[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Unsung Stewards, a podcast series presented by the Ripple Foundation. I'm Becky Payne, president and CEO of Ripple and host of this series.
Our podcast spotlights and celebrates individual stewards, people working with others to create the conditions that everyone needs to thrive.
Like so many of you, we are dedicated to a future where everyone thrives together, with no exceptions. We have always held that as our North Star.
But recent data from Gallup reveals that just 49% of Americans are thriving.
That means the majority of us are struggling or suffering. We believe we have a historic opportunity to choose a better path, but only if we join with others to make progress.
That's why we are inviting you to join a nationwide effort to increase the number of our fellow Americans thriving by 20 points in the next 10 years.
This goal is possible, but it is not one we carry alone.
We do know what it takes to increase thriving, and everyone has a part to play.
This season on Unsung Stewards, I'll be speaking to stewards who are strengthening our most important community asset, belonging, and civic muscle.
Simply put, we are our most important resource, and we will only achieve a future where we all thrive together if we strengthen our civic ties and ensure that everyone, everywhere feels that they belong in their communities and can contribute their hopes, their aspirations, and their talent to the path forward.
For episode one of this season, I interviewed Michael Brown, chief architect at Civic Commons, an organization whose mission is to reimagine and strengthen civic engagement in Washington State.
Civic Commons works to bring community members into efforts for change, helps community organizations bridge their differences, and creates neutral containers for effective collaboration so different organizations can work together on shared goals.
If you want to know how to get started building belonging and civic muscle in your community, Michael's work is a great place to start. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Michael, thank you for joining us today and being willing to have this conversation with me. We're so glad to have some of your time and expertise.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Well, thanks, Becky, for having me. I really am honored to be able to sit and have a chat with you.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: I'm looking forward to this.
We talk about stewards being shaped by their personal histories and experiences, so I want to invite you to share a little bit about how you've come to this work, what has shaped you over the course of your life, and how you think about where you are now.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I really appreciate that question, Becky. So about a month ago, I lost my mom, and there's a reason why that factors into this conversation or this question.
So I grew up in New Orleans kid of the 70s and 80s. And if you spent any time in New Orleans, you understand how incredible and special and unique of a place that is.
And with my parents, their approach to how they raised me and my sister was really one of the really strong identification with culture and with place, but also of service and how you show up with not just family, but externally.
So with that kind of ethos in the background, as I was growing up, understanding and seeing certain things happening in the city in which I lived. One was the economic decline in the late 70s, early 80s of New Orleans and how that manifested itself. But at the same time, this awareness once again really built upon what my parents and the values that they led with a commitment to service. Now, that showed up just in terms of participating in service clubs when I was in middle school and high school and all the things. But the seminal moment for me was when I started undergrad and I decided to stay in New Orleans. I went to Jesuit University, Loyola. And this commitment to social justice really took way route. And for me, it really put more emphasis on improving the place in which you live, work and play. And in particular, you know, being a dad. My commitment is to improving the place in which I live, and not just for me, and not just for my kid, but for everyone. Because it can be such a trite statement, but I do believe in it with all of my heart. We all do better when we all do better.
So my commitment for myself has always been toward that ethos of how do you improve things to ensure that whatever the thing is works for everyone?
And I think about where I'm at in my life right now and what values I'd love for my kid to take. Once again, it's that this goes beyond you and your immediate loved ones. You're part of a larger ecosystem, and how do you show up and make sure that ecosystem either remains strong or get stronger?
[00:05:17] Speaker A: I love that. That sense of being raised by people who value service is so important and such a good example of the being a good ancestor and making it better. Future generations is what you pass down through next generations, not just what you do yourself. Before we jump too far in, you lead Civic Commons. And I wanted to give you a moment to just share with the audience.
Where does that name come from? Just reflect on Civic Commons for a moment. Where does the name come from? And what does the idea of a Civic Commons mean?
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll try to do the Reader's Digest version of this. Becky. So for 10, 11, 12 years, I had the great fortune of leading the grant making team at Seattle foundation, and during that period of time, transitioning the foundation, the grant making program, from what I call a peanut butter spread program of we're showing love to 5, 600 organizations and awarding them for just doing really good work, to a grant making program that was laser focused around equity, racial equity, economic equity, around policy and system change, around upstream approaches. And the reason for that transition was we were becoming satisfied with outputs, not the outcomes. We weren't transforming anything or supporting the transformation of anything.
