Tag Archives: family

The Shame of a Nation, and of this Mommy

Posted on August 16, 2011 by | 5 Comments

*My oldest son starts Kindergarten tomorrow, so it seemed like a good time to confess that I’m still conflicted. I’m still outraged that the debates in our community mostly revolve around why our tax dollars have to be shared with “those schools” (um, what part of “public” do you not understand?). I’m still looking around the room at the back-to-school ice cream social, and still dismayed by all of the faces that look like mine. And I’m still glad that my son has a great teacher and a clean school and a well-stocked library and a chance to learn Spanish and use a science lab. I just think every kid should have those things, too.

I have a crush on Jonathan Kozol. It’s OK; my husband knows all about it, and he’s fine with it. Seriously, any man who can say to conservative members of Congress, who challenge him that “throwing money at our failing schools isn’t going to solve the problem”: “Just try! Drop it from helicopters! Throw it at them! Let’s see what happens! It works for Harvard!” is a rock star in my book.

I’ve read all of his books, and they all made me mad. Most also made me write checks. All have made me ask hard questions about my own life and how I am, in many ways conscious and unconscious, contributing to the perpetuation of our nation’s greatest injustices.

But perhaps none hit as close to home as Shame of a Nation: The Restoring of Apartheid Schooling in America.

See, I just looked up the statistics, and, while I knew that the elementary school our kids will go to is mostly white, I didn’t know it was 94% white. I feel like writing that in huge letters, because it’s shocking. Even worse, the high school, with a much larger catchment area, that we really thought was fairly diverse, is 91% white. As in NINETY-ONE PERCENT WHITE. And how, exactly, do I expect my kids to receive a truly great education–not just with chess club and Spanish classes and an elementary science lab, which they will have, but with classmates who look like the United States of America–when more than 9/10 of those classmates are white? But more importantly, how do I expect other people’s children, children of color, to receive a truly great education when there are, by demographic eventuality, so few white kids left to go to their schools with them?

Kozol’s book starts with the assertion that we must name the problem ‘segregation’ in order to solve it, and 317 pages later, he really leaves no doubt. Our schools are systematically, almost intentionally, failing students of color, preparing them only for employment, not for democracy, and oftentimes not even preparing them well for employment. We’re teaching to the test, suppressing dissent, pretending that the civil rights movement is over, and thanking our ‘lucky stars’ that our kids go to the good (read: white) schools. We’re spending the few tax dollars that legislatures are willing to appropriate to buy highly regimented, patented curricula that actually reflect very low expectations for our children of color, and that drive the best teachers farther away from those struggling schools.

And then parents, not unlike me, move to places that have ‘good’ schools, where teachers can encourage kids to ask questions, where everyone gets a textbook, where it’s safe to go out to recess…and we take our tax dollars with us. We (okay, this part is not actually me) contribute to private foundations that funnel even more money to our kids’ schools, and then we act like they’re inherently smarter, more ambitious, more ‘scholarly’ than the kids who have been taught, from a young age, that they don’t matter. We know that our housing values are artificially high, in part, because inner-city schools are struggling; we see that we could get a lot more house on the other side of the state line, and that feels yucky. We hope that our kids won’t stare when we see black people, that they’ll know how to exist in a multicultural society, that they’ll somehow learn what we say and not what we do, and we feel pretty horrible about it.

And it looks a whole lot like 1953. And now I have to figure out what to do about it, not just as a Board member of an organization that fights for equity and excellence in Kansas schools and an advocate for social justice, but also as a mom.

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Then and Now–The Importance of Play

Posted on August 9, 2011 by | 3 Comments

*I’m still on maternity leave and, so, revising and republishing some of my favorite posts from the past two years. I’ve tried to select some that were particularly popular at the time, as well as some of my own personal favorites. I appreciate your patience as I dedicate myself to full-time motherhood for a few more weeks!

The best organizers, like the best parents, I’m convinced, understand the value of play. We’ve all been involved in social movements that could use a serious injection of fun–when even a big rally is kind of a drag, it’s a serious sign that something is wrong. Think about it; most of the time we need to ask people to stick with us for months, even years, and few people want to spend that much time with people who are not any fun. We need to nourish people’s souls as we’re fighting with them for justice, and that means learning to laugh, commune, and dance together, not just march and strategize and shout.

