Being Accountable to Our Communities
How we show up for our communities at this time will set the tone for how communities will work together moving forward. So how do we find a balance between a utopian vision to energize the community versus practical hope, and what might that look like today? How do we build and sustain momentum? How do we show accountability to our communities, and what is the difference between personal and shared responsibility? Listen as Lisa Attygalle of The Tamarack Institute joins Rich Harwood to explore how community leaders can step forward to be accountable to their communities as they navigate a shared path forward.
Transcript:
Lisa Attygalle 0:05
Hello, everybody, welcome to today's webinar, being accountable to our communities. What are we promising and how are we working together? I'm joining today from the traditional territory of the neutral on a Shinobi and hoping to show new people and as settlers was so grateful for the opportunity to gather here. We are so committed to making the promise of Truth and Reconciliation real in our communities. My name is Lisa Atiba. I'm the consulting Director of Community engagement with the Tamarack Institute. And it is my pleasure to introduce this discussion and our guest today. Rich Howard. Welcome, rich.
Rich Harwood 0:43
Good to be with you, Lisa. Thanks for having me.
Lisa Attygalle 0:46
So, I'll tell you a little bit more about rich after working on more than 20 political campaigns and two highly respected nonprofits. Rich Howard set out to create something entirely different. He founded what is now Known as the Harwood Institute for Public innovation in 1988, when he was just 27 years old. Soon after that he wrote the groundbreaking report, citizen and politics of you from Mainstreet which was the first US national study to cover to uncover that Americans didn't actually feel apathetic about politics, but instead held a deep sense of anger and disconnection. So over the past 30 years, rich has innovated and developed a new philosophy and practice around how communities can solve shared problems, how they can create a culture of shared responsibility and deepen people's civic faith. The Howard practice of turning outward is very well known and has spread to all 50 US states and is being used in 40 countries across the world. Today rich is spreading a vision for what it takes to create communities lives and and country that reflects the best in us and the best part. have us. And in his newest book, stepping forward, which I have right here is an Amazon bestseller. Rich provides a new and inspiring footprint to rediscover what we share in common and build upon it. So thanks so much for joining me, rich.
Rich Harwood 2:17
Oh, it's good to be with you. Thanks, Lisa.
Lisa Attygalle 2:19
Before we get started, let's just have a quick look at who's in the room. We have 425 plus now actually, the registrations have kept trickling in joining us from Canada, the US and also people from Australia, New Zealand, UK, Mexico, friends, indigo, Germany, the Philippines and South Africa. And we also have people representing different sectors, so people from the nonprofit or community sector, from education, foundations, government health and consulting and so Hello and welcome to all of you. I'm so excited to First have a discussion with rich, but really want to attend to your questions. And so we encourage you throughout this whole time to type any questions you have into that q&a box. And we'll be allowing lots of time for discussion. Sir, rich, I have your book right here. And I just really I was filled with joy as I was reading it, to be honest. And there's something around a really important process that every person needs to take in figuring out what kind of leader are they? Who are they and how are they showing up for their communities. And I just think this is so important right now, more than I shouldn't say more than ever because we've been, you know, history is long. But right now, it seems so very important for leaders to really be mindful about how they're showing up for community. And that how they show up actually sets the path and the feeling the vibe, the sets the path for the work that will happen in communities. And and so I'd like to start there, what are your? What do you mean, when you talk about showing up? What does that what does that say to you? And what do you mean when you say how we show up as important?
Rich Harwood 4:24
Yeah, I think it means a few things. One is, I think, you know, there's a really interesting nexus point between who we are as individuals, and the work that each of us do in our communities, and I think so often those things get separated. And we just put our professional hat on and, and, and rely on data rely on Systems Analysis rely on all sorts of things that in essence, remove us from the very work that we need to do so for me showing up is, is first and foremost, have we stepped forward and made ourselves visible have we declared, in a sense, Lisa, you know that I'm here, here I am, I'm ready, I'm going to in making ourselves visible, I'm going to lean into the challenges that I face not step away from them not obscure who I am not obfuscate, not pretend, I'm going to actually lean in, I'm going to be awake. I'm going to be attuned. And I think that in order for us to meet communities where they are, in order for us to really address what matters to people in order for us, to engender what I believe is one of the most important things we can do which is to engender a sense of belief in ourselves and one another, in a sense of authentic hope that we can make tomorrow better than today. Because that in the end is what I think makes us human, makes us alive makes us part of something. In order to do that. We have to step forward we have to be turned outward toward one another. We have to see and hear one another We have to lean in and be engaged and attuned to where we are. And I think too often, even when we say we're doing those things, unfortunately, we're not.
