New Haven TPG Project

We envision a New Haven where the voices of all community members are included when making decisions that impact their lives ~ where there is a living practice in creative agency.

We envision organizations that have committed to serve this community as having leadership and governing boards that reflect and insist on the inclusion of all voices.

Community members bring themselves fully ~ their powerful stories and their practical needs.

Community members and the organizations that serve them act from a place of loving responsibility to all.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

The Interview Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Interview Results (Quotes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 What Do You Find Compelling When You Hear This TGP Emerging Vision?

Emerging Mission? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 What Are The Challenges or Blocks That Will Have To Be Faced? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 What Are Strengths of New Haven That a Project Like This Can Build Upon? . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Emerging Themes and Related Quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Co-Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Justice, Power, Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Yale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Recommendations & Ideas For TGP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 The Funding Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Training Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Potential Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Learning From Other Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 The Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

table of contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

An In Depth Look at The Haymarket People’s Fund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39 Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Two Key Concepts Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Co-Creation: Two Key TGP Concepts Creative Agency: Our Thinking To Date Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Credits: Cover Page - Nathaniel Jocelyn’s Portrait of Joseph Cinque, a West African who led a revolt on the Cuban Amistad ship In 1839. The case was tried and won in New Haven.

Bill Graustein: Inside Photos | Audrey Davenport: Graphic Design

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

introduction

As I approached the research for Transformational Giving Project (TGP), it seemed important to keep the process simple. In the spirit of our project values, I set an intention to maintain, at every level, an evenly accessible process. The project language, ideas and mindsets are not commonly expressed in the mainstream culture: organization transformation, co-creative ways of operating, shifting ways of ‘being’ and so on. Yet, we have approached this work with the belief that there is a deep, shared longing for the reality that these words represent and that the work of TGP is to support its full expression.

The Research Phase was conducted to learn and assess basic needs and yearnings of New Haven non-profit organizations and social change movements. It is also to begin documenting common experiences and ‘guiding’ practices in social and organization transformation. The research is to be of particular value through the early planning processes.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

Niyonu D. Spann, TGP Interim Co-Director

Some individuals and organizations had strong ties and multilayered relationships with Bill, to each other and to the conceptual frameworks and language through which the TGP vision and mission are expressed.

In the interview process I tried to pay close attention to these circles of relationships, especially as they related to the following entities: The William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund (WCGMF)1, Community Leadership Program (CLP)2, Donald Davis Story Workshops3 and to a lesser degree, Beyond Diversity 101.4 I also considered the ‘circle’ of recipients of Bill’s personal giving. It was clear that if the TGP goal, “to broaden the circles of conversation and responsibility,” was to be realized, we needed to make explicit the interconnections among these many circles.

Offering due consideration of formal and informal relationships was important throughout the research and analysis. Acknowledging how one gains access and power is imperative to TGP being congruent with its vision and mission Likewise, the research pays particular attention to concepts and specific language used to convey them. For instance, if certain language or ideas have been presented in a Donald Davis workshop and that language is used in describing TGP, those who have attended a Donald Davis workshop may be assumed to have a more accurate understanding of TGP goals. Therefore, in asking interview questions I was careful to offer rephrasing and to define less commonly used terminology. In documenting and collating responses, I was careful to maintain the word-for-word quotes with minimal and clearly indicated editing, for contextual understanding only.

1 Archibald Graustein, the father of Bill Graustein, created the Memorial Fund in 1946 to honor the memory of his brother William Caspar Graustein.

The mission of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund is to improve the effectiveness of education in fostering both personal development and leadership. Bill Graustein is currently the lead trustee of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund.

2 Since 2002, the Community Leadership Program, (CLP), growing out of a vision of Bill Graustein, offers leaders (with preference given to those working the New Haven) the opportunity to explore their personal values and understand more fully the opportunities and challenges of leadership in service to communities. CLP is currently co-facilitated by Bill and Heidi Brooks 3 Bill has sponsored a number of ‘Story Development Workshops’ facilitated by master storyteller, Donald Davis. Those attending are by invitation only.

4 The significance of BD101 is unique in that key TGP concepts, most notably that of “co-creation” were introduced to Bill and brought into TGP through the curriculum of the 5-day intensive workshop called, “Beyond Diversity 101 (BD101).

interview process

In approaching the one-on-one interviews, I became increasingly aware of intertwining relationships that existed between the individuals who showed up on the first list, provided by Bill, of potential interviewees.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

interview process

The following parameters steered the development of a list of interviewees and the questions asked.

ORGANIZATIONS That are or yearn to become places where:

LEADERS (Within

Orgs./Movements)

Who want to build and sustain Orgs./ Movements where:

FUNDERS Who seek to support the building and sustaining of Orgs./ Movements where:

• People whose lives are impacted feel they can bring themselves as fully as they and the organization needs.

• There is alignment between Values (who we say we BE), Our Mission (purpose for being) and What we do (behaviors, policies, operations, norms).

• Have stepped outside of normal ways of doing things in order to co-creatively assure this alignment.

• There is a clear definition of roles and responsibilities, including a transparent hierarchy, yet each person’s contributions is invited and recognized.

To begin to understand the landscape of New Haven, particularly its non-profits and philanthropy, I began by interviewing three WCGMF staff. This was also an opportunity to better understand the ‘Memorial Fund’ and its potential relationship to TGP as well as to learn of other key community people to speak with. These first interviews focused more on ‘framing the issues’ than on getting answers to the prepared questions regarding TGP. Still, I was able to record responses to all of the TGP-specific questions from 2 out of 3 WCGMF staff.

I conducted 25 interviews with an average duration of 90 minutes.

Tape recording began at the point that I asked the first ‘official’ question though I often took notes on pertinent info shared more casually.

Those interviewed where:

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

Sonja Ahuja Laura Berry Eric Braxton Heidi Brooks David Carter Lee Cruz Malwin Davila Mary Ann Emswiler Barbara Fair Bill Graustein

Lisa Graustein Bonita Grubbs Eliza Halsey Jack Healy Angela Keiser Janine E. Lee Curlena McDonald David Nee Karla Nicholson Charlie Pillsbury

Jessica Sager Judith Shea Joanne Sciulli Carmen Siberon Judy Tabar Barbara Tinney Janna Wagner Cornell Wright

• 18 women / 8 men • 11 people of color •

8 with primary role in funding

•

6 young adults (assumed to be)

• 11 non-profit executive directors •

8 onsultant-types

•

3 primarily educators

• 19 CLP participants / alum •

6 raised in New Haven

•

5 who completed at least one 5-Day BD101 Intensive

Each interview began with a brief explanation of how Bill and I met, how we began to work on this project and my current role as Interim Co-Director. I also let the interviewee know that part of my role was to assist in the search for permanent leadership for TGP. I felt that sharing this information might reinforce my ‘outsider-non-competitor’ status and decrease concerns about my making future funding decisions.

To begin the official interview, I read the first paragraph of the TGP Emerging Vision: We envision a New Haven where the voices of all community members are included when making decisions that impact their lives ~ where there is a living practice in creative agency. We envision organizations that have committed to serve this community as having leadership and governing boards that reflect and insist on the inclusion of all voices.

Community members bring themselves fully ~ their powerful stories and their practical needs. Community members and the organizations that serve them act from a place of loving responsibility to all.

interview process

Though I did not collect hard data on those interviewed, rough demographics of interests are as follows:

I read this part of the Emerging Vision in an effort to share the ‘picture,’ the hope, the heart and the intended result.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

I then read aloud (usually two, sometime three times) the Emerging Mission: Transformational Giving Project provides funding and training to New Haven communities and organizations that seek to build effective internal practices and external interactions that are co-creative and that embody social and economic justice.

I read these statements aloud rather then sending the statements ahead of time because I felt there might be some benefit to hearing immediate reactions as opposed to more considered analysis of the statements. I knew that there would be plenty of time for more indepth consideration once the Advisory Board was established.

I frequently quote the German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who wrote, “If you would create something, you must be something.� TGP seeks to invite different ways of perceiving and expressing. Therefore, I have intentionally avoided the academic researcher/expert stance.

I’ve tried, rather, to present the information gathered in an organized, accessible manner.

What do you find compelling when you hear this TGP Emerging Vision? Emerging Mission?

Gut reaction (to the mission statement) is that they [recipients]* must participate in the training in order to receive the funding.

The notion of justice is one that jumps out at me.

I believe that what would be different is that this would hopefully be led by someone that understands what those words really mean.

