MY labor. MINE.

I won't go into the minute details of my work rage right now.

But I'll just give some sage advice to budding sr. managers out there:

* If you have never put together an effective presentation, don't question how many hours go into creating one.
* And if all you have to do is open your mouth and speak the words that other people write, do NOT expect an open attitude about your revisions. You want to do it? You do it.
* If you aren't the one lining up the panel, confirming the speakers, prepping the panel, creating the content, writing the talking points, herding the participants, testing the A/V, editing the presentations, collecting all the materials, calling the hotel and reviewing catering, room set up, registration capacity and so on, don't ask why someone wants to end the day in blessed silence on the train (in the bar car) rather than inside a car with you back to the city.
* And if you haven't done all those things you BETTER let the person who did roll in at 10 am the next day because she's effing exhausted and brain-drained.

That is all. Carry on.

Miz D goes to Washington

I have so many pet peeves about trips like this I can't even go into it.

But mainly it's one thing: learn how to use technology!

All these folks with their smartphones and not one way to use them smartly to navigate the city (i.e., search the metra system, map a route from airport to hotel, look up congressmen, etc.)

This is the first moment I've had to get my thoughts together.
The rest of the day I've been up since 5 am, remotely steering my boss through DC's public transportation system, trying to find my delegation, going on appts and moving the earth behind the scenes to make sure folks have a productive time. Barely ate lunch, gulped down every glass of water on my table and I think my Instead cup flipped over. SIGH.

The last thing I want to do is go to dinner tonight. But I must.

(What would I rather be doing? Sitting in my room, in my pjs, studying for tomorrow and ordering room service.)

The room is very cute, though.

It has been an age, hasn't it?

Tonight, I'm in Washington, DC for a business trip. I'm trying to cram information about the foundation excise tax into my brain but I really want some sleep. I think I may cram before coffee tomorrow.

It's lovely here - the weather is soft - and I'm sure this trip will be moderately successful (having already addressed one snafu) but I really think Lobby Days need to be restructured. It's a lot of expense for very little payoff unless one has a really firm idea of what you're going to do with these contacts once you've made them.  Do orgs have a sense of a 'sales cycle' for these things? I doubt it.  And that cycle is the only thing that makes 'sales/pitch' meetings like this useful.

Anyway, I'm staying with a girl friend, we've had a lovely gossip and now I have to put on my big girl panties and act professional for two days.  Sure I can do it.  (Thankfully, I have the most comfy DKNY shoes to help me along.)

I miss M- (I'm here for most of the week).
And my bestie (we have a Kung Fu Panda game to conquer!)

But mainly M-.

i seriously pulled this day out of my ass and made it gleam like a turd covered in gold.

it's only tuesday

Yesterday, we sang in the office. I hate singing in the office.

Then my boss asked me to go with her to a meeting with a GOP legislative leader - with my 'fro all poofed out and crazy looking, in leggings, boots and a big wooly peacoat, I looked like a crazy homeless woman sneaking into the Thompson Center.

And I discover certain black legislators are giving my org shade because they see philanthropy as keepers of the status quo and our policy agenda a threat to their communities. Shit. Guess how hard it's going to be to message through that??

And, to top it all off, it's freaking two degrees in Chicago and my face is cracking off.

Freaking love December. /sarcasm

Onward and upward

I'm moving on.

Last week I resigned from my position with the Large Women's NonProfit to join the Large Statewide Philanthropic Organization.

What am I feeling?  Relief. 

Relief that I'm no longer behind the Illinois state budget 8-ball, working for a direct service organization.  I know my coworkers are looking for some signs of sadness but I can't help it if indecorous spurts of glee leak out of me.

Relief that I networked my ass off, lined up my champions, searched strategically and interviewed smartly (after that initial phone interview that caught me unawares. Preparation, always preparation!)

Relief that I bumped my salary by $11k and can perhaps afford a new couch to replace the secondhand Ikea couch with the big dent in it, where my butt busted the springs after a frolic with M-.

Relief that, in such a tough competitive environment, I bore down, concentrated and won what I wanted. Did I do this alone? Nope. I had a whole team of people supporting me: my boss, my COO, my mentor, my contacts, my friends, my M-, and I thank God for all of them.  But ultimately I'm proud of what I did and how I did it. 