Lisa Attygalle 6:11
So for those who aren't familiar, oh, I haven't heard of your phrase turning outward. Can you just give a quick summary of what that means?
Rich Harwood 6:18
Sure, I think we each face a fundamental choice in our lives about what direction we're going to face. And this isn't about techniques, though techniques are important side about process. So process is important. It's about something more fundamental. It's about our mindset, orientation, our posture, our disposition. And I think first and foremost, as people who are trying to work together, we have a choice, will we be turned inward toward ourselves, toward our own organizations toward our own metrics, turn out to toward our own organizations survival, or will we be turned outward toward the community where the community itself is the reference point for everything that we do? And again, we've done Millions of dollars of research on this and we all want to believe are turned outward. And it sounds so obvious and so easy except Lisa's, you know, and the folks who tuned in today know, it's not as easy as it sounds, because there are so many forces and factors that mitigate against that. And so many things that tell us just to stay focused on ourselves, hunker down, meet your metrics, meet your fundraising goals. And before you know it, we're inward looking. And while we're working in the community, we're not working as part of the community. And so turning outward as an orientation is a first step in this work.
Lisa Attygalle 7:36
It's so interesting, you know, it's the things that are inward focus that tend to have deadlines. And so those deadlines, I find, yeah, are often the things that drive and it's only until we have civil society movements, like we do right now with black lives matter where the deadlines of the community focus. And so it's just interesting to think think about that.
Rich Harwood 7:58
I could just say real quickly, because I You know, sometimes people don't believe I believe in these things, which is, I believe in deadlines. I'm super impatient. I am and fierce about whether or not our work creates impact. I am fierce about whether or not we're taking action as opposed to getting lost in activity. But toward what end? Are we trying to create impact toward what and are we trying to move things forward? And I think those are the questions we need to continually focus our work on, on our efforts on and as we make ourselves visible and show up, we need to be attuned to
Lisa Attygalle 8:35
Mm hmm. So what are the things you know, if our goal is to show up authentically? What are the things that you think get in the way of us doing that?
Rich Harwood 8:45
Well, as I mentioned, I think we are turned inward very often. I think. We, we get lost in process and in systems analysis, and in data in ways that in essence, unfortunately, we're going through the motions. Or even if we're applying ourselves and really leaning in, that we're not really attuned to what's happening in the community. We believe that are comprehensive plans. You know, we're working in Jackson, Mississippi right now. They have schools that are failing them. They have a great, comprehensive plan called better together. For Jackson, but the thing is, is that what is really required to show up in Jackson is not simply a plan. It's whether or not the folks in Jackson can build a stronger civic culture, where they have productive norms of engagement, where they have a sense of common purpose and common cause, where they are truly seeing and hearing one another about whether or not they are truly affording each and every individual in that community dignity, whether or not they're just giving lip service to that all of these things. I think, can tribute to a failure to show up and get in the way of showing up. Mm hmm.
Lisa Attygalle 10:06
What do you think? fear? Like? How does fear play into it? And you know, being putting yourself out there being vulnerable? Tell me your thoughts on that.
