Here’s the transcript with timestamps and sequence numbers removed:
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Jasmine Williams Washington: Recording and.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Hi! Everyone thanks so much.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Thanks. So
Jasmine Williams Washington: Hi, everyone thanks so much for being here with us today I am Jasmine Williams, Washington, and I’m excited to dive into this session today on strengthening the ecosystem for community Power building. How to get started.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So before we jump in, let me cover a few housekeeping details. After today’s webinar, you’ll get an email with the slide deck, a recording and a few additional resources. So you don’t have to worry about jotting down any notes, or taking screenshots of the slides of every word. Just sit back, listen, and engage, and as we go along, feel free to add any questions or comments to the Q. And A. Box, and we’ll do our best to address them during the session.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Great. So for those of you who may be new to us.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Community science is a consulting firm, focused on building communities
Jasmine Williams Washington: capacity and partnering with them to create real, lasting change.
Jasmine Williams Washington: We bring an equity centered approach to evaluating and doing the work and everything that we do.
Jasmine Williams Washington: whether it is community development, organizational transformation or large scale systems change work. Our passion lies in leveraging data, research and collaboration to help communities and funders reach their full potential.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And the work with one. Schenectity is a great example of that work that we’ll share with you. Today.
Jasmine Williams Washington: We’re partnering with the Schenectady foundation and the community to co-create solutions that are truly resident, driven, and equity focused
Jasmine Williams Washington: all right. So a little bit about myself, I am a managing associate at community science. I come to you with over a decade of experience in community organizing and systems change work as the project director for the Schenectity Foundation initiative. I work closely with other funders and communities to drive sustainable systems, change work.
Jasmine Williams Washington: My focus specifically lies around power building and organizational development. And I specialize in helping groups to take those critical 1st steps because you just have to take the 1st step
Jasmine Williams Washington: toward lasting change.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Today we’ll be taking a closer look at one Schenectady, and where we are today, an initiative led by the Schenectady foundation with the support from community science.
Jasmine Williams Washington: and we’ll explore what it takes to mobilize and sustain. Resident led
Jasmine Williams Washington: change in general.
Jasmine Williams Washington: so enough about me. I am thrilled to introduce to you our 2 panelists for the day, who bring both experience and insights
Jasmine Williams Washington: to this conversation. First, st we have Robert Carrera, executive director of this Schenectady foundation he has over 30 years in the social sector. Robert serves as a chief catalyst for community driven change. His strategic leadership has been essential in shaping one Schenectady’s vision and direction.
Jasmine Williams Washington: and before joining the Schenectady Foundation, Robert also led the united way of Schenectady County as CEO,
Jasmine Williams Washington: and next we’re joined by Dr. David Chavez, a senior fellow with community science. David is internationally recognized for his experience in building community capacity, driving systems change and driving system change. I’m sorry
Jasmine Williams Washington: his work focuses on designing and evaluating strategies that build community power and tackle structural inequities.
Jasmine Williams Washington: David’s experience across national and local initiatives, including one schenectady will add incredible depth to this conversation. So these are your panelists, and we’re happy to be with you all today.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So a little bit about our time today. So first, st we’ll start off with discussing exactly what community driven system change is and what it looks like in practice.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And next, we’ll dive into the Schenectady experience itself, how one Schenectady emerged to address systemic challenges
Jasmine Williams Washington: and what impacts it had on the community. Then we’ll explore the strategy. The ecosystem approach that we took inside of this work.
Jasmine Williams Washington: focusing on how building, how building a power, a power building ecosystem can sustain long-term change and help scale community efforts.
Jasmine Williams Washington: We’ll also take a look at the 90 day quick win strategy that we use to get buy-in. A focused short term action created rapid and tangible results in Schenectady and demonstrated what’s possible when community power takes center stage.
Jasmine Williams Washington: But most important also, we’ll discuss the role of the funders. What does it mean for funders that want to be engaged in this type of work. Specifically, how can they align their resources, encourage collaboration and provide critical infrastructure needed to support resident driven change.
Jasmine Williams Washington: and then finally, we’ll wrap up with some key lessons we’ve learned on this journey so far. Again we are in the thick of it. We are. This, all of this is still in process. Right? So you’re basically getting a presentation of where we are now and also where we’re headed when we are in our quest to in community driven, supporting community driven system, change work.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So. And now, before we jump into content and share more with you about the experience and what community driven system change is and the strategy that we applied we want to bring to life these efforts. So we do have a short video from a resident leader in Schenectady. You will hear from them directly about their experience in one Schenectady, so we’ll pause for a moment.
