I am not the case you know the algorithm that drives that that price point for you is driven by other
things that have nothing to do with your driving and what we discovered in the investigation was that it was really more contingent it was more related to the ZIP code that you lived in and so what we found was that if you lived in a black Brown neighborhood as opposed to the adjacent white neighborhood um with a similar accident a risk and cost you were paying if you're black and brown 30% higher for your car insurance and that's just one example and they're many um so that's I think what I me
an by consumer rights are civil rights um it it I think it it demonstrate just How Deeply intertwined these are can we really be um call our democracy fair and a road to opportunity for others if the marketplace is not transparent and we don't hold companies accountable uh for the kinds of roadblocks that they put on our own aspirations for our family and for ourselves yeah it's um thinking about um like the equality piece that really um uh strikes uh of important you know like trying to think a
bout making sure that there equality as like a citizen um as a um and as a consumer it's it is very intertwined yeah and the other thing Melissa a lot it with a lot of people don't know we were founded in 1936 so we've been around a long time and one of our first founding board members Was A Philip Randolph and in 1963 he was one of the founders and leaders of the March on Washington for jobs and freedom um and and he was also uh was able to unionize the Pullman's Union uh way back when which wa
s mostly a black Union and uh I've always kept this quote near and dear to me because I think it demonstrates the point he said that you know a community is only Democratic when the humblest and the weakest person can enjoy the highest civil economic and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess and um I always get a great sense of pride in in that comment because I think he had such foresight and understanding how the civil and the economic um and the social are really intertwine
d wow that um yes the and I think he you have the his quote in your book as well so I do I do um and thank you for reading it you caught that yes yes um of course so um thinking about uh Innovations and like you kind of touched about this uh like digital like digital Marketplace so like Innovations are developing faster than ever in this digital Marketplace and what do you believe are some of the most important considerations for charting our consumer focused digital future well I uh you know co
nsumer Force we we Embrace Innovation we are Gadget Geeks Geeks we love it when we see new safety features that um are keeping drivers safer pedestrians safer and so we look at that and we say that's terrific um and we look at uh products that are um you know way back in the day you were you afraid your toaster was going to blow up it's very different dangers now and we're we're talking about connected products and um so so the flip side of that connectivity and of that Innovation is that it is
racing at a speed much faster than any kind of oversight uh either around safety around your own personal identity and the data um and so we take a hard look at um how can we evolve Innovation um in a way that puts consumers first right when you think of all the free stuff that's on the Internet it's like oh this is great I'm gonna get this is free and and well it's actually not free you're giving up a lot of your own rights and your data each time uh you get tracked or you you are hacked or um
you are a victim of uh cyber security scams you you name it and so when when you see that premium sign uh I think that means that you're the product and you're what's being leveraged and we like to um recognize that um for for consumers to have an equal footing we have to be designing things with consumers in mind you can design uh more ethical AI one can design products that don't put old the burden on you to make sure that all your privacy controls are are are aligned you know the the default
is completely porous and why is it that our security and our privacy have become a setting instead of a right on our tools and so those are the kinds of changes and upgrades that we want to see in the market in the digital Marketplace um for all consumers yeah and I think about how different the world is just um like when I was um at TWC in 1999 there was no social media like um you know in in a way it's it's um like I just think about how long like how different the um you experience the world
as a consumer like it's a it's a different experience now so um like if it is and and think about the benefits like um you thought 1999 was a long time ago how do you think I feel you know I I was the class of 1981 and let me tell you something that was way pre- internet and Not only was it pre- internet but my uh my college did not uh was not a participant in the TWC so I went to a neighboring college and the uh to use their library and there was what was back in the day called a bulletin board
now they're all C you know now they're all digital and I saw this sign for tww and I said like I want to do an internship my college doesn't have one and so I signed up for one that way now I mean you've got so many things at your fingertips and the problem isn't like you know a lack of information it's that what is the information that you can trust right where where do I you know where do I what what parts of this uh is is actually trustworthy and so to me it what what I think really ignites
our passion here at CR right now is because I I think the kind of work that we do trying to bring trustworthy data and facts and science to the marketplace is really about uh as relevant today as you can imagine we are more relevant today than then only because you know where do you turn to if you want something that is being generated by a nonprofit that doesn't take advertising and that is transparent uh about the work we do and how we test our products so that means we're putting consumers fi
