Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 22, 2017)
Street Roots • September 22-28, 2017 O p in io n Leadership means helping others lead, too ast week I wrote about my reflections and A shining example of this is the lack of lessons learned from the relationships sophistication with nonprofit leaders refusing to between advocates and elected officials. embrace technology and social media. Tools that This week I’m writing about when it’s time for younger generations use to effectively community leaders to step aside in order to communicate with the masses. build and share power within our movement. One of the biggest reasons the public doesn’t One of my first mentors on the streets was understand the effectiveness of our movement Genny Nelson, who is we are still trying to explain the complexity of h m h b h m co-founded Sisters Of The housing through archaic avenues that never Road in 1979. even reach broader audiences. It’s my opinion «RM Genny’s work in the W that storytelling and photography will go 10 fi community, along with times further on social media and digitally than many others, helped an executive director trying to explain the B y Israel B ayer shape the relationship complexities of a housing system to a public ■ ■ M H o n a between advocacy, that isn’t even listening. government and social Instead of holding on to these philosophies, services in Portland today, nonprofit leaders would be wise to turn to the especially in the Old Town/Chinatown next generation to understand storytelling in neighborhood. the 21st century within their own organizations. One of the best attributes Genny had was By working together, organizations can find a passing along knowledge and helping mentor way to share power within their own groups and future generations on what it would take to build empower others to take part in a broader and maintain a housing movement. She took the movement and help deliver a message we are all time to not only speak truth to power and work trying to capture. to create systemic change in the community, but Of course, fighting poverty is bigger than she also spent an enormous amount of time social media or a website. That’s just one small working with others who would eventually carry example among a broad range of issues. the torch of the work she had Often times decision makers, dedicated her life to. especially elected officials, are able to One of the reasons Street Roots determine an advocate’s strengths is successful today is because at and weaknesses in the community, The reality is the heart of the organization is the and if you’re not evolving or you’re people don't philosophy of nonviolence, being burned out, it show s. W hile w e all nonjudgmental and meeting people b e lie v e in o n e com e from different exp erien ces, where they are at, regardless of person's ideas hope is going to be 10 times more their life circumstances. Genny’s or ability to lead inspiring than being cynical. guidance was critical in helping Being a leader at any level comes — they believe shape the Street Roots that you with an enormous amount of in the idea of pressure and stress. It’s important to see today. why people are Genny Nelson’s mentors came remember that nobody gets it right doing out of the Depression era, all of the time. In fact, part of being including Dorothy Day, a woman able to be innovative and effective is something who helped create the philosophy both admitting when you’re wrong bigger than of using nonviolence in social and falling on your face a time or two. themselves. work. Their mentors touched the None of us are perfect. It’s O K to work of Mother Jones and the admit when you’re wrong and it’s OK abolitionist movement. All of the to fail. work we do today is connected to The reality is people don’t believe the past with the idea of being more effective in one person’s ideas or ability to lead - they and working toward creating social change in believe in the idea of why people are doing the future. something bigger than themselves. Given the It’s my opinion that if you re an executive chance, I believe the vast majority of humans director or an organizer or community leader want to do the right thing and help others in and you’re not taking the time to mentor others our community. They just need the time and around you and the next generation, you need to space to do so. rethink things. We all need one another. None of the work we do comes without the The last thing we need are people that are power of a group of people or a coalition simply hanging on to something they don’t have working together to support one another. There the energy to lead. Nobody lasts forever, and if is no one voice or individual that carries the the goal is to maintain strength within an day. It takes all of us being leaders in the organization and in our movement, people community to create social change. shouldn’t feel threatened by creating room for That’s why I’m grateful for the gifts that others to share power and lead. Genny Nelson gave to Street Roots. Her Part of the reason I’m stepping down at mentorship of a few people allowed a lot of Street Roots is because I felt like I didn t have people in the end to benefit. It’s something we the energy to effectively lead the organization can all learn from. into the next era. It wasn’t fair to either Street , I suppose my point in all of this is don t be Roots or the people around me. It certainly isn t afraid to take the time to help others. Share fair to the people we serve. your experiences. Your knowledge. Your life So often I see the same executive directors lessons. And work to give others the ability to delivering the same messages year after year carry the torch for the common good, knowing without incorporating new leadership within that the things we pass on today can go on to their organizations or not sharing their assets create amazing things tomorrow. with others in the community. Page 3 111 II© ill If you would like to have L Israel Bayer is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach him at israel@streetroots. org or follow h im on Twitter @israelbayer. Executive Editor Joanne Zubi joanne@streetroots.org Vendor Program Director Cote Merkel cole@streetroots.org Operations Director Sa rah Bèecro ft Development Director Sarah Cloud Program Assistant Caelin M iitko, Jesuit Volunteer Board of Directors C h a irm a n Brad Taylor V ic e -C h a irm a n Rachel Langford T r e a s u r e r Heather Stadick S e c re ta ry Dan Jones D ire c to rs Rich Rodgers, Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nels Johnson and Alison Hallett Volunteers Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Zoe Klingmann, Dan Jones, Dennis Hogan, Monica McKune, Susan Wolfe, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jeanie Lunsford, Jason Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Del Shawn Davidson, Gillian Floren, Mark OlDani, Bianca Butler, Alex Cherin, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Megan Smith, Luke Scheuermann, Annie Aube, Helen Hill, Mark Brown, Lily Krai, Mary Emerson, Adam Bruns, Brooke Anderson and Megan Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call for more information at 503-228-5657.
