Nick Lyell

Background

About Nick Lyell

Nick Lyell is a Co-founder and Chief Impact Officer of CivStart, a national nonprofit dedicated to sparking innovation in state & local governments. Nick has spent years partnering with dozens of state and local government leaders and technology entrepreneurs to bring new technologies off the ground and into the communities where they are most needed. CivStart partners with some of the most influential government associations and public-sector technology companies on core programming and annual events attracting hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors, public officials, and industry experts. At CivStart, Nick runs nonprofit business operations, including payroll, budgeting, accounting, invoicing, HR, communications, PR, and marketing. In his role, Nick also spearheads new program and product development. Nick has been the lead in creating a culture of active communication, transparency, accountability, and autonomy at CivStart, which is a fully-remote team. As a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors, Nick is also heavily involved in high-level organizational strategy-Nick is also a multimedia storyteller and founding member of the artist collective Solarpunk Surf Club emplaced in Lexington, KY. His work explores power relationships, utopian realism, and moral inclusion — seeking to find the ways in which our relationships, language, and the stories we tell ourselves can limit or expand the scope of political possibility. Nick has directed, produced, and edited several award-winning fiction and non-fiction films including False Alarm, Sirius Lee, The Zeke Sanders Story, E: The Film, and others. Nick’s films have been part of official selections at film festivals across the United States and the World, including the Rhode Island International Film Festival, DocFest, AfroComiCon, Black X Film Fest, DC Black Film Festival, the North Carolina Environmental Film Festival, and the Hollywood New Directors Film Festival. As a part of his practice, Lyell has facilitated a dozen 48 Hour Film Project entries with amateur participants, providing equipment, training, and joyful co-creative frameworks for short filmmaking. His video work has been used in political TV advertisements and for major nationwide US advocacy campaigns. His non-video work has also been featured in art galleries in New York and Madison, WI.