rst we're not putting uh the you know as a nonprofit we're we're really um not beholden to anyone other than the Consumer right wow well and you you had mentioned about um like consumer reports and you know we all know um some of the history involving Consumer Reports like my um my parents um always trusted the the magazine on you know choosing the um the products and um Grandparents were into that as well and and I know that uh Consumer Reports has such a story history and standing up for Consu
mer safety um I know there's examples around uh seat belts making seat belts mandatory and every new car um talking about the um sounding the alarm on cigarettes what are some of the um recent safety issues that Consumer Reports has focused on and what should um those who are attending on this session aware of well thank you for that and I appreciate that some of the older folks in your family are still reading the magazine they love that magazine but they're you know um what you all are are usi
ng is is really the digital um whether that be the website or the apps or some of the other tools that I'll talk about um to keep you plugged into how to engage in the and with your power on the mark in the marketplace and how to get fair and transparent transactions that you can trust um well let me take let's start with the cars uh since that's a real sweet spot for us I mean I think um if you're thinking about buying a car you're thinking about either buying a used car or a new car you you wa
nt to jump into the information we're providing for you knowing that as I said we we don't accept any advertising we have a 375 acre test track in Connecticut where we test our cars and we really run them through uh great deal of rigor but if you think about seat belts I mean uh all of us think well you know seat belts something that was always in a car we always thought about safety that wasn't the case right so uh our Founders had to fight to make sure that it was mandatory that you had a seat
Bel in your car and the technology that we have today whether it be a backup camera or pedestrian warning Lane changing warning that's remarkable life-saving technology we now have all the data that suggest that it is uh a life-saving technology but what you're finding is that it it's still not mandatory right a lot of those things are considered luxury add-ons so what we're saying is that life-saving technology should not be a luxury it should be something that's available to everyone it shoul
d be standard in every car just like a seat belt is standard that is the technology and lifesing Technology of today that's augmenting the seat belt um so we're fighting for that we finally won the fight for the backup camera which is for anybody who has children um that's incredibly um that's an incredible tool that uh you get some comfort from so yeah it was only I guess maybe three years ago that every car coming off uh you know a new lot had to have that backup camera the other thing recentl
y that we succeeded in was um believe it or not over every year you see about five ,000 people end up in the emergency room because a piece of furniture has tipped over and more often than not they tip over on children what we know about kids is they like to open those drawers and climb on the dresser and because there is no U mandatory standard for the physics of a of a dresser so you go to a a place well this this is a good price I'll get that and you're bringing it into your home you don't re
alize you're bringing something into your home that hasn't been tested and that's the Assumption so many of us make when we go to a Marketplace or we go to a furniture store we think whatever is here of course somebody has approved it and it's safe for me to bring into my home and the tragedy of that is um that its children often that suffer whether and so we finally after a number of years battling were able to pass something called the sturdy act which in uh really made it law now to have all
new furniture uh dressers have mandatory stability uh standards so those kinds of rules and guidelines that's our sweet spot that's where um we really um battle and go up against the powers that be and some people always ask me what's the difference between you and all those other free ratings I get and and it really is our nonprofit status it's that we test the products ourselves we choose and test those products ourselves and we also um are there when the marketplace fails the consumer or gove
rnment fails them because they haven't created the standards that can save your child's life uh right now we are battling uh a product out there called water beads for kids these are these little look like little glass beads you stick them uh in water for your kids and they're playing in the water the problem is they look like candy and if children ingest them uh it's a tragic accident um and we already have seen some deaths uh we shouldn't be fighting so hard heart to change to save children's
lives but but we do and we don't have all the the resources or the enforcement mechanisms or the testing mechanisms in government and so we're going to continue to do what we do U because the Market's a dynamic place that's the product today there may be three or four down the road same thing um so I think that's you know a way for us to keep government accountable and we have a consumer product safety commission that is supposed to be watching out for us uh we have to hold them accountable as w
