I am happy to announce that after an extensive months-long search in the nonprofit world, we have recently appointed Sadie Crabtree as the James Randi Educational Foundation's new director of communications. She has about a decade of experience in communications strategy with various nonprofits, and is passionate about the mission of the JREF. To introduce her to the skeptics community, I asked her to answer a couple questions for this post.
Tell us about your experience with communications for other non-profits, and what it means for the JREF.
Sadie Crabtree: For the last nine years I’ve worked with a variety of organizations, including labor unions, community organizations, and feminist and LGBT nonprofits, to help them plan and win campaigns that change laws, change minds, and improve people’s lives. Strategic communications is more than getting publicity—it’s getting the right message to the right people in the right way to accomplish what an organization sets out to do. The aims of skepticism are ambitious. Our ultimate goal at the JREF is not simply to investigate claims ourselves and to change what people think. We want to change how people think. That’s a huge challenge, and I want to help skeptics do it better.
What attracted you to the skeptical movement, and what excites you most about working with the JREF?
Science and skepticism have always been passions of mine, even when the 24/7 pace of campaign work didn't allow me to be more involved in organized skepticism. I’ve been a longtime fan of James Randi and the work of the JREF, and I’m thrilled to be joining this team full-time.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist family where my mom cut pages out of my books on dinosaurs and astronomy so I wouldn’t read about evolution and the Big Bang. But she encouraged me to read and to learn, and I didn’t like the idea that there were things I wasn’t supposed to know. By 14 I’d declared myself a skeptic and wouldn’t shut up about it. I joined the high school debate team because I liked proving people wrong. In restrospect, I was really annoying. But right, of course.
When I started doing grassroots organizing and communications work, I learned quickly that being right and having a strong argument is not enough to win people to your side. Well-defined logic is not how most people decide what to think, how to vote, or what brand to buy. To change minds and behavior, even the best ideas have to be communicated in ways that appeal to the central values and aspirations of ordinary people.
I think that’s a big problem for skeptics who want to make a change in the world, because the way the general public thinks about skepticism runs counter to some basic values many people hold. I’m excited about finding new ways to talk about what we do that taps into people’s common values instead of setting them up as obstacles.
Tell me something about yourself that no one would ever guess.
Folks in the labor movement seem to love starting big meetings with icebreakers. The best one is called “two truths and a lie,” where you have to guess which one isn’t true. Here are mine:
- An anarchist once declared a hunger strike against me.
- My father was a trade-show magician.
- My wife and I own more guns than cats, but just barely.
Sadie can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. From everyone at the JREF, welcome aboard, Sadie!