Vicki Robin

Vicki Robin is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the national best-seller, Your Money Or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money & Achieving Financial Independence (Viking Penguin, 1992), available now in nine languages. Vicki is President of the Seattle-based New Road Map Foundation, an educational and charitable foundation teaching people tools for sustainable living.

Vicki has lectured widely and appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Good Morning America" and National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" and "Morning Edition"; she has also been featured in People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Mirabella, Woman's Day, Newsweek, Utne Reader and the New York Times. Newspapers around the world have reported on her work on lowering consumption in North America. Fluent in Spanish, she traveled to Europe in the Spring of 1997 to introduce the Spanish translation of Your Money or Your Life. In May, 2002, she did an 8-day publicity tour in Taiwan for the Chinese release. Both trips resulted in Your Money Or Your Life becoming a bestseller in those countries. Through The Simple Living Network, several Study Guides for Groups are now being widely distributed for use in schools, churches and businesses. A Workplace Outreach program has brought the 9-step program to Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Washington Dental Society, REI and other organizations that recognize the value of a financially resilient and frugal workforce that is well versed in sustainability principles.

Called the prophet of "consumption-downsizers" by the New York Times, she is a frequent speaker on this issue at conferences; to corporate, academic, religious and environmental institutions; and at professional meetings of organizations seeking to understand and contribute to the national trend toward sustainable lifestyles.

In addition to Your Money Or Your Life, Vicki has written introductions for Getting a Life: Real Lives Transformed by Your Money or Your Life (1997) by Jacqueline Blix and David Heitmiller, Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World (2000) by Linda Breen Pierce, Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity's Future (2000) by Duane Elgin, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (2001) by Thomas Greco and Living Simply with Children (2002) by Marie Sherlock. She has written chapters included in Sustainable Planet (2002), edited by Betsy Taylor and Juliet Schor and Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century: Visions of a Better Future from Leading American Thinkers (2000), a collection of essays edited by Marianne Williamson. Vicki was one of 61 visionaries selected by Utne Reader to be featured in Visionaries: People and Ideas to Change Your Life. Her articles have appeared in In Context, Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, Smart Money, Green Money Journal, and numerous other publications.

Inspired by years of experience in communication and dialogue skills -- and by the challenge to democracy, ecological sustainability and social justice represented by the 9/11 crisis -- Vicki created and took responsibility for spreading Conversation Cafés throughout Seattle -- and the world. Conversation Cafés are hosted conversations among diverse people in public places on subjects that matter.

Vicki served on the President's Council on Sustainable Development's Task Force on Population and Consumption. She is the Chair of the Simplicity Forum, an alliance of leaders who teach and promote personal choices and political actions toward achieving simple and sustainable ways of life. In addition, she is on the Board of The Turning Tide Coalition, dedicated to bringing the power of transformation to the work of sustainability. She is writing a new book on rethinking freedom in a world with limits.

Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Vicki grew up on Long Island and graduated cum laude from Brown University in 1967. She has received awards from Co-op America and from Sustainable Northwest for her pioneering work on sustainable living. A&E Entertainment's show "Biography" recently honored Vicki as one of ten exceptional citizens in Seattle.

To learn more about Vicki, visit Vicki Robin's Corner.