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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