This my keynote speech to the Alabama Association of Nonprofits in Montgomery, Alabama.
By Nick Valencia | February 2, 2026
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — I booked this talk several months ago. Back when my life looked very different.
At the time, I thought I knew what I was going to say today.
I planned to talk about how things happen for us, not to us. I believed it then…but I didn’t yet know how deeply I would come to live it.
In June, 2025, after 19 years at CNN and I cut ties. 19 years. That’s longer than most marriages these days.
It was my entire professional life. I joke that it was the longest first job in the history of jobs. I started there before Twitter existed. Before iPhones. B-F-N : Before Fake News.
And when it ended at CNN, it wasn’t how I thought it would be.
When something that like happens, especially without warning, it can break you. And I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt.
I was crushed.
I was disoriented.
I was grieving. Not just a job, but an identity.
But I also have faith.
And if we believe in God then we must rely on God.
Every morning, when I hit my knees, I ask a simple prayer: Put me where I can be of service
May thy will be done, not my own
I pray to be put in a position to serve.
I didn’t know what that truly meant until now But I believed, truly believed, that my best days were still in front of me.
Six months later, I know it’s true.
When I left CNN, I could have chased comfort.
I could have tried to replicate what I had.
Gone back to the steady paycheck (and health insurance) of legacy media.
But that’s not what I was called to do.
In a world of chaos and uncertainty, I realized the only way to control my own destiny was to stop feeling sorry for myself and take action.
To meet the moment because there is a moment to meet.
I was raised to use my privilege to speak out against powerful people bullying those who don’t have the ability to do it for themselves. It starts in the home, and in my home my father and mother, each who grew up through the race wars of the 50s and 60s, right smack dab in the middle of it all—South Central-
51st and Western, and downtown LA—and it was my parents who taught me that I needed to stand up for those who couldn’t.
Protect the most vulnerable, and for me now as a father the most vulnerable begins with our children.
With 5 year olds like Liam Conejo Ramos. The same age as my son.
When faced with the crossroads in the Summer of 2025, I made a decision that terrified me.
I bet on myself.
I launched an independent media company—N-V-N …Nick Valencia News.
No safety net.
No corporate backing.
Just conviction, an iPhone, and the voice of my Higher Power that yesterday said PREPARE TO GO OUT ON YOUR OWN
and today says
KEEP GOING.
I went out into the streets of Los Angeles by myself, just an iPhone in my hand, and I used my platform to give a voice to the people on the streets.
The first clip I posted after leaving CNN did 3 million views.
One of the next, 4.2 million.
I had arrived. I was no longer a CNN correspondent. Not only was I a small business owner—I was the owner of a new media company.
One with reach and engagement that now outpaces many local newsrooms and rivals legacy media outlets.
In January we had more than 30 million views across Substack, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Here’s the thing I want nonprofit leaders in this room to hear clearly:
You don’t truly know your voice until you’re no longer borrowing one.
For 19 years, I had success, but I was still part of an institution.
A cog in a very large machine. A respected one, yes. But still constrained.
Today, I’m more free than I’ve ever been.
Not because it’s easier—but because it’s real.
Last week, I was in Minneapolis reporting on immigration enforcement.
I came back shaken.
I had press rights violated.
I had a shotgun pointed at me.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker later determined I was deliberately targeted by federal agents.
I was there blocks from where Alex Pretti was killed.
And it wasn’t lost on me that I was standing in the same neighborhood where, 20 years ago, I lived a completely different life—young, in love, thinking I had everything figured out.
At 22, I lived in Minneapolis — having followed a woman I met in Spain to live there with her there— as she called it MINNEAP-on-the-MAP.
I should have known then…lol
Ever there romantic, I was more broke than I’d ever been—working part time at the renaissance festival for money, mowing lawns and rewaxing and resealing toilets —and finally… getting a good job selling books at Borders where I took the bus to work. Until one day my then girlfriend came home and said, “You eat more than me, you make less than me, and you need more than me.”
