Photo credit: Bill Wadman

Nicky Grist is the executive director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP), a national nonprofit dedicated to eliminating marital status discrimination from law and policy. Trained and experienced in both public policy analysis and grassroots organizing, she can speak about legal and economic institutions and their effects on people’s lives. AtMP critiques the role of marital status in health care, employment, welfare, taxes, housing, adoption, social security and immigration, as well as voter trends and social stigma. AtMP is a 501c3 with over 8,800 members in all 50 states and Canada. Ms. Grist connects media to an informal speakers bureau of hundreds of AtMP members who are willing to share personal stories, as well as a broad range of relevant academics and practitioners. 

Ms. Grist graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University, and holds a masters degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University as well as an executive certificate from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Before joining AtMP in 2005, she worked for 18 years in local and federal government, foundations, research institutions and community-based non-profits in New York City and Nairobi, Kenya.

Ms. Grist has made dozens of personal media appearances, including TV (MSNBC, CNN, local ABC and NBC stations), radio (Wisconsin Public Radio, XM and Sirius specialty shows, et al.), and print (USA Today, Associated Press, Human Resources Magazine, Sacramento Bee, Forbes, et al.). Overall, AtMP members, directors and experts appear in hundreds of media outlets each year.