The Power of Local Changemakers, Community and Baltimore Shine at Change Collective Convening

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: press@civicnation.org

Catie Griggs, Sashi Brown, Brooke Lierman, Fagan Harris, Hahrie Han, Xavier de Souza Briggs, Brittany Young, Andrew Coy, Bree Jones and More Joined the Change Collective’s Annual Conference 

Baltimore, MD: From Tuesday, October 14 to Thursday, October 16, more than 100 leaders from across the country traveled to Baltimore for the Change Collective’s National Change Lab, an annual conference celebrating local leaders who graduated from the Change Collective fellowship program. While the convening brought together changemakers from the Change Collective’s five city cohorts — Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Jackson, MS; Memphis, TN; and San Antonio, TX — Baltimore inspired the entire week. The convening featured Baltimore small businesses, leadership from the Orioles and Ravens and conversations with local and state leaders in Maryland. 

As Catie Griggs, President of Business Operations for the Baltimore Orioles, shared on a panel with Sashi Brown, President of the Baltimore Ravens, sports can be an accessible way to build civic trust and community: “[The Orioles] take a tremendous amount of pride in creating a space where our community can show up, come together and where their first interaction with a stranger can be a high five over a home run.” Brown expanded on sports’ role as a place of unity, highlighting: “For [the Ravens], it is a fundamental belief that we have a responsibility back to the community, not just for those reasons, but because we are a rare and unique unifying force for Baltimore that the entire region can rally around.” 

Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman and senior advisor to Governor Wes Moore Fagan Harris continued to uplift the power of communities in a fireside chat on how state government can advance local leadership, infrastructure and impact. Lierman encouraged community leaders to think about the resources they need beyond a grant or contract from the government, like “using the role of government and the power of convening…which is one of state government’s most powerful soft powers.” Harris spoke to the “powerful and unique alchemy” of this collaboration, saying: “It’s the marriage between the leaders on the ground and in the community who are doing the work and lifting up the solutions every single day and the elected leaders who have those communities’ backs who make change happen.”

The next morning, Change Collective Advisory Council members Hahrie Han, the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church, and Xavier de Souza Briggs, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, joined together for a conversation on the future of democracy and how local leaders can best meet the current moment to inspire civic action. Han empowered leaders trying to make a change to ask: “How do I equip people to develop the compass they need to navigate the complex, uncertain world we live in — to figure out how, anchored in their own values and interests, they can work with other people to solve problems in their communities?”

The National Change Lab concluded with a keynote session on local innovation in Baltimore featuring local leaders. The founder and CEO of B-360 Brittany Young; the CEO of the Digital Harbor Foundation Andrew Coy; and the CEO of Parity Homes Bree Jones shared about their nonprofit journeys, finding inspiration in their neighborhoods, advice for funding local projects and leadership tips. 

Jones brought attention to the process of seeking capital and showing funders the need for an organization or product, sharing that “big institutional investors look at Black neighborhoods as a deficit. If the investors don’t think that there is a market, let me prove that there is a market,” which she has led by example with Parity Homes’ work to “rebuild the social fabric that has been destroyed in communities” in historically redlined Baltimore neighborhoods. Young magnified the importance of storytelling in fundraising, weaving her personal story into the founding of B-360 from a logic model and pilot program of 30 students, and advising: “I’m really big on storytelling. Telling the story of starting with ‘if you invest a million dollars, here is what I am going to do with that million dollars, that outcome, and that return.’” Coy underscored this advice and the need to create a little bit of “the fear of missing out for funders” and being open to “doing the work outside of your city to be able to come back and create recognition and willingness locally to support your work.” 

Throughout the week, the energy and power of the Change Collective cities stood out through conversations and presentations of Civic Action Plans, the projects each member of the Change Collective lead to solve problems in their communities, including:

• Parker Dixon, a small business owner from San Antonio, TX, shared updates from his work rallying local leaders and entrepreneurs together to revitalize a portion of the city’s downtown, underscoring his inspiration: “Our projects start with a simple question: Why can’t the community and the people who live in it lead the way for what the community wants?”
• Chinasa Imo, a nonprofit founder from Chicago, IL, whose community and experiences in public health inspired her work to increase access to healthcare for people in rural areas, connected her project to the Change Collective’s work: “I collect stories from the rural communities themselves…when we talk about the Change Collective, it’s the same thing: how do you collect and pull stories together to make a case for change?”
• TJ Mayfield, a city alderman from Jackson, MS, whose Civic Action Plan addressed the housing crisis and poverty in his neighborhood caused by over a century of historical inequity persisting since the Civil War, highlighting the urgent need for this work as “the war on poverty, 163 years later in Vicksburg, Mississippi — 45 minutes from Jackson — continues on.”

Select images from the National Change Lab can be found HERE. Press interested in speaking with Dexter Mason, Executive Director of the Change Collective, connecting with Change Collective Members about their work, or wanting to learn more about the National Change Lab can email press@civicnation.org. 

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ABOUT the Change Collective: 

The Change Collective is a dynamic leadership community created to train, connect and elevate local changemakers in communities across the country. The Change Collective develops local leaders, helping them bring people together, bridge divides, and solve problems at the community level. Local cohorts are composed of fellows representing a range of identities, backgrounds, vocations, and ideologies. Members of the Change Collective have access to training opportunities, leadership development, and a wide network of mentors both locally and nationally. The Change Collective is an initiative of Civic Nation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Learn more here.

ABOUT Civic Nation:

Civic Nation is an impact hub for ideas, leaders, and initiatives that strengthen civic culture, power, and participation. Rooted in purpose and powered by people, Civic Nation brings together individuals, grassroots organizers, industry leaders, brands, and influencers to take on the biggest issues of our time. Civic Nation is home to five national initiatives: ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, Change Collective, It’s On Us, We The Action, and When We All Vote. Learn more here.