Talk about a country song.
Life has a way of circling back.
Believe it or not it was just a week after I got back broken hearted from Minnesota — my cousin was on a flight with a drunk radio correspondent from CNN who tripped and fell and her badge spilled out of her purse. My cousin went into pitch mode and I ended up a few months later in Atlanta working for Ted Turner.
Things happen for us, not to us.
Now here I am in 2026–
Last week’s trip back to Minneapolis forced me to slow down.
To realize how far I had come in life.
Yet another affirmative or GOD SHOT as I call them, that I am exactly where I need to be.
I couldn’t be doing this work if I were still at a major network. I couldn’t take these risks.
I couldn’t speak with this clarity.
I couldn’t serve in this way.
What once felt like loss has revealed itself as alignment.
That’s what I mean when I say things don’t happen to us—they happen for us. But only if we’re willing to do the work.
Now, let me be clear about something—especially in Alabama, especially in this room.
I’m not pretending to be neutral about everything. I don’t believe in objectivity. That’s part of the great myth of legacy media
I believe in fairness. That is my metric of success.
I’m honest about my values.
I believe the conversation around immigration should around start at punishment for the employers who profit from cheap labor and focus instead on amnesty, especially for those who have worked here without getting into trouble and added value to this country.
I disagree with President Trump’s mass deportation policy.
But here’s the part that matters:
I still call President Trump “the president.” I still follow journalistic ethics. I still believe deeply in the First Amendment.
I criticize because I love this country—not because I hate it.
That distinction matters.
Journalism, at its best, is not activism. It’s moral clarity. It’s shining a light responsibly. It’s disagreeing without dehumanizing.
And nonprofit work—your work—is the same.
You are not radicals because you care. You are not threats because you serve. You are not naive because you believe things can be better.
You are necessary.
We live in a country suffering from a disease of extreme individualism.
We convince ourselves that injustice isn’t our problem—until it is. That harm won’t reach us—until it does.
Dr. King warned us about this. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
I’m reporting right now on the massive expansion of private prison infrastructure. From 40,000 detention beds to potentially 150,000.
And I’ll ask you the same question I ask myself:
Do we really believe it stops with the undocumented?
History says it never does.
It’s always someone else’s community until it’s your own.
That’s why your work matters.
Not just to the people you serve—but to the future we’re all walking into and the present we are all waking up to.
In the next few days, I’ll go from this conference to the National Press Club. I’ll meet with lawmakers to talk about press freedom and independent media.
Those are sentences I never imagined saying.
And yet—they’re real.
Not because I planned every step. But because I said yes when the ground shifted.
That’s betting on yourself.
That’s trusting that when a door closes, it’s not punishment—it’s direction.
And if you’re willing to keep showing up—to serve with integrity, to collaborate instead of isolate, to believe that your work matters even when it’s hard—
Then one day, you’ll look back at the moment that almost broke you…
…and realize it was the moment that set you free.
Things don’t happen to us. They happen for us.
So here’s my charge to you— and I offer it humbly, because I’m still in it myself.
Don’t wait for permission.
Don’t wait for certainty. Don’t wait until the risk is gone or the timing feels perfect—because it never will.
If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s this: the institutions we thought would protect us don’t always show up. Which means the responsibility falls back where it always has—on the people.
We say in Spanish SOLO EL PUEBLO SALVA AL PUEBLO
It’s the people who will save each other.
Neighbors. Organizers. Nonprofit leaders who keep showing up even when the ground is shifting beneath them.
Bet on your mission. Bet on your voice. Bet on the work you know in your bones is necessary—even when it costs you something.
Because service isn’t comfortable.
So go back to your communities. Go back to your organizations. Go back to the work.
And when doubt creeps in—as it always does—remember:
Things don’t happen to us. They happen for us.
Thank you. And God bless you.
