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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Counted Out - are the keys to transforming math education the keys to transforming community health?

Are you a math person?

This Pi day, the giving circle I’m a part of hosted a screening of the documentary Counted Out, which explores how, “in the 21st century, fueled by technology, data, and algorithms, math determines who has the power to shape our world.”

In the small group discussions following the screening, the facilitators began by asking everyone to share whether they consider themselves a math person or not, and let me tell you, it turned into something akin to a therapy session real quick. Lots of baggage out there around math.

As our facilitator pointed out, toddlers LOVE counting and categorizing everything. When does that change? When does that natural love for math get turned into fear? And what can we do about it?

To answer those questions, the film features “scenes of math transformation in action,” and I was struck by how similar these are to scenes of community health transformation in action.

Not in terms of the subject matter or who specifically is at the table, but in terms of the core lessons around how to better communicate, connect, and build capacity.

Here are some key ideas from Counted Out and the parallels I see in the work of community health coalitions:

Use their words and experiences to shape your message.

Counted Out asks viewers to consider, how do we use the language young people own so they can better access the language of math? One teacher described the importance of giving students the opportunity to express their experiences in life in their own words. Then, the teacher noted, it’s easier for them as a teacher to find a way to express a math concept in a way that uses the student’s words and helps them connect to it.

→ Here at PoP Health, we talk often about the difference between hearing and truly listening to what community members have to say. It can drive and shape our work in a myriad of ways, and the more we use their words and experiences in shaping and communicating our messages, the more our messages will resonate with them.

Make sure your examples improve understanding of real-world phenomena.

One of the interviewees in Counted Out shares a great example of a terrible math problem - one that’s intended to be a real-life application, but ends up just the opposite. “Chris drinks his milkshake at a constant rate. If he drinks one ounce per second…” a problem might begin. In the documentary, the interviewee notes that no one drinks a milkshake at a constant rate in real life! He argues that an example problem should improve students’ understanding of real life phenomena, not make it worse.

→ I think this is a great philosophy for the kinds of examples we share with community members too. If we’re oversimplifying in ways that worsen their understanding of the real life workings of the intersecting systems that impact their health, then we’re doing them a disservice. This is why I believe so deeply in orienting community towards root causes and systems.

Lighten up.

Perhaps my favorite quote from the documentary was a teenager saying “Math could just use some coffee. Lighten up.”

→ Just as the way math is taught is often too dry, so is the way we talk about community health! Bring in the humor, use silly gifs and visuals, tell a personal story, lighten up. Transport your audience.

Players, not spectators.

In Counted Out, there is talk of shifting to a mindset of students as players in the game of math education, not spectators.

→ This is the ultimate goal in community health transformation too - putting community members in the driver’s seat.

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So, what do you think? Do these ideas ring true to you, whether with respect to math education or community health? How were you taught math? What worked and what didn’t? Drop me a line and let me know!

And to learn more about how to apply these and other lessons in the realm of community health, join me for a FREE webinar on April 2nd at noon - on action planning for community coalitions. Plus, exclusively for webinar attendees, you'll be able to book a free 30 minute assessment call with me to assess where your coalition is and what’s the right next step. If you haven't yet, be sure to register for the webinar at pophealthllc.com/webinar so you get the Zoom link.

I hope to see you there.

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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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What organizing IS and ISN'T

Unfortunately, everything is still on fire, and the public’s health (and SO much else) remains under threat.

I talked earlier this month about how taking action requires a) actually planning and committing to take action and b) organizing.

But what even is organizing?

Today, I want to share a little primer on what organizing IS and what it IS NOT.

Most of the content here is from a National Academies panel with Jamila Michener and Jonathan Heller during a workshop earlier this month on democracy and governance.

Organizing IS NOT merely mobilizing.

During this panel, an attendee asked an excellent question - we’re talking about organizing to protect and advance democracy and public health, but what about all those that are organizing against those goals? Couldn’t one argue that those who don’t share these goals have basically organized us out of a democracy at this point? In their response to this question, the panelists drew a distinction between organizing (where the process of organizing has to be a democratic one and develop the critical consciousness of those involved) and mobilizing (which is just about putting people into movement, even if it’s “astroturf” or other such entities telling the community what to believe).

Organizing IS NOT merely “individuals brandishing banners stating scatter goals”.