If you are out there doing non-profit work, there is a caring heart somewhere but because of the fact that your benefactor may not demand that you do anything and [that] says that this is the status quo; you guys can come in but don’t really have any power. [This] is saying, “No, if you are going to participate, everybody’s going to come in and get the training, everybody’s going to get the support and we are going to try to create a new dynamic.

What is compelling is that you and others have helped him formulate this in a collective mind.

I think most of the organizations, citywide, would find that emerging mission statement compelling and it would resonate for the way they want to do their work.

At first I say, “wow” and then I say, “so what.” “Co-creative”? What is it? Whose definition of social & economic justice? The education piece is key and the financial piece is key.

interview quotes

The notion of justice of course. The idea of transformation. The focus on relationships and the additional focus on the functioning of an organizational community as an attempt to live within the transformation and strive for justice. It’s just a wonderful vision, mission--and it’s a daunting task in a city that is so oppressive.

I see a needed resource that has the ability to bring folks together to do what needs to be done. Oftentimes, those that are influential don’t always have to respond to the individual that has lessons for them.

When I listen to it I see an inclusiveness where organizations of color tend to be in places but not necessarily have the power to do stuff.

Doing the CLP experience you can talk about it, through this process we can do it because he’s saying that’s the playing field and I’m going to give you the go ahead to do that. * Researcher’s notes are placed in brackets. As infrequently as possible, words are added in brackets that assist in clarity, particularly where the interviewee made statements earlier in the interview.

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interview quotes

What do you find compelling when you hear this TGP Emerging Vision? Emerging Mission?

Effective, co-creative, social and economic justice, these are priority words.

What resonates for me about the emerging mission statement is that there needs to be support for community groups and community members who really want to take leadership but struggle on figuring out how to come together and do it.

Wow, there are other people in this community that have the same desire to lead authentically, it doesn’t look necessarily like traditional, hierarchical, autocratic leadership.

I think the background (vision statement) that propels the mission is really compelling to me in thinking about my own experience in growing up here and living here now and trying to figure out in particular how to ensure healthy family, kids, and neighborhoods.

We are not just going to fund the idea--we actually want to train you toward this end, so the training and the funding go hand in hand. I think that’s an appropriate way to imagine how to bring this to fruition.

First, the word “co-creative,” that’s a good word, a jazz word. That includes, do your thing loud, like a clear instrument, at your best, but play it with the idea that you actually have to resonate, in that the person next to you is also playing their song. You actually have to, by all means, do your thing, but it’s not in a silo.

Inclusion. The notion in there that we are trying to discover a way where we can include how issues are occurring to everyone and not just a representative portrayal of how the issues are occurring.

I am excited, mostly, by this mission statement because I can see it as a series of concentric circles: You take your internal practice and you make it true and real, and you build integrity and openness.

I couldn’t have come up with that language but it really feels right.

I think that folks would line up. There’s a heart that, I think, in principle lines up behind this mission.

The background vision, which I find very, very powerful, the idea of true inclusion--because there is a lot of talk about stakeholders in our community, but when we talk about stakeholders, we are often talking about a group of appointed, or self-appointed leaders.

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What do you find compelling when you hear this TGP Emerging Vision? Emerging Mission?

I love the idea of “co-creative.” It feels a little murky to me because I don’t know who the co-creators are.

I think it seems to be very inclusive, including everybody in the community. But I need to process it, because at the same time, it’s focused, but it’s not.

I like the inside-out approach to this, that there are both internal practices and external interactions, but what’s really compelling is that inside work.

What’s exciting is to have an organization committed to this kind of work. It is not a power-over; it is a power-with kind of thing.

Yeah, Right. Those of us who have tried know that it is too hard.

There would be something that would happen that would allow people a different kind of perspective, a different kind of hope, a different kind of story that they tell.

Bill has told me a little bit about this, what made my heart sing was that there could potentially be funding to build the capacity within the organization, to be very authentic.

When you read that mission statement, I think of, how do we engage in a conversation, and how do we, first, identify the people who want to engage in the conversation, and sit down with them, and figure out how to seed that vision within the context of getting funding that is demanding output. You know, performance statistics that are, again, necessary, but don’t get at (real change).

interview quotes

The other thing I think of, this is a very exciting opportunity given what happened with CLP as leaders spent a year together and learned a lot. I think that program unleashed yearning.

The potential to have an entity that would provide funding and potentially other resources to help organizations to build that capacity beyond the leader--I get really excited. It could be very transforming.

I like the idea of actually supporting building internal structures within organizations. I think that’s a hard thing to do, that is really healthy, not changing a project but changing how things are happing in multiple ways.

Amen: People dream about this wholeness.

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interview quotes

What do you find compelling when you hear this TGP Emerging Vision? Emerging Mission?

When I hear that the mission is about internal change and external action, I feel like it’s to some degree trying to change this negative condition that NH has. I think it’s huge work and I can’t imagine what the application of that mission would begin.

I love that he, you, talked about “communities.” A lot of the time we talk about “the community of New Haven,” as if it is monolithic. But this says that we are not talking about the monolith, we are talking about the living organism with all of its subsystems. I like that.

I love the idea of social and economic justice. I think that too often we shy away from that language. Thank God that there are people-frankly, like Bill--who have enough money that they don’t have to pay attention to that, that they are not beholden to anybody.

What resonates for me about the emerging mission statement is that there needs to be support for community groups and community members who really want to take leadership but struggle on figuring out how to come together and do it.

I like that it actually involves the people of NH. I think it would necessitate the different areas of NH talking to each other and I don’t think that’s happened a lot.

Focusing on internal practice is very important. I think that’s what organizations struggle with--they have a value system, and I think they really struggle with how they actually live in this value system.

They are much better about projecting it out to others and looking at others through their value lens. But I think they struggle much more, without any help, around their own internal living with the values they espouse.

What I heard assumes that things are not the way that they ought to be, and that people are not listened to in the ways they ought to be listened to. What I hear beyond that is a desire, a wish to do something that allows for; I’ll call it, personal and social change – personal and social transformation.

The name: Transformational Giving It assumes that, we’re not living in a transformational state in New Haven, that we’re probably living in a kind of a well-worn path – a kind of practice in doing things in a certain way.

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What are the challenges or blocks that will have to be faced?

You drive up Prospect Street, drive up Division Street--you have to go through the whole area--it is really a distressed neighborhood. You go over Prospect Street, and then you’re in St. Roman’s you’re in the Yale faculty neighborhood, you can literally throw a stone to where there is a lot of gun violence.

I don’t know what happens to people who get a position where they might be able to improve conditions, and don’t. We have a machine in this city that is powerful and vengeful if you don’t tow the line. I know racism is alive and thriving. People who hold racist views are in pretty powerful positions, but it’s very sensitive in some areas, very sophisticated in the places where it could make the biggest difference.

The condition is one that is very top-down, and worse than that, the word “bully” comes to mind. And it exists at a municipal level, a district level--I think it exists at the organizational level as well, and at a logistical level as well. And even the ones that do it very well are influenced by that culture in New Haven as a matter of survival.

You find a lot of intellectual dialogue here in NH but we need to move from intellectual dialogue to collective engagement. And this may require giving people security.

What I think is, the ‘internal to the system’ works by virtue of the power pre-emanating from your point of access... I mean, when we go to “the community,” who are we meeting with? Now, right there, you’re already, maybe inadvertently perpetuating power structures.

interview quotes

I had an instructor, professor, she was clear and she came to class one day and she had this map of Israel and overlays, and she overlaid Israel to show its growth, over time. She was trying to help us understand the Israel-Palestine connection. You can do the same thing here in New Haven.

So his (Bill’s) desire to continue work with existing organizations, and the existing leaders, the existing system supporters, just makes me wonder. I would almost have loved to hear that he was going to support a bunch of TOC-types for all of it, and put more external pressures. But I think that’s not a core Quaker value, right?

A legacy of mistrust, of relatively few institutions that really try to engage, energize constituencies.

So, this mission would be trying to bring things together in an environment that is trying to keep things separate.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

interview quotes

What are the challenges or blocks that will have to be faced?

We are also very challenged in NH with any kind of active middle class minority community, which in many ways fosters the openness to further engagement.

Chronic, persistent, poverty-based city and disregarded, traumatized community, large, old, and oppressive.

Growing up in the city and witnessing what’s become of our neighborhoods and watching the university, literally absorb--and it hurts more and more to see it change its character.

I think there’ll be a challenge in communication, because we’re describing a world that people have a limited experience of.

