You’re Not In It By Yourself: Who We Are Together
Working on, writing, and curating the Designed to be Connected Series has introduced me to so many new people. To be candid, I was a little daunted; there’s been so many moving parts to navigate. But, at the end of the day, it’s helped to truly realize that this storytelling series has not just been my own project, but something I’ve been working in collaboration on with everyone I’ve had a conversation with.
Over the course of the past eight weeks, I’ve gotten to know each of the staff members at Impact Hub — I’ve sat in team meetings, interviewed the team and members, worked on projects, and spent my days in the hub. This article is a type of salvage; I’ve collected bits and pieces of interviews and observations from being in the space to help reflect on the spirit of Impact Hub as my internship comes to a close.
At the beginning of each Wednesday afternoon team meeting, the Impact Hub team performs a grounding ritual. Sometimes this takes the form of a mediation, focusing on the breath and the body’s physical state. Other times, the team member leading the week’s meeting will ask a reflection question such as “What about the person to your left are you grateful for?” or “What have you learned this week?”
One team meeting, following the spirit of activist and author adrienne marie brown, Community Manager Sam Novak asked everyone to bring in a spell— something that brings oneself power, grounding, or any other type of strength.
Responses included poems, mindfulness cards, songs and television shows. This exchange of vulnerability happens before any discussion of business or organizational affairs; this act of exchange, of vulnerability, of disclosure. Perhaps some would say weekly rituals harm efficiency, but what is efficiency if it isolates us from each other?
The True Meaning of Community
Shalita O’Neale — Impact Hub member, office tenant, ‘Nonprofitista,’ and CEO of GroCharity — knows what it takes to create and cultivate community. Her work with GroCharity, and in her life, is to support black-led grassroots organizations to help build their capacity. Among events, workshops, and meetings that she leads, GroCharity also focuses on holistic health so local leaders feel supported and are practicing self-care so they can do the great work they set out to do.
Shalita’s main philosophy in the work she does is community building and getting to the true sense of what community is. Emphasizing that nowadays, society is speaking more openly about racial injustice and racism in all systems, Shalita says that it’s easier to speak about how structural injustices affect organizations of color who have been doing their work for years.
“For me, getting to the truth of what community means is getting away from the false narrative of individualism or being individualist. In this country, we’ve been conditioned to believe that you don’t need other people and that being vulnerable with other people is considered a weakness. To me, that’s why so many of us are traumatized and disconnected from each other. GroCharity brings people together in a safe space where they’re able to be vulnerable and hold each other accountable so they can reach their life’s purpose and best version of themselves.”
Shalita first visited Impact Hub four to five years ago, but only became a member about a year ago. She recalls the Embracing Emergence Leadership Retreat that Impact Hub led as part of their RestFest as especially important to her.
During the retreat, she connected with hub team members Q, Michelle, and Sam for the first time on a deeper level. As she connected with the Impact Hub team members over the retreat, she realized that not only did they have similar interests, but they shared a certain alignment of values.
“I loved everybody’s energy. The fact they center nature and they center connections — all of that is aligned with who I am and where I want to go.”
All of this energy and focus on connections finds a home within Impact Hub’s programming as well.
Accelerating Toward A Better Future
Director of Navigation and Acceleration Q Ragsdale has been partnering with Made In Baltimore’s Home-Run Accelerator Program to implement his Strategy School curriculum. Q is the founder of Twilight Quest, which he created after learning and being inspired by stories of his great grandmother, or Big Mama as she is known, who was also a social entrepreneur. Among other ventures, she owned a cosmetology school, a beauty shop, and a woman’s boutique.
Unfortunately, Big Mama was targeted by discriminatory practices and racism. Her license was eventually taken away on a technicality because her cosmetology school only had two fewer students than she needed. As such, Q’s work is personal and authentic: Twilight Quest is an homage to his great grandmother, whose cosmetology school was called Twilight Beauty School.
Q’s quest is to ensure that social entrepreneurs today are equipped with the power and knowledge they need to have successful businesses and sustain them. His Strategy School curriculum focuses on equipping social entrepreneurs with the foundational tools and skills to create a strong basis for their endeavors and prepare them to scale in whichever direction they want to grow.