And this was something that was a little hard for me to learn. My family of origin is, quite honestly, not too big on play. When you ask us what we’re doing for the weekend, we’ll respond with a to-do list. We’re pretty much always working on something: paid employment, volunteering, housework, general self-improvement. We love each other, and we even have a good time together, but it’s mostly in parallel labor, not real relaxation. And I still very much carry this with me.

Thank goodness that I started my organizing work in a community that includes celebration and comraderie as a core part of its culture. Early on in my work with Latino immigrants, they showed me by example that taking time to eat meals together, to attend each other’s family celebrations, to tell jokes (that never translate well into English!), to make music and dance, to enjoy beautiful artwork…that these pursuits are not distractions from community-building but integral components of the same. I wisely learned, also early in my career, that these were areas where I was best to cede all authority to the grassroots leaders for whom such play was more natural, and they organized some of the best parties and gatherings I’ve ever attended, as well as finding ways to weave laughter and love into every thing we did together–from planning sessions to poster-making nights to GOTV phone banks to trips to Topeka to give testimony. And the relationships that we built were stronger as a result of attending to each others’ needs as whole people rather than just our ‘serious’ sides.

And this is a lesson that has served me well as a mom, too. Despite my overly productive tendencies, I am now that mom who spends most of the day on the floor playing. My oldest son thinks that twist-ties are called trailer hitches, because I’ve fashioned them to connect all of his trucks in a long line. We get really dirty by the end of each day–painting, building, imagining. My youngest kids get wrestled and sung to and swung around every day. I don’t get much done, honestly, until they go to bed each night. But, then again, I do. Each shared moment of play builds a reservoir of good will, of relational strength, that I can then call on as we continually negotiate our lives together as a family. And it’s the building of those deep relationship wells that comprises the core task of community organizing.

So, there–your excuse to ‘play’ at work! If anyone has good stories to share about how you have infused playfulness into your advocacy and/or organizing work and how it has made a difference for you, I’d love to hear it. Please share your experiences to give others fun ideas!

Materials:
There’s a great article that I use in class that discusses this idea of incorporating play into community organizing. I can’t attach the article here because of copyright restrictions, but I can email it to anyone who lets me know that they want it, or here’s the citation. He uses great examples–remember the giant puppets that were part of the WTO protests in Seattle? and makes a great case for integrating playful strategies into any type of organizing campaign.

Shepard, B. (2005). Play, Creativity, and the New Community Organizing. Journal of Progressive Human Services 16(2), 47-69.

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On Being a Radical Social Worker

Posted on August 8, 2011 by | 6 Comments

*I’m still on maternity leave and, so, revising and republishing some of my favorite posts from the past two years. I’ve tried to select some that were particularly popular at the time, as well as some of my own personal favorites. I appreciate your patience as I dedicate myself to full-time motherhood for a few more weeks!

Nobody wants to be called a radical anymore, right? I mean, there are whole organizations dedicated to the pursuit of ‘moderation’ in politics and in life itself, and, while you might see someone designated a ‘conservative’ or even a ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ in a media report, you almost never see the word radical except in a criminal context.

So what does all of this running from the word ‘radical’ mean for those of us who really feel that it best describes how we see our social work? That it, in fact, is kind of an aspiration, a difficult-to-attain but nonetheless highly desirable plane, where our social work practice would be truly transformational, revolutionary, even, in a way that would infuse hope and meaning and promise into our every interaction with clients, colleagues, and adversaries.

Social workers, it’s time we reclaimed ‘radical’. Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines ‘radical’ (note that the most commonly-understood meaning isn’t either of the first two given, and I have to laugh at the last one, because I can just imagine the ridiculous things I’ll say that will totally embarrass my kids, since I have a tendency to use the term ‘awesome’ at least fifty times a day):

RADICAL:
“1: of, relating to, or proceeding from a root: as a (1): of or growing from the root of a plant (2): growing from the base of a stem, from a rootlike stem, or from a stem that does not rise above the ground b: of, relating to, or constituting a linguistic root c: of or relating to a mathematical root d: designed to remove the root of a disease or all diseased and potentially diseased tissue
2: of or relating to the origin : fundamental
3 a: marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional : extreme b: tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions c: of, relating to, or constituting a political group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change d: advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs
4slang: excellent, cool”

Armed with that definition, then, why do I call myself a radical social worker? Because I believe that social work is at its best when it is about addressing the root causes of the problems we encounter in our practice, and helping those afflicted by such problems to see, and attack, their origins as well. We are our most noble when we are willing to stand up and fight against the institutions and social norms and embedded injustices that perpetually harm human beings. We are our most successful when we use our collective energies to find new ways of linking people to overcome their oppressions and our most inspiring when we apply our considerable wits to thinking of new ways over, around, and through the systems that constrain us.

