The “rockstar” trap - the biggest threat to sustaining your coalition’s work

My first full time public health job was at a state health department, working with schools to implement evidence based youth violence prevention programs. Principals and school counselors were often the rockstars behind this work - until they weren’t.

I repeatedly heard counselors say: “The program was a huge success…and then our principal left.”

Then I heard principals say: “The program was a huge success…and then our school counselor left.”

Here's the thing: No matter how brilliant your program or policy is, if it relies on the passion or knowhow of a single person, it’s designed to fail.

The “Rockstar” Trap

In health coalition work, we often rely on "rockstars,” those high-energy leaders and members who carry the institutional memory in their heads and the key relationships in their personal cell phones.

But hoping these rockstars stick around forever isn’t a strategy.

People get promoted. They get sick. They move. Especially in a volunteer-heavy environment like many coalitions are, turnover isn't just possible, it’s inevitable.

If your coalition's success depends on a specific person sticking around forever, you aren't building a movement to transform health in your community, you're hosting a temporary project.

To sustain your coalition’s work and impact, we have to go from relying on rockstars to building systems for succession.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s get into it.

4 Strategies for Succession Planning

• Build a “Leadership Bench”. The first step here is to broaden buy-in and foster champions, as discussed earlier in this newsletter series - this way, the passion to keep the work going and the knowledge of how to do the work doesn't just live in one person AND you have a bench of people who are more ready to take on leadership roles when the time comes. To really build that bench though, you need to pair those broader efforts with a more focused succession planning approach. This brief (from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)) on demystifying succession planning in public health agencies can be a helpful place to start. While not specific to coalitions, many of the concepts are still relevant! They define succession planning as “a developmental strategy that equips staff with mentorship and training to grow into a future role when it becomes available. Rather than naming a backup, succession planning fosters a transparent pipeline for growth into a vertical or lateral position change. Stretch-opportunities and cross-training drive the preparation process.”

• Kill the “Internal Rolodex”. Track and transition relationships, just as you would specific activities. Work moves at the speed of trust, and that is especially true when we’re talking about the work of community coalitions. So many relationships are needed to move the work forward - relationships with local policymakers and journalists, school system and faith-based leaders, community leaders and advocates. And if one person’s relationships live only in their internal rolodex, when they leave, those relationships vanish, and the work slows. Instead, track relationships in your project management system (which might just be a spreadsheet - that works!), along with pertinent details and notes, and when someone is leaving the coalition, make sure their relationships are transitioned too, not just their duties. Ideally, that can happen with a warm hand-off during a joint meeting (especially for really important relationships) but even in the absence of that, an email introduction or a link to where relationships are tracked in the project management system can go a long way.

• Standardize the “Brain Dump”. Establish systems that ensure institutional history and knowledge are captured - ideally in real time - so that this information doesn't disappear when a person leaves. So often, our most passionate and effective leaders and members hold so much in their heads, and without the systems to document and share it, this vital information walks out the door when they do. Establish ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ (SOP) documentation processes, have a clear file organization system in a shared drive, use a project management tool to outline and track workplans, and make sure multiple coalition members are trained to know where to find these things, understand how they are set up, and are able to update them as needed.

• Templatize the Transition: Have templates for transition documents so the person leaving has a clear roadmap of what to brain dump and document. The more of this that can happen in real time (as noted in the point above), the better, but there will always be loose ends. Make sure you have a place to capture them.

As we’re highlighting through this series, public health is a PEOPLE business.

But for our work to thrive, it cannot be dependent on the same people forever.

Whether it's the leader whose buy-in is a prerequisite for the work to move forward or the ground-level staff making it happen, plan for succession so you can sustain your work, maintain momentum, and continue to have impact in your community.

It’s the only to make sure that even when your rockstars (or you!) leave, the mission stays.

I'd love to hear from you - which of these strategies is your coalition or organization using well and where might you need to focus more?

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Why you need champions (not the Super Bowl kind)

How would you define a champion?

You might think about a Super Bowl or Olympic champion - that would be dictionary definition #1 (“someone or something, especially a person or animal, that has beaten all other competitors in a competition”).

