Hope is a Muscle

By Sarah M. Williams / Co-Founder and CEO, Propel

A few months ago, when I was ready to come sprinting out of the most recent COVID lockdown, my teeny tiny puppy — that unexpectedly grew into a Great Dane mutt — sprinted gleefully down a hill in my local park and, as we both swerved in the same direction to avoid a collision, slammed into my knee, shattering it into pieces. Over the past few months, as events around the world unfolded, I’ve thought a lot about muscles and rebuilding strength and what it takes to keep going when things don’t work the way you hoped.

The surgeon who repaired my leg doled out the challenging news about my recovery in small bite-sized bits over several weeks, presuming I might be able to take it in more easily. Several months after the accident, he said it would be a year before I could run again. Frustrated, I complained to an unfailingly optimistic friend, “Ok, Andre, can you find any silver lining there?” He paused and said, “Well, at least he said you will run again.”

This got me thinking about perspective, about hope. And reminded me of Krista Tippett’s quote I have long found helpful: “Hope is a muscle, a practice, a choice that actually propels new realities into being. And it’s a muscle we can strengthen”.

Despite my atrophied leg that doesn’t function well — I want to get that muscle working again. After some escapist TV — thank you Shonda Rhimes, old Sex and the City episodes, and Harry Styles and Shania Twain at Coachella — I was ready to get to work. That’s how I’m feeling about our democracy, after the battering it’s taken. And, I know I’m not the only one.

I started by taking the long view to regain perspective. I zoomed way out into the atmosphere — an astronaut’s view back at earth — to see all that truly connects us. Even in this America that, as civil rights leader Sherilynn Iffil says, we have not yet seen, though we are fighting for it, we have so much more in common than what divides us. We hope for safe quality schools for our children, good affordable healthcare for our parents, communities with parks and green spaces, and a healthy planet. We want to feel safe as we move around our neighborhoods and to believe when something goes wrong there will be a just and fair resolution.

Sure, there’s a noisy minority amplified on our unchecked social media platforms and egged on by people in power afraid of the spirit and force of all of us working together, but there are more of us that want good things for all of us.

I have a plan for those good things — for building that hope muscle. At Propel, we’ve made a round of funding to support democracy that is making me hopeful again with two strategies.

1. Investing in the power of US — our big, messy, vibrant, majority coalition

Let’s be realistic. The winning coalition we need is not going to agree on everything. We’re not going to like the language that some of us use and we may be frustrated that not everyone feels the same urgency. We’re going to have to show up for people with whom we might not see eye to eye. Some of us who have a lot of nice things are going to have to share more. But our next generation, our country, and our planet require this sometimes messy, but powerful coalition to chart the path forward.

And there are amazing leaders and organizations reminding us of all that‘s worth fighting for, putting themselves in the line of fire of the noisy, mean-spirited fear trying to divide us. At Propel, we’re betting on smart strategies to strengthen the power of our winning coalition, including:

• Listening to Americans who might, in another generation, have been union members and engaging them in civic life;
• Amplifying the political power of women of color frontline workers as they rally behind leaders who will fight for them;
• Supporting suburban moms standing up to attacks on our teachers and librarians;
• Investing in state-based strategists who know their communities and connect with their neighbors on civic participation in meaningful ways.

These organizations are working year-round with the long, multi-cycle view we need.

And let’s not forget what our coalition has already won: ensuring the transition of presidential power despite an authoritarian movement ready to violently overthrow our democracy; supporting fair elections even in heavily gerrymandered places; delivering covid vaccines to millions of Americans; making bold future-forward infrastructure investments; and providing emergency relief to millions of Americans, keeping small businesses operating, families in homes, and children fed. Investing in this work is investing in our shared humanity and future.

2. Helping people see they are the protagonists of this story

In powering up our winning coalition, we are also building a media and narrative engine to share accurate information and help people see themselves in the story of the future. This includes:

• Supporting compelling local news coverage, which research shows increases civic participation;
• Betting early on a new media network led by incredible Latina political researchers and digital strategists;
• Arming young influencers with the latest communication strategies via networks like Win Black that create and amplify content on voting and key issues that our communities care about;
• Pressuring social media platforms to limit divisive hate speech amplified on their sites;
• Strengthening the ability of our vibrant coalition to connect with each other and tell the stories of what’s really happening, and the role we all have in shaping the world we want.

I know we can do this. Yesterday I took my first slow bike ride, a little wobbly, and it will indeed be months before I can run. But I’m going to keep exercising my hope muscle — knowing with time and hard work, I’ll be moving where I want to go. And with hope, we’ll all be headed there together.

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Sarah M. Williams is Co-Founder and CEO of Propel, which invests in innovators, change-makers, and entrepreneurs building a democracy and economy that works for the many, not the few. Propel’s work includes the Propel Democracy Forward Fund, a charitable fund that helps strengthen democracy. She was named one of Inside Philanthropy’s 100 Power Players in 2021.