John Graves is a husband, father, business owner, attorney, and ordained pastor. With his partners, he runs a digital technology company. He serves as the CEO of Vision America, an Association of Churches (VisionAmerica.org) that mobilizes pastors and people of faith to influence the culture by community action for spiritual awakening. John has spoken to over 7,000 pastors and created micro-targeted church-approved voter guides to over 7 million faith-voters.
His created Acts 20:28 Pastors (2028Pastors.org) provides breakthrough technology to help pastors mobilize Christ-followers to impact the culture. Mr. Graves is passionate about working with like-minded groups and churches across racial, ethnic, and denominational lines to bring spiritual awakening to America.
He created Million Voices (MillionVoices.org) which locates and motivates faith and freedom voters across the nation, utilizing the proprietary technologies of Digital Door KnockingTM .
He and his wife, reside in Texas with their five children and serve in their local church.

Laurie Higgins became the Illinois Family Institute’s Cultural Issues Writer in the fall of 2008. Prior to working for IFI, Laurie worked full-time for eight years in Deerfield High School’s writing center in Deerfield, Illinois. Her cultural commentaries have been carried on a number of pro-family websites nationally and internationally, and Laurie has appeared on numerous radio programs across the country.

Lindsey Burke oversees the foundation’s research and policy on issues pertaining to preschool, K-12, and higher education reform. Burke’s commentary, research, and op-eds have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, and she is a frequent guest on radio and television shows and speaks on education reform issues across the country and internationally. She has published evaluations of education choice options for public policy foundations across the country, and has done extensive work developing and evaluating education savings accounts (ESAs).

Burke holds a bachelor's degree in politics from Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., and a master of teaching degree in foreign language education from the University of Virginia. She earned her Ph.D. in education policy from George Mason University, where she examined the intersection of education choice and institutional theory.

Mr. Winter spent 15 years with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) serving in numerous management capacities for the GE-owned media conglomerate in Los Angeles, New York and Europe. He also participated in the creation of MSNBC, the cable and online news joint venture with Microsoft Corporation.

Mr. Winter worked at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he led the studio’s Interactive Division and its online and video game publishing ventures. He was also president and chief operating officer at FasTV, Inc., an internet media company. Prior to his work with the Parents Television Council, he was the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Desktop TV, a high tech media firm that delivered live broadcasts of business-oriented cable programming to the enterprise marketplace via internet protocol.

Mr. Winter is the architect of the PTC’s national campaign for Cable Choice. As a father, he believes it is critical that parents be given the opportunity to select and pay for only those cable channels they want and not channels bundled by their cable operator. Cable Choice, he believes, is the ultimate solution for families who want to control the flow of indecent programs that come into the home.

Born and raised in northern Virginia, Mr. Winter graduated from Principia College with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and is a member of the California Bar Association. He resides in the Los Angeles, California, metropolitan area with his wife and their daughter.

Schools are essential to the functioning of our society, and that makes teachers essential workers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created any number of logistical problems for the entertainment industry. Production schedules have been interrupted, stalled or completely discontinued; late-night chat show hosts have been broadcasting out of their own homes; ...