Jasmine Williams Washington: As our tech gets our video going.
Jasmine Williams Washington: we don’t have audio. Noah.
Noah Russo | Community Science: One sec. We’ll fix that. Make sure it’s sharing from my screen.
Jasmine Williams Washington: All good folks. We’re live. We’re all in the technology world.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Thank you for your Grace.
David Chavis: Yes, just another zoom, moment.
David Chavis: Doesn’t matter how many times you practice it.
Community Science: Okay, we’re live now.
David Chavis: Oh, it’s helpful!
Jasmine Williams Washington: Do we have audio now?
Noah Russo | Community Science: Yeah, I’m having an issue getting that sorted.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So okay, maybe we’ll come back to that. We can come back to that in the interest of time, and we’ll hear from Will later. So as Noah figures out our audio here, we can move forward. Noah.
Jasmine Williams Washington: to just discuss what community driven systems change is. So on the screen, you see a definition of
Jasmine Williams Washington: of community driven system change. And ultimately it occurs when members of a historically disadvantaged community leads and take collective action to achieve equitable system change. And what sets this approach apart from other systems, change approaches is that it’s truly driven by the community.
Jasmine Williams Washington: especially by those who felt impacted by the inequities, the most right. So those that are most impacted. So rather than a top down very prescriptive, one size fits all solution. This approach empowers, residents to take lead in shaping the changes based off their lived experiences and needs.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And when communities are at the center of the work, the solutions not only fit better, but they last because they were built from the inside out. I like to say, I want to do things with you, not to you, and that is the essence of this strategy. Right? So, as we go and we visit the once connected each journey, keep in mind that this isn’t just about hitting targets. Right?
Jasmine Williams Washington: It’s about creating the ecosystem that again empowers residents to keep driving the change they want to see for the long haul.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So why do we want to do? Why would we embark on such an effort? Well, ultimately, when communities lead the way, we start to see some really powerful shifts. Right? So first, st the system begins to respond more quickly.
Jasmine Williams Washington: you know, more quickly than normal, because we know that we can only move at the pace right and appropriately to the needs of the community in which it’s serving. So it’s no longer a top down approach to change. And you actually see some change happening in real time which we will discuss later. Today.
Jasmine Williams Washington: We also will see a boost in civic engagement. People get more involved, whether it’s voting, whether it’s volunteering or just engaging in day-to-day community life. When folks feel their voices are making a difference, they’re more likely to show up and engage continue to engage.
Jasmine Williams Washington: It also brings together people working side by side, builds understanding and trust between the different groups, strengthening the social fabric of the community.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And by centering the voices of residents in general at any time respecting their their lived experience, hearing them and actually taking action, recreating the conditions for meaningful, lasting impact that truly reflects
Jasmine Williams Washington: what the needs the community needs and wants.
Jasmine Williams Washington: In those spaces. However, I know that sounds great, and of course, an effort such as this, while rewarding it is not without its challenges. Right? And we’re not here to tell you that it is without challenges. So resident driven system. Change is extremely powerful, but whether but there are some real obstacles in doing the work effectively. So I want to walk through a couple of them with you all.
Jasmine Williams Washington: First, st there are capacity gaps
. So often, residents don’t necessarily start off with the same skills or experiences. They need to drive long scale change right? Many need support to build or unlock their capacity in areas like advocacy or navigating complex systems or managing initiatives.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And so this requires a real investment in training and development. So resident leaders not only feel, but are equipped to lead this work
Jasmine Williams Washington: the next is alignment and collaboration, that also
Jasmine Williams Washington: couples pretty well with the history and power differences sometimes. So bringing together diverse voices and interests are essential right when we want to talk about taking collective action. But it’s not always easy. It’s not always easy. So facilitation is really important inside of this process, and ensuring that folks are leaning into the We space instead of the Me. Space. Right?
Jasmine Williams Washington: So in communities where there’s a history of division, mistrust and aligning, everyone under a shared vision can be a real challenge. But building trust and collaboration across different groups.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Takes time and careful effort.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Next, we have history and the power differences. So existing power structures don’t always welcome resident led change, especially when it shifts in the decision-making authority, so those in power feel threatened.