I'm so relieved it's over.  Maybe I can breathe now.

will i ever write about politics, again?

Have you wanted something so badly, you're almost afraid to get it?

That's how I feel about this new opportunity. I made it through the interview, the strategic comms writing sample tests (which were harder than I thought, though very very useful), and now I've submitted my salary requirements (which could be a teensy bit higher), and am about to enter Round Two. I'm so close I can taste it. I want it and, yet...

Though I've complained since January about the circle of hell work has become (for various external reasons, not the least of which has been the fiscal instability of the human services sector in Illinois) I've only recently realized that I need this change because I think I'm ready for a more permanent life.  This new opportunity represents my stake in my adulthood, at last. If you take a peek into my life, you'll see temporary second-hand furniture, books left over from grad school, habits hanging out since Boystown, nostalgia for the Lost Tart Years. I have lived like a woman on the lam.

Wonder of wonders, I think I am ready to put down stakes.

Oh, I'm not saying I'm about to capitulate to the expectations of standard womanhood. Traditional marriage and bearing children are not in my plan, and I don't really anticipate that changing. But the urge to say definitively what it is I need (rather than what I don't), and then create the structure to support my need, has grown stronger.

I need stability.
I need love and companionship (which it looks like I'm on the road to achieve.)
I want professional success and longevity.
I want a fully functioning, whole life.

If this opportunity doesn't come through, the urge to live a full life won't go away. My desire to live a real, grounded life won't be derailed.

Just delayed a little.

the search continues

To say I have a lot riding on the success of tomorrow is an understatement.

I have an afternoon presentation to a group of corporate giving types about the need for public engagement on our state budget issues (grant makers are notoriously hard to move into advocacy mode.) Then I have a, um, rather important meeting with an organization in the afternoon about their strategic direction and where I might fit in. 

Who's attending my presentation? The woman I'm meeting with later in the afternoon.
Not only does my presentation need to avoid being lame, it needs to 'enhance my brand.'
No pressure.

And on top of that, it's going to be one of the hottest days of the week and the humidity will be outrageous.  Tomorrow is not the time to look like a round, moist, tropical princess.

I need to look professional, dammit. And that means no sweat. Or curly 'fro.

Wish I had time to comment on the backlash against FLOTUS' holiday in Spain (and why, once again, black women need to be Jesus) but I don't. 

'Is this our issue?'

In my job, I hear this question a lot. 'Delia Christina, should we respond to this? Is this our issue?'

Most of the time, an issue is 'ours.'  Whether the issue is about women, violence, assault, child care, or economic stability, it could definitely find itself in our sweet spot and we'll talk about it.  But what about Prop 8? What about the move to alter the 14th Amendment? Would these be issues in our organizational sweet spot?

Absolutely.  Those issues give us an opportunity to share our values. Because we're an organization with a history, vision and mission statement that puts racial, gender and social justice front and center (they're on our business cards, for Pete's sake) then yes, civil rights and equal protection for all is 'our' issue.

I understand organizations are leery of mission drift. One minute you're a hard core youth violence organization and then the next you're advocating for green grocers in the neighborhood - your board, staff and supporters are confused. But if being a voice for better health outcomes in under-resourced neighborhoods through better access to local produce is a reflection of your deep set desire to transform local communities and the people in them, then what's the problem? 

They may not be what you do, but your values should reflect what you stand for.

Years ago, after the reelection of George W. Bush, I was in a strategy meeting with some Chicago area bloggers and advocates; a leading progressive blogger was there to flog his book and he said the problem with the left at that time was that it failed to 'lead with its values.' His words stuck with me. And when I look at the Right, I have to agree. No matter the issue (immigration, mammograms, paid family leave, gay marriage or contraception), they lead with their values. They don't care about the issue. That's a silly little detail.

What matters is using the issue to talk about what you believe in and your transformative wish for the world.