When I was getting my MSW at Washington University, I had the amazing opportunity to take a class from David Gil, a radical social worker, professor, author, and truly incredible person who challenged a lot of what I thought I knew about social policy and fairness and the limits of the possible. I wrote a paper for his class about liberation theology and applying my faith to a practice of radical social work, and the thinking that I did for that class continues to inform much of how I define my work today. If you haven’t read any of his books, do. (Or take one of my classes, because I almost always assign something of his!)

When we practice radical social work, we act a lot like my (almost) three-year-old. We ask ‘why’ ALL THE TIME. Why does it have to be that way? Why can’t we do it? Why do you get to set the rules? Why can’t she have it? Why do you say that? Why did we start doing it this way? Why don’t we change?

And, sometimes, like my son, fed up with insufficient and unsatisfactory answers, we create our own. And so, sometimes getting to the root of problems, as definitions #1 and #2 suggest, requires a little of #3–we have to move beyond what’s considered acceptable or ‘normal’ or ‘polite’ to create new systems that are more equitable and less structurally violent. And, in so doing, we build new kinds of relationships and create a vision of social work that moves far beyond any allegation of ‘band-aid placing’. We find that defying convention and thumbing our noses at the naysayers is quite freeing and, once you move past the fear, pretty fun. And, honestly, that’s pretty radical. As in definition #4. Claim it.

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Parenting and the Golden Rule of Organizing

Posted on August 1, 2011 by | 1 Comment

*I’m still on maternity leave, and, so, reposting some of my favorite posts from the last two years of Classroom to Capitol. I’ve tried to pick out a mix of those that attracted a lot of attention at the time and those that are just personally meaningful to me (and, I hope, to some of you!), and I’ve also updated them, in some cases, with some new questions and information. Thank you for your patience as I dedicate myself to full-time motherhood for a few more weeks!

When I was in graduate school at Washington University (the one in St. Louis), I had the amazing opportunity to take a class from Ernesto Cortes, lead organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation in the Southwest. He came to teach two long weekend seminars on institution-based organizing that Wash U offered as a regular 3-credit course. It was so intimidating that some of the class is still a blur to me, but some snippets of what we talked about still stand out (along with a memory of my mortification when he chose me to model a 1:1 with him in front of the entire class–scary).

One of the things that really hit me as a social worker was his explanation of the ‘golden rule’ of organizing: Never do for someone else what he/she can do for him/herself. Not should do for herself, but can do for herself. Not ‘rarely’ or ‘seldom’, but ‘never’.

I like this rule because, when you first hear it, it sounds so totally common-sense. Of course we should never do things for other people that they can do for themselves, right? Um, except that we do it all the time. As social workers, and, indeed, as people, how often do we take shortcuts, making the phone call ourselves because we’re afraid our client will forget, or answering for a client in a meeting because we’re afraid he doesn’t understand, or staying late to finish a report for a colleague because we’re really good at that.

And, at first, it doesn’t seem like a bad thing. I mean, we’re social workers. We’re supposed to help people, right? And that means doing helpful things for people, right?

I struggled with this quite a bit in my community and advocacy practice. How is an organizer supposed to know what someone can do for herself? Do we let them try and fail? What if such failure has implications for the whole community, or the whole organization? Where do we draw the line between empowering people and abandoning them? Between paternalistic ‘overdoing’ for people and supportive modeling and guidance? How do we ensure that our interactions with people change as they change and grow? And how do we deal with the fact that sometimes not doing for other people is harder and slower than just getting it done, when our lives and our organizing are so busy?