Rich Harwood 10:16
I think fear is huge, I think where we get anxious about the challenges that we face, we are sometimes fearful of ambiguity. We are fearful of uncertainty. We are fearful of the unknown. Unfortunately, increasingly, today's you started with what's going on in so many of our countries. We are fearful of one another. Look, if we're going to battle systemic racism, whether it's in Canada, the US, Australia, wherever I know some folks from Afghanistan, Iran right now. We, we're going to have to deal with the fear of one another of the beliefs we hold about one another about the stereotypes. We continue to continue to persist in our minds about one another about the biases we have. These are all rooted in fear. And we're going to have to have the courage and the humility to step forward and make ourselves visible to stand in spaces with one another, to have the hard conversations we need to have. And then if I can just mention one other quick thing. I think we have a fear at times of putting a stake in the ground and really articulating and saying, look, this is what I'm for. And I understand that in putting that stake in the ground, I can't be all things to all people that in putting the stake in the ground that I'm gonna, I'm gonna annoy some people and some people are gonna get get, they're gonna get pissed off at me. They're gonna complain about what we're doing. And what I would say to the folks who are tuned in today is if you really want to create change, if you really want to create impact, if You are really committed to me an agent for hope. Can we have no choice than to overcome our fears and put a stake in the ground and say, we can't be all things, all things, people, because when we are we are nothing to anyone.
Lisa Attygalle 12:15
That's really powerful. I think, you know, as I think about community leaders, wanting to listen to the community, I think sometimes there's a tension between wanting not wanting to speak for the community and when, you know, when they're putting the stake in the ground. When might that be imposing and, and when is it needed? You know, and I think that's attention that that feels very real.
Rich Harwood 12:42
Yeah. And it's another fear and it's nothing that mitigates against turning outward. So, what we know from our work and I suspect this may be true for Tamar x work in the partners you work with is that this fear of Not knowing what to do paralyzes us. And it places us over and over again in a planning loop where we just keep thinking, well, if we just create another plan to how to do this, somehow things will turn out better. And what I say to folks, one of the mantras that we teach people in our work is get emotion. The more emotion you are, the more possibilities you'll discover, the more serendipity that will occur, the more good things that can happen. Now, that requires that you have to be attuned and visible and awake, which requires that you have to listen. And so what I say to folks is, you can't speak for the community, your job is to have a deep understanding of what matters to people in the community. And then there are certain tests, do you have a clear understanding of, of who makes up this community, not just the demographics, but the different voices and different perspectives, the different lived experiences? When you engage people Are you really willing to engage people who are different from yourself? These are all really basic things, but they go to the fears that you that you asked me about. Because we tend to go to people who look like us who sound like us who do the same types of things that we do. We go to the neighborhoods that we're comfortable in, because we know what to where to say, how to engage with one another. We, we, when we listen to folks, we tend to believe we know what they're saying. So we take shortcuts and listening and make all sorts of assumptions about what they're saying and what they mean, when in fact, we have very little idea about that. And so, if we can open ourselves up to truly listen, if we can open our hearts up, to truly engage with one another. If we can have a posture of curiosity, in this engagement, and of learning, then we can understand the patterns that exist in our community. And we can have much greater confidence in our capability to move forward what we've learned math thing I'll say, we teach this test to folks in communities. Now this is this is not an analytic test. This is a gut test. And we have all sorts of analytic tests about listening. But there's a gut test, which is in your community, if I brought three after you listen to if I brought 300 people from across your community together into a room, and you had to reflect back to them, not your budget, not your comprehensive plan, not how many staff people you have and how many volunteers, but you had to reflect back to them their aspirations, their shared aspirations for their community. If you had to reflect back to them, their concerns that keep them awake at night, if you had to reflect back on who they trust to take action in their community, if you had to reflect back to them all these things and some others in the language they speak not in your own professional language. Could you do it and would they believe you and there's nothing like that gut check. I you know, I don't know about us, but I've had to do this so many times. Now. I'm like, in my in my career, and I know when I don't know. And I know it. And I know when I'm when I'm trying to pretend I know. I think we all know that this is one of showing up. Yeah, you also know when we have a deep competence, even if people may disagree with us, because we've learned so deeply we have such a deep knowledge on that we're confident and that's, that's really critical to the work that we're doing.