Of course, I am assuming an organization is comfortable with the values it says it has.  I have to admit that I have a problem when I sense that people in an organization want to shy away from an issue because it makes them afraid.  I'm not saying that one shouldn't be pragmatic about the reality of oppositional word of mouth. When anti-choicers framed American Girl's support for a girls' empowerment program as 'pro-abortion', my organization (also a girls' empowerment org) became nervous. As well we should have been; some attention is just not worth it, especially when it's ... less than rational. 

But if you're willing to tout your work back in the 60s as a social justice organization then you better be comfortable today speaking truth to power and pointing out when social justice has been kicked to the curb. You can't suddenly rear back and say, 'Well...'

That's cowardly.  Which is a value! 
But is that the value you want to have associated with your organization?

everyone needs a public strategy

Even foundations.

I am a hard core evangelist about organizations developing a public strategy. I believe it works, I think it brings value and I know it can transform a sluggish organization into one that breaks barriers and moves quickly, fluidly and proactively.

The key word is 'strategy.'  Strategy isn't passive or accidental. It requires purposeful, directed thought and planning.  If an organization is strategic, it doesn't 'rest' on its laurels. The work is never sufficient to speak for itself. If left to its own devices, your work can often be misconstrued or misunderstood. Leaving the work to 'speak for itself' assumes your audience knows what your work is saying. 

Do they?  Do you even know who your audience is?

The organization I'm working for now was basically the best kept secret in Chicago. No one knew its mission or vision. Sure, they knew *some* of the work we did.  But they never had the whole picture.  If we let the 'work' speak for itself, we'd still be a best kept secret in Chicago. People would still think we had pools and residences.

What do they know about us now? That we're the largest provider of comprehensive sexual assault services in Illinois; that we've proven experts in the field of early childhood services; that we are an emerging voice for women's economic stability and empowerment. They know we're an organization that fosters women's leadership and an organization that looks ahead and anticipates socio-cultural shifts in order to deliver services faster and better.

How do they know it? They've heard our story in newspapers, blogs, and on tv.  They've heard legislators repeat our story in Springfield; they've read our story in Crain's and other private sector publications. Our board members and high level volunteers repeat our story wherever they go. Our staff, the main disseminators of our brand identity, are on message and can tell our story in whatever elevator they find themselves in.

In a word, that's my job.

How I'm Getting Through a 'New Normal' Job Search, pt 1.

I have begun a very quiet job search.
(Though, how quiet is it when I'm talking about it on my blog?)

This is the first time I've begun a search while in a current position and it feels different; rather than feel relaxed and carefree, there is an urgency that didn't exist before. Before, my job search had always been precipitated by a monstrous external event like a lay off; back then, I'd reconnect with a recruiter (this was when I was in admin) and within a month or two, I'd have a handful of interviews and then have a job.

This time, I'm searching in anticipation of a monstrous external event.  To be honest, if anyone is working in direct service non profit, I think now is the time to start translating your non profit experience into a private enterprise context where you can.  (Especially if you live in a state with a horrific state budget and the human services sector is looking at big cuts, like California or Illinois.) In Illinois, at my Large Women's Non Profit, we are anticipating at least another 10-20% budget reduction, if not higher. In my position, I represent pure overhead - I am on the bubble.

So I need to get ahead of that, if I can.

Job searching while panicked is never pretty - or effective. Currently, the average length of a successful search is 9 months. My self-imposed deadline is much tighter than that. To hold off the panic as long as possible, I've begun to apply some of same techniques of my job to my current search:

Landscape Assessment - Who do I know? What opportunities are out there? What opportunites aren't out there, yet, but I need to be positioned for? Where do I want to go? How long do I realistically have for this search?

Qualifying/Cultivating Targets - What is the quality of my network? Which is the faster, most efficient path toward a new opportunity? Who are the people who will give me needed guidance and/or leads, or other information? Who will I need to 'tickle' in order to let them know I'm out here, and what will these conversations need to sound/look like? What do my targeted orgs lack that I'm willing to contribute?

Making the Ask - What exactly do I need to ask my network? More than contacts (or referealls to other contacts), what information do I need to adk for in order to make my search more targeted? What is my messaging?