New Haven has a political culture that has sought to centralize power for more than 50 years or so. It has left relatively few institutions that really try to engage and energize constituencies. It’s such a one party city.

People are quick to identify friends and enemies.

If you want to earn a check, but you need to play by those rules, you just can’t BE. And I have to say, I watched this with some sadness, because it’s almost like it’s setting people up to fake it.

NH is extraordinarily ‘baby boomer’ dominated.

I don’t think that individuals that are in financial power have any mixed feelings about who controls finances, and whose organizations run better than others and that kind of stuff. You would think that one would be glad if in these disadvantaged neighborhoods, their organizations were run more efficient but they might see it [TGP] as competition.

The big blocks would be stereotypes.

People will be invited to hold up mirrors to themselves and see how their actions may not be consistent with their beliefs: that will cause resistance.

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I think the issues of access are very real, and one of our biggest issues in the community is that they, particularly in the urban communities, have great difficulty with trust, for example. You know, school systems where the percentage of kids of color is the vast majority, and the folks running the programs, making decisions and allocating resources are not people of color. They have a very difficult time engaging, kind of figuring out what it takes to be a part of this.

What are the challenges or blocks that will have to be faced?

People seem to be really problem-focused which can be tricky in trying to develop a broader strategy.

There is a plantation mentality.

The digital divide is unbelievably different, and the fact that they [young people] don’t have the same relationship to place that you and I have is a real challenge - that’s the one that we haven’t discovered yet and I think it is the biggest one of all.

I feel that one of the most difficult groups to engage are suburban disconnected people. I think that they are as difficult and as important to engage as it is to engage disenfranchised, inner city people.

I have to be honest that another part of me wonders, a lot. It’s not work that can be forced. And in some ways, we all know that groups can be forced to (go after funding), but nothing changes.

Right now, the current governor is not particularly friendly to NH because our mayor had the audacity to challenge the governor.

How to appropriately manage the relationships with the Empire [Yale.]

You have no major private sector or for-profit force. There is not a corporate counterweight to Yale and the hospital.

In order to move that vision forward you need other philanthropist and those are few and far between.

interview quotes

Managing the expectations of the ones who think it [TGP] should be for them.

You will probably definitely have the non people of color who lavish the opportunity to do this, others may look at it and say, because there are people who still want to control power, “Oh, wait a minute this is a black thing.”

The first challenge to come to mind is managing the expectations of the CLP cohorts. Almost everyone who would be the benefactors would be CLP alum [Those who already get co-creation’?]

E.D.’s opt to have a connection that their constituencies don’t.

There are so many non-profits that are in trouble right now because they still want to appeal to working with the people in the communities that they need to work in but then everybody is trying to do sometimes the same thing.

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interview quotes

What are the challenges or blocks that will have to be faced?

I don’t think there’s any lack of awareness of the change that needs to happen in NH, but the willingness and ability to move on that hasn’t caught up with the awareness.

We need to have ‘Co-creation 101’ because before I can bring something to my organization I have to be of it.

Lack of a regional identity - hard to get.

Some of the conversations are, how do we retain young professionals, and how do we make it a place young professionals want to stay?

Another question is; how do we get young people on boards?

A complete economic dominance by the University and the hospital.

It’s not that there is no gay community here but it doesn’t seem to be activated because in other cities, you can count on the gay community to get these issues out.

How do you gage the degree to which people are really ready? How do you figure that out?

The government is actively working against co-creation.

It’s tricky though: When some of the results are what you wanted see, but happened in a way you didn’t want to happen, it’s harder to address. With the wrong results it’s much easier to organize.

A total lack of the private sector, virtually no business community in the game.

They jump into this very academic kind of rigor, you can have all this firepower, but that’s not what it takes to win under these circumstances, so to me, it’s not what kind of research was done or how many PhD’s does this person have, that’s not what it’s about, but we get really locked into thinking that that is the only way of knowing anything.

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There is no one NH, and that is the biggest issue. You can divide it again along 100 different axes, educational which doesn’t directly line up with economic, attachment to the city vs. attachment to a group or institution within the city, I don’t honestly know a lot about the kind of racial and ethnic divide, so to me that says something about those lines being less rigid or less clearly defined than other places and that is because of the influence of some of these big institutions, the university, the hospital, even some of the big churches there.

What are the challenges or blocks that will have to be faced?

I don’t know if this is fair to say, but it seemed that this kind of work requires the people who are doing the training to embody it in a deep way. I don’t know how many people there are like that.

Well, one thing that ties back to the number of nonprofits is that there are a number of NPs that are really small NPs and may not have the capacity to do this kind of work. They are running so fast to just get their mission done. There are a ton of tiny NPs. You got the city trying to give out grants where politically, if you don’t support them, you might not get it.

There will be some skepticism from the standpoint that if somebody’s smart enough and they pick up on it fast enough, they will realize, “Oh wait a minute, this is what we call “level playing field.”

The political stuff I see happen on a neighborhood level is very entrenched and not that prosperous. It’s like, “Get on the team and here is what we can do for you and here is what we need you to do for us.” It’s political and primarily centered around getting the votes needed and making sure the mayor is supported in his projects.

The resistance would be around people’s own sense that if they change, they wouldn’t be able to function or compete at the same level. “What if everyone acted this way? Then we’d be fine. But if nobody acts this way, I’d get beat down.”

interview quotes

At least for now and for the next couple of years, people are so burdened by the economics that people are focused on survival, not transformation.

Fiefdoms and neighborhood pride--people identify themselves by neighborhood. There is way too much of that.

There are lots of “poverty pimps” around who are not trying to do (systems change.)

The language, race, socio-economic barrier, Yale and not Yale… A lot of times how people respond to an invitation depends on who sends the invitation and how they feel about that person or that entity. So for example letting someone from AOK into your childcare program is very different from letting someone from Yale Child Study into your program.

It’s like an org. version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

I worry about people writing grants to the mission rather than being serious about it.

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interview quotes

What are the challenges or blocks that will have to be faced?

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

There is low tolerance for mistakes. Very judgmental/old, firebreathing Calvinists.

The challenge around NH is the arrogance of the institutions and the various groups.

I’m imagining harder work than what some people realize [in terms of] what it requires of you and your organization to change.

Money + Funding are such a large issue for nonprofits that they don’t DISCLOSE. The only thing I would say is that, for some people to hear that, it sounds like warfare. I mean, it sounds like upsetting the apple cart. It sounds like destroying the fabric of the community as it is configured.

Because everybody knows their place, and everybody sits within their own little spot in their own little place, and how dare you create something that moves people out of that space.

What are some of the strengths of New Haven that a project like this can build upon?

It’s a place with a lot of intellectual energy and resources.

Wide income distribution-- is both something which could look very troubling from a social justice perspective, but also means that resources are present.

I think you also have people in the business community and the philanthropic community who have been working hard to start talking to each other and to start reaching out across lines.

I’ve also seen a lot of local things happening like the work of this group in Chatham Square, Old Fair Haven, and New Fair Haven and people coming together to talk about how to build the community together.

Amazing talent in the leadership, leaders of nonprofits are upheld as the civic leaders.

The community is well organized and can be mobilized around things, I’m not exactly sure how that would benefit this project but that is definitely an asset.

Bill has the credibility to galvanize some of these folks: Professional people, not associated with Yale, (who) have a commitment to the city.

The incredible diversity.

I think there’s a lot happening right now, a lot of little initiatives around dialogue that really get things going, for example, the mayor’s initiative to reform the school and the work of teacher and children, education has become a real catalyst for speech in New England.

interview quotes

It’s got a large number of committed people.

Yeah, it’s small enough to be really well networked. It is small enough to get where you want to go. There are two degrees of separation and people are very willing to introduce people. They are not going to open their donor-base to you but will when it comes to learning.

Still have really good folks running some of the institutions.

We’re small, and people cross each other’s paths more than they think.

It’s a highly educated community so there are words and concepts that you might not just find anywhere.

It is also a passionate community. I talked to some young people 30ish - who say I want to stay in NH and raise my kids here. That is unique to NH.

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co-creation

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

I had an idea but my idea was almost like the first snowflake in a snowball ~ all the things that have stuck to that idea. The people have grabbed hold of that idea and made it their own.

It's in the way that we make decisions. Through the general meetings where we invite every voice.

In a co-creative environment, you're always uncertain of whose idea it was afterwards.

It is so important to empowering anything that people do, that they understand and fully embrace the fact that they are creating their own reality.