Lisa Attygalle 16:23
Yeah, the word that comes to mind as you speak is is humility. You know, you need you need to have that humility. And, and I think, I think there's also different cultures around permission to fail or permission to get it wrong. And, you know, we talk a lot about learning as you go, you know, whenever you're working on anything that's complex, you there is no such thing as a plan, you know, and you have to learn as learn as you go. And I think that requires different ways of showing up. And you know, showing up and saying, I don't know, but let's learn together.
Rich Harwood 16:56
Absolutely, no, and it goes back to so you just pick up your, your theme of humility and, and what I was talking about in terms of putting a stake in the ground. I think in order to put a stake in the ground, you have to have the courage to listen. You have to have the courage to make discernments you have to have the courage to try to figure out what really matters. And then you have to have the courage to step forward and say, This is what we're for. But that courage by itself is always inadequate. It leads to hubris and arrogance, a beating of the breast that somehow I know best and, you know, if I just plow ahead, everything's gonna be alright. So what I'd like to say is that courage without humility is not worth a whole lot. And we have to have, as you suggest, currently, humility, how in God's name, can we listen to other people without humility, without being open to what they have to say without being willing to hear that they might have different perspectives than we do? And then then other people might? How could we know where to put the stake in the ground? If we don't have the humility to recognize that we don't have all the answers, and that we need each other, that we can't go alone on our own. And then, as you said, about recalibrating, and learning all the time, you know, in this work, what I've found is, there will come a time and there will always be a time at some point, we have to pick up that steak that you put in the ground about what you're for, and you're going to have to move it, you're gonna have to do it in public. And you should do it in public, which requires enormous humility to say, you know what, either I didn't understand something before that I now do understand or that the conditions around me have changed, or that the things that we thought would work simply aren't working. And I'm here to say I'm picking up my steak, I'm going to move it as best I can to a new place based on what I've learned, what I know what I've engaged with other folks around. That requires real humility, and it requires humility to explain it and explain yourself to be real about it. To be authentic and honest about it. And there's far too short a supply of that kind of humility in our society right now.
Lisa Attygalle 19:09
So what's it mean to you Rich to be accountable to the community?
Rich Harwood 19:14
You know, it's interesting. First of all, so at one level, like, you know, I know, many of the people who are listening today, and the folks we work with use metrics. I'm a big believer in in metrics, we want to know if what we're doing is effective. So that's one form of what it means to be accountable. But I think there's a deeper form that actually I spend more of my time talking about. And and so I don't even use the word we use the word accountable. But actually, the word I really like is what does it mean to account for oneself? to account to take account, right and so in that sense, you have to show up again. So in this way, for me being accountable to the media to account for oneself means Do you really have a deep understanding? You have an understanding of what matters to people? Do you have an understanding of the context you're working in? We have a framework called the five stages of community life, every community is in one of them.
Rich Harwood 20:13
Oh, great. Comprehensive strategies are geared to the fourth or fifth stage. Most communities that I've been in most countries are in the first two and a half stages. Have we accounted for that context and meeting the community where it is as opposed to where we wish the community were? accounting for ourselves even more deeply? means that are we accounting for the pledges and promises that we've made to the community and to ourselves? You know, we all of us make all sorts of pledges and promises and we tend to do it in on glossy paper in for color printed saddle stitch reports. It looks real nice. But at the end of the day, what I ask people is look, go into a room and close your eyes or go and shut the in, shut off the light and just sit there And think, can you account for the pledges and promises that you've made? Because so often we are making pledges and promises we know we can't hit and we ought not to make in the first place. And here's the thing, Lisa, I happen to think that while there are many issues that we all care about are really important in our societies today, that the most important central issue in most places today is do we believe in ourselves and one another, that we can come together and get things done? Or are we going to go it alone on our own divided in acrimonious ways? pointing fingers at each other, blaming each other for things, just announcing our grievances to one another? Where are we going to come together and actually believe and if you believe that that's a critical issue. Then what helps establish belief it's making good on our pledges and promises. It's not making the pledges and promises. It's making Good on them. And so we damn better make sure that we're making pledges and promises we can keep, and we damn better make sure that we're accounting for whether or not we're doing it. And we damn better make sure that we're recalibrating our efforts when we're not.