So got that new program in place, a new model in place, built a really great team, and felt really great about the direction in which we're heading.
I had the conversation with my boss, CEO during my review and said, hey, I think I'm done.
I felt that I accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish, built a great team. I was blocking the way of some of my teammates, and it was time for me to transition out. Thankfully, he presented me with a challenge. One of the things that we've been talking about over the course of the past year was while we could be doing all of the right things as a grant maker, one of the things we were lacking in the greater Seattle region was connectivity across sectors that were very fragmented.
So what my boss presented me with was, I hear that you're done, but maybe you're done with that aspect of work, of leading the grant making team. Is there something else, though, that still gets to mission in a different way?
And as I started to think through it, what would it look like if we really worked to create a new type of model? And this is where Civic Commons, the name comes into play, where everyone has a seat at the table, the public sector has a seat at the table, the private sector has a seat at the table, nonprofits have a seat at the table, philanthropy has a seat at the table, and most importantly, community has a seat at the table.
They're not an afterthought right at the beginning as you're identifying the issue and strategies. So this concept of the commons really resonated with me of we're all equal, we bring unique and individual assets to the table. What would happen if we leverage those individual assets into something collective? Could we do something together that we could not do on our own?
The concept really was essentially a neutral broker, a host, a convener, a safe space where people can come together and talk. That's what led to the name and then the concept and the approach of Civic Commons.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: I think that in and of itself, the thoughtfulness and intention to the governance is such an Important stewardship story. It's so easy to launch a new initiative and just push, push, push. But to step back and say how we design this, how we situate ourselves, even though it may have been our initial idea, but we're not going to be the center of it, is a courageous act of stewardship that we can't take for granted. It's also important as we talk about Civic Commons and belonging in civic Muscle a bit more because our organizations share a lot in common.
You lean heavily into the power of belonging in civic muscle, as do we. We call it our heart space. Walk us through why belonging and civic muscle are so important to the of the Civic Commons.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: So prior to the creation of Civic Commons, Seattle was very deeply involved in the Rethink Health, Work and the vital conditions framework actually was a great starter dough in terms of some of the thinking and in particular that concept of belonging in civic muscle, which in my head just makes so much sense that if you can find the ways to bridge the fragmentation that exists towards bonding where trust is a lead principle, then that relational muscle, the civic muscle, is built. We, in partnership with King county, launched an initiative called Communities of Opportunity.
And the intent behind that initiative was to address the inequities in health, housing and economic opportunity we were seeing in our region. But one of the things I was clear about, but our friends at the county were also clear about, was that those with lived experience would always have more knowledge than we well meaning and intentioned individuals with resources had.
So we created what then transformed into a governance group. But we wanted to make sure that our community was in at the start terms of that strategy design, in terms of the thinking of how we would disseminate resources out into community, and essentially said, hey, we're after improved outcomes related to health, housing and economic opportunity. How you want to do that is up to you. What we are asking though is that you build a crew. We're not funding one organization. We are funding a collective effort to address things that happen in place.
And this became really important in the life cycle of Communities of Opportunity because it showed a different model. That community actually could develop the strategies on their own, but. But they had to build their own civic muscle in place in order to do that. But also it created amongst the governance group and the two funders, Seattle foundation and King county, our own kind of civic muscle because that work was really hard and we had to spend time with each other to build the type of trust because community definitely felt burnt by funders before.
So the belonging piece of meeting Monthly of breaking bread with each other, of having some really difficult conversations actually led to increased trust and frankly for the funders and the ability to let go.
And for me, seeing that and seeing this now 13 year old effort achieve so much both at a place based level, but also at a policy and system change level, informed a lot of thinking for me about how belonging and civic muscle can shift the trajectory of what you're trying to achieve. That if you build those trusted relationships, you can get to some new thinking, new models, but also the leveraging of those individual assets that everyone brings to the table for something bigger and seeing how that then starts to move the needle on outcomes. And it doesn't mean that it's all kumbaya. I mean, you're still going to run into challenges and difficulty. But we've gotten to know each other. You know, I know about Becky's background and her family and the things that she's struggling with at work or the things she's super excited with at work and all the things. And we're about to engage in a partnership on a particular new initiative and it's gonna be really tough. Well, because you and I know each other, it allows us to work that muscle we've built together where I'm willing to take that risk because I trust Becky. And the theory of change for Civic Commons is that if we can build a relational and experience a transactional together, we can achieve the transformational.
