The beginning of a new year--and new decade--is a natural moment for us to pause, reflect on the highs and lows of the year behind us, and consider how we’ve changed or hope to change as we move into the year ahead.
That’s why as January 1st approached, we challenged our network to take a moment, pause from their work, and really think about their past year. In particular, we asked those willing to, to share a pivotal moment from their past year that changed how they think about or approach their work. We captured these turning points to share back with you the wonderful ways in which the process of changemaking has us as changemakers constantly analyzing and evolving.
We’ve selected some of the submitted turning point stories we heard from our network. We’ve highlighted a theme and a few quotes from each person’s story (some of which were shared in writing, some in person in a group call). As you read, we hope these themes and examples will resonate with you and spark other memories or reflections from the past year. Enjoy!
Themes from Albertan Changemaker Turning Points
We must be willing to challenge our assumptions
Daniela Seiferling from Volunteer Alberta reflected on a pivotal moment when her team stepped back to rethink some of their assumptions about how their work should be done.
“Back in December I took part in a conversation where we talked about what happens when you get stuck in the process of exploring new ideas and never actually implement any solutions. I’m part of a very creative office, and that’s often what happens to us. Recently I was tasked with putting together our membership strategy for 2021, and the turning point for us was just throwing away our preconceived notions of what it should look like (and everybody's opinions). I’m approaching the strategy now from an asset-based perspective and really putting the data at the forefront. We are going back to the data and looking at it with fresh eyes and in relation to other people doing similar work. So, hopefully it moves us into a space where we pilot a solution instead of continuously exploring options.”
Jessica Turowski shared a turning point she experienced when a participant in one of her first Rural Mental Health Project training sessions revealed key assumptions Jessica and colleagues brought into their work.
“We were testing a new approach for training cohorts of animators from different rural communities. In these cohorts there was one woman who was new to the fields of health and community development, who ended up asking some really profound questions that kind of shook our thinking and that taught us a lesson we didn't know we needed to learn. It ended up teaching us everything we needed in order to get to the next stage of development. We were talking about the idea that typically, if you have somebody who works in an organization, they have more of a planification approach, whereas if you’re a community member there's a lot more of an emergent or entrepreneurship style where you follow the leads and connections as they come about. We thought we were using a mix of both the planification and entrepreneurial-style approach, but when this woman reacted to certain elements in our training it helped us to think differently about our approach and we suddenly realized... we were falling into the pitfall of using only the planification approach. Often we talk about ideas and concepts that are ambiguous and big as we try to move away from conventional ways of thinking and doing, but it's so easy and quick to fall back into those ruts…. From this, I learned: Never to be too comfortable in thinking that your thinking has evolved, because our systems are built to make us think the way we do for years and generations…and this can’t be undone in a few weeks, months or years. My lesson learned is to be comfortable about learning in the moment and also try to leave space for your ideas to be challenged because that's really when learning can be the richest.”
Cassandra Litke Wyatt shared an example in which a shift in language helped her team and the partners they work with shift their assumptions and mindsets about their work.
“My turning point was around how my organization is shaping it’s strategy document overall. We found that we often talked about our funding priorities and relationships with other organizations including donations we made to them, and in doing so we didn’t always highlight the social innovation work we were taking on ourselves. [Our strategy document] also did not always capture the needs of the communities where we have operations and where a lot of our employees live. As a result, we made a pivot to the way we visually represent our strategy that really brought the innovation piece to life a little bit more. Since doing that there’s been a whole change in how we talk about what we do, how we share that information, how people can see themselves in it, and I think it's also opened up opportunities to start thinking about things a little bit differently and from a programmatic view that also sees us being much more engaged in an initiative as opposed to a donation mindset. I’m very interested to see where this goes over the next year... When doing our reflection on the past year it’s been a really big thing from 2019 that changed the way we think. How we carry that forward will be really interesting.”
Conditions must be right--both within our culture and within ourselves--for meaningful change to occur
Corey Sullivan, who has worked for the provincial government since 2012, reflected on how, after a change in government, he suddenly realized how important workplace culture can be when it comes to fostering (or inhibiting) innovation.
“My experience with change in government, regrettably, has been overwhelmingly disappointing. This disappointment precipitated my cynicism and eventual turning point, which I experienced this year. I realized that my efforts to champion change would at most see inconsequential results…. I finally accepted that the Alberta government actively opposes change, even incremental change... From what I’ve witnessed, the implicit culture in the ministries in which I worked does not tolerate change makers or even diversity of thought.” Despite these challenges, Corey also realized that he needed to pay attention to the role he was playing as an individual within the system: “Of course, I can only change me. Be the change you seek. Model the way. Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. And listen; seek first to understand. These I will continue to do. Always.”
Julia Watson, communications coordinator for the Alberta Nonprofit Network (ABNN), reflected on how the past two years were a turning point in the ABNN’s development. The concept of an Alberta-wide council and collaboration of nonprofits was proposed as early as the 1990s by the Muttart Foundation, but there wasn’t enough desire for real collaborative infrastructure at the time.
