Dear Friends, Partners, and Supporters,When I was a kid, my dad loved going to garage sales (he still does, but now it’s the endless Craigslist garage). Many weekends, he’d tote us around from one garage sale to another, dedicated in his hunt for the next great bargain. He was a terrific thrifter - he wasn’t someone who suffered fools. Before buying electronics, he always asked the seller to “plug it in” to see if it worked. Every time, the owner found just the right way to press the start button, jiggle, or give it a little kick to get it going, manipulating it just enough to cough up enough power to be sold. But at the end of the day, even with my dad’s tests at play, you were always still at risk of taking home a broken vacuum.
Many of you have heard me tell the story of the broken vacuum cleaner before, because it offers such a ripe analogy for our work at FCYO and the changes we have made over the years to cultivate mutual trust with our grantees, donors, and allies. Over time, through our close relationships with local organizing groups, we came to clearly understand that there was work to be done to strengthen organizing rigor and build
the power to win. It was serving no one for us to ignore the truth of the situation; conditions for communities were worsening, and our organizing efforts weren’t matching the challenge in front of us. “Stop selling the broken vacuum” became a common refrain in our organization, a means of affirming our commitment to being honest about the realities of our work, even when it meant acknowledging our limitations.
To achieve this, we needed to change our practices and honestly communicate with our philanthropic partners about the challenges facing the field, rather than solely emphasizing the positive aspects that appeal to funders.
We did not want to be a funding intermediary that sold broken vacuums by retooling reality and, by extension, not giving grantee partners the space needed to be vulnerable about the challenges they were facing. We set out not to sell the field of youth organizing but to transform it into a consolidated force ready with the analysis and strategies to meet the moment.
I’m sharing this story one last time today in my official role as Executive Director of FCYO, as I will be transitioning from my role this summer. Over the last 20 years, I have had the privilege of being part of the FCYO family as a grantee, a Board member, and a staff member. It has truly been an honor to serve as Executive Director and in co-executive leadership for the past seven years alongside such a fantastic team and Advisory Board.
Challenging the normative expectation that grantees put on a show for funders to demonstrate how remarkable they are, to one that welcomes learning from failure and flaws alongside celebrating wins, is probably what I’m most proud of during my tenure.