You’ve heard me quote Grant Ennis on this before, but it bears repeating. Historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.” We need organizational weight and structure behind demands in order to sustain the efforts to make the demands reality beyond a single protest or set of protests/actions.

Organizing IS about both building and breaking power.

The panel I mentioned was titled “Building and Breaking Power” and I think this distinction is so important. I loved how they broke down these concepts. Building power in community looks like community organizing, developing coalitions, starting social movements. Breaking power where corporate interests (or, random unelected billionaires, as the case may be) have too much of it looks like profit minimization, regulation, enforcement - and, I would add, as I heard chanted at a recent rally, it looks like litigating, legislating, agitating, and resisting. Both building and breaking power involve negotiation and storytelling and making and pursuing collective demands.

Organizing IS about a lot more than just direct action.

Don’t get me wrong, direction action is important (I’ve been dusting off my long forgotten bubble letter/coloring skills and running my daughters’ markers dry these last couple weeks making signs for rallies), but it’s just one component of organizing. During the panel I mentioned, they shared many different concepts that make up the idea of organizing (from a forthcoming publication called “Let’s Talk: Community Organizing”). I’ve organized them into three groups below.

There are aspects of organizing related to internal change in those involved:

• Increasing their sense of control/agency/power;

• Increasing their ability to reflect critically and hold complexity (which relates to the prior point about how organizing isn’t merely mobilizing);

• Building their capacity - to identify problems, to identify change targets (that solve problems, unify the base, and build power), to organize, and to collectively solve problems.

There are aspects of organizing related to external change by other actors:

• Making demands and taking actions (including via campaigns/initiatives).

And there are aspects of organizing related to structural change in how the organizing is happening (this relates to the prior point about how organizing isn’t just individuals brandishing banners):

• Building a base, “expand[ing] the number of people impacted by problems in their community who are in relationship with one another and involved in collective action”;

• Developing leadership, “shifting from private shame about the problems they face to a public stance, and [building] leadership to solve these problems”;

• Forming an organization to coalesce and sustain power (this one is incredibly important - without the structure of an organization, it's extremely difficult to keep efforts coordinated and sustained).

I continue to feel that the only way out of the many messes our country is currently in is through meaningful, effective organizing. I hope this primer is a helpful lens through which to think about it.

And I hope PoP Health's upcoming free webinar on action planning for community coalitions and launch of a new initiative that aims to change the narrative and inspire organizing to build and break power (and make organizing itself easier and more effective!) help too - we'll be sharing dates for these launches soon.

In the meantime - keep taking action! I really love this distillation of different ways (and varying levels of effort) to do something in support of democracy - https://choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/.

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Taking action when everything is on fire

Whew, it's been a couple weeks, hasn't it?

Public health is being further threatened than it already was in every direction - halting of foreign aid work; an attempted coup in the form of a spending freeze; an anti-vaccine skeptic nominated to lead the nation's health agency; the list - sadly - goes on.

And the opposition to these threats? It's been weak, slow, and completely insufficient. I don't mean opposition as in people ranting about and posting about and discussing these problems. I mean opposition as in actually taking action.

And why is that? I think there are two key issues here:

1. Actually taking action isn't a central part of enough our organizations’, agencies’, and coalitions’ (not to mention politicians') ethos, frameworks, and plans. Speeches and reports and "awareness raising" and "information sharing" are not ACTION. And here’s the thing - nothing changes until we act.
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2. We aren't organized!! And it's not entirely our fault. Our civic infrastructure has been ravaged by everything from land use policy (which prevents the kind of community building we need to foster the trust, conversation, and connection that is foundational to organizing) to restrictions on 501c3 lobbying (while leaving corporate lobbying, political influence, and in a word, corruption, unchecked) to the decimation of local news (which is needed to hold local policymakers and others accountable, foster community action, and more) to the weakening of community, labor, and other organizations that could actually put weight behind advocacy demands and see them to fruition.
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So we can call our congresspeople or join protests, but without actual, meaningful, and long-term organizing, we're not going to be nearly effective enough.