Lisa Attygalle 22:15
So that makes me think that the importance of of, no, I'm coming back to what is the role of hope. You know, and part of me feels a little bit fearful when you talk about you know, we we better not make promises that we can't keep, like, of course, but maybe that will make me call back, you know, and not actually want to vision not actually want to, you know, commit to something that might not be possible.
Rich Harwood 22:44
Well, yeah, absolutely. Here's how I think about it. Look, I started this institute, I didn't have a dime to my name. I was 27 years old. Every mentor every individual of my parents pleaded with me not to do This pleaded with me not to do this. And so I had an idea I had a vision, I had a dream. And so I laid that out. And much like we all want to do in our community. So I'm not saying to folks in communities don't have a bold vision. In fact, I am saying put a stake in the ground about what you believe in. But let's be clear about where we're starting from. Let's be clear about the progress we think we can make in a certain amount of time. Let's be clear about what real measurements are to know whether or not we made that progress in the set time that we said we're going to work in. Let's be clear about how we're going to continue to learn as we go, so we can continue to recalibrate what we're doing so we can get closer to creating authentic hope. These are all real practices. We can practice we can do this isn't theory. I don't care about theory. These aren't concepts I you know, honestly, I like ideas, but I'm most interested in what works and so if If you're interested in hope, and you want to create a bold vision, then let's get practical about what it's going to take to get there. And let's be real about what those steps are. And then let's hold it. Let's account for what we said we were going to do and recalibrate as we go.
Lisa Attygalle 24:16
Mm hmm. And you use the Tim's utopian vision versus practical hope. And I'm wondering, like, Can you share a bit of a story about how you've seen that play out and balancing the, you know, utopian hope versus the practical vision?
Rich Harwood 24:31
Sure. I mean, we're working Mobile, Alabama, and then pass the school levy in 40 years. And the utopian vision was somehow just by doing a public relations campaign or getting the business community around the table, or spending more money on on their schools, or shaming public officials into something that somehow they were going to create these utopian schools never happened. And didn't happen for 40 years. The practical hope they created was when a really courageous leader there named Carolyn acres with the mobile area Education Foundation began. They ended up using our work but they could have used your work or someone else's work. It doesn't seem material. They started to engage people around their shared aspirations and demonstrated that the community was not as divided by race and income in urban versus rural versus suburban, as everyone said, it was and was part of the ingrained narrative of that community. They demonstrated that people shared aspirations about how they wanted to move forward, they began to lay out plans practical plans about how they could take one step after another after another over a decade, and then to 15 years to create progress. They held the school board accountable along the way. They held themselves accountable along the way. They recalibrate Their efforts along the way. So it was a grind. It was two steps forward one step back. There were times when it looked like it was gonna fall apart for sure, like it does on all of us. But they were able to do it now they passed every school levy since the time that they hadn't passed within 40 years. They went from some of the lowest performing schools to some of the best performing schools in the state of Alabama. They have young girls learning stem, which before they were sort of were rotated out of those classes. They have begun to close the achievement gap. They have a more equitable distribution of teachers across rural and urban and suburban schools, schools. So it can be done. But that it get practical about it to get real about it, while creating a sense of hope all along the way. That they had the innate capacities, the will the know how to get stuff done.
Lisa Attygalle 26:54
It feels like a bit of a formula for building and sustaining momentum.
Rich Harwood 26:59
It is And you know, what I often say to people is, you know, particularly now if you look at systemic racism, if you look at first nation issues in that have plagued Canada for generations that, you know, with Native American issues here that part of the original sin of our nation, along with slavery the challenges that so many of our communities face, I don't believe that most citizens in our communities believe that we're going to fix these problems overnight or tomorrow or even in five years. I've never met people who believe that really, here's what they want to see which goes to momentum. They want to see that we can get on a better trajectory that's moving in the right direction that's filled with a sense of possibility and hope. They want to know that our efforts on this trajectory are gaining momentum, not losing momentum which most efforts in communities to unfortunately And third, they want to know that our civic confidence, our belief in ourselves and one another is expanding, not contracting. And I believe that those organizations, those leaders, those collaborations, those collective impact initiatives that are able to get on a better trajectory with increasing momentum and growing to the comments, they're the ones who are going to win. And those are the communities that are going to improve. And we need more examples this across our countries. Mm hmm.