It was when my oldest son was struggling with his carseat buckle that I made the connection: the same challenges that parents of toddlers face apply to this age-old organizing connundrum. He wants to learn how to unfasten his carseat because he knows that, once he can do it independently, he’ll get to move to the back of the van with his brother or sister. He hates sitting in the middle row by himself, so he’s really motivated to get this figured out (you might say that he has a good sense of his self-interest). As you can imagine, his initial attempts at this have been less than satisfactory. As I’m trying to get the other kids loaded up to get to wherever we’re headed (inevitably late), I find myself facing the same dilemma as when I wondered whether it was fair to ask an undocumented client to speak to the media or someone who spoke limited English to give the introduction…what can he do for himself? What must I do for him? How do we negotiate this in a way that builds his skills and his confidence and, most importantly to an emerging leader and a toddler, enhances his real power?

I don’t have all of the answers for this, in organizing or in parenting. But I know that, when I hit on the right approach as an organizer, people did extraordinary things that they (and, honestly I) were quite unsure they could do. And, as a mom, when my son got the chest strap on his carseat off all by himself and said, “Mom, I’m getting really close to sitting in the backseat!” I know that Ernie Cortes is right. It’s not easy to sit on our hands and do less, but, if we can stand it, we really are doing more.

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Personal is Political Week: Parenting Politically

Posted on June 30, 2011 by | Leave a comment

This is the last post in The Personal is Political Week, here at Classroom to Capitol, but it obviously does not mark the end of my thinking about the larger contexts of even my most private decisions. And, since I spend the vast majority of my physical and mental energy most days parenting my three kids, the part of my life where I reflect most on the political nature of the choices I make is in my parenting.

I’ve written about that some here before, about choosing schools for my kids and deciding how to include them in my activism activities.

And I’ve thought about how, in many ways, the decision to become a parent in the first place is laden with social implications, at least for me: it was a choice to divert some of the personal resources I had previously invested entirely in the public sphere to my own private family, and it was also a sort of announcement that, despite my preoccupation with its wrongs, I find enough good in this world to bring a child into it.

Yeah, for me, it wasn’t really about the layettes at all.

Despite the days that I feel pulled in too many directions to accomplish anything well, I am acutely aware that I am so very fortunate to have the “work/family balance” that I do, when, for the vast majority of American families, our economy is just not structured to make parenting very possible. Our leave, childcare, and wage policies try to cast parenting as though it is an entirely private responsibility. In the midst of that reality, trying to parent well is in itself a sort of political act, a kind of thumbing one’s nose at hostile work environments and indifferent public officials, to refuse to yield one’s right to try to raise a future generation.

Most days, though, politics creep into my parenting in much more mundane ways. I encounter building entries and sidewalks that won’t accommodate our triple stroller, so I complain to codes officials. I hear my son’s friend call something a “girl toy”, and get him talking about why girls and boys are expected to play with different things. I challenge the teacher who uses the word “independent” to describe my daughter, as though it were a bad thing. I point out to my husband the value of my unpaid labor to our household. I remind my consulting client that I can’t make a phone call that day because it’s a day home with my kids. I sit with my oldest son to watch videos of President Obama signing the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I alienate the parents of my children’s friends by incessantly calling for a fair statewide school funding formula.

But, in reflection this week, I think the most political part of my parenting is in the way that I actually do it. The book Red Families v. Blue Families, which I read recently, made me see that choices that I make about how I listen to my kids, the choices that I give them, the ways in which I let them fall (and stand) on their own, the kinds of emotions they’re allowed to express, the rights and expectations they are encouraged to demand, and the access they have to me, as their parent…all of that mirrors, in many ways, the kind of political system I hope that I’m playing a small part in building in the world beyond our doors.

So, I hope what my three children are learning about politics and the way the world should work is not who Mommy votes for (although they’re encouraged to ask questions and given honest answers), but that those who have power over you should be accountable to you, that you have an inviolable right to security, and that you have tools at your disposable to change what you can’t tolerate. That doesn’t mean our family is a democracy, exactly, but it means that I don’t say “because I said so”, that Sam can say that I’m mean, if that’s how he feels, and that I trust that my kids can handle a lot of truth.

I didn’t really think about setting out on a “parenting as citizenship preparation” course, but I guess that’s where we are. And, as I evaluate every night how well I did at being Mom, and being me, it’s both political and very, very personal.

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Personal is Political Week: Grandpa Pete and the New Economy

Posted on June 27, 2011 by | Leave a comment

That's my Grandpa Pete, about 1.5 years before he died

As an instructor, I have to be very cognizant of boundaries with my students, particularly since I’ve had kids, since everyone is understandably interested in my adorable children’s every activity (what, no?).