But I’m thinking about dictionary definition #2: “a person who enthusiastically supports, defends, or fights for a person, belief, right, or principle”

We saw Bad Bunny champion community and love and unity during this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, not to mention Puerto Rico and Spanish and Latino heritage and culture.

We need those kinds of champions in this country right now.

And we need champions in our own coalitions and communities too.

Here’s the thing, as is the crux of this series of our newsletter, systems only change when people change.

And you can’t get people to change at scale without champions - people within their organizations and communities who proactively advocate for the change, support the change, model the change.

One of my favorite examples of this comes from our work in DC public schools. DC public schools launched a whole child focused initiative a few years ago, and they intentionally identified “champions” - teachers and staff in schools across the district who were going to champion this whole child work and be the early adopters, the vocal advocates, the guides, the role models.

When someone in a school saw a fellow teacher in their same building applying a new practice and sharing how much it helped them and their students, they were far more likely to want to try the practice themselves. And when they ran into challenges, they could run down the hall and get some advice.

Anytime your coalition is trying to shift a system, think about the people who need to be a part of the shift and who your champions are or could be. Nurturing those champions is a vital element of getting to the change you seek.

The idea of champions applies internally within coalitions too. Does it feel like your coalition is undervaluing something of importance (whether that be community voice or strategic planning or collective action or evaluation and learning or something else)? Who on your coalition already believes in the value of that thing and can you nurture them to be a champion and voice for that thing so other coalition members get bought in too?

Who are your champions - in your coalition, in your organization, in your community? What have you done (or could you do) to foster them as champions and accelerate the people change you need to get to systems change? Please reply and share your thoughts with me!

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It all comes down to one thing: buy-in

Turns out the answer to everything isn’t 42. Or 6-7 for that matter (sorry, I couldn’t help myself!).

It’s BUY IN.

Okay, maybe not the answer to everything but in the world of coalitions, it IS the answer to a lot of questions:

Q: How do we get more things done?

A: Buy-in.

Q: How do we get coalition members to participate meaningfully in our meetings?

A: Buy-in.

Q: How do we get local policymakers to make the changes our community needs?

A: Buy-in.

Q: How do we get new leadership to carry on the work we’ve started?

A: Buy-in.

Q: How do we get an organization’s staff to take action on the things our coalition has identified as helpful?

A: Buy-in.

As we noted earlier this month and as is the focus of this series, public health is a PEOPLE business. And for any of the work to move forward, PEOPLE have to be bought in to the work.

What people? It’s a long list: coalition members, local policymakers, community agencies and organizations (their leaders and their staff), community members themselves.

Which of these people really need to be bought in to a specific aspect of the work will vary based on their level of involvement and the stage of the work, but at some point, each of their buy-in will be important to advancing the work of your coalition.

So how do you get buy-in? Here are four steps to follow:

1. Whoever you need buy-in from, understand their ‘why’ - What do they most need and want? What motivates them and inspires them? What keeps them going? What keeps them up at night? What are their priorities and values? What metrics are they held accountable to?

2. Frame what you’re seeking in those terms - I’m not saying pander or change your goals (although sometimes, changing goals makes sense based on the input you get!). Rather, try to frame what you’re seeking in terms that align with their ‘why’ and understand what language to let go of and what language to amplify.

3. Bring them along for the ride - It’s hard to feel bought in to something if it’s been shaped without your input and now being forced on you. Understand who you need buy-in from and bring them along from the get-go. Involve them in shaping the work (This doesn’t mean you act on everything they say! But it’s important to hear them and be open to reshaping the work in ways that balance your ultimate goals and the needs and realities of those you need buy-in from to accomplish those goals).

4. Tell the story of how what you’re seeking is going to help them - How does what you’re seeking align with what they need and want, take something off their plate, help them achieve a goal, alleviate one of their pain points, or strengthen their impact?

Building buy-in is one of the most important roles of coalition leadership. I’d love to hear more about your experiences building buy-in. Whose buy in do you need that has been hardest to get? Is there a particular approach or conversation that has really worked for you in gaining buy-in? Drop me a note and let me know!

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Our public health frameworks are failing us - here’s the one thing we’re missing

Our public health frameworks are failing us.

They're true. AND they're failing us.

Let me explain why.