“Sometimes there are good ideas that the world isn’t quite ready for, but eventually, they find their way. Such was the case with the idea of Bob and Martha Muttart. At the time, it was a visionary idea and it took three decades for the conditions to be right for nonprofits to be in a place that had the desire and saw the potential for a collaborative effort. It took a lot of effort and an open mind to bring the concept to life, and now that it is up and running, it is up to us as Alberta nonprofits to continue to share our perspectives, collaborate and participate how we can as we advance a cohesive, proactive, resilient sector in Alberta. as conditions became right for this ambitious idea to become a reality.”
Kelli Stevens shared a turning point she observed within her organization and the sector at large as assumptions and mindsets began to shift around opportunities related to social finance.
“My turning point this year was around seeing how we’ve become more open to exploring social finance and opportunities related to that… There’s now an investment readiness fund from the federal government that showcases the exploration of social finance. There’s willingness to have people in the sector including funders and foundations starting to re-think what our donations can do, where money can come from beyond grant budgets, what can be done with endowment and reserve funds, and so forth. Beginning last year, our team decided it would be neat if we explored this area more, and by November we had an agreement with the board to enter into a partnership with another organization that will be all about learning about possibilities for social finance. I’m happy to see all of this happen in the past 11-ish months, although this change has taken longer than that when you think about the watchfulness many of us have had on the topic for some time.”
Human connections are critical building blocks for systems change
Agnes Chen, a registered nurse in Calgary, shared the turning point that ultimately led her to develop Starlings, an initiative advocating for children’s rights and the need for more empathetic understandings of adverse childhood experiences.
“As a child who grew up in a home prevalent with addiction and mental illness, I was accustomed to the feelings of shame brought on when first responders entered our home and validated our feelings of unworthiness by their words and actions that lacked compassion towards the members of our family that we loved the most. I spent my youth being a caregiver wrapped in a child's body... I was accustomed to keeping my feelings of sadness and shame in, having witnessed the isolation we would feel when our story was somehow leaked into the big wide world. At the same time... I never understood why so many were isolated for their pain, why WE were isolated for our pain…. Fast forward to a beautiful marriage, 3 incredible children later, and smack dab in the middle of a ”vulnerability revolution”, I ended up in a psychologist’s chair, eager to finally start the process of feeling safe to share my story, and where the child in me was excited to finally let go of the feelings of unworthiness and guilt, of shame and sadness that had been resting on my shoulders since my earliest memory. At which point, the psychologist looked at me with furrowed brows, and responded with, “you know you are an enabler?” This was my turning point. Shortly after this experience I started Starlings, my initiative where I work to ... empower every adult to be the champion that every child needs to grow resilient… You see, I realized that day at the psychologist that it wasn’t a lack of compassion or an attempt to isolate us that had me and my family feeling worthless and removed from the rest of the world. It was simply a lack of understanding and connection that was needed between one human and another, and the time needed to grow that understanding and connection. This, I am certain, is what we as a community need more of. This, I am certain, is what is desperately needed to ensure every child can grow with resilience DESPITE their adversity.”
Andrea Wall from Innovate Calgary shared a turning point she observed in how cross-sectoral agencies viewed the importance of connecting with each other to create a more effective system.
“Last April a nine year old Syrian student, Amal Alshteiwi, in Calgary died by suicide. Her death shook many of us on a gut level, as well as many agencies . How could this child and her family have fallen through the cracks? It came out that the family had interacted with multiple agencies s since arriving in Calgary as refugees and that her parents had gone to the school multiple times but had a hard time advocating for themselves around the severity of bullying their daughter was experiencing. Shortly after, a group of local settlement and mental health agencies and a grassroots refugee support initiative convened a public town hall which was hosted by Immigrant Services Calgary. There were about 100 people in attendance and it was an incredibly honest and difficult conversation. It was both a mourning and call to action for the organizations in attendance and across the sector. It was so powerful to hear leaders speak not just with their organizational lens, but personally about how this tragedy had impacted them. - Statements like, “We see thousands of families a year, caseloads have spiked, resources are short and yet that can’t be an excuse. We’re not collaborating well enough between our agencies and so none of us realized that this family was struggling even though they were interacting with us in multiple ways. At one point, two leaders looked at each-other and said, “We know each other, we bump into each other at events, but I’ve never reached out to just call you and say ‘We’re seeing all of this... how could we work together to make it better?’” It was a very human moment. A community leader who works closely with many Syrians also identified some very real cultural and service disconnects ranging from the availability of Arabic speaking counsellors, to the extreme stigma surrounding mental health conversations within many communities, and the Westernized service delivery model which is often in clinical rather than home settings and doesn’t involve time to build trust and rapport with the families over multiple visits and tea. While this tragedy cannot be undone, what has carried forward from this event and shifted how I’ve showed up in a number of subsequent conversations was the collective power of vulnerability and shared accountability. That it was a peer-to-peer meeting and not convened by a funder also I think contributed to this tone. There is so much complexity in the vast social and environmental challenges we are trying to solve, that making time for these shared moments of humility, reflection, and re-commitment is critical. *This conversation has continued into action. Here’s just one example.”
Summary
We’re immensely grateful to those who took time--online and in person--to share their turning points from the past year. It’s truly an honor to be in ongoing conversation with changemakers across the province who are thinking deeply about how to get better at addressing the root causes of today’s “messy” problems. We look forward to incorporating some of the quotes and reflections we didn’t have space to share here in other blog posts and publications over the months ahead.