The notion of co-creation is very much imagining something that you couldn’t imagine before and the root of that imagination may not be just logic, problem- solving but also may be a sense of disengaging at the level of being and the sense that something will emerge that is not the (original) thought from any one person but has that surprising element of emerging in the group for the first time and being recognized as connecting with those present.

We are co-creating all the time.

We need to have 'Co-creation 101' because before I can bring something to my organization, I have to be of it.

First, the word "co-creative," that's a good word, a jazz word. That includes, do your thing loud, like a clear instrument, at your best, but play it with the idea that you actually have to resonate, in that the person next to you is also playing their song. You actually have to, by all means, do your thing, but it's not in a silo.

I don’t want to limit co-creation to a particular religious notion of the Spirit being present but I think the presence of the Spirit would be an example of co-creation.

Co-creation is not easy because someone has to make it happen.

They get to see their own choices as part of those processes rather than just listen to somebody else's choices.

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It's the staff sitting around and having passionate arguments for example, whether a particular training should be bilingual or we should provide English and Spanish speakers because we are balancing the value of our community.

Co-creation is another aspect of actually accepting that whatever is, we are a part of it.

Co-creation invites people, individuals to change their own internal and external processes, so I find most things that are spoken of as being activities out there, have their translation to internal process as well.

Co-creation is both the elements of developing relationships but also it has the effect of challenging beliefs or priorities.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

[Co-creation involves] engaging at the level of being.

co-creation

To be co-creative you have to totally break down your own patterns of problem solving and conversation. Just the idea of inviting people to the table is just the first inch of an ocean. And that's why I think a lot of people either fail or say, “That's just not going to work,” because that's as far as they think they have to go, to get them to the table, and then it becomes their fault, whoever they try to bring in. “They stopped coming to the meetings.” “They didn't make a commitment.”

Well, the reality is maybe they didn't understand what you were talking about. Or maybe they felt that they couldn't contribute because they don't have the same way of expressing themselves.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

justice.power.access

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

[The TGP mission statement] is an invitation to think about what justice means.

How do you manifest justice and equality?

We actually think there’s value in and of itself in giving each of the people we work with the tools to be their own advocate, and that’s true at the small level so you can deal with bureaucracy successfully, and it’s true at the big level so you understand what’s happening in government. [“Justice” is] a word that really needs expansion because it can be such a code word for left vs. right, politically.

We talk about feeding a person, and that’s what we do. We talk about teaching a person to fish, and that’s sort of the transitional services and the case management support that we provide. We talk about owning. My new metaphor is “owning a fishery” which is that entrepreneurship effort. And we talk about changing the quality of the water so that all of those things can happen. And changing the quality of water is really the advocacy type of endeavor in which we engage.

Is this an opportunity for TGP to create new avenues for poor folks to participate? Because, they don’t have time. What can you open up that will give people access?

I can interact with the fake people other places. I prefer not to.

Because there’s a certain freedom being among folks who are real, and trying to create a space where they feel comfortable with themselves so that they can interact with people who are going to be making them be uncomfortable.

They are connecting the work they do with people who do legislative work, which I think is really hard to do, but really critical.

Through chronic, persistent poverty and racial injustice, there are factors and elements (in NH) that converge to just plain limit what it is people believe they are capable of doing and have access to, and just narrow almost non-existent opportunity structures and stuff that are just the conditions of poor people.

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He said to me, “Well, you know, part of the issue is that we don’t show up.” And I said, “Ok, yeah that’s true in certain places, but some of it’s also that people don’t welcome us into those spaces.” So I’ve ventured into those spaces because I refuse to be excluded from those spaces.

Part of the reason why I’ve been here [so long] is because I’m more comfortable with the real people here than the fake people other places. Because there’s a certain freedom being among folks who are real, and trying to create a space where they feel comfortable with themselves so that they can interact with people who are going to be making them be uncomfortable.

Then there’s this whole other piece, the work that we have been really struggling with, we are so busy with the grass roots, like how do you get tools of power, how do you get in the door, how do you create a space for the stories that people are telling us.

To be co-creative you have to totally break down your own patterns of problem solving and conversation. Just the idea of inviting people to the table is just the first inch of an ocean.

Community very rarely gets invited into the real conversation. New Haven was a Model City, and I remember that was one of the early efforts, that “inclusion” and “maximum feasibility” - participation which kind of translated in, “Ok, you give us all the information we need and then we’ll go away and make a decision.”

Young people will tell you that the power structure (in NH) is so entrenched that they can’t get a voice in there.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

I think the issues of access are very real, and one of our biggest issues in the community is that they, particularly in the urban communities, have great difficulty with trust, for example. You know, school systems where, the percentage of kids of color is the vast majority, and the folks running the programs, making decisions and allocating resources are not people of color - they have a very difficult time engaging, kind of figuring out what it takes to be a part of this.

justice .power.access

We are really limited in the amount that we can do without a fundamental change in the way our society values families and children.

We feel like, as the people who are oppressed, we need to be leading the movement and so we need to be the ones leading the agenda about how that is done. But we feel that we can’t do it because there are places that we can’t gain access even though we have education, knowledge, some resources--we still need to have those allies to help us out in a lot of ways. So I like the “co-creation” because we are very similar.

Young people have some competence but some of the clichés in the network are hard to break into because they are so tight.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

justice.power.access

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

Is this an opportunity for TGP to create new avenues for poor folks to participate? Because they don’t have time. What can you open up that will give people access?

So you will see this in the ________ where like the Mayor appoints half of the board members and then the board member appoints the rest of the board members. So there is no way that young people are going to get in there.

I am watching my old neighborhood, and transformation is the word for it. It is nothing like it used to be, and what it used to be wasn’t all that great, but it was community. Now the boundaries of the University are just--I don’t know where it ends anymore. And I think that it is because it’s moving further up on Chester Ave. And they do this with this symbolism of benevolence but its paternalistic – “So, let me put up a center right in front of where I’m going to build a parking lot that none of the residents in this community help build.”

We can have a Yale and it could be a vibrant partner - so, build a parking lot, then hire the residents. It’s not rocket science, nothing really complicated about this. Hire the residents, let that economic opportunity uplift some of these families, to a point that they can live differently, that they can be the good neighbors that you want folks to be.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

Growing up in the city and witnessing what’s become of our neighborhoods and watching the university, literally absorb – and it hurts more and more to see it change its character.

There are millions of dollars coming into the city because of the school. You can count on your hands and toes the number of people of color, not just African American, just poor people in general that have benefited from it.

Our church was connected to Yale and as long as we had that university connection there wasn’t any way that we were going to connect with an organization that was, in fact, coming around to challenge a place like Yale.

Yale went real far and partnered with us because they had to find groups of people that were already meeting and they partnered with us and they helped us to develop.

The way that I have experienced them [Yale] interfacing is certainly at the political level…they have a relationship with the mayor and the big foundations and they will come in to support various projects.

I definitely believe they [Yale] could have a deeper impact than they have had, and I think it will, in part, take a change in the community in the way we operate for that to really happen.

I think some institutional alliance would be useful but, like most organizations, Yale is actually just a bunch of people. Yale in itself is bigger than any of us, way bigger. The relationship comes with real people, thinking strategically about the success and positioning.

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Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

Yale has lots of different programs, but they are all different programs.

There is no sense of, “lets partner with New Haven!”

I don’t know how it would be at Yale…to sit down and have a conversation about what is our vision for New Haven. Maybe they talk about it and are totally aligned.

I think most non-profits don’t know how to tap them [Yale] effectively.

The foundations do a better job at it because they build relationship at a higher level.

Yale has grown so much. About 14 years ago they realized that they couldn’t move. They had talked about NH with all of this fear. I see a better relationship between NH and Yale.

One untapped strength is that everything about Yale is inaccessible to the community. With all the goodness there, it just doesn’t spill out into the community. I think that Yale is very insular and internally facing. So there is a lot of strength there but very difficult to tap.

Yale is this national institution with monumental everything, prestige and so forth, an elite institution, and that is overwhelming in terms of the challenge in NH. I wouldn’t describe Yale as an obstacle; you could say that it is a resource that could be tapped more deeply.

Yale has been very accessible to us [our org.].

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What I think of when I think about Chatham Square, or the Hill, or West River is a place where there’s a fabric of community, and that fabric has been in some way torn or disintegrated, and each person represents a thread in that fabric, and that thread can be missing, or it can be set off to the side, or it can be integrated into the fabric.