Jasmine Williams Washington: leading to resistance, or even efforts to undermine the work and navigating these power dynamics are delicate, right people look at power like they look at a slice of pie. There are only so many slices. Right? So, though this is a very delicate process. It is necessary inside of this work.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Next huge thing is sustaining engagement keeping residents engaged over a long call. Is it simple? Right? People’s time their energy is stretched thin, and if progress feels slow for folks, there’s a risk of disillusionment right? And you want to keep momentum going. You have to give
Jasmine Williams Washington: folks something to continue to move forward right and giving them hope, and saying that, hey, we can make this happen. And that’s 1 thing that the short wind that 90 day process really did teach us in maintaining that momentum and
Jasmine Williams Washington: keeping that buy-in from our resident leaders.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Now, one of the biggest hurdles is resources resident. Driven efforts often have limited resources to funding technical expertise and people power needed to sustain the initiative long term, the effort long term. And while you have resident leaders involved, you also want to be able to compensate them for their expertise, meaning their lived experiences when they’re
Jasmine Williams Washington: leaning into that. So what does that look like? So finding ways to secure resources for the long haul is also critical to ensure that these types of initiatives not only survive that period of time, but thrive and is sustainable moving forward.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And then, lastly, we have the institutional resistance or backlash. So let’s be honest. Y’all, it’s just I’m from the South. You’ll hear a lot of y’all’s. So we’re at the kitchen table right now. So let’s be honest. Y’all establish institutions push back against resident led initiatives often right? So, especially if the change that you’re proposing does challenge the status quo.
Jasmine Williams Washington: This can make it really hard, right and difficult to push through certain things like push things forward, even if the community, the residents, those that are most impacted are behind them. That is a challenge that is going to be there regardless. And again I want to pause there and say that resistance is a natural response to change. It doesn’t make folks a bad person. You just have to bring them along for the journey with you.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Right? And so it’s not that it’s bad. It’s actually understanding how to navigate that resistance that comes to be.
David Chavis: Yeah, I just wanted as your question. I just want to fill in 1 point emphasize one thing that you said is that that Schenectady and Schenecting and other places where we’ve worked. It’s not just communities of color involved that. That that history piece it’s because it’s issue focused, it brings together a wider net.
David Chavis: And with that comes a lot of issues of how to work together and establishing that positive history together is one of the key components of dealing with those historical divisions that have happened. So while the focus is on those who are historically disadvantaged, a lot of people
David Chavis: at different times of all backgrounds feel disenfranchised by the larger system, and this has provided opportunity to work across race and across economic class.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And gender right? Because we do know there’s intersectionality in all of these things. Thank you so much.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Thank you. All right.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So let’s talk about it a little bit. You’re you’re sitting like, hey? I’m hearing what David’s saying? I’m hearing what Jasmine is saying. What’s the what’s the ecosystem? What is this? All? What is the foundation all these things are built on? And so our strategy, this this ecosystem we applied has 4 pillars
Jasmine Williams Washington: right, and the 4 pillars are media support, so strengthening the culture of transformative engagement and action by changing the narrative in the public and in social media. Right? So we’re calling that our media support pillar like, how is community engagement viewed in the media like? Is it encouraged? What does that look like? Right? And how does Media support those days?
Jasmine Williams Washington: The next is building community capacity. You heard me earlier saying, hey, one of the challenges of this work is capacity. Not that you don’t necessarily have the capacity. We just want to unlock that capacity. Right? So building capacity leans into building a coordinated system right in the ecosystem to build capacity for transformative community
Jasmine Williams Washington: engagement power building. So we in this case, we’re calling it our capacity building hub.
Jasmine Williams Washington: The 3rd pillar is the funding collaboration. So fostering collaboration among funders to support community driven system, change work. How can funders come together and support other resident led initiatives? You know, from things that are coming up from the community to say, Hey, we’re going to put some funding around behind this, because you know what your community needs best. Right?
Jasmine Williams Washington: And then, lastly, the collective power building pillar, bringing together grassroots, leaders, and other or leaders of community led organizations to develop and take action on a common agenda through a neighborhood assembly model which we will unpack in the in the next slide.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Okay. So now we know the the pillars. There are 5 entities, you can call it, or components that support the pill. The pillars I just shared.
Jasmine Williams Washington: and they are the strategy and the Oversight Council illustrated here as the community Change Council. You have the funders table, you have the power building hub or the capacity building hub. You have the neighborhood assembly, and then you have the community driven initiative.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Each one of these components, or entity, have a very specific role inside of the ecosystem. Right? And inside of this, the the environment you’re building for this thing for this work to be successful.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So the community change council right. The strategy and oversight component here in your top left corner is. Its function is to provide a supervision and oversight to the Neighborhood Assembly, the power building hub, and the the funders table to ensure that things are equitable that we’re leaning into the vision as established. Right, that this is a resident led effort, a community driven effort.