We don't get to the transformational if we start at the transactional. It just doesn't lead to the things that we all want. So all credit to ripple in terms of the vital conditions framework and the belonging civic muscle aspect, for us to be able to take it and deploy it at a place based level has shown some incredible benefits as we've been able to move forward on some pieces of work.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Well, I will say Ripple is only a reflection of all of the wisdom and the wonderful people on the front lines such as yourself and hundreds of others who helped inform the development of that framework. I want to pull a couple of features through you talked about because I get questions sometimes from people who say, oh, belonging in civic muscle, how can that ever be enough with everything that's happening in the world? But there are a couple of pieces of what you said that I think are really important to pull through. One is this idea that you're breaking bread, you're building some trust, you're getting to know each other as people in our multi intersectional identities, in our day to day life as parents as children, as neighbors, whatever it is, you're not starting off trying to solve the housing crisis in a region. You're humanizing each other first.
And even if that's where it stays for a while, I we're all better for it. We know the data and the research on social connection at a minimum that impacts individuals. But the play you're describing is so important for people to understand. You don't go about tackling thriving or flourishing or the vital conditions out of the gate with the hardest nut to crack. You start with the human humanity trust building.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: And look, you, myself, many of the folks listening to this podcast can attest to it. The in particular in the early days of City Commons in talking about belong with an external audience. What I actually found, not surprising when I was out talking with community, oh, they got it. When I was talking with the non profits, they got it. When I was talking with philanthropy or the public sector or the private sector, what I heard was that's a bunch of woo woo stuff. We just got to solve the problem.
And but my, and my retort was tell me how that's going. What have you really, what have you achieved now? What I will say the formation of Civic Commons predates two seminal moments in 2021, George Floyd's murder two Covid. And I think that started to awaken some new thinking about the importance of belonging, that we aren't as tethered together as we need to be. And I would say in particular with COVID it presented an opportunity for those various sectors, community in particular, community being directly impacted by the pandemic, to engage in a different way. And there's still work to be done. But I still hold too that we, the collective, we still have a lot of shared values.
Our strategies may differ in terms of how we get there, but we will never get there if we don't create the space where we can talk with each other and build that relational piece. And sometimes the question I get from a funder or a public sector, private sector entity is, well, what are you thinking? Like three or four meetings and we're good. Like I. No, actually, I don't know. You have to let the group dictate. And in some cases, yeah, it could be a three month piece or it could be a year, I don't know. But what I do know is that if you allow the group to move at their own pace, what you will get at the end of it will be much different from where you started. And hence that group will be more, they'll be more Ready to move toward designing and developing and then implementing an action plan around whatever that complex, complicated community issue may be.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So what kind of responsibility do individual citizens have for building civic muscle? And if somebody is sitting out there going, this all sounds great, but where do I start?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: I go back to the belonging aspect of it. And we within Civic Commons, we have this conversation a lot. One of the things that we created is a what we call belonging toolkit. So if you're an individual, what can you do within your neighborhood? It could be the block party aspect of the PTA or other things. And it's almost a scale up. So if you're an individual, what can you do? If you're an organization, what can you do? If you're a private sector entity, what can you do?
Lanthropy, what can you do? I will say really targeting an individual citizen. One of the really difficult things to measure is civic engagement. We can capture voter participation. We can capture whether or not someone's been involved in an organization's qualitative survey. But are there other vehicles that we that would help us understand whether or not someone feels a connection to their community for the work of Civic Commons in terms of hitting that individual citizen is really giving them tools in order to create the type of belonging that matters to them.
So once again, if it's once a year, we have our neighborhood night out or we've gotten stories of folks who've been, who've utilized a toolkit to where they are doing monthly potlucks on their block to just like really going beyond just getting to know their neighbors, like they're inviting neighbors from all or from blocks nearby in order to build community.
How PTA at local school, which has a surplus of resources, is partnering with other PTAs in terms of distributing some of that surplus in order to help those that might have a little more of a challenge. So it seems like that where if you can find your place and find that sense of this is my neighborhood, this is my community, I feel like this is my place.