One of the key lessons that Q teaches is that of a positive mindset, encouraging participants to practice meaningful self-care in order to sustain themselves and their endeavors. He also emphasizes the importance of meaningful connections and partnerships, and Q points to his collaboration with Made In Baltimore as one such example:
“Made In Baltimore could have pulled together their own people. Instead, they said ‘Who’s already offering something we need? Let’s collaborate.’ That’s important, especially in a town as small as Baltimore. You’re not in it by yourself; it’s better to share the resources. If somebody is doing something you need, bring them in. You can partner and co-brand. Everyone can reap the reward of seeing our community be uplifted.”
This spirit of reciprocation and equal give and take reverberates across the Impact Hub community. Shalita, for one, mentioned these equal relationships, cultivated at Impact Hub, drives her desire to be more involved and be in the space.
“Everyone is there for the right reasons and everyone connects with the members in a way that you feel like you’re welcome and you feel like they’re also invested in your success, because they are.”
Working With, As Opposed to On, Our Communities
Cecilia Gonzalez, a Community Lead at Impact Hub Baltimore, works in international development, particularly in the linkage between agriculture and nutrition. She also spends time outside of work engaged in community development in Southwest Baltimore. As an independent consultant helping to develop a tool to measure dietary quality in several countries, Cecilia’s network spans the globe.
Impact Hub has helped her create a homebase and connections in the local community. One such connection was with a program that Lydell Hills organized at Frederick Douglass High School where Cecilia began volunteering with spanish-speaking students. Working with these students resonated with her own core values, as some of these students were labeled “problems” when in fact their home lives and histories were difficult. As with her own international development work, Cecilia underscored the importance of listening.
“We can’t come up with solutions that we think are good for people without involving them. We need to listen to people because they have with their life experience the solutions themselves. Not alone. We do have a lot to bring, like a diverse perspective, but there is this power imbalance that we come in with; whether it’s a researcher, a nonprofit, or whether we think we are more educated than people. The community, many times, can be acted upon rather than being the ones that are actively participating and engaged in their own development, whatever that means.”
Other than simply needing a place to work, Cecilia was drawn to Impact Hub because of every member’s focus on and passion for making social change. For her, everyone’s clear commitment to a mission helps create a sense of community between members.
This mutual commitment creates a more human dimension: instead of talking about business all the time, members will sometimes speak openly and vulnerably about their lives because their work is so personal. Cecilia also sees simple practices on the part of the Impact Hub team as meaningful, such as the circulation of the newsletter, because it lets the community know about resources that they may have not known existed.
“People think everyone gets the same opportunities and that is not true. People who are with less resources don’t get the same opportunities because they don’t even know they might exist. To play a role in bringing these smaller entrepreneurs and smaller self starters together and connecting them to these resources is so valuable. Because I grew up in a low income family in Ecuador, I have recognized that when you are low income, you’re not exposed to all of things like study abroad or incubators.”
Impact Hub demonstrates their values and ideals of collaboration, care, and sustainability through a practice of intention — in the ritual of a grounding exercise at every team meeting, their programming, and how they welcome the community into the space.
It’s no coincidence that Impact Hub members share many interests and values with the organization. In fact, it’s what draws many members to Impact Hub. The team members and broader community are all invested in sustainable relationships, honoring the self, and doing important, authentic work.
Perhaps Cecilia puts it best.
“The space to connect with people, both physically and virtually, is so valuable because we are all people of community. We’re designed to be connected with each other.”
Reflection Questions & Additional Readings
- Perform your own grounding ritual right now. Meditate with your own spell that brings you back to yourself. What is it? Can you share it with others?
- How have you taken care of yourself in the last week? What can you do to better attune to your body’s needs?
- What is one action you can take today to support someone in your community?
Enjoyed this piece?
This story is the fourth installment of the Designed to Be Connected Series created by Ryan Aghamohammadi, Impact Hub’s talented JHU Community Impact Intern.
The five stories making up the series cover topics ranging from member spotlights, to Impact Hub’s origins, to what it means to do ecosystem work. They can be read in order or as standalone pieces. We hope these stories serve as an introduction (or re-introduction) to Impact Hub and the people who make it up.