I had the pleasure of giving a Lightning Talk at the National Network of Public Health Institutes Open Forum conference in Pittsburgh earlier this month (it was a balm to the soul to be in the company of fellow community-based public health practitioners!)

Here’s how and why our public health frameworks are failing us, the one thing we're missing, and what we need instead:

Now, let me break down each of these ways to begin treating building community power as a public health imperative.

Way #1: Cultivating community connection

• The status quo: What our former surgeon general Vivek Murthy calls a loneliness epidemic. We have an individualistic lens, an obsession with self-care and self-help.

• What we need instead: A sense of COMMUNITY. Ways to work, play and simply be together. Third spaces to hang out. Mutual aid. Land use planning that prioritizes connections. Group care and group help. What Priya Parker calls Group Life.

• An on the ground example (in Pittsburgh, where NNPHI's conference took place!) - Pittsburgh's wedding cookie table!

• A public health example - community coalitions of course!

• Ways to cultivate community connection in YOUR work: look for low-lift opportunities + think strategically about convening (What could you change if you teamed up with others that feels impossible alone? Bring folks together around a specific goal.)

Way #2: Strengthening the foundations for civic organizing

• The status quo: Our civic muscles have atrophied. Direct involvement in local politics, union membership, and civic activity beyond voting have all declined.

• What we need instead: Stronger foundations for civic organizing that can advance health-transforming policies. This requires: community connection as the foundation for effective organizing; strong local news to know what's happening and hold officials accountable; strong community organizing infrastructure

• An on the ground example: Pittsburgh's "Our Water" Campaign, led by Pittsburgh United.

• A public health example: The Public Health for Community Power Coalition (whose members include Health in Partnership (HIP), Public Health Institute, Prevention Institute, ChangeLab Solutions, Berkeley Media Studies Group, and others)

• Ways to strengthen the foundations for civic organizing through YOUR work: For organizing/advocacy groups - long-term, consistent organizing across topics is key. For those with limits on direct advocacy - there's still so much you can do! Convene people and make intros across your government and community partners, and build storytelling and other skills among community members that make effective organizing more likely.

Way #3: Fostering narrative change

• The status quo: Individualistic, "blame myself and shame on you" narratives about what shapes our health.

• What we need instead: a narrative recognizing what lies further upstream and the role of community power. We need a new narrative – that gets explicit about the political and corporate forces shaping the policies and systems that shape our health. And then, beyond better messaging, we need actual narrative infrastructure to construct and sustain narratives over time, through things like community partnerships, research, legal advocacy, and institutions of meaning-making like schools, mass media, and museums.

• An on the ground example: Healthy Start’s infant health equity coalition in Pittsburgh, who we here at PoP Health have been so grateful to work with over the years! They’ve crafted a community-driven narrative by funding local organizations to gather member stories, hosting town halls featuring community stories, and training community members as health advocates who speak to systemic issues.

• A public health example: My new project, GASLIT (Gaslit by Corporations / Ignited by Community). I launched GASLIT to explicitly name corporate power as a root cause of public health harms and center community power in the fight for our health, planet, and future. Please sign up for the GASLIT newsletter if you’re interested in receiving action steps you and your neighbors can take to ignite change, stories of communities reclaiming their power, and investigations into corporate gaslighting.

• The foundations for fostering narrative change in YOUR work: Think about the narrative itself: Revisit how you talk about root causes of health. Are you going upstream enough? And build narrative infrastructure: Build community members' skills to tell their stories, create spaces for them to speak directly to decisionmakers. Engage with institutions of meaning-making to shape narratives about health.

So, what's next?

Which of these ways fits in most directly with your work?

What steps are you hoping to take next?

Drop me a line and let me know.

And if I can help, whether that's through a keynote talk on community power as a public health imperative; training, tools, and coaching for your coalition, or simply answering a question via email, please reach out!

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4 options in the face of collapsing systems

If you, like me, are distressed about what’s happening at the CDC, what’s happening around vaccines, what’s been happening with public health grants and research being terminated, and more - I see you.

I shared my thoughts in the wake of the shots fired at the CDC here, and even just since then, we’ve seen top CDC officials resign after their director was ousted.

When systems are collapsing around us, it can be even harder than usual to answer the question of: what next? What should we DO? Not to mention, what CAN we do, especially if we are grappling with fewer resources and an uncertain future?