We believe you start to see an increase in those activities where folks feel like they want to be more involved and in a small scale piece, then it starts to build at a neighborhood level civic muscle where then they are willing to, whether it's around voting or other things, lean in, utilize kind of new relationships and partnerships in order to make something better in their neighborhoods.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we're not asking for Herculean steps. It really is about stepping outside the front door and connecting at a human level. First and if you can do more, great. And some of us are not in a position to do more. Participating where we can, I think, is what I hear you saying.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: So given all that you have going on, the tentacles of Civic Commons, the landscape that you see both in Seattle and across the state, but even across the country, what do you think the state of play for building, belonging in civic muscle is and what's giving you hope in this moment?
[00:20:38] Speaker B: What's giving me hope, Becky, is that I know it's possible.
So one of the signature initiatives we have convened and have been leading is work around black home ownership, the Black home initiative.
In 2021, serendipity occurred post George Floyd's murder in a number of cities and states across the country. There's a lot of conversation about the challenges faced by black Americans in Washington state. That led to some meetings of the Washington Roundtable, which is a consortium of major private sector companies across the state, the Washington Mortgage Brokers association, and then some community leaders, because they identified the racial wealth gap as a place 4 in 10 black Washingtonians have zero net worth. And where it starts to lead them toward was around homeownership as a path of gaining an asset, growing that asset, and could that help to start to shrink that racial wealth gap over a period of time? So they came up with a seven point plan to move that work forward. The only problem is they didn't have any resources to implement the game plan. So they asked Civic Commons, would you be open to being the anchor partner, the convener?
But this is where the work really begins for many reasons that everyone could imagine. When you think about all the stakeholders as it relates to homeownership development, there are the developers for profit developers, private developers, faith based institutions. There are then the financial institutions that are either funding the development of those homeownership units or are doing mortgage lending for prospective homebuyers. There are organizations that are supporting those prospective home buyers. There are policy and system change organizations that are working at a city, county, state level and all the things. There are community based organizations that have a lot of distrust around everyone and rightfully so.
So in order to build this thing, we knew that we would have to bring all those stakeholders together. We'd have to address the fragmentation.
And once again, Becky, one of the things we heard right away from funders and even the national intermediary was like, how long are you going to convene? I don't know.
We got to be able to get folks, though, to a place where they see this as their own. And that means that they we got to get folks to talk to each other and start to develop trust.
So our first foray in this work around home ownership was around belonging.
We weren't trying to solve the problem of how do you increase black home ownership. It was, can we get you all to start working with each other and trust each other?
And it took time. But five years down the road, we have a network of over 120 partners spanning three counties. And we're about to expand into a fourth county. First few meetings, I wasn't sure if there would be a network. The network has come together to achieve some incredible policy wins. And one in particular at a statewide level that they were able to do in one session that has completely transformed the ability for those on the outside to be able to access down payment assistance and become home buyers. They the network set out a goal of 1500 new low moderate income black homeowners in a five year period. 3000 over a 10 year period. We are what, within that five year period, they're already at a thousand new black homeowners. The formation of products that are helping to support developers of color, but also supporting prospective home buyers who, if not for debt, would be mortgage ready. So my whole point behind this is that the belonging aspect of a network seeing itself as the stewards of the work and supporting the end user have allowed them to build trust. Yes, there's still conflict. Things will surface. But can the network manage that? They have built civic muscle to where they speak with a voice. Going to Olympia, going to city councils or county councils in order to get legislation passed.
So here we are, Civic Commons, five years in convening, but about to exit out of the convening role. Because we help to nurture and grow the network, They've been able to build the muscle necessary to continue the work and we don't have to be in that role. So it's things like that, Becky, that gives me hope that this is possible.
If we deploy the belonging, the civic muscle, the natural inclination towards stewardship emerges. And folks are able to do some amazing things that they wouldn't be able to do on their own.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: And stories like that, and stories like yours and the work of Civic Commons are what give me hope. It's such a gift to be able to sit in conversation with you, Michael, and share just a sliver of all that you have going on. Thank you so much.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Oh, thank you, Becky. Thank you so much.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to this episode of Uni Unsung Stewards. We hope you took inspiration that will help you grow your own stewardship of a thriving future for all. I want to thank Michael for joining us and his work to build belonging and civic muscle across the state of Washington. I'd also like to thank the team that makes this podcast possible, Molly Belsky, Layla Hussain, and Amanda McIntosh. If you liked this episode and want to hear others, you can rate and review the podcast or follow us on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. Help us grow the movement to thrive together by sharing this episode with others.
I'm your host, Becky Payne. To learn more about our guests and their work, please visit our
[email protected] r I p p e l.org we all hold deep gratitude for those who've been willing to share their stories with us.