Still, becoming a parent has also made me even more aware of the political nature of private life, which has led to greater integration between my personal and professional selves, not less.

So, while I don’t go out for drinks with my students (even when they ask), or tell them about an argument with my husband or a particularly long day with the kids, I also don’t try to hide the fact that who I am as a person helps to shape who I am as a social worker, and an advocate for social justice.

In that spirit, this week is The Personal is Political Week on Classroom to Capitol. This week’s three posts all feature something personal about my life: my family, my parenting, and my faith, with some reflections about how those pieces of my identity influence my social work.

In addition to comments about any of these posts, I’d also love to hear from other instructors about what you disclose, and how, and how you negotiate boundaries so that students are protected from messy entanglements, while not artificially maintaining too severe a distance, so as to preclude the working relationships we know make a difference in social work education. I’d never claim to have found that perfect balance, but I’m always interested in learning!

My Grandpa Pete died in August 2010. He was 95 years old, and, while I miss him very much, he was ready to die, and so there’s a great deal of peace with the loss.

Somewhat oddly, perhaps, I’ve been thinking about him a lot over the past month, as I work on the Kansas poverty report (forthcoming from KACAP!). Thinking about our current economy, and those at risk for poverty within it, have prompted a lot of reflection on who Grandpa Pete was, what he accomplished, and how much the context of his times influenced his life options.

See, my Grandpa Pete grew up on a “farm” in rural Missouri that never really produced a lot of anything. Most of the time, the family sharecropped. He didn’t graduate from high school; the family story is that he quit because his younger sister needed money for shoes if she was to stay in school. He got a job in Kansas City, eventually working his entire career at Phillips Petroleum. I’m proud of how hard he worked, of his mangled knuckles that are testament to his physical labor, and of he and my Grandma’s sense of frugality, that I know still lives in me (no, we are never getting cable).

But I also know that jobs that pay a “family wage” (my Grandma mostly stayed home with my mom and her sister) and came with health insurance and full pension benefits, mostly aren’t available to people without high school diplomas today.

Before he died, Grandpa proudly pointed out to me the banks where he had money deposited (FDIC limits, you know), and I’ve thought of the satisfaction in his voice as I pour over statistics about how less-educated workers fare today.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not taking anything away from Grandpa Pete and what he did to say that it’s wrong not to live in an economy that makes that possible today. People who are born into poverty, as he was, should still have a real chance at economic mobility. Instead, more than 42% of those raised in the bottom income quintile today stay there as adults. And those who are low income find it almost impossible to accumulate the assets that brought my Grandpa so much comfort in his later life (if not, admittedly, a new pair of pants–there’s the frugality!); 50% of Kansans with incomes below $24,800 are “asset poor.”

Like so many of us, Grandpa Pete experienced the opportunities embedded within his world as though they were invisible. He believed that hard work, and my Grandma’s nagging about saving money, deserve the credit for his ability to leave behind the persistent want of his childhood.

And, indeed, if our economy still worked for working people, that is how it should work: opportunities for those of different skill levels to contribute to economic productivity and to be compensated fairly for that effort, in a system that shelters people from the greatest risks: disability, illness, temporary unemployment, and, in my Grandpa’s case, living more than 30 years after retirement. If the “playing field” were truly level, then people could look back on their lives as races well-run, so to speak, instead of being ever-aware of the forces that constrain their chances, from childhood through later life.

I miss his grin, and his not-so-funny “jokes”, and his advice about crop rotation.

And I like to consider my efforts to make our economy fairer, for everyone, part of my tribute to him: Grandpa Pete, you made it, and other people should be able to, too.

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If we all gave like Sam…the abundance of a four-year-old

Posted on June 23, 2011 by | Leave a comment


This thing was pretty heavy when he turned it in!

First of all, a slight disclaimer: Sam would want everyone to know that he is actually four and a HALF years old, not four.

It just made the title a little unwieldy.

With the legislative session in Kansas (and many other states) pretty recently concluded, and the damage wrought by the devastating budget cuts only beginning to take hold, and nonprofit organizations around the country struggling with the combination of public cuts and declines in private donations, I was struck by my oldest son’s reaction to a recent giving campaign at our church.

