Who I Am & What I Do
Paul T. Shattuck
I'm a writer, consultant, researcher, and longtime organizer helping people stay human, stay strategic, and shape tomorrow under authoritarian pressure. I also work with progressive writers building the skills and infrastructure for sustainable thought leadership.
I write Progressive Strategy Now on Substack, where readers learn to build civic resilience. I also write Writing for Social Impact, where I help values-driven writers develop craft, use tools effectively, and build successful business practices.
I consult with university, nonprofit, and public sector leaders and organizations trying to stay principled and effective as the rules get rewritten around them. And I speak about authoritarian harm, strategic response, and what it takes to endure.
My Story…
I built my civic resilience work because I needed it myself.
In December 2024, I was fired for expressing solidarity with federal workers targeted by Trump. My company demanded I take down my blog. I refused. They let me go.
In the weeks after, I experienced everything I now write about: the paralysis, the shame spiral, the fear that shrank my sense of what was possible, the manufactured helplessness that felt bigger than the actual situation required.
I struggle with all of it: the overwhelm, the outrage, the cynicism, the demotivation, the fear. I'm not writing from safety. I'm writing from inside the same pressure you're navigating.
What I've learned is that my work isn't about transcending the struggle. It's about building strategies, connections, tools and practices—for myself and others—that help us stay functional, connected, and strategic inside conditions designed to break us.
That's also why I work with progressive writers. Strong thought leadership doesn't happen by accident. It requires craft, strategic clarity, and sustainable infrastructure. Building that capacity across the progressive movement is civic resilience work—it's how we shape the narrative and build power for the long fight.
Background
I hold an MSW and PhD, with 40+ years at the intersection of contemplative practice, community organizing, and scholarship about social systems and public policy. I've led large research projects that shaped national laws, advised nonprofit coalitions, built community programs, launched new organizations, and supported progressive leaders navigating disruption. I created a body of published scholarship about disability policy that has been cited tens of thousands of times.
Before my current work, I spent two decades in autism research and policy—securing over $40 million in funding, publishing influential articles and reports, building research centers, and working to strengthen families and communities through systems change.
I've rebuilt after personal and financial collapse more than once. Those experiences taught me how to hold space for uncertainty, complexity, and transformation—whether in institutions or individual lives.