Community is people coming together not because of their similarities, but in spite of their differences, and choosing to act together in self-interest. And so, what is being built is groups of people in the city of New Haven that are choosing to take a stand in a place, and to act together in a way that moves that place forward.

Part of what I struggle with as someone who cares deeply about New Haven and those who live here is bringing together the different, dispersed parts and figuring out how they connect.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

Community very rarely gets invited into the real conversation. New Haven was a Model City, and I remember that was one of the early efforts that inclusion and “maximum feasible participation” which kind of translated in, “Ok, you give us all the information we need and then we’ll go away and make a decision.”

NH is small enough that people have a sense that, this is my town, and I know that I can make a difference here, but it’s big enough that it has urban challenges and enough people that we have sort of an odd combination of people feeling anonymous and powerless and yet wanting a connection.

I’ve been part of a couple different community efforts that have been a little bit stop-and-start and because its none of our full-time work, we’re trying to figure it out together and we don’t have the skills to figure out what we really can tackle and don’t know how to focus our energy.

In the place where I live, I can act my true self and my true passion, and bring together people that do something that, added to something else and added to something else, and added to something else, creates that. So, that’s the work. That’s the challenge.

[A discussion occurred during one interview about how the concept of “Co-creation” is currently utilized in the marketing field] It comes back to the power holder: You can focus group, interview, test market all inclusive and informative about the product, the catchwords, and how to design a campaign to get the most bang (sales) for the buck.

Put into a values-led/driven context, I have the sense that it wraps around to boundary flexibility and valuing the community as other than commodity.

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Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

15,000 people in Fair Haven. Way too big. The neighborhood would take you half an hour to walk across. So we take a subsection of it, and we brand it “Chatham Square.” 3500 people. You can walk across it in 10 minutes. That’s a neighborhood. 3500 people. We talk to 200 of those people, and we have contact information. 60 of them are on a mailing list. 30 of them come. 25-30 come to regular meetings.

12 of those really make the change happen. 6 of those are the core leadership.

If you declare an intentionality based on the positive things that your community has to offer, then what happens is those problems become a part of the bigger picture that is looking at the assets, and how do we build on the assets?

I’m really committed to building community, because I don’t see any other way for human beings to be able to move up the ladder, and if they trip and fall down the ladder, for them to fall in a safer way.

I don’t believe in social service agencies’ safety nets. I believe in community safety nets.

And when people connect at the intersection of their interests, then, my job, or the job of anybody that brings them together is more to get out of their way, than to actually do it, like, constantly provide more fuel. You don’t NEED to provide the fuel; people will fuel themselves, because what drives them is their passion.

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If this is about accountability to a process, how do we actually draw a picture of that process clearly enough that we know that we are at least somewhat successful?

I haven’t had to deal with some of the survival and negotiation issues and if that was what my background was, I think I would kind of see rocking the boat quite differently, that’s an important voice to really bring in at the beginning of the process.

As a service to Yale - it might really make sense in the first 5 years, to do a project at Yale, and the second 5 years do a project with Yale and the community - think of Phase 1, Phase 2. I am imagining at some point that you have to get your hands on some people for the training component and that if in the first phase of it, people of Yale with a few community people present and then in the second phase you have half and half - should be an easy transition - and in the third phase you have some other way where successful Yale entities are now trainers.

I think being transparent about how, and acknowledging that this is another kind of movement to make change. There’s been movements before, hopefully this one will have [clear, specific] outcomes.

It would be great for this project to have some alliance with Yale in some fashion, like very broadly construed, though there are formal alliances available thru the ‘Office of Community and Social whatever.’

My question is, with a lot of family foundations in existence, what would set this particular organization apart? Like, why would he not give to an existing organization that’s doing that, as opposed to spinning off and having his own?

You find a lot of intellectual dialogue here in NH but we need to move from intellectual dialogue to collective engagement. And this may require giving people security.

I think that at some point the organizations need to have created something, even if it’s, agency a, b, c and d are all involved, so what characterizes them as different from agencies m, n and o that have not been involved [with TGP]?

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

The training piece is substantial. The amount of time that it takes to create new possibilities for individuals, for groups, for organizations, for communities is substantial. We need to be realistic about how we are going to sign on for this.

recommendations & ideas

They [recipients] must participate in the training in order to receive the funding.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

recommendations & ideas

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

People who are doing the [TGP] work might need some built-in support within the program to help keep it alive. That whoever is doing this TGP work may need some coaching to help them stay true to it or otherwise they drift and then the program drifts. So, how do you build in programs to keep it faithful to itself?

Expand on the meaning of “co-creative.”

I don’t know if I can verbalize this, but what would it be like to identify a group of people, or a couple of organizations that are used as laboratories for the transformational process to be implemented, to be tried out?

I don’t think that individuals that are in financial power have any mixed feelings about who controls finances, and who’s organizations run better than others and that kind of stuff. You would think that one would be glad if these other disadvantaged neighborhoods, their organizations were run more efficient but they might see it as competition.

Anybody who has been in non-profits that go for grants and stuff like that - like the government will say, “You can get this grant if you partner with someone.” People will do a lot of things that they wouldn’t do, if they want this funding.

I feel that I was really blessed to meet somebody like him (Bill) where I can just be honest, I didn’t have to pretend or anything of that nature.

I think there would be huge value in having the foundations coming together to say, “We are all here, and this is how we see ourselves, all working toward these broad goals for the community, and nonprofits: We want you to be partners in helping us get to the that vision.”

In terms of foundations, my sense is that people are off doing their own things and it’s hard to come together and do what I was talking about at the neighborhood level which is, “What do we want to see happen?

What do we think we are good at? How can we work with our piece in trying to get to the vision we want to see?”

We [TGP] are not just going to fund the idea--we actually want to train you toward this end, so the training and the funding go hand in hand. I think that’s an appropriate way to imagine how to bring this to fruition.

Sometimes people want to fund ideas but don’t have a sense of how to get from “A” to “M,” and they are very frustrated when “M” doesn’t appear when they funded it.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

It did bother me that we have this kind of classicism in the community where, on the face of it, you are trying to do good, when in fact, you’re trying to grow a group of individuals for your [use]. You’re trying to help people, while, at the same time; it’s not about them at all.

the funding process

We always look for the organizations that have the cache, that have the sparkle, and they may not have the cache or the sparkle, but that’s just the image that they project. And they may not have the need, they just have the ability, because they’re bigger organizations, to be able to continue to put forward an image that people will give to, rather than those organizations that are doing better work, because the way that they deal with the people is much more value-based and dignitybased and equality-based, and trying to create a community that is safe enough to be able to give them that opportunity to grow.

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the funding process

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

I must say that I have been astounded at the number of people who have participated in CLP. It seems like there is a yearning. It doesn’t seem like other funders are focusing on capacity building.

When you are giving, it is not a detached relationship, and most funders have a certain amount of detachment that comes with the grant making.

10 or 20 years before they had the capacity to write a check for $10,000 they looked like new immigrants, they looked like people who are starting a business, they looked like people that don’t even own a business yet.

Organizations like the United Way and Community Foundation are wealthy but only certain people under certain conditions will get money from those particular groups, where as you come in the Black and Hispanic communities and their organizations are failing, and they are really meeting the poverty needs. They have the desire to do this but the resource and the training just isn’t there.

You can think about funding this in terms of being really nice, liberal, affluent people, or you can think of it totally in terms of self-interest: you are committed to increasing the amount of and the effectiveness of philanthropy, that’s our mission.

The way you approach donors of color is so different, very much relational.

The problem has been created, then it’s been defined, and then it’s been commoditized, it’s been made in to a unit that can be clearly defined and sold by a third party, who does not “suffer from the problem.”

But the informational piece around the shared analysis is another critical thing, because it’s very easy on paper to tell people, “Ok, explain this or that.”

I think most non-profits don’t know how to tap them [Yale] that effectively. The foundations do a better job at it because they build relationship at a higher level.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

A lot of established bureaucracy is going to fail unless they completely shift their mindset of what it means to actually communicate with people, and listen to each, and how much work it takes to do that, particularly with people that are not used to the ways that problem solving happens in either a bureaucracy or professional environment.

To truly have voices be heard you have to completely change how you listen to each other.

Adults don’t understand how to include youth, they don’t understand how to listen to them, but you have to leave space for them to talk – that you have to respect hand raising because that’s how kids are conditioned to participate in discussions.

People have to be really committed that it’s going to be a lot of work of changing particularly your own practices, perceptions; it’s not about changing other people to fit how business is done or decisions are made; the question is about how you make decisions and solve problems.