After the pastor explained that we were raising money for community development activities that help families living in poverty in the U.S. and around the world gain the skills and assets they need to live healthy and sustainable lives (livestock, small business capital, clean drinking water, core health services), he carefully assembled his cardboard bank, like kids have been doing for decades in the developed world.

And then he proceeded to put all of his allowance, saved from the past few weeks (not in anticipation of this, but just because he hadn’t gotten around to spending it yet) in the bank.

I reminded him that he gets $1 each week specifically to “share”, and that he could use that money instead of his spending money. And then I realized what I was doing and stopped talking.

He hadn’t forgotten about his “sharing” money. He was simply recognizing this giving opportunity as a good way to spend his allowance, more worthy than any of the ideas for personal consumption that he might have had. He gave joyfully, and rather effortlessly, with no angst over what could have been or what might come, but with an uncomplicated embrace of this chance to be part of something bigger than he.

I’m not suggesting that state legislatures, or even individual adult donors, give exactly like a preschooler. I mean, Sam’s basic needs are obviously all taken care of, and he gave out of truly disposable income that’s admittedly limited in many households and state capitals.

Except there is something to learn from his approach to money. It reflects a philosophy of abundance that’s not, really, unrealistic at all, but rather a hope-filled and somewhat self-fulfilling attitude that treats money as a tool (which it is), rather than something to be revered in its own right. He knows that he’ll get more satisfaction from hearing those coins clink in the big jar at church, and from hearing the stories about communities his money has helped, than he does from seeing the money sit on his dresser. And he knows that, quite honestly, other people need and can use that money much more than he.

And he’s right.

It reminded me, in a perhaps odd way, of a legislative forum I attended early in this session, where one of my favorite Kansas Senators lamented how we’re approaching the whole budget quandry from the “wrong end”, asking not “what are the functions that state government should perform, in order to achieve the prosperity and health and security and quality of life we desire (and deserve)”, but, instead, “how much money can we rather painlessly come up with, and how should we divide those limited dollars?”

Which question we ask does matter, and which question we choose will determine the kind of state government we end up with. The first looks at outcomes and believes that investments create abundance, while the latter approaches governing from a scarcity mentality and likely sows more scarcity in exchange.

And a similar cycle plays out in nonprofit organizations, too, even those that don’t rely on government funding. As donors, we more often give from what we think is left over, rather than starting with a question about what we want our donations to accomplish and what support we think the organizations to which we give really deserve.

Nonprofit organizations that depend on our gifts know that this is the giving reality, and they respond in kind: figuring out what they can possibly do with the money they can find, rather than setting goals and pursuing revenue that makes those dreams possible.

None of this is designed to berate nonprofit administrators, who confront nearly impossible choices these days when they do their books. Or even state legislators, who receive scarcity messages as they door-knock in their campaigns and find it difficult to imagine operating from another perspective.

It’s just a reminder, that perhaps we could build a better world, the world we all imagine if we allow ourselves that luxury, the world we know that we really deserve, if we approached the prospect of sharing, whether our public funds or our charitable contributions, with the gleeful abundance of a four-and-a-HALF-year old, who seems to know instinctively that, indeed, much is possible.

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They’re really free agents: parenting lessons and organizational practice

Posted on June 21, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Who wouldn't want a superhero on their team? And why would I fight my kid on wearing his Batman costume to run errands?

One of my favorite blogs to read, partially for the insightful content and partially because I’m convinced that she’s a terrific person (even though we’ve never “met”), Community Organizer 2.0, had a post awhile back that dealt with the idea of free agents, a topic expanded on in The Networked Nonprofit, and one that I’ve done some thinking about here before.

And it occurred to me at the time that my most successful parenting days come when I apply the principles of free agency to my kids, and that those lessons can help me not only succeed as a parent but also apply to my organizing and organizational development work. And, then it took me a couple of months to actually sit down and write that out. And, apparently, I’m incapable of doing so today in short sentences!

The concept of free agents is basically this: if nonprofit organizations and “official” entities try to control too tightly their messages and those who would be ambassadors for their causes, they’ll miss out on a whole lot of passionate activity that could be contributed by those who don’t see themselves as traditionally connected to a nonprofit base (as a staff member or volunteer), but who will “latch on” to your issue and, potentially, bring the new attention and energy that every campaign desperately needs.