Lisa Attygalle 28:30
And what's interesting, and it's something that I've seen, you know, come up so much with COVID. And, and then, you know, we're able to find a place for it with black lives matter is that role of the citizen? No, we saw a lot of cam mongering groups up here in Canada, where people who might be full have stepped back and saying, you know, it's somebody else's responsibility to do that thing or to you know, provide Those services they stepped up. You know, it was such a great example of people stepping forward into that citizen role. And I just think that gives me a lot of hope seeing people enter into that citizen role, you know, as we see the decline of democracy, you know, how what are the things that are going to change that and it's people stepping into that citizen role, which I think plays a big part.
Rich Harwood 29:24
Absolutely. You know, this is and this is part of what it means to turn it outward. When we turned inward, we think primarily about our own institutional role. And oftentimes other large institutions that are our peers in the work that we're doing or other groups in our in our network. I think when we turn outward, we begin to recognize in value the human Spark, that there are innate capacities in every individual no matter their station in life. And it's not just an individual's, though that's important. It's in different organizations. It's in small nonprofits, and it's In state institutions, it's in arts groups. And that were things I like to talk about is that we need to somehow find ways to combine the institute institutional actions with human scale actions, so that we can fully Marshal the collective resources of our communities, which requires us deeply to believe in the innate capacities of different groups of different, as you said, of different citizens and different people, that we all have something contribute no matter how small, and it's all valuable. Because what it does is it reflects that we are part of something larger than ourselves that we have a stake in something that we believe in each other, that we're willing to lean in and make ourselves visible. And, yes, that's important to solving problems. But it's even more important to the health and vibrancy of democratic societies into the health and vibrancy of our community life. Mm hmm.
Lisa Attygalle 30:56
And you use the words personal responsibility versus shared responsibility. talk more about that and how you see the differences and the like, what is that responsibility that each of us have?
Rich Harwood 31:08
I think we hopefully feel a sense of responsibility toward one another, that we make ourselves visible that we, that we don't turn our backs on one another. That where we believe we can contribute, we, we contribute that we we see ourselves fundamentally as citizens and co producers and co creators of our communities, not as claimants and consumers and complainers in our community. So as in terms of personal responsibility, I think there's that. Another way of saying that is we each have to show up in our own ways. I think shared responsibility is what I'm really concerned about is how do we build the Civic culture within our communities where we can combine these institutional actions with humans. Scale actions and do it in a way that will not only as I said before solving problems, which is important and critical to all of our work, but that we are shifting the ways in which we relate to one another. We're fundamentally shifting the ways in which we see one another. we're shifting the ways in which we work together. We're shifting the ways in which we learn together. In other words, we're shifting the ways in which we imagine and create and co create our civic culture in which we live together and make our lives together. And I think that requires not just mechanistic responses, or sometimes it does. Sometimes it requires technocratic responses, but fundamentally requires something those are all necessary, but they're not sufficient. We need something bigger, and something that I think gets closer to something what I would call shared responsibility. Mm hmm.
