More good work done by Connectors! Earlier this week, Dan and Susan used the event space in our office to host a 3Qs meeting with 13 members of the mediation community.

Dan and Susan with the group of mediators

Though Dan made it clear that their 3Qs responses did not need to be mediation-related, much of the discussion did naturally center on the work they have in common.

One of the mediators, Lisa, said she’d like to do workshops on mediation. When asked why she hadn’t done it, she expressed a need to find partners, a space and organizational support. Another, Gail, talked about her goal of creating hyperlocal mediation centers. She had worked to do this in upper Manhattan, emphasizing neighborhoods, but found obstacles: the existing mediation organizations saw her as competition, and she would have difficulty paying the  overhead.

This discussion also revealed some challenges facing many mediators across settings. One of the those challenges is making the public more aware of the benefits of mediation. Another is making mediation sustainable for mediators; it is often offered as a free or low-cost service for the benefit of the public, but mediators need to make a living too.

This 3Qs discussion raised an issue for Idealist Groups: when doing something for the common good is also directly beneficial to individuals in the group, how can groups best determine what falls outside the scope of the 3Qs?  We look forward to working with groups like the mediators to strike the right balance.

Thanks Dan, Susan, and the mediators for sharing your experience with us.

The Pool at Riverbank State Park on the West Side

When she came in to see us last week, Sandy was concerned that her 3Qs meeting at the pool at Riverbank State Park wasn’t going to attract much interest. After handing out flyers, sending out emails, and talking to people every chance she got, she only had two or three RSVP’s. She decided to go ahead with the meeting as planned, since she thought they could still have a meaningful conversation. Her hard work paid off. Eight people showed up  for her first meeting, including some she’d never met. Here’s what she had to say about the experience:

People really wanted to talk and it got more personal than I thought it would get…people were extremely open with each other. When it was over, two people stayed to connect to help each other with their intention; a woman who wanted to help vets met someone who is a physician’s assistant who works with some vets, and they exchanged contact information.

I loved it and had a chance to connect with people I see every day and others I’ve never seen.  More importantly, it gave them an opportunity to connect with each other and share.

Some of the swimmers at Sandy's meeting.

Sandy’s results are encouraging because she was able to bring together people who first appeared not to have much in common beyond swimming. Yet they all had a good intention to share, and were interested in helping each other to take their next steps. We helped support Sandy with a simple flyer and some advice while she did the tough work of inviting people. Ultimately it was curiosity, openness, and a sense of possibility that brought them to the table — looks like we’re on the right track.

A great step forward, with more to come!

If it looks a little quiet around here, it’s because we’ve been working with Connectors one-on-one to get them set up for successful 3Qs meetings this week. We’ve answered emails, fielded phone calls, and met in-person with several of you, and we’re doing our best to create any new materials you need.

Sandy is hosting a 3Qs meeting at her local park

One of our Connectors, Sandy, visits a community pool on the Upper West Side. She decided this would be great place to try the 3Qs. I caught up with Sandy for a quick Q&A:

Q: What’s your plan for the 3Qs?

A: I plan to have the event at Riverbank State Park, on benches under trees, if the weather permits, and as an alternative, in an indoor space. Our meeting will take place at 8:45 AM after morning lap swim time.

Q: How many people are you inviting?

A: I’ve sent out flyers via email to about 200 people and have personally handed out aver 50 flyers.  Flyers have been left at the pool sign in desk at least four days a week for the past three weeks, and will continue to be handed out this week.

Q: How are you ‘pitching’ this to people?

A: I’m first asking if they know what Idealist is as an ice breaking question.  The people who are familiar with Idealist are very interested in what we are doing.  Those that have never heard about Idealist are a much harder sell.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve encountered so far, and how did you handle it?

A: My biggest challenge has been to get the emails sent to the list of swimmers.  In the end it has been sent out twice, but always an attachment, which I believe was not opened by most people.  I needed to rely on the people who controlled the list.  It is also extremely difficult to reach my fellow swimmers directly as they come and go during the morning lap swim time.  Most do not pick up the flyers and many are not interested.  After swimming so early in the morning they want to get home after their swim. I don’t think I’m going to get many people.  This morning I thought I may only get 2 or 3 people, despite great efforts and lots of flyers distributed and many conversations.  I hope for good weather.