ell um so those are some of the things we're doing the other products are tools right so a lot of us um have been hearing the chatter about you know how private are your I was talking about the fact that you have to turn the controls the Privacy controls on in your phone or in your laptop whatever what however you're thinking about the connected devices in your home so we have a free um security planner so that you can walk through that it's available on our site it's um something you can it it
walks you through um a series of checklists so that you can actually go through that and um pick the kind of security [Music] um checks that you want on your devices and we also have something called permission slip which is also um an app that's available on Android as well as as apple and what um permission slip is is you might uh say well why don't we have a national Privacy Law that guarantees your privacy online this is your data you don't want to be hacked you don't want it to be sold um w
e don't we have a number of states that have been moving the ball but we don't want to patchwor so we're going to work with those states to try to create incentives um permission sip is is is a tool that's also serving as an incentive and what I mean by that is that we stood up a tool where you can actually go through the tool and search through hundreds of companies that are already collecting your data or you happen to be a member you happen to do and you could go in and and in a swipe uh that
is as easy as those dating apps where you can swipe left or right you can swipe and Consumer Reports sends a note to that company on your behalf that says please stop collecting their data um and that uh that's remarkable you know we released it um fairly recently and we um the first day it it crashed the system that's how many people were trying to get in that's a good problem to have we fixed it but it was great to see that connect with so many people who are looking for a fast and easy way t
o send a message to these companies to stop collecting their data and I think what we know is that when we do it on math as a consumer group as a movement we can get somewhere and I've seen that time and time again it happened with the furniture we worked with parents who uh whose kids uh were tragically injured and harmed and we saw that you rais your voice and you can make things happen and a number of people were probably listen experienc that when they may have had an internship in Washingto
n I certainly experienced it when I was there on the hill that we have a voice and that is going to make our democracy stronger but we have to exercise that voice um with an organization uh that really is consistent with your values if it's safety security sustainability um you know that that's consumer reports and that that's really been at the heart of our mission the I'm gonna as soon as this is done I'm gonna go download that the permission slips and well I'm going to go and check out all of
the resources on the Consumer Reports website but yeah that sounds amazing and thank goodness that consumer reports and you all have adapted over the years to to what you know consumers need as like the digital world has just exploded so that that is great um and then you know you you you kind it was a your answer was a great um segue to my next question about um you know your book is about consumer power and and I would love to get your point of view on what can um the Washington Center alumni
folks listening in do to engage um in this consumer movement to improve consumer rights what can what can we do um couple of things uh just the fact that you were part of tww already tells me something about everybody in the room and I I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that I don't even think I'd have this job if it wasn't for ttwc um because the reality Melissa is that my internship was um at public citizen which was an organization that Ralph nater founded and so after a a career in gove
rnment a career in philanthropy in the nonprofit sector when I was approached by Consumer Reports to lead this organization that is 600 people strong that tests thousands of products a year you know five six million members um it really came full circle to me um about my curiosity about consumer rights and how that's where it started and that's the window that TWC offered me and gave me that opportunity and built a bridge for me to really be able to come back around full circle so um it's just r
emarkable that is how my journey started uh as far as you know then what um what folks around the call can do is I talked about how the book is really A A playbook uh and after each chapter I I offer some advice um about what you can do how you can get involved and we do have a lot of actions that we take and that we rely on our consumer base to really be a part of that um and that um that's a a part you can you can access that on our website um there is an action uh place in our website and I'm
looking to see if I've got that handy uh I'll get it to you soon and maybe we can put it in the chat but um that that's a great way for you to just look through either the chapters in the book or on the site there are probably some issues that speak more to you uh personally and so start there you know whether it's food safety you know a lot of us are very conscious understand that our well-being is connected to the food we eat and so it was immensely popular um and we got a lot of tra traffic
to the site when some of our research demonstrated that um and and this was bad news for me because I'm a chocaholic but what we learned was that dark chocolate some brands of dark chocolate have a number of heavy metals and Lead uh at very harmful levels and so um we also learned that from a very popular uh candy that kids often eat around Easter time which is those little little yellow Peeps uh because those have a lot of red dye number three and the problem with that is that red dye has alrea