I've been giving both the action and organizing points above a lot of thought, even before the chaos of the last couple weeks.
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On the action front, PoP Health will be offering a FREE live class for community coalitions sometime this Spring, all about why every community health coalition needs a strong action plan - and the process they need to get there. Community-rooted work is more important than ever right now, and with a strong planning process, your coalitions can deepen your impact and build community power.
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On the organizing front, we've got some wheels in motion, but it's early yet - stay tuned for more details, and please reach out if you have ideas to share or want to be involved. Also please drop me a note if you've seen examples of or are involved in taking organized action against the current threats to public health.

As Grant Ennis notes in his book Dark PR, historical protests that led to meaningful policy change did not involve “individuals brandishing banners stating scattered goals” but rather “organized citizens focused on political action” with banners that “listed their demands and the names of the groups they represented.”

And as I heard in a conversation about the role of democracy in population health yesterday, protests and other forms are direction are a component of organizing, but they are the not the entirety of organizing. There's a lot more to organizing effectively - stay tuned for the next Community Threads newsletter for more on that.

Everything that's happening right now is a LOT, but I still have hope we can find ways to come together to not just act in opposition, but to proactively put forth different - and more compelling - narratives, values, and ways of shaping our policies and our communities.

We can do this.

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Why we must ACT in 2025

I opened the new year inviting you to join PoP Health at the intersection of hope and action to transform health in our communities.

Earlier this month, we dove into the idea of hope.

Today, we’re focused on ACTION.

I’m all about capturing data to understand community needs - but does it sometimes feel like all we’re doing is defining (and redefining) the problem, listing challenges and barriers, and adding proof points that the problem exists?

I think sometimes we get paralyzed thinking we need more - more information, more resources, more time - instead of figuring out how to ACT in the here and now, with what we have.

I heard a great example of this at a workshop this past Fall, from an organization called Beyond Housing in St. Louis. Their CEO shared the simple framework they use to guide their work: Ask, Align, Act. “We ask for the community’s input to identify priorities, align resources, and act toward fulfilling a common vision.”

It sounds SO simple. Yet, many organizations and agencies aren’t doing this.

Part of that, of course, is because it isn’t actually simple to identify priorities or align resources, much less act. There are so many complexities and challenges, and I don’t want to diminish those.

Yet, that’s only part of the story. Many organizations and agencies aren’t even trying to act, at least not in a meaningful way.

I think the first step towards taking meaningful action is doing what Beyond Housing has done - make ACTION a central component of your organization’s ethos, framework, plan.

The results can be impressive. Just check out what Beyond Housing has done - https://beyondhousing.org/about/our-work/.

Here’s the thing - nothing changes until we act.

We also can’t learn what works - and perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t work - until we act.

It’s in this spirit of taking action that we here at PoP Health will be offering a FREE live class for community coalitions this Spring, all about why every community health coalition needs an action plan - and the process they need to get there. Stay tuned for more details!

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Why we must HOPE in 2025

How is the start of your year?

I hope it is off to a great start, but I know too that many across the country are experiencing hard times just weeks into the new year.

Regardless of where on the spectrum your year so far falls, I stand by what I shared last week: I believe wholeheartedly that it is at the intersection of hope and action that we can work together to transform health in our communities. So in this issue and the next, I’d like to break down each of those concepts.

Today, we’re focused on HOPE.

Especially as we’re coming up on inauguration, following an election that demonstrated just how polarized communities across our country are, holding on to hope feels even more important - and yet, even harder - than before.

But hope we must.

Like many others, I found much hope in Rebecca Slonit’s words post election.

I encourage you to read her brief post in its entirety, but here are three pieces that stood out to me:

"You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving."

"People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good."

"Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed."

Within her words, there are three important lessons about hope:

• Hope does not mean we hold onto an unfounded belief that we can save everything - but it does mean embracing the reality that we can save SOME things and those things are worth saving.

• Hope does not mean you feel good. I think we conflate feeling hopeful with feeling good in the moment, right now. It’s possible to have hope even when you’re feeling heartbroken, even when you’re feeling furious, even when you’re feeling deflated, even when you’re feeling skeptical. In fact, it is especially important to hold on to hope when you’re feeling these other emotions.

• We hope because we - all of us, our lives, our dreams, our destinies - are connected and while the threads that connect us are “stained and torn”, they are also perpetually being “woven and mended and washed”.

So thank you, for weaving and mending and washing these Community Threads with us. Let’s keep at it.