There are some really smart people spending a lot of time thinking about organizations as fortresses and how to break down the barriers that discourage free agents, and about how to change organizational culture so that the idea of loosely affiiliating in this way isn’t so strange and scary. It’s tremendously exciting, in part because of the incredible advocacy potential of free agents (who often specifically want to tell people about a given cause and rally others to its defense, which is what advocacy efforts crave), and also because I believe that making organizations more responsive and responsible to free agents will make them places where clients can tap into leadership opportunities and where transparency will, to a large extent, reign.

Very important stuff.

And, of course, because I’ve got young children to raise, I tend to think of everything in terms of what it means for me as a mom, in addition to someone who tries to think about and work with social problems and the nonprofit organizations charged with addressing them. Which brings me (eventually!) to this post.

Because my kids are free agents, with me, not of me, and the more I remember that, the better things work around here. What this means for me as a parent, and what I think it can mean for us as practitioners?

  • We have to be okay with the fact that free agents don’t do things the way we would do them. If we want that, we need to just do them ourselves. But, so much of the time, we’re too busy, or we’ve recognized that there is something valuable to be gained by giving others the chance to do for themselves, but then we want quality control veto, or something, over the final product. That’s crazy-making, whether it’s how my kids spread peanut butter on their own sandwiches, or how someone crafts a Facebook appeal for your next advocacy meeting. They’re free, remember, to come at this their own way.
  • Similarly, we need a clear sense of where we’re headed, so that we don’t have to stress if we’re not following the same path to get there. My favorite all-time human behavior concept of equifinality applies here: there are many routes to Point B. Too often, though, we’re not entirely clear what our goal is, so then the process becomes our fixation (we all have to do it this way), not even because we want the control, but because we’re just not sure what to tell people about where we’re headed. When my kids know that we’re leaving in 10 minutes, and what they have to do to get ready, then it no longer matters if shoes or coats go on first. And if we define advocacy success so that we know it when we see it, then we’ll all be at the finish line together.
  • Ownership matters, a lot. Sometimes, we’re fine delegating control of the process to our free agents, but we want the credit (or at least the branding) for the successes. What motivates my kids, especially the oldest, is knowing that something was his call, and that the success (or failure) will be his to own, too. Too few organizations have any kind of structure to applaud the contributions of their free agents, because they’re not even consciously tracking them, and because they don’t fit into one of the categories that they currently laud. If we want free agents in our orbit, we can’t try to co-opt them.
  • It’s not just “zen”; you really get more. If this whole free agent thing was just the right thing to do, because it’s consistent with our principles of inclusivity and empowerment and maximum participation, it would still make sense, especially for nonprofit organizations seeking renewal and transformation. Absolutely. Just like, if it was just about me being a less hypocritical parent and raising my kids in the way that I believe in organizing, it would be right for us. But the truth? My kids are more creative and cooperative and enthusiastic when I treat them as my co-travelers on a life journey, rather than as extensions of myself or as my minions. And your free agents will, as case examples are demonstrating all over the world, use their talents and tools for extraordinary ends, too, when your organization stops trying to orchestrate those ends.

    I’m interested in hearing from both parents, about this whole free agent “thing” applied to kids, as well as from nonprofit folks who are finding ways to tap into and build up the free agents who circulate around their causes: is this parallel something my intense-summer-course-addled brain just came up with, or does it reflect what you see in the free agent realm?

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    Yes, everywhere: “real-life” applications for community organizing skills

    Posted on June 20, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    What does Vacation Church School have to do with community organizing, you ask?

    Um, in my world, a lot.

    Over and over again, I find that I apply my community organizing experience to all kinds of situations, and that that perspective shapes how I approach so much of my life, from how I parent to my engagement with nonprofit boards, to my neighboring to my volunteer service. In some respects, that can be problematic: I’m sure that some of my friends wish that I’d stop including “have you talked with your senator about immigration reform?” at the end of an email to them, and my husband has wondered aloud why we still send Christmas cards to several current and former elected officials as well as a scattering of immigrant advocates around the state.

    But, for the most part, I find that almost all of life’s challenges are more successfully conquered through community organizing tactics, and I’m continually struck by how amazed people are at what one can accomplish by leveraging the tremendous power of organized people.