Lisa Attygalle 32:55
I love that, you know, and I was writing down institutional actions plus humans. Scale actions. I think I think that's so important. And just understanding those two, you know, we might play both of those roles, we might represent an organization. And lately I've been doing a lot of research and writing about what exactly does it mean to be community lead? As we see the calls for community lead approaches, what exactly does that mean? And I think I think it's that the combination between leveraging both those institutional actions and the human scale actions that really starts to get at where that can be really powerful
Rich Harwood 33:37
Absolutely. And it gets back to where where you began which is what is it what does it really mean to listen into into deeply know your community? And then to as you're suggesting, now, believe in distributed capacities for us to take action that no one organization no one coalition, no one individual Nope. One leader has the capacity to create change. I know we all know this, I'll just say, you know, we just did a study Actually, we looked, we call it a 30 year impact study. And then it, it, the name of it is called plan serendipity about how do you create? How do you plan for serendipity and communities and, and, and so we looked at our initiatives over 30 years to see what we could learn, again from them. And we're about to publish it as a book. But the point I want to make is, you know, communities don't change as communities, communities changed through networks of people in groups and ways of doing things. And so, for most communities that requires we need multiple networks, we need multiple groups, right? So there is no one of us who can do this on our own and there is no single plan. I don't believe that can that can help regenerate or improve or strengthen a community. We need to come at this from multiple angles with multiple actors with multiple actors. And create the kind of combustion that creates innovation and ideas and learning and competition of ideas, which I think is equally important as we do our work, which I can just say one last thing about this. That's part of the thing about showing up. When we show up, we want everything neat and tidy. What I'm arguing for is when we show up, we want you know, messiness is part of what we're all up to. The competition of ideas is really healthy. For us. being challenged is really great. It's healthy for us, seeing what works and what doesn't work is really healthy for us. So when we show up, we have to show up, ready to engage in these ways. So that we can we can make things we can we can, we can actually create something better than what we have now.
Lisa Attygalle 35:50
Thank you. Thank you so much rich. This has been such a wonderful discussion and I want to allow time for questions. And so just to reminder to everybody. to please, you can add your questions to the q&a box on your on your zoom client. And Duncan, can you help? Take us through some of the questions that we have so far?
Duncan Field 36:14
Yeah, thank you both. Lots of questions coming in so far. And again, even if you don't have a question, you can open up the q&a panel and use the thumbs up button to vote on which questions you'd like to see answered. The first question comes from Joe. And they ask, does this sort of change have to start with a public leader who gets it? Or can citizens or other local organizations initiate these types of changes?
Rich Harwood 36:36
Great question, Joe. Actually, most of the change that I've seen in my work over 30 years now, typically has not come from a public leader, which is not to say that it couldn't, but it hasn't is and and I think there are lots of reasons for that in the state. So what I can say is that it hasn't because I think our public leaders have been By and large, the last ones to hop on the train, in terms of changing the Civic culture of our company. That's not true for every public leader, but it's, you know, definitely been true. By and large. So the change I've seen in immobile was started by a group of citizens who formed this organization called mo Bo area Education Foundation and, and they went to work and started to enlist different groups in in Battle Creek, Michigan, where we did work, which went over six or eight years. It began by six individuals who formed an ad hoc group all came from organizations, but came from ad hoc, toward an ad hoc group, they thought they're going to create a new program, a new 501 c three nonprofit go to a foundation to get funding for it. And what they realized was their greatest role in the community was to gain a deeper understanding of the community and to be a connector and catalyst and never named themselves. Never have a piece of stationery. Never had an office just as an adult. Group and just keep it growing in other places. I've seen it begun by a local community foundation or local Foundation, which was the convener. So in in Mississippi, we're we're starting in Jackson in a couple weeks. It's the Community Foundation for Mississippi. But the actors aren't is not the actor is not going to be the Community Foundation. The actor is going to be various groups within the community that are sparking this change. Because in Jackson, what needs to be demonstrated is that change can get started, it can get started by different types of people from different parts of the community. And to Lisa's point, that it can be maintained, the momentum can be maintained over time, because they have a history of starting and stopping things there. So one of the findings last thing, one of the findings, or insights from this 30 year impact study is we said it doesn't matter who starts to change. Now it actually does matter in terms of their practices and everything. But really what that means is, when we look across all these initiatives, we're finding different actors in each place, starting it and, and being the spark plug in, in helping to catalyze it. What they shared in common with certain characteristics, not who they were.
Lisa Attygalle 39:20
It makes me I think that's so, so important. And it makes me think I was part of a session recently, and about how to enable change in the climate justice space. And, you know, one of the calls from the city council is, you know, there was a municipal panel and, and a huge call that came out of that was, we need to hear from community members, what's most important to you, you know, if it's the leader, you know, coming forth and saying this is important, that's actually not as a respectful representative than that coming from the community.