dy been um banned from Cosmetics so why is it still in children's candy and we have had great success once we published that um that some of the companies and the company around peeps is already on a path to um move away from from the that chemical and and we've also gotten uh some some legislators to really start to pay attention and to move and make that happen so so it really does make a difference and in each one of those instances we did have engagement sometimes from parents and more often
than not from folks who became part of the action plan wow um well uh thanks Marta um for the for um answering a few of the questions I had and then um we as people registered for this event they submitted some questions ahead of time and then I know we we've got some um chats and for today that are um that we've got from folks in the room um so you kind of touched on this one um but Dave from Virginia had had asked um how did Ralph nater influence you towards the position you are in today and
and you've touched on that but I don't know if you have any other Ralph Neer stories to share well I tell you it started when I saw my on television I I didn't you know I didn't know where I wanted to intern and at the time he was on television a lot I mean one of the things Ralph did well was was leverage his voice uh in the media whether it be radio or television you know uh and and I just uh I was consuming a lot of stuff as a student you know you're curious about the world and I was so impre
ssed by the way he went up against some very powerful corporations using facts and making very compelling arguments ments that were putting people first instead of profits and I just picked up the phone and asked if I could have an internship and they said yes and so then I went to tww and I said you know I think I think I could get this internship can I be part of the program so um three cheers for that kind of flexibility in working with students and what their passions are um but what I what
I think I took away uh from my observ ations and working in organizations that he seated was this real passion to put people first and also to do it by the rigor and discipline of getting the facts and shedding light on those facts to create change um but those facts alone aren't enough right you have to create a community that demands that if you think of the marketplace as supply and demand we are that demand side we are that voice not just with our pocketbooks but also with our voice and and
that really spoke to me W so I I think he did I think he did influence it greatly and and so no accident that many decades later I'm back it's full circle that that's amazing um I did find by the way the link about the actions uh that you can take it's uh action. consumerreports.com awesome thank thanks marttin I'm sure um we'll be able to share that with folks um and uh make sure that people can access that so um so we had another question um from Alysa from uh New York uh was asking what shoul
d we look out um during this busy shopping season now I know that the um Black Friday just happened and that was probably um a lot of uh a lot of us already shopped um after that uh after the black Friday but any yeah anything we should be looking out for for the holidays great question um so unfortunately you know I love digital shopping I really do it's so convenient if you don't have time you just get on right now I've got my laundry list of of my nieces and nephews that I'm powering through
to find what what can I get for them um so I would say that um you're also have to be careful about about scams and there are there are legal scams out there in the world and I don't know if you've noticed this but Pi buy now pay later is much more in the Stream of transactions now um when you are uh thinking about signing out in the purchase that you've just done digitally it sometimes gives you an option to do buy now pay later be careful right because sometimes those the rules that guide the
buy now pay later you miss a payment um you you want to be careful so I would be I'd say buy now paid later schemes watch out read the fine print um and also um check out the check out the site or our app for tips around what's on sale maybe you should wait a couple of weeks before you get that new stove um because we track the marketplace and we can tell you uh through patterns that we've tracked over time uh when the bigger sales are coming and all of us are feeling it because of the inflation
ary pressure in the marketplace right now so if you're looking for deals uh I would say check back um we track those pretty rigorously and we tell you we offer you a little schedule of we think it's going to be this week that month when this product is going to be of you know greater value for you and also if you're thinking of surprising somebody with a new car um we can tell you a little bit and I know a lot of folks right now are very interested in EVS um and we have um just today as a matter
of fact came out with our reliability scores for all cars but we can tell you give you some insight into what are the most what are the safest and most reliable cars in at in this moment um for your value and a lot of folks are interested in EVS but they really curious about whether the battery lives up to uh what the dealership is telling you it's going to live up to and that's pretty consequential so I would take a look at that too I I have to let my husband know he's always trying to figure
out the EV um because you know we you know we we haven't bought one yet and so it's um you know it's like it's new to the market and so we all of us and there are some pretty good tax rebates and things from uh the federal government around that so you're going to want to um check out the calculator to see how much of a discount you'll be getting oh great awesome um and Allan from New Hampshire um submitted a question what will it take to get privacy legislation in the in the US and the prognosi