While I don’t have magic answers, I do have some options that might be helpful to consider. I found this piece on grappling with systems collapse very relevant to the community coalitions we work with here at PoP Health, who are focused on systems change - and thus especially impacted by systems collapse (hat tip to I2I, which drew my attention to this piece in their newsletter).

Let me summarize the options the authors of this piece lay out for what impact might look like in collapsing systems.

We can:

• Protect. This model “builds and leverages power to counteract the worst harms, strengthen community resilience, and preserve values of care and belonging to carry people through crisis.” E.g., mutual aid

• Block. “If a collapsing system seems likely to give way to an even more dysfunctional or inequitable alternative, then the blocking impact model may be an appropriate response. This model can slow down both the pace of collapse and the emergence of worse alternatives.” E.g., providing know-your-rights training.

• Disrupt. This model “achieves impact by embracing the fact that as the legacy system deteriorates it is possible to shed the constraints, rules, and norms that do not serve the social sector.” E.g., boycotts and strikes.

• Create. “With the system awash in uncertainty, there is an opportunity—even a responsibility— to pursue truly transformative impact. This means exploring the larger context in which the system sits….What ideas or projects can be tested or nurtured? Which leaders have been marginalized by existing systems, but…are uniquely positioned to step up in this moment?” E.g., participatory governance.

​The full article adds a lot of important nuance about the conditions you need to maintain to push forth with each of these options.

Three bonus questions they ask at the end of their piece, and I’ll now ask you:

What can we let go of, what do we want to carry with us, and what do we want to build?

Here at PoP Health, we’re:

• letting go of being the best (and being this instead),

• carrying with us all we’ve learned from coalitions on the ground doing the work, and

• seeking to build the capacity of more coalitions to translate their vision and resources into tangible action.

→ On that front, PoP Health is now offering capacity building packages for community coalitions working on systems change (training workshops, tools and templates that will save you time and get you to action much more quickly, along with ongoing coaching and technical assistance that'll make sure you take those actions to the finish line). Here’s a brief summary, email me if you want to chat further!

For me personally, I’m:

• letting go of the desire to see results quickly (because the fight for our future, our health, our planet, our democracy - it’s all long-term and multigenerational),

• carrying with me a focus on hope and action, and

• seeking to help build community power, in my own community and beyond.

→ On that front, check out my new project GASLIT by Corporations/IGNITED by Community, at www.gaslitbycorporations.com.

What about you? What are you letting go of, carrying with you, and wanting to build? Drop me a note and let me know.

As the authors of this piece on systems collapse note, “this moment requires us to engage in repair and reimagination”.

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Can't engage coalition members? Here's what you're missing.

Do you feel like attendance at your coalition meetings is dwindling, or that everyone’s logging onto Zoom but multitasking during the meeting? Or maybe folks are showing up and engaged, but it feels like pulling teeth to get anyone to provide input or take action between meetings?

If you’re having troubling engaging coalition members, there’s likely one thing you’re missing. SPECIFICITY.

Specificity shows up in a number of different ways in coalition work. Here are some ways to get more specific:

Make sure your members each have a clear, specific role: Collaboration doesn’t mean everyone does everything. You’re going to have trouble both getting and keeping a member in your coalition if they don’t see a clear role for themselves. People’s time is limited and valuable, and coalition membership is often on a volunteer basis, something taken on in addition to a person’s day-to-day job responsibilities. If they feel that their absence from the coalition isn’t going to have an impact, they will not care to join or stay. When you ask someone to join the coalition, make sure you talk together to specify their exact value-add and responsibilities, and why they are uniquely suited for it.

Make sure your coalition has a clear, specific role: If your members aren’t clear on what value the coalition is adding to your community, they aren’t going to be engaged. You can’t (effectively) be everything to everyone, so niche down, both in terms of what your coalition is offering to your community and who within your community you’re aiming to reach. As we often hear in the consulting world, there are “riches in the niches.” When you “niche down” and narrow both your offer and your audience, your value as a coalition becomes crystal clear. And that’s going to keep your members excited and engaged.