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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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The story matters more than the words

Howdy,

Did that "howdy" make you double take? Hi, hello, hey, yoo-hoo, yo, howdy - so many possible one-word greetings. Don't they each make you feel a little bit different?

I love words. As an avid reader, a writer, and just a human in this world, I love words.

And I do think they matter. As our little greeting exercise shows, words do evoke feelings, and they communicate all kinds of things (the mood you're in, how well you know the person you're talking to, how formal the context is, and so on and so forth).

BUT I don’t think words matter as much as policy or practice. It goes back to the old saying, actions speak louder than words.

If you’ve seen the conversation around whether to use the term unhoused or homeless or persons experiencing homelessness - I always come out of it thinking: 1) ask the people themselves (Folks have. The vast majority of them continue to prefer the term homeless.) and 2) WHO CARES if you aren’t DOING something about it?

As usual, McSweeney’s sarcasm captures it better than I can - “Our City’s New Initiative Will End Homelessness by Calling It Something Else”. Changing our words doesn’t mean we’re changing our actions - in fact, changing words often distracts from the fact that we’re not changing our actions. Much of the time, changing our words is a whole lot of virtue signaling and not much else.

When it comes to community health and well-being, changing actions - changing policy and practice - is what matters. That requires changing minds. And that, in turn, requires a compelling story.

This is where public health - and movements to advance public health - have fallen very, very short.

We should be FAR more obsessed with shaping the narrative than with word choice. As I’ve said before, we need to tell more stories (it's why PoP Health hosts a "Story Space" at the annual community health event we co-organize, sharing stories with kids about our minds, emotions, and connections to others).

But it's not just our kids who need stories. Our communities do too.

How do we tell compelling stories that place the blame on the system and not the individual? How do we tell powerful stories that make the case for prevention instead of after-the-fact treatment? How do we tell stories that build community and bring more people under our tent, instead of further alienating those we need to persuade?

THIS is what we should be obsessing about.

Words can evoke emotions, but stories are what change minds.

I find the work of organizations like Frameworks Institute and Hollywood, Health, and Society to be quite compelling on this front.

In my little corner of the world, I’ve tried to shape a story around our approach to health and am currently working on shaping a story around the impact of corporate power on our health and environment and what we can do about it.

How are you shaping stories in your work and in your communities? Or, if you aren’t yet, how might you want to moving forward? Drop me a line and let me know!

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Movements need weavers and warriors

What a week.

In the last issue of Community Threads, I spoke about how voting isn’t enough - that we need to organize movements. That remains true regardless of who wins an election or which political party is in power.

We need to come together - in a highly organized, long-term, consistent way - to make collective demands for concrete changes. We need movements.

And movements need both weavers and warriors.

Weavers that bring separate threads together to create a collective fabric - that bring organizations and individuals together for a common purpose, that build stronger connections, that persuade more people to join together, that reach across aisles, that take collective action.

Warriors that fight for the changes they want to see - that go up against power, that resist what they know is not right, that protest against injustice.

I’ve always considered myself a weaver - everything from the name of this newsletter (Community Threads) to PoP Health’s logo (which emphasizes interconnectedness) go back to the ideas of working together for collective impact. It’s why I love working with community coalitions and collaboratives.

And yet, I find myself venturing more into warrior territory these days. PoP Health has a new initiative coming down the pike (in Spring 2025) that’s focused on putting political and economic power back in the hands of communities, as opposed to corporate interests. And it has me fired up.

It makes me wonder if those of us who have both weavers and warriors in us - and those spaces where weavers and warriors can come together - could be valuable to the work of organizing movements.

Because a few things are clear.

A lot of weaving in the community health space has involved admiring the problem, as opposed to solving it. A lot of weaving has focused so much on achieving consensus with everyone (even the corporate interests that are working against public health goals) that the end results have been weak and watered down actions.

On the flip side, a lot of warriors in the community health space have failed to widen their tent and expand their coalition. A lot of warriors have failed to coordinate and coalesce around concrete demands in consistent, sustained ways.

Movements need weavers and warriors (and those who see both in themselves). Who are you? A weaver, a warrior, both? And has your answer changed over time, like mine? Drop me a line and let me know!

Ultimately, successful movements need weavers that build agreement and collective, sustained action around the concrete demands of warriors.

As I said last time, history shows us it’s possible. Let’s get to work.

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