Biography
Vicki Robin is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the national best-seller, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence (Viking Penguin, 1992), available now in eleven languages. http://WWW.YOURMONEYORYOURLIFE.INFO is the official portal for the book, connecting readers to support materials for implementing the 9-Step program and to the networks of educators and practitioners.
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, Woman’s Day, Newsweek, Utne Magazine 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.
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, Affluenza (2001) edited by John deGraaf 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 Magazine to be featured in Visionaries: People and Ideas to Change Your Life.
Vicki has helped launch many sustainability initiatives including: The New Road Map Foundation, The Simplicity Forum, The Turning Tide Coalition, Sustainable Seattle, The Center for a New American Dream, Transition Whidbey and more. In the 1990’s she served on the President’s Council on Sustainable Development’s Task Force on Population and Consumption.
In addition to her sustainable consumption work, Vicki has been a leader in the field of dialogue. She co-created the Conversation Cafés method and initiative, promoting it first in Seattle and then throughout the world. Over 70 Conversation Cafés now meet regularly in cities across North America and Europe and new ones are forming frequently. Conversation Cafés are hosted conversations among diverse people in public places on subjects that matter (www.conversationcafe.org). As founding visionary, Vicki has spoken at workshops, conferences and to the media (Readers Digest, National Public Radio, Utne Magazine, The New York Times, The Seattle Times and many local media) about the Conversation Café method and its possibilities for revitalizing our public life. In 2004 Conversation Cafes partnered with Utne Magazine to form Let’s Talk America, hosting conversations across the red-blue divide. Conversation Cafes annually hosts Global Conversation Week http://www.comversationweek.org.
