Adam Mizel ’91 Is Taking a Road Trip to Unify America, One Stop at a Time

In May 2020, Adam Mizel ’91 found himself screaming at CNN.

George Floyd had been killed, Donald Trump was everywhere, and the discourse was negative and destructive on every level, he says. “I was just frustrated. And my much-smarter-than-I wife said, ‘No one’s hearing you if you scream at the TV.’” 

She asked: What do you want to do? “And that was the right question to ask. And I just said, you know what? The answer isn’t making another donation to whomever. If some set of people — with backgrounds, experiences, relationships, knowledge like I have from working in business and finance for almost 30 years — don’t give their time and their energy, things aren’t really gonna change, right?”

That moment started Mizel down the path to co-founding US United, the nonprofit he says is actually a movement, a snowballing effort to spread the word that Americans aren’t as divided as we think. A movement to get people of different stripes to talk, to help each other, and to break out of the freeze that seems to have crept over people of goodwill who just need a little push to get out there and bring the country back together.

“It’s not coming from politicians. We know this,” Mizel says. “It’s certainly not coming from the media. It has to come from everyday Americans who figure out ways to build these bridges, learn, relearn civil discourse, and really change the culture.”

Mizel studied economics at Princeton. A friend when he was a kid lived in a big house with parents who had a Rolls Royce “and all the fun things,” he remembers. He said his dad worked on Wall Street, and Mizel thought, “I don’t know what that is, but I’m doing that.”

He laughs telling the story, but he really did it, building a successful career in finance and then entrepreneurship. He says US United represents the next step — trying to make the world a better place — for both him and his wife, Taunya van der Steen-Mizel ’91.

His co-founders are Ken Nwadike (the “Free Hugs Guy”) and Chris Swanson, the sheriff in Flint, Michigan. Much of US United’s work channels through the offices of sheriffs around the country, like the annual Holiday Spectacular when volunteers lend a hand to struggling families in their communities.

US United, which is nonpartisan and nonpolitical, has a host of other projects including a unity pledge people can take online, a big annual concert, and a monthly series of 30-minute conversations anyone can join online to hear and share thoughts on provocative questions.

This summer, Mizel has been on a nationwide road trip to spread the word about US United and unity in general. His team asks people to take a moment at least once a week to post on their social media “an example you see around you of someone doing something that’s building unity” — like buying a coffee or opening a door for someone, or volunteering.

“If everybody did that, we’re starting to change culture, right?” Mizel says.

Several Princeton friends are assisting the effort, including Lori Dickerson-Fouche ’91 as a board member, Dave Koehler ’91 as unofficial general counsel, and Xandy Janko ’91 as “my music, concert, and content partner in crime,” Mizel says. It was Janko who told Mizel way back at Princeton: “Dare to fail gloriously.”

“That’s what this is,” Mizel says. “We have to go big. We have to take on culture, take on politics and media to say, ‘We can change this. It doesn’t have to be this way.’

“It’s up to us.”