I don't pretend that being well-prepared is all one needs. By no means.  But the hardest thing about job searching is the mental game. It is so easy to become dispirited and filled with disappointment, and being organized (for me) is a way to keep the search focused, measurable and targeted.  I do not want to reach the place where I'm sending my resume everywhere.

Other things I've done to be organized and systematic about my approach:
On Google Docs, I've created spreadsheets, contact sheets, strategic relationship maps.
And I'm constantly revising my resume. 

The most important thing I'm doing (it's a constant process of navel gazing):
Really asking myself what I want my professional future to become.  Who do I want to be now?
What is the stretch opportunity?
What are the values I want this next move to embody?

More on that later, though.

How are you handling the 'New Normal' Job Search?

Tips on Informational Interviewing with Delia Christina

Lately, I’ve been fielding calls from recent college grads (or their family friends) for informational interviews and I don’t quite know how to feel about it. Ambivalent about my own professional standing and trajectory, I don’t quite know what insights I’m supposed to give these young people. Sure, I have a solid list of contacts (not as fabulous as some, but it’s still a good one); but informational interviewing should be about more than just a polite way to demand names. I see it as a mini-mentoring opportunity.


And since I’m big on mentoring folks who look like me, I was doubly ambivalent when the two people I spoke with this week didn’t look like me. Their accumulated gender, race and class privilege outweighed any contacts or leads I could give them in a lifetime.

The bitchy thought crossed my mind, “Shit, why should I waste my time and so-called insight on these two when I could be giving them to another woman of color?”

But I tamped down my impatience and made the appointments with them – because that’s what you do when you’re a professional. You realize that the job search is a dance and these sorts of interviews are part of the choreography. Also, there was no way I was going to look bad in front of the people who referred them to me. So on Monday, I met with a very nice college grad who’s earnestly interested in women’s advocacy – or law school – and today I met with a guy who’s been interning at our org at a long-term research position.

The recent grad was a dream. She was prepared. She came with a list of orgs she was interested in; she had already met with a couple other advocates I knew and she had a couple of career trajectories in mind by the time she sat down with me. We spent 30 minutes talking about the non profit sector, women’s advocacy and why direct service in Illinois is not likely to be a good bet for the next 10 years. I gave her a few names of other women to reach out to and shook hands with her on the way out. What a nice girl, I thought.

Then I met with PolicyDude. Unprepared, vague about his plans, unable to say what he wanted or why, he made my head hurt.

“PolicyDude,” I said. “Here’s a tip. When someone asks you what you’re interested in, saying ‘social justice and progressive movements’ isn’t going to cut it. It’s too vague. That could mean anything and everything. You need to be specific enough so that I know how best to recommend you to someone.”

He scribbled in his pad.

“So…let me hear it. Give me your 5 minute pitch: why do you want to be in policy and where do you want to end up?”

“Um…is that really necessary?”

Tip Number 2: When you’re asking someone to help you find a job, don’t be bitchy.

“Ok…who has the job now that you envision having?” In the past, I had always found this exercise to be helpful in focusing me on my own professional ambitions; I thought this would work for him, too. But, no.

He looked at the ceiling. “Um, well….policy think tanks…social movements for women…maybe an international organization…”

Sigh. “What about title? Who has the title you want?”

“Um, well…maybe Director of …policy?” Never let it be said that men don’t dream big.

Tip Number 3: For the love of god, be prepared ... and brief.

We spent an hour trying to eke out what it was he really wanted. Did he want to stay in Chicago or go elsewhere? Did he want to try women’s advocacy or poverty work? Did he want to stay in non profit or had he thought about the private sector? (I gave him the name of a blue chip consulting firm in Chicago with a non profit practice and, swear to god – if he finds a job with them, I will lose my shit.) Which foundations or research orgs was he thinking about? Why was he interested in this work? What did he want to do? How could I refer him to anyone I knew (and foist this disaster on them) when he couldn’t answer any of these questions?

Before you chastise me for losing my patience, I have to say that this guy is a grownup and should know better – in his 30s with a solid academic background, married to a med school student, already thinking about raising kids. He had already done some little work in the field but basically expected me to open my contact list and read off a bunch of names and emails for him.

Tip Number 4: Don’t be so overtly greedy.