  • I ask people to do things that fit their passions and skills, instead of putting out a “I’m sure everyone is too busy for this, but could someone please?” plea. It makes it much easier to recruit volunteers for Vacation Church School, yes, and it also gets parents to testify at a PTA legislative forum and neighbors to take on planning a block party, too. People want to be valued, and that’s not just true for major campaigns for social justice.
  • I make relationships part of my to-do list. People are more likely to say yes, not just if the ask fits with their lives, but if the asker is someone they trust and care about. That’s why I make it a point to send notes, or make calls, fairly regularly to a wide spectrum of people–those with whom I serve on Boards, other advocates, even some of my kids’ friends’ parents. Some would say that relationships are cheapened, somehow, if there’s the potential for an ask to enter the equation at some point. I counter that organizers legitimately care about people as people, absolutely, but also see relationships as our single greatest asset. And assets deserve continual investment.
  • I’m short on protocol but don’t skimp on process. I have very, very little patience for formality; committee rules and complicated chains of command tend to discourage new participation and stifle real accomplishment. But I absolutely believe in giving people an opportunity to voice their experiences, on the PTA and at the conclusion of last week’s Vacation Church School and after my son’s class end-of-year celebration.
  • I believe in multiple entry points; I want to give everyone a way to say “yes”. So, okay, maybe this sometimes looks like persistence bordering on stalking, but, when someone says no to my first ask, I follow it up with another. A good friend of mine, Jake Lowen, who is also an awesome organizer, talks about jumping ahead to a huge ask and then dialing it back to something that seems, in comparison, modest, and I guess that’s what I do. I found a role for everyone in Vacation Church School, including the folks who initially told me no. Because I want people in the door.

    So none of this work is going to change the world, right? I mean, I hope that building a better community for my kids and for others’ kids plays some small role in making a better society, but it’s not like I’m organizing a revolution. But what approaching all of life like an organizer means for me (in addition to the fact that I couldn’t turn it off if I tried) is a chance to keep my skills sharp. I also truly believe that it exposes more people to the real possibilities within themselves, when they join with others. And, that, of course, is precisely where revolutions come from.

    I want to hear from you about how organizing spills into your “regular” life, and about how applying organizing skills in other contexts has made a difference for your work. And what are you facing that could benefit from some organizing energy?

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    Wherever they are, that’s where I am, too

    Posted on May 5, 2011 by | Leave a comment

    Sunday is Mothers’ Day.

    I think about motherhood all the time, honestly, so, for me, a set-aside day to think even more about being a mom isn’t too big of a deal.

    And I’m not exactly the breakfast-in-bed type.

    This year, instead, as I approach Mothers’ Day, I’m reflecting on the kind of mother I am, and the kind of mother I want to be.

    And I’m remembering my favorite passage from one of the most marvelous books I’ve ever read, The Children, the story of the youth in the civil rights movement.

    There’s no way to do justice to the passage without quoting it, and, so, to briefly introduce it (and acknowledge that it’s actually about a father and his son, but it still speaks to me as a mother), it tells the story of a parent whose son was arrested for participating in a sit-in. The father lived in a rural community and, as an African American, was vulnerable to reprisals from the white power structure for his son’s audacious behavior while away at school. When the father first found out that his son was participating in the sit-in movement, he visited him in jail and told him to worry about himself, not about the family back home, giving his implicit approval for behavior that must have been quite frightening to contemplate.

    This scene is what reverberates in my mind:

    “Everyone in Whiteville, it seemed, knew what Curtis had done; the story was big news there. A few days after Curtis’s arrest, Buck (the father) was walking down a street in Whiteville when a white man he knew yelled over at him. “How’s that jailbird son of yours doing?” “He’s doing just fine,” Buck had answered. “Where is he?” the man said, mocking him. “Is he still in the Nashville jail?”

    “Wherever he is, I am too,” Buck Murphy had answered, and when Curtis heard that story a few days later, he knew that whatever else happened during the sit-ins, he might never again feel so close to his father.”

    I know that my children will take on battles that I cannot join, and that I may not even understand.

    I know that their journeys will take them away from me, and that I cannot hope to follow.

    I know that they will have their own struggles, and that they may, in fact, sometimes struggle against me.

    And I know, above all else, that “wherever they are, I am too.”

    Happy Mothers’ Day, to the three wonderful kids who let me be a mom.

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