Every strong ecosystem of activists and movement leaders is made up of individuals. Some of my favorite moments in my career have been the spaces where we’ve provided safe, inclusive spaces for leaders to think through their ideas with vulnerability.
In the fall of 2018, I teamed up with Watershed Partners to design and facilitate a capacity-building session for activists, creatives, and industry leaders as an extension of the annual Oslo Freedom Forum in New York. Our goal was to provide the community with the space to work together and exchange learnings to drive forward their individual and collective work. The outcome of the one-day session, Mobilizing our Movement, was a set of 12 unique project plans that activists brought back to their movements and organizations, as well as a newly connected network of allies and advisors.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Voices for Economic Opportunity Incubator was entirely virtual. So we had to get creative with our facilitation and our networks to ensure each participant group was given the time and space they needed to work through project challenges and receive actionable advice and support. In the spring of 2021, we hosted 21 “Brain Trusts,” a series of individualized interactive sessions for participants that engaged roundtables of over 130 advisors working across creative, strategy, funding and social change sectors.
Participants and advisors shared overwhelmingly positive feedback on the Brain Trusts, often citing the rare opportunity to be honest and “human” about their advocacy work as central to the program’s impact.