s for it wow I love that question so I said earlier we've got some privacy laws California Colorado Oregon Virginia um and we even got something called the delete act in California um where in one request you can tell data Brokers to delete all the data they have on you um that's just one state so what are we seeing as I said earlier we're seeing you know four states to patchwor why because we're not getting any federal legislation anytime soon you know they're dragging their feet I mean we you
saw how long it took us just to pass a budget so I am um I don't I don't expect anything to happen really soon but the putting the pressure on the federal government with tools like permission slip which incentivize change and actually push companies and send a message to companies um about I don't want to be tracked I you know and if we could get the delete act and and build momentum from that and move into other states um but it's going to take a lot of action and a lot of collective action an
d so you know sign up for that permission slip start telling companies out of my business stop collecting data I want more privacy look at that security planner unfortunately you're going to have to play a little more defense now um because we are not seeing the offense coming uh from either industry or government at this time uh but it is a priority and we need uh privacy should be a right not a setting absolutely uh and we have another question from Andrew from Los Angeles um how do you feel a
bout feel about the Fair Act Force arbitration and Justice uh appeal act you know we're TWC Alum we're going to be asking these question this is a very well-informed group of people um I really love that question uh because it's a great example of the point I made earlier by how the balance of power is tipping away from us the consumer people and the Fair Act is really illustrative of that right this is a clause um that was really uh designed to protect companies not consumers and so you know it
's it's buried into pages and pages of fine print and what it it basically has given um companies the right to do is that you purchase a product and you have no right to um take them to court um and if or or to complain um and what you're left doing is something called forced arbitration and what forced arbitration is is uh a way uh for you to appeal but you have to appeal uh behind closed doors with immediate Ator of the company's choice right so the awards tend to be smaller uh no real safegua
rds and rights to appeal um and you really can't join together in any kind of a class action suit so it's a it's a real device that has watered down our power in a way that most consumers are not aware of um and you you as I said it's forced arbitration as a way to give the companies a leg up in the event that something should go wrong so it isn't by any means consumer protection um it it is it is really something that um is not transparent to Consumers and uh as I said uh who wants to sit down
and do an arbitration of the company's Choice it seems just before you even get to the table um you're in a losing position wow well thanks Mar I think that's all the time we have for questions um I did want to give you an opportunity to share any final Thoughts with with us um as we wrap up I don't know if there's anything else you'd like to share you shared so much but thank you for having me thank you for taking time out of your day for all of us to be in community as TWC alums um as I said T
WC was the bridge um to the life that I have uh the professional life that I have and and it has been um such an honor to be able to work in fields where I feel that I could live up to the goal I set for myself which was to make a difference in the world and um one of the things that TWC did for me was um create connections and relationships um when I went to Washington that I still hold to this day and I think that's a big takeaway for all of us is and I really appreciate the fact that you're b
ringing us all together because it's those relationships um and those connections that we have together and what we could do for the next generation of TWC alums coming through the program um I think TWC will be stronger with our continued support and connection to TWC so thank you for bringing me into into the room with everyone and um I'm I'm as curious about all of you uh so I hope I hope to learn more uh with you in time so thank you again Melissa you're a great moderator and these were grea
t questions well we we got the we got the best Alum um alums here so you know no no doubt they would they would bring the good questions so just a come visit us come visit us at cr.org there's a lot of stuff you can read and as I said um no advertising here so I think you can always um count on us to be a trust trustworthy partner uh to you and whatever decision you have to make well thank you Marta um big thanks to everyone who joined us today um I think we have our survey already in the chat s
o if you want to suggest future speakers or topics for 2024 um T this is the time to do so um we also want to um ask you to consider joining the uh Washington Center in LinkedIn and uh Facebook alumni group and if you don't know right now we're running an alumni giving challenge uh for tww where 200 alumni Gifts of any size in the next week will unlock $5,000 and matching funds for scholarships so so far we've had 152 alumni um who've already supported and if you're one of those thank you so muc
h we just need um 48 more alumni to meet the goal so um if you're considering it uh we hope that you would give before December 6 um and as I said we're already tremendously grateful for everyone who's already given and for all of you for joining us today um wishing you a great year year end and hope to see you in 2024 at more TWC alumni events thanks so much
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