Foster specific collaborations for specific purposes: A leader of a coalition we work with recently reached out to me for some advice on how to better engage their health system partners, who had stopped showing up to meetings and contributing their ideas. I suggested they consider if there are specific healthcare/community organization collaborations that can be designed and implemented via the coalition - if we ask X healthcare system to work with Y community organization to partner on Z activity (that's mutually beneficial to both organizations), then they have a reason to show up and stay engaged. If we're not taking action, there's no reason for them to show up. If we're taking action but it's very broad and vague (i.e., "we want to strengthen collaboration between healthcare and community organizations"), they don't really see why they/their health system SPECIFICALLY matters or needs to show up.

Get specific about what capacity and connections you’re building for coalition members and in the community more broadly: What do coalition members gain from participating in the coalition? Are you going to offer ways for them to build their capacity in a particular area like evaluation? Coalitions often serve as a connector and convener, both for coalition members and the community writ large - but exactly what kinds of connections are you building and to what end? Are you going to offer ways for policy and advocacy organizations to connect with community members to inform their priorities?

What do you think? How else can we get specific in what we do, how we do it, and who we do it for? Drop me a line and let me know!

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Don't be the best. Be this instead.

Our family spent the last week at an all-family violin camp in the Blue Ridge mountains, and it brought us some much needed peace, joy, and community in these tumultuous times.

It was our 8 year old's first time playing in an orchestra (the beginning orchestra teacher introduced them to "Monsieur Baton", and all kinds of antics ensued, with the kids learning many lessons about following the conductor and playing together without even realizing it).

It really made me think about something our daughters' violin teacher said in a group class last month, as she was teaching these little kiddos to play in an ensemble - "It's not look at me, I play the loudest, look at me, I play the best, it's look at us, we play together."

Look at us, we play together.

How powerful, how beautiful, how RIGHT.

This is how I want you to think about your coalitions.

As any one organization or member of your coalition, the goal is not to be the best.

Instead, embrace your interdependence and engage in collective action.

In a world that values independence and finishing first, this is where the value of a coalition lies: interdependence and collective action.

It goes beyond simply being together to playing together.

It’s not just convening partners on a regular basis to share information - it’s planning and taking intentional, strategic, collective ACTION. We spend half our meeting providing updates (peak “this could have been an email” vibes, right?). Instead, let’s think about what infrastructure we can jointly build for meaningfully aligning work across organizations.

It’s not just having multisector partners around the table - it’s actually working across sectors. We keep doing what we’ve always done in our own siloes. Instead, let’s consider how to finance the work of our coalition and work in our communities in ways that allow for integrated and sustainable action. Let’s consider the power dynamics at play within our coalition and the broader community so we can shift power and transform oppressive systems that underlie all our sectors.

And let’s do it all with joy and music and community.

What are your plans for joy and music and community this summer? Whether it’s coalition work or your own summer vacation, I want to hear about it! Drop me a note.

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Find your low-lift solutions

Growing up, were you, like me, always told to work hard?

It’s advice I’ve come to question over the years.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have deep respect for a strong work ethic. I just wonder if we’ve gotten overly obsessed with the idea of working hard instead of working strategically, smartly, efficiently. Which sometimes means the work is actually…easier. Faster. More fun.

Let me give you an example, courtesy of our school PTA.

Last week, as I was running into my daughter’s school to drop off her picture day order form (which I forgot to put in her backpack that morning, oops!), I saw a flyer for movie night at the school that very night. I had totally forgotten about it, but once reminded, quickly scanned the QR code and got tickets.

The PTA holds these on a few weeknights during the school year, and we’ve been trying to go whenever we can. When you buy tickets, you get to vote for one of the three options (my daughters LOVE this opportunity to chime in with their preference), and the one with the most votes gets screened. Tickets are $2 to see the movie, $7 if you also want a slice of pizza, snacks, and drink. Proceeds go to support the school. They screen the movie on the projector or wall in the school gym or cafeteria and everyone brings blankets/fold up chairs/pillows to throw on the floor.

The kids love the chance to see their friends, see a movie, and eat pizza. As parents, we love the chance to see other parents, observe the dynamics our kids have with their friends, and just have an easy, close-to-home, fun family activity. For the PTA, these events help raise funds but require relatively little effort or cost - the school is there, the gym/cafeteria/parking lot are empty in the evening, there’s already a projector and sound system ready to go.