We had a feeling some Connectors might run into challenges, and Sandy’s setting is a challenging one indeed; she’s trying to get the word out to a lot of people who don’t know each other or get together very often. But there’s an upside: if she decides to have another meeting after this first one, then they’ve seen her before and might be more receptive next time. Here’s to small steps!

Thanks for sharing, Sandy!

Phyllis helped connect Jirandy to a space she needed for her new program

A while back, we talked about Phyllis Gutterman and the 3Qs meetings she started hosting for the Cultural/Arts organizations in Mamaroneck, NY. She’s continued to coordinate those meetings in the library’s community room, with each meeting drawing many repeat attendees — and also a lot of new faces. I took the train up to Mamaroneck to observe and learn from their success.

It was an inspiring event. Twenty-five arts and cultural leaders came together to talk about their individual and common needs. There were representatives from Larchmont-Mamaroneck Center for Continuing Education, LMC-TV, and the Westchester Sandbox Theatre, to name a few. There were individual artists and musicians, and representatives from the Mamaroneck Library, which is hosting the meetings in their community room.

They’ve been having great conversation and are starting to discover some shared needs.

One of the people at January’s meeting was Jirandy Martinez, from the the Hispanic Resources Center of Larchmont and Mamaroneck. After the meeting, when HRCLM wanted to start a Theater of the Oppressed program for members of their Girls Empowerment Group, they had a problem — they needed a space to meet in for ten weeks to rehearse.

Jirandy immediately thought of Phyllis’s meeting, and emailed the other attendees. She got an offer from Linda Bhandari at the library, who was able to offer the library’s space for the duration of the program.

This is a compelling example of the kind of transformative connection that can emerge when we help people to share their ideas and needs with people around them.

To learn more  and discuss Phyllis’s most recent meeting, take a look at her recent post in the forum.

Great work, everyone!

Lindy, a Connector who joined the network this summer, is a member of a Socratic conversation club who meet monthly to discuss different topics.

Recently, she proposed to the group that they run the 3Qs activity and see what types ofunrealized intentions would bubble to the surface. On January 19th, sixteen people met and discussed their answers to the questions “What would you like to do to help others?”; “Why haven’t you done it?” and “What would help you to do it?”.  

The meeting flowed nicely, and everyone had three minutes to share their thoughts, which ranged from wanting to convert an abandoned facility into a hospital for the homeless to teaching job skills to the unemployed to empowering young women to feel good about themselves and their bodies. There were two clear takeaways for Connectors: being prepared to focus on a specific and manageable next step for someone with a big idea, and second, encouraging people who have a specific idea of what they want to do to seek out existing nonprofits who might be working on that particular issue.

Experimenting with 3Qs meetings now can help all of us learn more about being effective Connectors in our settings. If you have a 3Qs story to share, please let us know how it went by posting on the forum.

Connect to Sabrina on Idealist

Sabrina Whiteman used the 3Qs to help friends take their next step:

I started the conversation very casually sharing the exciting things Idealist was up to. Very brief. Then I just dropped the three questions. Both women expressed wanting to work with children and gift-giving. Just so happens I used to be on the board of a nonprofit [Brooklyn Children's Holiday Fund] that does that for Christmas. I recommended participating in their program because you see the direct results, gifts go to the most needy. Done deal.

Right now my role would be to remind them closer to the date and possibly introduce them both via email to the volunteer coordinator.

I’m still practicing my connector moves but I feel like I am off to a decent start.

Thanks for sharing, Sabrina!

Connect to Phyllis on Idealist

It works!!!  A big thank you to Phyllis Gutterman for taking the leap and hosting our first staff-less group meeting.

Last Friday, 18 cultural leaders of Mamaroneck, NY participated in a 3Qs meeting in the community space of the local library hosted by Phyllis, who is a Connector. These leaders included directors of local theaters, the director of the library, the directors of the school district’s enrichment programs, artists guild, arts council, senior citizens forum, and the local TV station. 

Everyone shared their answers to “What have you/or your organization wanted to do? Why haven’t you done it? What would help you to do it?” and then began addressing the obstacles that were raised and taht make it challenging to serve their community to their fullest potential.

“I know who I wanted for this meeting, and I had for a while, even before I met you guys [Idealist]. These people really needed to get together.”  What had stopped her from hosting such a meeting previously, Phyllis said, was context. She needed a “hook” and a reason. After hearing about IdealistNYC and the 3Qs, Phyllis saw a way to bring the group together.

