Blog
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Why Relevance = Accountability
Each of us
wants our work and efforts in community and
public life to be relevant. It’s something I
hear everywhere I go. Last week, when hosting
the Hands
On Network LEAD Summit at the Newseum in
Washington, D.C., I found myself saying: to be
relevant requires that you are accountable.
This notion of “relevance” is critical nowadays. It goes to the heart of whether people in communities and in our larger society view what we’re doing as important, meaningful and useful. Funders also want to know that what we’re doing is relevant; it is one gauge they use – either explicitly or implicitly – to determine who and what gets supported. But what does it to say that to be relevant one must be accountable?- To be relevant means that
we’re accountable for knowing the context of
our communities – to clearly understand
people’s aspirations, their issues of
concern, and the kind of change they seek.
Otherwise, how can we be relevant?
- To be relevant means that
we’re accountable for producing impact. The
key here is to be clear on the kind of impact
our own particular efforts seek to create. This
means that we cannot hedge or hide from what we
say we are doing, or hype what we have done.
Rather, to be relevant in this way means we
must account for our own role in generating
impact.
- To be relevant means that
we’re accountable for being authentic. Maya
Enista, from Mobilize.org,
said a number of times at the LEAD Summit that
we must be authentic in how we engage people
– that our efforts must be meaningful to
people, not just to our own organizations; and
that the work people do must be real, not mere
plug-and-play volunteer efforts. I couldn’t
agree with her more. In this way, we must be
accountable for how we design and structure our
efforts – that is, in this instance, that
engagement efforts are truly relevant to
people.
- To be relevant means that we’re accountable for focusing on people – after all, isn’t our work first and foremost about the lives and aspirations and concerns of people? And yet, it is so easy to get sidetracked into activities, plans and inwardness that focus more on our organizations and programs, and where people themselves become a mere input.
There are many other elements to this discussion, but for now I simply ask you to consider these four points. Simply talking about relevance isn’t enough; we must account for it. - To be relevant means that
we’re accountable for knowing the context of
our communities – to clearly understand
people’s aspirations, their issues of
concern, and the kind of change they seek.
Otherwise, how can we be relevant?
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Obama the discussion leader
There’s a
desperate need to re-engage Americans in the
work of our communities – the work of our
country. The first step is not to launch into
yet another new program, but rather to pry open
space for people to see and hear themselves
again. This is at the heart of our nation’s
challenge today. The perfect leader for this
discussion is President Obama.
Just last week at the Nuclear Summit the president demonstrated once again his keen ability to lead tough conversations. He seems to relish being in such spaces. Such skills were at work during the health care summit, too. Now we need them in a new arena.
This Wednesday is the one-year anniversary of the Serve America Act. Many good things have emerged from this initiative, but there’s so much more to do. Our challenge remains how to engage people in the work of communities and to rebuild trust among people. I’ll leave the programmatic side of this task to another time. For now, I want to focus on something even more basic and fundamental to our collective success moving forward: how to authentically re-engage people in a conversation about their role in community and public life.
Simply running a new set of public service announcements, or conducting yet another civic contest to entice people’s engagement, or throwing statistics at people in the hopes of jolting them into action will not do. In fact, so many of these tactics are trotted out so often that they hardly seem to hold meaning any longer.
Instead, people need to see and hear themselves again in community and public life. This is essential, and irreplaceable. They need to know that their realities count, and that their realities have been accounted for. They need to know that if they step forward – back into public life – they will find something beyond more acrimonious and divisive cross-fire. They need to know that their civic-minded actions – however big or small they may be – are valued. The conversation I have in mind can help make this happen. Indeed, without addressing these critical conditions, no program or initiative will work.
To be clear, this wouldn’t be yet another “town hall.” Think instead of the health care summit, with thirty or more people around a single table who have the ability to actually engage one another, listen to each other, and work together. When people in the country see and hear this, they will breathe a sigh of relief that such engagement is still possible.
Of course, these conversations will need to occur across the country and my expectation is that they eventually will tie to civic action. The president can tap into other talented Americans to help lead these conversations, even reach across the aisle to build bi-partisanship, and, ultimately, spur people in their own communities to take a leadership role.
To effectively move forward we must be absolutely clear about the challenge we face. It is not simply a programmatic one; rather, it goes to the heart of the condition of our civic health. An urgent need exists within our country to pry open space so that people can see and hear themselves again and rediscover the possibilities to step forward. In so doing we can actively create a new narrative about what it means to engage, one that combats the current narrative of negativity and polarization. The challenge we confront concerns our faith in one another and in our ability to effect change together.
Now is the time to act. -
A West Virginia Miracle?