Win-win-win.

And no one - not the kids, not the families, not the PTA - has to work hard.

I think these kinds of low-lift solutions are magical.

The reality is that the best way to get more participation is to make things easier for everyone involved. This isn’t always possible - but when it is…pure magic.

Community members are more likely to show up if it’s easy for them. Coalition members or local organizations are more likely to keep organizing or running an activity or program if it doesn’t require too much of them and the impact feels more than worth the little bit of effort required.

So take a look around - are there low-lift opportunities for community connection or action that your coalition can put into place? Drop me a note and share your low-lift examples, whether you’ve already done them/experienced them or are planning them for the future!

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Jane Fonda on how "community means power"

As agencies, nonprofits, families, and individuals make contingency plans upon contingency plans in face of all the uncertainty of this moment, I wanted to share some words - courtesy of Jane Fonda - of both hope and action (which were PoP Health’s wish + invitation for 2025…which, two months in, feels like it has already lasted about two years).

I’m not really up on pop culture or Hollywood, but I’ve been deeply impressed with Jane Fonda ever since I heard a podcast interview with her a couple years ago - what a life, what energy, and what commitment. In an industry where it is especially easy to ignore, pay lip service to, or throw a few pennies at societal problems, she’s been on the ground trying to fight for change.

So, I didn’t hesitate to click on the video of her speech at the SAG awards a week ago, where she received the Life Achievement Award (transcript here for the readers out there). And I’m so glad I did.

Here are my key takeaways:

• “Community means power.” - She talked about how unions have our backs and give us power, and I’d add to that all the other ways of coming together in sustained, structured ways - community coalitions, co-ops, neighborhood associations and groups. Create them, join them, sustain them.

• “Empathy is not weak or woke.” - This statement stands by itself, but Fonda had more to say about empathy. First, she connected it to the job of actors - “...we don't manufacture anything tangible. What we create is empathy.” Indeed, I’m a big believer in storytelling and its importance in creating empathy as well as inspiring and persuading. Which brings us to Fonda’s next point about empathy - “And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent, because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.” I could not agree more. To sneak in some words from Rebecca Solnit, who I’ve been turning to often over the last couple months, “You need to pitch a big tent and welcome everyone who might come in, even if they came over recently and weren't always there. No one knows what it is going to take to overcome the current crisis…I do know that it's going to take a lot. The more the better.” As Solnit goes on to point out, “unwelcoming committees from people more interested in being right than effective” are self-destructive to the causes we support.

• “We are in our documentary moments. This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal.” - Fonda urged us to take this seriously, be brave, stay in community, and take action. And it’s not enough to just be against things. Fonda underscored, “We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future. One that is beckoning, welcoming, that will help people believe.”

As Fonda went on to say, “Let’s make it so,” Reader.

In your coalitions and your work, how are you projecting an inspiring vision of the future, widening your tent, staying empathetic, and building community power? Drop me a note and let me know. And let me know if you disagree about what we need right now too - disagreements are always welcome here.

And, for those looking for more concrete advice on how your coalitions, organizations, and agencies can take action in your communities to transform health - a quick save the date: April 2nd, noon ET, on Zoom, join PoP Health for a free action planning webinar. You'll learn about the #1 missing ingredient that's preventing your action plan from getting the results you want + details on how to follow our 5-step action planning process to go from feeling stuck to feeling like a superhero. Register here!

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A New Year's wish + invitation

Thank you for being a part of our Community Threads family! Having this space to share with you all and reading your emails about what you’ve gleaned from these newsletters have meant the world to me this past year.

So as we close the chapter on 2024 and enter 2025, I wanted to share with you a new year’s wish + invitation:

We recognize 2025 is a new year with significant challenges - some old, some new. And we believe wholeheartedly that it is at the intersection of hope and action that we can work together to transform health in our communities.

In that spirit, here at PoP Health, we’ll be launching two new projects in 2025 - action planning workshops and technical assistance packages for community health coalitions + an initiative focused on putting political and economic power back in the hands of communities.

We’ll share with you along the way right here in our Community Threads newsletters. Please keep those replies coming - I love hearing from you!

In the meantime, as we find new ways to take action together, I remain ever grateful to you - thank you for reading.

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