Jasmine Williams Washington: The next one is the funders table. The Funders table acts as a dedicated space
Jasmine Williams Washington: for funders to work with their peers to monitor resource needs based off what they’re hearing from the council from neighborhood assembly. What’s swelling up from the ground right and expanding the pool of available and existing new resources
Jasmine Williams Washington: aggregating those resources and channeling those resources back to the community, to the community, to actually drive those efforts.
Jasmine Williams Washington: The next is the power building hub.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So the power building hub supports, strengthening the capacity and collaboration across neighborhoods, across community groups, issue groups, grassroots, groups, all the groups necessary that are all working in their own spaces, doing the work as stakeholders. So this power building hub will also facilitate some peer learning among these groups to enhance their capacity and and build their skills in order to drive these community driven efforts.
Jasmine Williams Washington: and then next toward the center of your screen, you have the neighborhood assembly, and this is a space where you would. There is a platform for community led groups, resident leaders to set their common agenda.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Now I know you may be asking, hey, is there only one common agenda at a time absolutely not. In the perfect world of jasmine. There will be many things going at one time. There could be multiple collective agendas, because what we know, is again a part of keeping, you know, keeping buy-in from community leaders is that if
Jasmine Williams Washington: the the neighborhood Assembly identifies housing as an issue area and we are going to combine and take collective action around, that there may be another group that says, Hey, we really want to work on this issue of education
Jasmine Williams Washington: that that can definitely happen. So assembly members are resident leaders, right and representatives of these community led groups right and depending on those collective actions that collective agenda, the Neighborhood assembly will birth what is illustrated at toward the bottom of the screen as your community driven initiatives. So what is the system
Jasmine Williams Washington: that. What is that collective agenda? What system is it addressing? You’ll hear later today more about housing
as the system, or and is it there? So is that the community that would be the community driven initiative there is around housing. There could also be multiple around safety around health all those different things. So
Jasmine Williams Washington: that’s a little bit about what you will hear about now, I’m sure you’re wondering again. I’ve said this multiple times. Wait a minute, Jasmine. David. Robert.
Jasmine Williams Washington: are all these components in place? No, they’re not. No, no, they’re not. And that’s what we’re here to talk to you about today. Because if we waited until we could put everything together, we would never take that 1st step, that 1st step would never happen. You have to take the 1st step right? So in the 1st implementation of this phase, we bit off a piece of the overall strategy to take that 1st step.
Jasmine Williams Washington: So we started with the Community Change Council is why it has a checkbox tour. Next to it. The Neighborhood Assembly also has a checkbox, and the community driven initiative.
Jasmine Williams Washington: has a a checkbox.
Jasmine Williams Washington: And so we wanted to one say, Hey, this is this can work. We want a proof of concept. We want to say, Hey, people will come together, they have no problem coming together. If, if under the a set of circumstances in the proper environment, with the proper support that they can come together and drive take collective action under a common agenda.
Jasmine Williams Washington: But I wanna pause for a minute here, because we haven’t heard from Robert yet, and I’m pretty sure in full disclosure. We see everyone who’s registered. So I’m pretty sure you’re wondering, hey? How did?
Jasmine Williams Washington: How did the Schenectady Foundation even get to this point, and I want to offer Robert, if you want to share a little bit about how you all got here.
Robert Carreau: Yes, thanks so much, Jasmine. So I’m gonna 1st set the scene a little bit. So you know, what connectivity is like, and
Robert Carreau: what our foundation is, and then go into, how do we get here? And so I’ll give you a little backdrop on on the journey to getting into a formal systems change model.
Robert Carreau: So Schenectady, New York, is, is a city of 65,000 people.
Robert Carreau: Roughly, 50% of the population are people of color
Robert Carreau: The city versus the county, which is a bit larger, is where you see most of the difficult issues coming up in terms of education, poverty, the need for affordable and better housing—all those things that are often typical of inner cities.
Robert Carreau: And so the city is where we focus first.
Robert Carreau: The Schenectady Foundation is a modest-sized community foundation specifically focused on bettering the welfare of people in Schenectady County, New York, allowing us to focus very strongly on this population.
Robert Carreau: How did we get here? I realized, looking back, that we were actually doing systems change work. We just didn’t know it was called systems change.
Robert Carreau: About 10 years before we got here, we were doing things to raise the voice of people and their energy in the community who wanted to get things done. There were several projects, but I’ll pick one that stands out. Back in 2017, we launched what we called the Thriving Neighborhoods Challenge.