Developing the New Haven Roundtable to be truly collaborative where less-than folk could be connected - to have it be a place of true collaboration - That would be a great contribution for this [TGP] project to make.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

How do you gain the most traction when pulling people together and what are people thinking about and what do they care about?

training needs

The group itself and the residents don’t have a lot of training or support in thinking about outreach or organizing and not really a context for it.

Leaders just don’t always know where to start, and to build a congruent philosophy throughout an organization takes a lot of intentional work. And you just can’t put things on a piece of paper; it has to be lived.

I like the inside-out approach to this, that there are both internal practices and external interactions, but what’s really compelling is that inside work.

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

potential impact

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

Systemic collaboration.

Co-creation invites people, individuals to change their own internal and external processes…

Is this an opportunity for TGP to create new avenues for poor folks to participate?

Deliberate connection of the internal and external as an intentional focus.

Developing the New Haven Roundtable to be truly collaborative where less-than folk could be connected - to have it be a place of true collaboration. That would be a great contribution for this [TGP] project to make.

Leaders just don’t always know where to start to build a congruent philosophy throughout an organization takes a lot of intentional work.

And you just can’t put things on a piece of paper; it has to be lived.

There would be something that would happen that would allow people a different kind of perspective, a different kind of hope, a different kind of story that they tell.

If you really create some economic entities that would fund some of these nonprofits, that would be great. The challenge of nonprofits is that they never quite have enough to make the impact sustainable.

Somehow I think that just standing for this is going to be powerfully prophetic - to “be who you say you be” - to use your phrase.

The enabling fund could help: 1. Keep the lights on 2. Hire and train staff. 3. Actualize programming. 4. Have sustainable money.

If the inclusion part is there and they really have to show that, then they could say, “Look, we could maybe do some different things and I’ll come to your agency, you’ll come to my agency. I can refer some people to you and we can do some different things. We can do enough different things that meet the community needs.”

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

I really would love to see on the organizational level but also at the community and neighborhood level being able to think more and be supported with the results we want to see on a whole community level. And doing it in a collaborative way up here first. “Up here” [means] whatever results we want to see in the neighborhood. Up here is the broad vision for what do we want to see.

It’s not the kind of thing that people generally think about funding.

And yet it’s pretty much core. (Changing everything: the composition of the board, the makeup of the staff, HR policies, how we train people, who we hire, and the expectations.)

Through a process of learning, conversation, through a sense of feeling welcomed, that the process of transformation does indeed happen to people, where something that they didn’t see, they [now] see; where a dream that they had was configured in a new way, where the political became spiritual, the political desires became spiritual desires.

Emerging Themes & Related Quotes

It may not necessarily happen right away but when they start to see the pudding really is good, and other organizations are becoming more efficient, and you won’t have the Boys Club shutting down because people don’t have the right skills to do what needs to be done, and NH is healthy and strong, some people will probably still stay in the way that they do (now), but then the change could come with next management.

potential impact

This is a potential game changer.

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learning

From Other Organizations

Traditionally, a ‘best practices study’ might identify a number of entities with a similar mission statement, strategy or approach with the hope of finding exemplary models of or effective practices in that approach, strategy or mission. Our goals here were a bit broader.

This brief study includes organizations that share a similar mission to the one emerging for TGP and organizations that fall into the category of those to be funded by TGP. I interviewed individuals and groups from each organization as well as reviewing public documents and websites. In addition to some of the questions asked in the previous section, the interviews explored the following: • Is there a shared philosophy or theory of social change or social justice that guides staff, board and programs?

• What are examples of policies and procedures that result in your clients/customers/populations served or impacted—being included in decision-making on any or all levels? How are people invited to sit at the table?

• Where do you struggle with this?

• When you consider the internal operations of the organization, what have you chosen to do to assure living out your values/ commitment that is outside of the norm (for your industry, area, cultural norms)?

• Where in the organization has there been a desire to see change but instead you find yourself still stuck? What might help you get over the hump?

• How do you manage hierarchical roles and relationships in light of your values of inclusivity and social justice?

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

Haymarket People’s Fund (HPF) is an anti-racist and multi-cultural foundation committed to strengthening the movement for social justice in New England. Through grant making, fundraising and capacity building we support grassroots organizations that address the root causes of injustice. Haymarket also organizes to increase sustainable community philanthropy throughout the region. [Office in Boston, MA. 3 Staff. Roughly 8 Board] People Against Injustice (PAI) is a grassroots organization with its focus on demanding justice and humanity from the police, courts, and prison systems. To this end, we are committed to ending the failed drug war, which is responsible for America being the world leader in incarceration. [Based in New Haven. No paid staff or Board.]

Planned Parenthood of Southern New England (PPSNE) The mission of Planned Parenthood is

• to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual • to advocate public policies which guarantee these rights and ensure access to such services • to provide educational programs which enhance understanding of individual and societal implications of human sexuality • to promote research and the advancement of technology in reproductive health care and encourage understanding of their inherent bioethical, behavioral, and social implications

the organizations

The Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) exists to build the power of young people to demand a high quality education in the Philadelphia public school system. We are a youth led organization and we make positive changes in the short term by learning how to organize to build power. We also work toward becoming life-long learners and leaders who can bring diverse groups of people together to address the problems that our communities face. [Based in Philadelphia, PA. 6 Staff. 12 Board]

[Planned Parenthood of Southern New England office is located in New Haven. 245 staff (includes Rhode Island). 19 Board] The mission of Southern Partners Fund (SPF) is to serve rural Southeastern communities and organizations seeking social, economic and environmental justice by providing them with financial resources, technical assistance, training and access to systems of information and power. [Office - Atlanta, GA. 6 Staff. 10 Board] All Our Kin (AOK): Our Mission is to educate and empower parents and teachers, give families child care choices, and expand access to highquality early care and education. [All Our Kin is based in New Haven. 7 Staff. 13 Board.]

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learning

From The Haymarket People's Fund

An In depth Look At The Founding And Early History Of The Haymarket People’s Fund I started with a close look at one of the organizations – The Haymarket People’s Fund (HPF). HPF shares a number of significant similarities to TGP. 1. HPF also grew out of an awareness and vision of a founding, wealthy donor.

2. The founding donor of HPF (George Pillsbury) served as part of the original staff. Bill Graustein might, as well, serve in this capacity.

3. Though TGP has not used traditional collectivist language, as did HPF, they share a mutual esteem for informality in terms of authority.

4. HPF and TGP are both about offering funding and training. The training for both is, in part, related to issues of social justice and inclusion. [As HPF has social justice as its primary focus, TGP might offer a broader range of training and has a focus on cocreative ways of being or operating .]

5. Also HPF seeks to transform—socially reorganize—typical philanthropic relations In studying HPF, I interviewed the current Executive Director, another staff person and a former board member and donor who has been passionate about HPF for many years. I also read one ethnographic case study of HPF that focused on “exploring the inner workings of raising money and giving it away to progressive social change/social movement organizations.” The case study, by Susan Ostrander, is called Money for Change:Social Movement Philanthropy at the Haymarket People’s Fund (1995).

HPF Mission Statement then Haymarket’s mission in the larger society is to create, through its grants and its own internal structure, a democratic system based on collective ownership and control of resources; an equitable distribution of wealth and power; an end of all exploitation of some people by others; and freedom from oppression of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.

HPF Mission Statement now -

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Haymarket People’s Fund is an anti-racist and multi-cultural foundation committed to strengthening the movement for social justice in New England. Through grant making, fundraising and capacity building we support grassroots organizations that address the root causes of injustice. Haymarket also organizes to increase sustainable community philanthropy throughout the region.

Haymarket founded in 1974 by George Pillsbury

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By 1976, the nine community-activist-controlled regional funding boards that in the 1990s continue as the heart of Haymarket’s distinctive grantmaking had been created. Founding donor George Pillsbury had left the staff and was working to develop the national Funding Exchange. (Pg. 11)

Pg. 12 – “Collective”

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Haymarket has historically operated according to principles characteristic of a collectivist organization. Collectives value informality over the formal organization characteristics of bureaucracies. Following collectivist practice, Haymarket has tried to minimize formal authority and to function in a decentralized, nonhierarchical way. It has tried to make decisions by consensus, not to be bound by a formally established, written system of rules and regulations, and to emphasize personal over impersonal relations.