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We did not receive the miracle we
prayed for.” This is what West Virginia
Governor Joe Manchin said when he announced the
deaths of the last four coal miners found after
the April 4 accident at the Upper Big Branch
mine. But it wasn’t a miracle that they
should have wanted, but responsible human
action taken months before the accident ever
happened. Let’s not confuse the two.
The Upper Big Branch mine is owned by Massey Energy Company, which dominates West Virginia coal and politics. Its safety record is appalling, cited for 30% more violations than similar mines. But as someone on National Public Radio said this morning, mine safety in the U.S. is akin to someone being able to drink and drive without repercussion – even after they kill someone.
Back in 1985 I went to West Virginia to work with people along what’s called “Chemical Valley” to explore the kind of safety they wanted after a local Union Carbide chemical plant blew. Just eight months earlier, the sister plant in Bhopal, India, had leaked poisonous gas, killing a reportedly 15,000 people and harming 100,000 more. After the West Virginia accident, Congress enacted laws to require emergency planning and the disclosure of chemical releases. That was at least some progress.
What I discovered in West Virginia is what I discover everywhere in America: people are hard-working, fundamentally believe in capitalism, and seek pragmatic solutions to difficult problems. Oh, and one more thing – they believe in a sense of fairness and fair play.
When West Virginia is in the news, I often think about the people I met there. It’s so easy for the news media, politicians, and assorted others to turn these individuals into cartoon-like figures, and to treat their communities with a patronizing tone. When doing so, it’s easy to diminish their concerns, push aside their thoughts about how to move ahead, attempt to placate their frustrations, and even belittle their support for coal companies that provide them a life-line of needed jobs.
But the problems found in West Virginia are the kind of tough dilemmas that need attention. In such situations, there are no easy answers. There is no quick fix. Empty sound bites may fill a news hole, but do little to address the holes left in people’s hearts after their loved ones are killed in a mine accident, or an entire community is shaken by the loss of 29 miners.
I have no reason to believe that the governor of West Virginia does not care deeply about his state – he must. But it’s not a “miracle” that we should pray for in these situations, as if somehow we have no control or responsibility over our own destiny; or as if the only time to act – or to seek some kind of powerful intervention – is after the disaster. No, let’s be clear: what is required most is courageous action by people to get the job done before we find ourselves in these situations. Simply praying for a miracle is too easy. -
The Fire Next Door
My house still smells from ashes.
Out of the blue last week I got a call that the
house next door was engulfed in flames and that
my home would be next. At the time, my family
and I were in Upstate New York and could do
little but wait. But what would constitute good
news in this kind of situation? What does one
hope for, or even expect? Here’s what I’m
thinking about today.
I don’t know that I learned anything new – like some new revelation about life and death – as much as I witnessed once more the beauty of goodness amid loss. We all have our own stories about such scenes; so I don’t mean to suggest that mine is special or unique, only that it holds meaning. For instance:1. The neighbor who called-in the fire saw that neither my wife nor I was home. So, she went online to our neighborhood list serve and asked if anyone knew how to get in touch with us. Joan, who lives around the corner, and is a school teacher, saw the message during one of her breaks. But she didn’t have our phone number, so she went online, found the Institute’s number, called, and then had someone here call me in Upstate New York.
2. Donald, whose house went up in flames, raced home from work. Throughout the day he talked and commiserated with various neighbors. But what did he say? I’m told he said, “Thank God no one got hurt, or that anyone else’s home was damaged.” I’m told his upbeat demeanor was contagious.
3. The firefighters eventually got into the house and salvaged a few clothing items that the two young girls who live there wanted to save. Then firefighters put the clothes in a suitcase and placed it on a neighbor’s front lawn. And yet, later on the suitcase was missing. So yet another neighbor went on the list serve and asked if anyone had noticed if someone had picked up the suitcase. One person did, and she was able, somehow, to trace it to a delivery man who took it. The woman called the man, got the suitcase, and now the girls have their clothes.
4. Donald’s savings bonds, and other important papers, were strewn across our yard as a result of the fire. A day later, someone looking in on our pets called me and asked if I wanted her to go around our yard, pick up the papers, and find Donald.
5. Sadly, weeks earlier, a woman down the street discovered she has cancer. I hear that every neighbor across various streets has signed up to bring food over.
It’s easy to be nostalgic about neighborhoods. But I don’t mean to be. I grew up in two strong neighborhoods, one in New York City, the other in Upstate New York. Both had their moments – I remember vividly the arguments, fistfights, dog fights, and some people who generally disliked one another. But in those places, as in my neighborhood now, people went out of their way to help each other when in need.
Unfortunately, it takes loss sometimes to recognize goodness. Then, the trick is not simply to celebrate it, or try to hold onto to it, but to do your own part, however small.