Robert Carreau: We said to the residents, not the nonprofits, “What’s your idea for making your neighborhood or street a better place to live?”
Robert Carreau: We received about 40 responses, some even handwritten. It wasn’t a formal grant application, making it accessible to anyone who wanted to submit their idea.
Robert Carreau: Since that first round, we have supported 25 resident-driven projects and invested about $750,000 into what residents wanted to see. The city of Schenectady even partnered with us on a number of these projects.
Robert Carreau: Each resident group had the option of being paired with a nonprofit organization as a fiscal sponsor, assisting with planning, purchasing, and navigating the implementation process.
Robert Carreau: Then in 2020, when we faced the pandemic, we had an extraordinary community response. As we moved into 2021, many people and residents saw this as an opportunity not to go back to what we were doing before COVID but to continue working collaboratively and start addressing the systems that residents deal with every day. That eventually led us to a relationship with Community Science.
Robert Carreau: We started with a roughly 20-month engagement involving around 25 people in a workgroup. A community survey was done, and data was collected to assess readiness for this kind of work. The pillars that Jasmine presented were an outcome of that.
Robert Carreau: Then we launched the quick win program in March, challenging the Council to identify an issue and make a tangible change in 90 days. This was about 30 days of engagement and another 90 days of action, allowing the community to give us feedback. Jasmine, would you take us through what that 90-day process looked like?
Jasmine Williams Washington: Thanks, Robert. Over the 90 days, we held a kickoff meeting with the Community Change Council, orienting them to the process, setting engagement norms, and building relationships. We reviewed community desires and presented realistic goals, asking them to choose something achievable in 90 days.
Jasmine Williams Washington: After deliberation, the Council shifted from policy change to making data publicly available so residents could make better housing decisions. This was a quick win because it focused on systemic change through data accessibility.
Jasmine Williams Washington: The Council engaged with groups like the United Tenants Association and Schenectady landlords to make data digestible and accessible. In under 90 days, they received a commitment from the mayor’s office to make this housing data available, which was a big win.
David Chavis: The short time frame was critical. It allowed a systems change win by making city data accessible—a goal never achieved before. This wasn’t just a program but a concrete win that showed what’s possible when community power is involved.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Yes, David, and the momentum continued beyond the 90 days. The Council was invited by the City Council to present and discuss their progress and future goals, signaling growing support.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Robert, would you and David speak more about the funders’ role in this?
Robert Carreau: One of our next steps is to further develop the capacity-building aspect and form a funders’ table to monitor resource needs and expand available resources. We’ve had initial interest from regional funders and will be taking steps to formalize this. Funders need to unite, especially when equity is a core value, so we can express that commitment tangibly.
David Chavis: Exactly, Robert. Funders’ tables provide sustainable support and share responsibility, reducing risks like backlash that a single funder might face. By coming together, funders can better support the capacity-building infrastructure necessary for sustained engagement.
Robert Carreau: When funders pool resources, they provide a more robust system of support. This is transformative work, not something one organization can accomplish alone.
David Chavis: A funders’ table allows for collective initiatives and provides ongoing support for organizations building power within the community, which ultimately makes long-term systemic transformation possible.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Thank you both. I know we’re nearing the end of our time, so let’s touch on the lessons learned.
Jasmine Williams Washington: First, this process takes time. Building relationships and trust is essential, and you can’t rush it. Giving up control and sharing power with the community strengthens commitment and sustainability, especially when the work aligns with community values.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Additionally, having a communications plan is vital because resistance is a natural response to change. It’s about navigating that resistance, which is inevitable in any shift of power.
David Chavis: Another key point is distinguishing real community leaders—those with a constituency—from people who may simply be vocal. True leaders have accountability to their communities beyond themselves.
Robert Carreau: Trust and consistency over time were crucial. Our previous consistent community engagement allowed us to gain buy-in because people knew we were committed to following through.
David Chavis: Capacity building must be planned from the beginning. Building the necessary skills and systems in advance can prevent issues down the line.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Robert, we have one final question: How did the quick win approach aid in getting board buy-in?
Robert Carreau: The quick win showed that this wasn’t just philosophical; it was real and achievable. That proof of concept was crucial in helping the board see the value in continuing this work.
Jasmine Williams Washington: Thank you, Robert, and thank you to everyone who joined us today. Special thanks to our panelists, David Chavez and Robert Carrera. Until next time, goodbye!
David Chavis: Yes, thank you, Jasmine, and thank you to Noah for tech support.