Problems Pushing for Clearer Lines of Authority The absence of clear lines of authority from the governing board and among the staff became especially problematic during 1991 and early 1992. In many people’s minds this absence was connected with marginalization of staff of color and with an absence of donors of color. A number of people, including the staff, also believed that the organization had become too staff-driven, and wanted to assert the power of the governing board. Pg. 13 …a new executive director hired in May 1993, the first in this organization’s history. People decided to dissolve the staff collective and to hire someone for the staff directorship—as well as a number of other important organizational decisions mentioned here—during a year-long strategic planning process that ended in May 1992… Pg. 15

From The Haymarket People's Fund

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learning

LOOK AT AND LEARN FROM THE HISTORY OF HPF

In the face of all these organizational changes, the way that the Fund does its grantmaking has remained stable. This is the bedrock of Haymarket’s work, and an important source of continuity at a time of considerable change in other parts of the organization.

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learning

From The Haymarket People's Fund

Grantmaking Process There are two grantmaking cycles a year, with established deadlines for consideration of a proposal. Potential grantees must complete a written application. Staff and funding-board members may help in preparing the proposal. The organization must also demonstrate a clear strategy aimed at an equitable distribution of wealth and power, strong indigenous leadership representative and accountable to the membership, an ongoing effort to develop new leadership, a commitment to building the organization and involving previously unorganized people, and organizational capacity to raise and manage funds and carry out plans. (Pg. 16)

Funder-Grantee Relations Not only do funders ask questions of potential grantees, but grantees also ask questions (sometimes pointed ones) of funders. During these interviews, grantees seek help and advice beyond the specific request for money, help of the sort one looks for from peers who share a common project and who are working toward common goals. Funders ask hard questions, and yet a sense of shared goals pervades the discussions.

When I asked Boston funding-board members how they had first become involved at Haymarket, almost all of them said they had each at one time or another been a member of a grantee group funded by Haymarket. (Pp. 28-29)

Haymarket’s Philosophy of Social Change and Organizational Effectiveness 1. People dealing with injustice know best how to address it.

Leaders who know best how to address underlying causes of problems are grassroots leaders.

2. Shifting the resource-allocating power from wealthy donors to community activists calls into question social relations of power.

3. ‌conflict is inevitable and, when handled productively, a desirable consequence of diversity. There was a shared understanding that while dealing with conflict openly and explicitly is often time-consuming and difficult, it is in the long run better for a smoothly operating, efficient, and effective organization. (Pg. 139)

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

Haymarket had not in the early 1990s established explicit issue priorities for funding. When a grantee asked what their priorities were, a Boston funding-board member said, “Our priority is organizing, not targeted issue areas.”

One of the founding principles was not to lead but to follow [the movements for social change]… I just don’t believe it’s the role of foundations to lead. Then you’re simply repeating the old dynamics around money and class power. (Pp. 34-35)

Haymarket Forging Coalitions for Real Change

Haymarket grantmakers sometimes helped grantees to formulate an organizing activity, perhaps using service provision as a starting point for organizing. They also helped grantees to better articulate an organizing initiative already in place. These funders also understood that some grantees simply could not organize in their present circumstances. (Pg. 47) Some people are also involved in “leveraging” funding from other local foundations to support community organizing. (Pg. 52-53)

A Challenge Even though Haymarket’s grantmakers are drawn from grantee groups, they were concerned about creating an inner circle with power and privilege over grantees. In this context, they debated how much they should influence the direction of grantee activities. (Pg. 57)

From The Haymarket People's Fund

In addition to making connections between different grantee groups and different issues, Haymarket funders also place a high priority on bringing people together across different racial/ethnic constituencies.

They see these connections as necessary to building broad-based movements for social change. (Pg. 45)

learning

Defining Grantmaking Priorities—Organizing!

Implicit Grantmaking Criteria There were criteria I heard over and over in funding-board meetings I attended. Governance by its own constituency, not by paid staff, is seen as crucial to a grantee group’s doing “good organizing.” While the group may do some advocacy—for example, help people obtain what is due them—and it may provide some services to help people directly and immediately, the major focus must be on mobilizing people to change the situation creating their problems. The group must also be constantly developing their membership, adding new people, and building their organizations. They should make

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learning

From The Haymarket People's Fund

connections with other groups working on the same issue and on related issues. Finally, raising at least some kind of minimal amount of money from their own membership, along with other kinds of fundraising, is important to building self-sufficiency and giving people a stake in the organization. (Pg. 58)

“Living the Contradiction” of Both Inherited Wealth and Progressive Politics Why They Give Haymarket conferences for people with wealth and other donor events provided support for the wealthy to claim identities as progressive people and enabled them to form valued relationships with other wealthy people who shared their politics.

Donors also appreciated the respect they found at Haymarket, where people saw them not simply as sources of money but also as actively engaged in work for social change. (Pg. 62) As the 1988-89 Haymarket annual report put it: “Giving to others what belongs to you is charity. Giving to others what belongs to them is justice.” …Haymarket money conferences was when I put it all together… I saw all the oppression being connected, and that’s the basis now of my politics… At that conference, I really saw how capitalism keeps people down.

To comprehend the importance of Haymarket’s conferences for people of wealth, it is necessary to have some understanding of the isolation, pain, confusion, and even feelings of powerlessness that may accompany inheriting a large amount of money. (63-67) A donor talked with me about how “amazingly vulnerable” it felt to be so visible at Haymarket and in the public media as a wealthy person that supports radical causes. In spite of this feeling, this person said in an important characterization of his thoughts about what he does, “I consider it my work.” He added, “I admit to a frustration with [other wealthy donors] who don’t come out. I agree with [writer] Audre Lorde that we should all claim our privilege and use it.” (Pg. 92)

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A memo from the staff in March 1989 provided the critical impetus for the next level of change in Haymarket’s structure. In a succinct and eloquent statement of tensions people in organizations often experience when they are committed both to democratic participation and to accomplishing important work, this memo outlined “three principal questions: (1) How do we overcome the nagging tentativeness surrounding each major decision? (2) Why is this an issue? (3) Can it be resolved without sacrificing organizational democracy?” (Pg. 108)

It was in a distinctly racial context that a number of people at Haymarket, both white and of color, articulated the need to hire an executive director. People taking this position saw the formalization of authority lines as part of what they had to do to build and maintain a multicultural organization. In their view, two main factors inherent in the staff collective posed obstacles to retaining staff of color: first, the longevity and resulting informal power of the two white staff fundraisers; second, the close relations these two staff had with donors, again resulting in their having informal power. In the absence of formal power, informal power becomes paramount. (Pg. 125)

From The Haymarket People's Fund

At the first meeting of the newly empowered governing board (CC) that I attended, in February 1990, members formally accepted the principle that final organizational authority at Haymarket now rested with them. Yet even at this late date, one CC member objected. Anticipating discussions at Haymarket annual meetings over the next two years, she took the view that the old system, where power rested in the open participation of the semiannual meetings, was “what made Haymarket so wonderful.” (Pg. 112)

learning

“From Direct Participatory Democracy to Representative Democracy: The Development of a Governing Board” and Organizational Restructuring

People told me about two fundamentals that made it possible at Haymarket to work together across differences when they arose: shared political commitment and the common experience of being activists.

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best practices

I. ASSURING ALIGNMENT BETWEEN MISSION, VALUES & PRACTICES Key Best Practices: [most frequently and passionately mentioned] 1. Have a clear and regularly articulated Mission Statement and written values 2. Be sure that budgetary or financial decisions are tied directly to mission and values – including those policies related to diversity, inclusion, justice etc.

3. Build skill within all levels of the organization to identify and address policies, procedures and behaviors that don’t match the mission and values 4. Surface and explore together the theories of change that are driving behaviors

Additional Best Practices a. Create an internal team responsible for guiding the Plan b. Hold to the values and practices even if donors disagree. “If your organization is around dealing with oppression, then you have to dig deeper to find out why the oppression exists and when you start looking at the systemic problems that are going on in society you have to give it a name…, so we felt that our grantees - just funding them to do a program wasn’t enough. It had to really get at the cause of why that oppression existed, whether it was in education or in housing or whatever the area was.” c. Provide scholarships for grantees to attend workshops and co-sponsor justice-building trainings with other social change organizations and philanthropic institutions. d. Bring in only professional development experts who are masters at what they do. “We respect the work and our people who do the work every step of the way.” e. As Executive Director, once I saw how much I had to learn, I went to every workshop that I could. f.

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Have a long-term Diversity Plan – and follow it.