From the very first email invitation she sent to the group, through reviewing the agenda at the beginning of the meeting, she kept reminding everyone that “these are the simple questions. This is it. This is all we’re going to go through.” Once everyone had a chance to talk, they broke out for a light lunch so they could keep talking about the issues that were raised.

Participants mingling after the 3Qs

The meeting was a tremendous success, and generated a lot of opportunities for collaboration: “Most everyone wants more local people to know who they are and know about their programs. Everyone needs more volunteers. Not everyone knew everyone — which was interesting because we’re all in the same 10-mile radius, we’ve all heard of each other.”

At the end of the meeting, the group decided they needed a mailing list and maybe a blog to stay in touch and share information about their programs and events.  Phyllis plans to find volunteers from among the group who have experience with lists and blogs and can help set them up and is also scheduling a follow-up meeting because everyone really wanted to get together again soon.

Congratulations, Phyllis, and thank you to all the participants in Mamorneck. We  look forward to hearing how things progress in the months ahead!

And, here are some tips that Phyllis recommends for hosting a 3Qs meeting:

Getting people together:
“It wasn’t easy to get everyone together. It’s never easy to fill a room. After I sent out the invitations, I did follow-up calls, and a reminder email two days before. I got some emails that were like “huh?”  I met with some people and told them ‘We’re going to explore. We’ll just get together. There are some people you don’t know, there are some people I don’t know. Would you be willing to just do that for a couple of hours?’” And, they were.

Finding a meeting space:
When it came to finding a space for the meeting, Phyllis knew just where to look: “We have a beautiful new library that people aren’t using. It has a community room that anyone can use — if it’s for the betterment of the community, it’s free.”

A smooth-running agenda:
From the beginning she made it clear that they would each have only three minutes to give their answers. At the beginning of the meeting, she asked if everyone agreed — “Can you all promise you can do this so we can all get a chance to talk and get out on time?”  This was a great way to be sure she had group buy-in so they could all stay on track.

Thinking about hosting a 3Qs meeting where you are?  Let us know and we’ll be happy to talk with you more!

Connect to Henrique on Idealist

A 3Qs conversation can be as simple as talking to a friend or two, or it can be a larger event. Henrique was able to get some time at a student government meeting to introduce them to IdealistNYC. Here’s his story:

I originally spoke to a friend, Ben Schaub, who is a member of the United Student Government at the Fordham University Lincoln Center campus. At first he was somewhat apprehensive of the project – he felt that IdealistNYC, and the Connectors’ role, was something that was already being filled (in terms of the university) by the student government. Nonetheless, he offered to give me some time to talk at a USG meeting about the project.

They reacted very positively to the idea. I pitched it as a project that is much less formally structured than the student government and much more ad hoc, in the sense that to be a part of it people only need to know about it, and that its goals can be achieved in whatever way works for those involved. I stressed that the only goal was to get people from ideas to action, using whatever means, contacts, or connections are available to them. They liked the idea of an “idealistic pragmatism,” and I also emphasized the lack of an agenda, positions, etc. involved in this project.

At the end of the meeting with the student government body I told them about a project that another friend of mine, Brandon Jackson, is heading, called Faces of Transformation in the USA, sponsored by Nations United. His project has two simultaneous goals: to reach out to schools and increase awareness and teaching of multiculturalism and conflict resolution skills among young children (aged 4-9), and to develop a smartphone application for young children that encourages these two virtues. By the time of that United Student Government meeting he had asked me to join his team, and so I used the opportunity to both give a real example to the student government members of how the Idealist project can work, as well as to test to myself on whether I could reach out, “connect,” and get some results. One of the student government members’ mother, it turned out, is a teacher in Brooklyn, and we are now in contact with her about the project.

So far, it seems that the three questions are a very effective way to quickly and succinctly get across the general idea and purpose of IdealistNYC. I’ve tried it both by introducing and using the 3Qs (with the student government body and some other friends) and also without using the 3Qs (with my original student government friend, among others). The conversations where I used the 3Qs have flowed much more easily and I’ve gotten my point across faster and with less effort.

Last night we hosted another presentation at our office, and today our friend Allison Jones posted some of her thoughts on her blog. Here is some of what she said:

Last night I attended a presentation by Idealist.org about a new program they are piloting in NYC that will allow people to act as Connectors in their communities. These people will help others find the resources and networks they need to take action on an issue they are passionate about, online and offline.