When I reviewed his resume, I discovered that this guy had never gone through a traditional job process. Through the kindness of teachers and friends, he’d jumped from this random post to that.

“So you’ve never formally interviewed for any job before? You’ve never had to compete for a job?”

“Not really. Isn’t it …um…all about who you know?” Somehow, he managed to maintain a puzzled look of cluelessness as he said this.

Tip Number 5: Don’t let your white male privilege hit your ass on your way out my office.

...
Note: Though I was mentally over this conversation halfway through, I stuck with it and gave him some tips on being a little more strategic about his interviewing: stop mumbling, rewrite your resume, have your pitch ready and ask your contact for more than who they know. I gave him some homework and we’ll talk again in two weeks. But jesus on the cross – really??

Note: What’s Tip Number 1? Don’t be lazy!

Dear Jesus,
Thank you for arranging things so that my field of work doesn't put me in direct contact with entitled, rich, white women anymore. They are crazy.

Yours,
Delia Christina

A friend at work is dealing with a very rich, very entitled white woman who answers every email but my friend's, makes threats about my friend's work and has tried at least once to make my friend look bad to her boss. (Thankfully, our boss is a very cool sort of woman and has been getting copied on every emailed interaction.) This entitled rich lady is a volunteer.

Where the hell do volunteers for an organization get off treating staff like their servants?

I think I've just found my new side hustle: rogue volunteer whisperer for stressed out non profit fundraising staff.

reality bites, indeed

I am not a radical.

As a bourgie brown woman, I acknowledge what little privilege I have and wish everyone had the advantages I've had. However, just because I'm a bourgie black woman does NOT mean that I don't give a shit about making a difference in women's lives. 

I'm in one of our chief executive's office this morning and throwing an idea out there that our legislative agenda next session needs be more cohesive. So we're talking about the benefits to it and somehow ending up on a potential issue area for us: domestic trafficking and prostituted women. And then began a depressing conversation about whether or not we're a feminist organization and what matters more: dollars or actually advocating to empower women? Clearly, dollars.

Know what I hate about working for an org that's over 100 years old in this funding environment?

I hate knowing that every future decision we make about policy is probably going to come from a place of fear: fear that we'll alienate a donor; fear that we'll make a politician angry; fear that our general constituency will back off from us; fear that the shiny white ladies from the burbs won't want to be sullied by the hard scrabble lives of women living on the south or west side.

I hate coming to the realization that, because of our age and our size, rather than use this time of uncertainty to be brave, we only TALK about being brave but then cavil and end up being mealy-mouthed and cowardly. Because that's what it means to back off from policies that mean life or death to women. It means you're chicken shit and you're not really serious about what you mean.

I'm sure I'm not the only policy/advocacy person in a human services non profit to come to that realization.

If I'm going to be this disillusioned, I should have stayed in corporate.
At least I'd be compensated for my cynicism.

this is hard

For some reason, I haven't been able to sleep for the last few days.  Last night, after a nice date night with M-, the inconsiderate DamnKids next door kept me awake from 2.30 am to 3.30. Even after I called the cops on them, I tossed and turned, trying every trick I knew to lull myself into sleep.

Some of it was work stuff, I know.  Projects are starting to build up and while I may not be thinking about them consciously, it's running in the background. Like a .exe file on my hard drive somewhere sucking up disk space.

But what's the rest? Discontent with my blogging practice? (Blogging is starting to feel like spinning my wheels, not like real writing anymore.)
The eventual burnout from dealing with the state budget crap all year and having the end of session one week away?  (I don't even care how it turns out, anymore.  I just want it to be done. Janky budget or responsible budget, I don't care. Just end, already.)

Could it be M-?

As predicted, he read Screed while I was away (he had some free time on his hands) and ... I don't know how to read his reaction to it. (Also, notice that I'm not stopping writing about our relationship.)

Last night, in a light tone, he'd said, 'I'm sorry I didn't graduate college.'
But I don't know how to read that.  Truthfully, I know I've settled that with myself. That was MY issue and I've looked at it and called myself out for being so entitled. And then friends thought that he'd had a strange reaction when he found out LTF/B- had gone to Stanford but I wasn't there so I'm forced to take their interpretation with a grain of salt.

(Besides, Stanford or no, LTF/B- was a frakking nutbag. Also - inconsiderate, selfish, freakish, drug-addled, neurotic, depressive and occasionally impotent frustrating. By my assessment, M- wins on all points of comparison.)

I had been clipping dead daisy heads when this came up so I put down the scissors.
'M-, that used to be an issue when we first met, but it's not anymore. I love who you are.'

He shrugged. 'Well, I know that I still need to prove myself.'
'To whom?'
'To you.  I want to be able -- I'm just tired of not being where I want to be.'

I said, 'You know why I love you? I know that you're the type of man who has integrity and you'll be the man who takes care of his business  - and his family. You don't have to prove anything to me.'

'I just wish I had more money. I'm tired of working so hard and not having anything to show for it.'

And so we talked about that for a little while - about ambition, starting over at our age, about dreams that our parents had and that we doubt we'll have a chance to live. And about money. And living paycheck to paycheck. It was kind of a heavy conversation. No wonder we killed more than several bottles of Woodchuck.

In the past, a conversation like this would have made me skittish. My brain would have raced ahead, anticipating all sorts of trouble. But now I want to pay very close attention to how we both navigate peeling away our respective layers; what lies beneath won't always be attractive and we'll have to decide if we love the fantasy of love or if it's really about who this other person is in their bones.

I can already tell this 2nd year is going to be different than the first. The newness is still there, but now the edges of real life are starting to seep through. I'm beginning to see that being with someone really is a choice. It shouldn't be passive or accidental.  It shouldn't just happen, like turning a corner in an unfamiliar place, finding you like the neighborhood and just deciding to hang out there a while. It's an act of will. 

Did I just stumble into a profundity?

policy camp, day 2: when you know you're not a leader, but a close 2nd

It's not that much of a loss, really. I've always known that being a number 1 makes the goosebumps rise, and not in that good way. This is not to say that I am crushed or abashed. It's a confirmation. And it's not to say that I am the one who follows.  The pleasant surprise in this whole day was that it confirmed that I am...uncomfortably neutral about control.

The day started with our policy elevator speeches; I was paired with the NJ Supreme Court law clerk who frankly said, "I don't think these work. But go ahead." And I laughed.  Then she laughed. I got what she was saying.  When she said it in the larger group though, you could feel the room pull away from her.  But she stood up there and just shrugged. 'I've worked on staffs, she said. And these are nice, but they don't remember these. You have to build the relationship and negotiate.'

It was a pragmatic view of the political process and the room full of advocates didn't really shine to that. For most of us, we like to think that if only folks knew the extent of the issue, that's all it takes.  But it doesn't.  It takes politics.  And I admired her guts for saying that, for injecting an element of real politik into the morning.  It was a lesson for me: 
Don't get so caught up in your issue that you forget you operate in a very real world where having the facts and telling the story isn't enough. 
Being the smartest girl in the room is not enough.
Being the smartest girl who knows the right people sometimes is.

I hope I stay in touch with her after this; in a few years, this woman will either be a very good, and very connected, lobbyist or a very good, and very connected, state senator, congressman or judge for New Jersey.

How was my elevator speech? Ah, it was serviceable; it won't set the world on fire but no one called it crazy.

And that's another thing; it is so incredibly nurturing here! I imagined a policy shark tank, a boot camp of sorts.  But while the group discussions get heated, and positions are strenuously defended, there is always consensus to make us whole again.

Consensus. A word that used to make me itch in impatience.  But now I see the use for it.  In our session about Effective Teams, we had to agree on what helps or blocks teams; we couldn't take a simple vote and any disagreements had to be resolved through consensus. I found that I'm mostly ok with switching my vote. Oh, I'm wed to my position but often I will see the value of another person's view and give way.  But only if their view is valuable and they made a good case for it - or if there was a greater good that could benefit and didn't depend on my position.

What was also surprising was figuring out what each of us valued in our teams. Half of us wanted everyone to contribute; the other half, only if the contribution was value-added. Most felt that conflict was a block to progress, but ok if framed as debate; most required structure and felt that personal feeling talk could be a slippery slope for losing focus. Above all, we felt it was important, no matter individual positions, for the team to enjoy working with one another. 

Of course, when we compared our findings with actual research about effective teams, we discovered that some of what we preferred wasn't supported. Fascinating. Who knew conflict was a boon? Who knew that assuming equal competency levels was a block? (Lesson: always identify your weakest link and allocate resources appropriately!) It definitely made me stop and evaluate my current team and how I work in it.

Which brings me to the FIRO-B test.  We all submitted an assessment before we arrived and received the results. Wow.  It measured on Inclusivity, Control and Openness, on a 54-point range. (You can look up the FIRO-B to see how it works.)  Spookily accurate.

I had an overall score of 14 - out of 54!! My Inclusion score was low: I prefer being alone vs. interacting with others.  My Control score was also low; I like little structure, don't care about controlling others and don't give a shit about you trying to control me, because you won't.  (I paraphrase.) And my Openness score was medium; I prefer some but not a lot of warmth and closeness in 1-1 relationships.  Again, spookily accurate.

In other words, I'll be part of your team but I'm the loner who'll go along as long as I agree with the direction; but as soon as my and the group's interests diverge, I will bounce. Interesting, isn't it? (Perhaps I should warn M-.)

I don't think I was the only one struck with their results. Perhaps it was seeing ourselves rendered in print that made us all head for the bar immediately after the session.

So I'm at the Mt. Washington Conf Center in Baltimore, on the Johns Hopkins campus.  We are enjoying wonderful weather - warm, dry, with a hint of rain that's coming on Friday.  Rolling hills and bright green woodland surround the center.  High on a hill, we are comfortably isolated from the bustle of Baltimore.

Since I've arrived, and since so much of this week will be about leadership, I've been asking myself if there's a model of female leadership.  Do we tend to make women's leadership a binary opposite from male leadership?  Is there a particularly 'feminine' style of leadership that can be identified? 

So far, the so-called softer skills or qualities (i.e., relationship building, nurturing, etc.) aren't as valuable to most of us as strategy, savviness and having a vision. Interesting. During our discussion of why no one picked 'honesty' as a quality we all value in our leaders we arrived at the conclusion that, in our line of work, honesty isn't practical. Yes, we value integrity but honesty, less so.  After all, the point is to get to the YES.

So far, the group I am most aligned with are the women who self-identify themselves as doers: assertive, quick to act, in control, digs into challenges, bottom-line thinkers and not feelings based; we bonded over the fact that we all had  little patience for process and what we perceived as dithering, temerity or talking too much.  In this group, I think the judicial law clerk is the most intimidating; there's an assessing look in her eye that made me bristle at first but that's just her way.

(We were also the first team to finish the activity and waited impatiently while the Visionaries, Analysts and Nurturers took their time. No judgment! Just sayin'.)

I expected to feel old here but someone said that 40 is the new whatever; there are some women here who are beginning anew.  What I love most is that we are all passionate about issues affecting women. We are in orgs that do domestic violence work, education, economic empowerment, tax policy, early child care, reproductive justice, healthcare, AIDS work.  About half are mothers; about half are women of color. And two are men!  But what connects us? A passion for women's lives.

Ok, I have some policy homework to do. Catch y'all later.

a very cool shout out to this blog!

Thanks so much for reader Pamela, who gave me a heads up about this:
SmallChangeFund.org My Earth Day Wish? For Stories to Flourish!

It's great to see all the thinking prompted by Chimamanda Adichie's presentation.

My exRoomie also loved Adichie's story and we were talking last night about how it started her thinking about the complexities of our stories and how this should build empathy and hope between us. (Or something like that - we had a few apple beers.)

Anyway, if you're interested in being a donor that cares about more than one story, I'd start with the Small Change Fund.

the limits of the single story

This is so perfect, I don't want to ruin it with my prattling: People of colour are not a story of suffering . . . Or resistance. « Restructure!

We should be familiar with the 'single story' told by our most familiar -isms: racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, cisism, etc.

But:

What is the 'single story' that feminism tells?
What is the 'single story' of our national identity?
What is the 'single story' of your city or town?
What is the 'single story' of your religion or political party?
(Even the Tea Party has a 'single story' being told by the MSM and others.)

What is the 'single story' of your work - especially if you work for a non profit human services organization?

This is not a weird question: the 'single story' most orgs tell is of the broken down - nevermind the agency that these populations have shown, or that these populations very well might have their own stories to tell. But the 'single story' we tell about these populations is a direct product of the racial/class power and privilege of those of us who work in these orgs.

A friend of mine recently confronted this single story issue when she was preparing a proposal for a large corporate donor for one of our service areas. She was in the middle of writing it when something began to niggle at her. The whole thing felt wrong. The women we were purporting to serve weren't in it at all. It was all stats and 'statements of need' that made it seem like the west side of Chicago was just a bombed out crater, where women wandered the streets begging for bread and children lived in boxes. It was a standard grant narrative that painted the worst picture, without any room for self-determination, agency or stories other than the one we told of poverty levels, literacy rates and lack.

So my friend retooled her proposal to make that niggling itch go away.

It's significant to note that my friend is a woman of color (it is.) And when the proposal was reviewed by a non person of color, the shift in frame was immediately noted - and instantly edited. My friend was told that the single story of women's experiences on the west side is the preferred story to donors - this is the reality that needs to be made even more starkly solid, and repeated everywhere we go, and to everyone we solicit.

The voice of our org, therefore, must reflect "No possibility of feelings more complex than pity." We must reify, no matter how problematic, unfair or racist, a power and privilege that has "the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person."

As a writer I know that I've been guilty of telling only one story. It's an easy shorthand to fall into, especially if this is the way one's sector works. I don't quite know how to end this post except to hope that those of us who are privileged to be in the position to tell the stories of others take our storytelling seriously - and resist the impulse to tell them singly.

connecting the dots

This is the story of fatal domestic violence: Frantic call after 4 found dead: 'He killed everyone' - Chicago Breaking News.
Though the suspect in this story had a record based in Wisconsin his story is not necessarily unique to it.

This story is also one of our state's weakening social safety net.

In March, a FY11 Department of Human Services budget briefing laid out these stark realities:
Mental health community services would be reduced by $90 million
Mental health providers would be warned to provide only 'crisis' care
All non-Medicaid spending would be eliminated - meaning that acute or chronic care would be unfunded.

Because of these draconian cuts, according to an agency official, the mental healthcare system in Illinois would be set back 30 years. Imagine that.

It's a very basic example of how bad things trickle down:
State budgets get slashed due to billion dollar deficits ->
Public Safety budgets get reduced ->
Human/Social/Mental health services get slashed ->
State programs for the treatment of incarcerated mentally ill adults are defunded ->
Mentally ill prisoners are released to free up space ->
Transitional/supportive housing and care for mentally ill ex-prisoner is eliminated ->
Mentally ill ex-prisoner goes untreated (and unhoused) ->
Mentally ill ex-prisoner re-offends, a result of their untreated mental illness as well as their homelessness ->
Mentally ill ex-prisoner re-enters criminal justice system ->
Criminal justice system catches and releases them again, because there is no money for guards, prisons or treatment.

And so on.

We could play the same game with rehabilitation services, alcohol and drug abuse services, or even childcare. Oh, not to say that all those who receive those services end up in the criminal justice system, but that insufficient funding for each of these areas creates a series of unintended consequences for communities which are ill-equipped to deal with them in the first place.

The community organizations who do this work do it precisely because the state can't.

And now, because of the indefensible lagging and delay of most (not all) of our elected officials, the state won't.

In mental health alone, over 3000 jobs will be lost in Illinois.
Anywhere between 23-87 mental health organizations will close (depending on their niche population.)
4000 adults in residential care will be impacted.
70,000 people (including 4200 children) will no longer have access to mental health care.

So that's the mental health 'dot.'

In addition to the education 'dot.'

And the public safety 'dot.'

There are a lot more dots if you really want to see them.

How many other dots need to be connected before our elected officials get off their complacent asses shrug off their complacency and do what they need to do?