1. Plan and conduct activities that explicitly invite open and truthful dialogue and that allow for adjustments in priorities and action steps.

2. Actually identify the groups of people who should be represented and the rationale for why they should be included.

3. Understand and address both the internal and external blocks to full inclusion.

Additional Best Practices a. Include ‘advocacy’ as part of the organization’s work. “We give each of the people we work with the tools to be their own advocate - its true at the small level so you can deal with bureaucracy successfully and its true at the big level so you understand what’s happening in government.” [Researcher note: Another comment was made by one of the EDs from a New Haven organization that was not included in this part of the study. Yet, I find the comment particularly relevant to this ‘best practice.’ “We talk about teaching a person to fish, and that’s sort of the transitional services and the case management support that we provide. We talk about owning. My new metaphor is “owning a fishery” which is that entrepreneurship effort. And we talk about changing the quality of the water so that all of those things can happen. And changing the quality of water is really the advocacy type of endeavor in which we engage.”

best practices

II. INCLUSION OF ALL VOICES

b. Make financial resources available for people (volunteers, members, speakers etc.) to attend meetings or events. c. Careful and ongoing attention to group process to ensure that people present (at the table) have the opportunity to speak and be heard. d. Name and check behaviors that might interfere with people’s speaking up, feeling heard and being truly recognized for their contribution. e. Notice and correct the under-representation of various groups. f.

Sponsor community forums and have them hosted in various parts of the city/community.

g. The less-impacted or least-impacted people act as allies or support people. They rarely take center stage. h. Bring the entire staff together to decide on key guiding principals and strategic planning

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best practices

i.

On web sites and other public relations info: Those most directly impacted are the face of and the voice for the organization.

j.

Programs and materials are offered in both English and Spanish.

k. There is a clear process for regularly discussing changes as we grow. l.

The staff is mostly made up of members of the impacted group.

m. Have inclusive planning processes. “We did a strategic planning process where we looked at every area of decision-making and asked, where are the ____________ (students, community members, formerly incarcerated people) involved in making this decision.” n. During the hiring process, make sure to communicate that everyone who comes into our organization is expected to understand, embrace and live the values.

III. CLEAR DEFINITION OF ROLES, RESPONSIBILITIES & DECISION-MAKING 1. Have a clear and regularly articulated understanding about roles and responsibilities and how they relate to decision-making.

2. Don’t play the ‘we-have-no-hierarchy-here’ game. [Researcher note: I’d prefer not to express a best practice in terms of “don’t.”

I express it this way because several organizations shared that their previous tendency was to ‘act as if’ there were no hierarchy and that they experienced increased effectiveness when they actively worked to dispel that myth – (a commonly held myth in progressive and non-profit organizations).]

Additional Best Practices 1. Clearly articulate the hierarchy and make sure that leadership stays accountable.

2. Provide regular anti-oppression training for the Board of Directors.

3. Periodically conduct a thorough review of how decisions are made. (Be open to making adjustments.)

4. Leadership raises issues of cultural differences and how they impact every level of the work.

5. Consciously lift up the roles within the organization that have been undervalued.

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Creative Agency At a recent lecture Princeton professor of jurisprudence Robert George got my attention when he asserted that “creative agency” – the ability to imagine a future different from the past and to act so as to bring that future into being - is an inalienable human right. He spoke of it as an individual right and connected it with ideas embedded in Jewish and Christian traditions; the phrase creative agency abstracts the first verses of Genesis: “ . . . now the earth was a formless void and there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water.

God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. . .”

There was nothing until God first imagined what there would be – the creative part – and then brought it into being – the agency, the ‘making it happen’ part. As I understand it, the idea that creative agency is an inalienable individual right derives from “God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves’” (Gen 1:26) and the notion that ‘image’ includes the attribute of creative agency. I’m not commenting on the particular belief here but describing the context in which the phrase has been used and pointing out the depth of its significance.

Within the context of TGP, I think of creative agency as an aspiration for a community. Creative agency in a community has several dimensions: practical (how do we address this challenge), spiritual (how do we more fully recognize both our own and others’ humanity), inventive (how can we approach this differently than we have before), collaborative (what do we each have to do to bring this into being), attitudinal (how do we regard others - as potential resources or as threats – and how are we accountable to each other?)

John Leinhardt, a professor of engineering and commentator on innovation, made a more mundane observation on his radio spot “Engines of our Ingenuity”. In describing the process of inventions of mechanical devices he observed that the new machine was created in the mind of the inventor before the inventor fabricated the physical object. This framing also distinguishes the imaginative ‘creation’ from the actualizing ‘agency’.

Both of these examples as stated involve solitary beings. Many of Leinhardt’s commentaries, however, concern the genesis of innovation and tell stories of how creativity is stimulated by the ideas or interactions with others. He looks at how the interactions of the individual with the

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community spark creativity, and he is concerned with how institutions can help create the environment in which creativity can flourish. His closing line implies that mission for his employer: “This is John Leinhardt from the University of Houston where we’re interested in how inventive minds work.”

Leinhardt draws on two connotations of ‘creative’; both ‘bringing into being what was not there before’ and ‘inventive’ or ‘thinking new thoughts’ It is conceptually easiest to extend the notion of creative agency from individuals to communities if one considers the things that are done.

Who expressed what new idea and who did what for the first time are answerable questions. It is harder to observe the attitudes towards and interactions with others that sparked the ideas or supported the actions, but attitudes and interactions seem to be critical to a community’s ability to achieve creative agency.

Creative agency may not be an inalienable right of a community, but as an aspiration it needs conscious attention and support if it is to be achieved.

I imagine that such support would evolve, both in how it is conceived and how it is practiced, towards increasing clarity and intentionality.

Bill Graustein | September 2009

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TGP Research Summary & Analysis | March 2010

“Co-Creation” - Definition In Process CO-CREATION (for the sake of TGP – a work in progress) ~ is operating or living with a careful recognition of and attention to the whole and the parts. In a community-serving organization or grassroots movement, a co-creative process assumes that as reality unfolds, each person plays a part and that each part is significant.

Therefore, when making foundational change (transformation), a co-creative process acknowledges the part(s) played by each person, organization or action and it assumes that greater effectiveness will result from conscious and choice-ful co-creation of the vision.

Niyonu D. Spann

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“The experience of co-creation involves imagining something that you couldn’t imagine before and the root of that imagination … the sense that something will emerge that is not the (original) thought of any one person but has that surprising element of emerging in the group for the first time and being recognized as connecting with those present.”

Bill Graustein

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conclusion

Helping to build the foundation of the Transformational Giving Project has already, at my half-way point, been some of the most rewarding work of my life. It is because TGP brings together several beliefs that sit dead smack at the center of my life’s passion. Most central is my belief that change happens from the inside out. While we can change tactics, procedures and written policies; if the root ways of perceiving and being are left intact, the changes will be short-lived.

The research results confirm a shared yearning for that inside-out change. It also speaks to a dis-ease festering within New Haven that requires a remedy of transformative and loving engagement.

To the question of whether TGP resonates with different New Haven constituencies, people I spoke with responded with a sign me up attitude. People also described the effects of historical and presentday systems of oppression. Years of daily living within what one interviewee called, “a city that is so oppressive” and another “chronic, persistent poverty and racial injustice” has produced a hopelessness that was far too commonly referenced. That hopelessness will likely be one of the greatest challenges to be faced by TGP going forward.

New Haven has often been a living laboratory for research and testing theories. My interviews revealed a particular sensitivity to being used in these ways. TGP will need to decide, at every point, how to avoid

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repeating the negative patterns associated with this reality. The TGP vision statement calls for “loving responsibility,” two elements that offer guidance in this regard.

Loving responsibility can strengthen the potency of TGP’s transformative engagement. In a city that holds the intellect in such high esteem, the bold declaration for being loving combined with a vigorous determination to respond where able can make the true difference in TGP’s effectiveness. The quote that Bill loves and included right after the TGP Emerging Mission statement helps us to remember the truth of this work:

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A final word: One can expect to approach the conclusion of a research process with an obsession about the missing parts. In this case, as a musician myself, I’ve missed most the voice of the art world.

Though there were several people from the arts on our original list of interviewees, we still managed to fall short of our goal to include these perspectives. New Haven has a number of arts activists and organizations. It should not be difficult to rectify this absence as TGP further defines its work, structure and process going forward.

Niyonu D. Spann

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new haven

"There would be something that would happen that would allow people a different kind of perspective, a different kind of hope, a different kind of story that they tell."

TGP Interviewee