I walked away from the presentation with a renewed appreciation for the daily actions people take to try to make a difference and how the barriers to engagement can easily be surmounted with the right support.  During the Q&A someone in the audience asked how Idealist would measure progress to see if the project is successful.  One measurement would be how many people are willing to talk to others about the program and invite them to join.  While the answer is related to the project, it made me wonder:  Is telling others in our lives about our activism the hardest part of taking action?

Why is this so hard?

My first year of college I took a course on black women and religion.  I was learning about various religions black women practiced and how those religions helped them navigate sexism and racism.  After the first few classes, I was eager to share my experiences with my mother.  My enthusiasm was met with concern and suspicion.  Indeed, her first reaction was:  “Don’t come back an atheist.”

That comment led to a discussion of beliefs my mom held about education, religion, and social change, a conversation my mom and I hadn’t had before yet shed light on our differing views on touchy issues.

I share this story because it reflects a challenge that many of us encounter in social change work: sometimes the most difficult conversations around social change, passion, and progress happen with the people in our lives…

Continue reading Allison’s post.

Find Christina on Idealist

Right after our first Connector Orientations, some people started having 3Q conversations with friends, colleagues, and family. The 3Qs are: What do want to do (to make your community, or the world, a better place)? Why haven’t you done it? What would help you to do it?

Christina, who’s been a part of this project since early August, posed these three questions to some friends at dinner.  Here’s her story of how it went:

I brought it up while filling my friends in on what I’m up to these days. It was easy last week because I could literally say, “Yeah, last night I went to this orientation…”

In general, I think it’s easy to start these conversations, because what Idealist is trying is REALLY COOL, so it’s a great conversation topic. And in the process of explaining what Idealist is trying to do, you end up having the 3Qs conversation. I think what also helps is portraying myself as “on the fence” (which honestly, I am, because I believe thoughtful skepticism is healthy) — I don’t turn people off by being over-the-moon gung-ho.

 I say, “Have you heard of Idealist.org?” Most people say yes, and if not, I explain what it is and then I say something like, “It’s interesting. They’ve been really successful at helping nonprofits get their staffing and volunteer needs met, and now they’re expanding their scope, and I’m really curious to see what is going to happen. I’ve gone to a few meetings because I really like the idea of finding a way to connect all the amazing resources that are out there, and since I’ve been trying to find a way to share yoga, this is a particularly interesting opportunity. But of course, the coolest thing is that you can use it for anything. Is there anything you’d like to do or change?”…and then Q1 (what do you want to do?) is off and running.

 I think the clarification that we are not striving for a particular outcome or to promote a particular cause is significant. At the Connector Orientation, I wasn’t worried about “selling my own veggies,” but during the 3Qs small-group exercise, I did use my goal of sharing yoga as my example answer to Q1, and it turns out there was someone in my group with 15 years of community organizing experience who — in thirty seconds — gave me a wide variety of options that I had never before considered.

 Now, could I have learned from online research that every neighborhood in New York has a Community Board, and that every board has a youth services committee, and that I can ask the head of that committee to be on their agenda and make a presentation about the benefits of yoga? Probably yes. But not only would that have been a more time-intensive task, I hadn’t even tried to find out, despite “meaning to” almost every time I walk past the projects in my neighborhood.

 Why hadn’t I tried? Well, what I said — that I didn’t know where to start — is partly true. But getting such a comprehensive response (including the contact info for a specific community organization) without making much effort at all forced me to acknowledge that there are more answers to Q2 (why haven’t you done it?) that I hadn’t consciously acknowledged. Such as: I’m worried I won’t be good enough; I fear I’ll be seen as a “white girl interloper”; I’m hesitant to make a commitment; etc.

How very interesting, and helpful to know about myself! And the 3Q’s promote self-awareness, because they challenge a person to look inside and recognize reasons why they don’t act–and in my case, to double back and recognize “truer” reasons when the first “excuses” are readily addressed.

I have a very strong sense that wherever this project is going, it’s going somewhere important and good. And I can’t emphasize enough how glad I am I followed my curiosity and attended an info session back in August, because connecting with smart, caring people…is actually helping me to refine my own vision of what I want to be doing with my time and energy.

Have you had similar experiences?  We’d love to hear how it went!

It’s been wonderful to read through all your surveys, and to see how some of you defined the Connector’s role from so many different perspectives. Here is a taste: