Jim Shultz

Jim Shultz is the founder and executive director of The Democracy Center.  A graduate of University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, he has served as staff to the California state legislature, as an advocate with Common Cause and Consumers Union, and as a visiting professor at San Francisco State University. He has led advocacy development projects in more than two dozen countries across five continents, training and counseling thousands of citizen activists. He has helped lead winning citizen action campaigns at the state, national, and international levels, including the campaign that forced the Bechtel Corporation to drop its $50 million legal action against Bolivia following the Cochabamba Water Revolt. He is the author of three books including “The Democracy Owners’ Manual” (Rutgers University Press, 2002) and “Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia’s Challenge to Globalization” (UC Press, 2009).  His articles have been published in newspapers and magazines across the US, Canada, and Europe.  His reporting on the Bolivian Water Revolt was named top story of 2000 by Project Censored. Jim and his wife Lynn have three children and have lived in Cochabamba, Bolivia since 1998, where he also served for many years as president of an 80-child orphanage.