It’s my birthday today and I’m asking that you show America some love in honour of my birthday and because, let’s face it: America needs a lot of TLC.
Today, President Biden will be sworn in with a focus on healing the Nation but the most impactful work is taking place block by block, community by community.
I am asking that you make a generous donation to the two organizations doing this healing work.
We have made commitments to both organizations to be financially responsible for funding or fundraising for their immediate needs. For Healthy, Wealthy & Wise, this is $150,000 and for National Network for Safe Communities, it’s $250,000 this year. Whatever amount remains unfunded from our fundraising efforts, our family will cover.
The common theme for the two organizations that we’re supporting is the power of reconciliation. Reconciliation starts with being truly heard. In sharing our first appeal, we aren’t able to use names out of respect for the family members that inspire us so much but have been given permission to share the details below:
Our involvement with Healthy Wealthy & Wise comes from a dear friend of ours who is serving a Life Sentence without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for killing an Oakland Police Officer. When we met our friend through other work we do in investing in rehabilitative programs in California, he had already been in prison for more than 30 years. It became immediately clear to us that this man was unlike any other person that we had met in Prison as he genuinely lives every day of his life, accepting he will die in prison, trying to do everything he possibly can to honour the life of the man he murdered. We came to learn that his process of transformation was rapidly accelerated through a process known as Victim Offender Dialogue.
Several years ago, one of the (now adult) children of the Officer requested to undergo the Victim Offender Dialogue (“VOD) in which a petition can be made to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to undergo a mediated discussion with the offender to help the victim and their family members heal from the offence. In addition to the family member who requested the dialogue, another family member attended to witness the process. It was transformative for everyone involved.
In service of our friend, we approached the family member who initiated the VOD and explained that our family wanted to honour their father’s legacy by finding some form of initiative to fund that might help prevent another young man from taking a life. After extensive research, we collectively decided that partially funding Healthy, Wealthy & Wise’s annual operating costs was a fantastic way to honour their Father’s memory and a worthy investment for us to make.
Healthy, Wealthy & Wise is a trauma-informed, cognitive behavioural therapy program specifically developed to reach very high-risk youth and young adults. It has been operating in Oakland for the last few years and I am happy to share the evidence of their impact with anyone that wants to do more due diligence. What we have agreed to fund is the same program but specifically directed at a younger cohort (13–18) who have a history of experiencing trauma, school absenteeism, family dysfunction and delinquency. The youth are mentored by Credible Messengers known as Life Coaches, who develop close, trusting, positive relationships with each participant in the program. Nearly every single person I’ve met serving life sentences dreams of being a mentor to the youth that grew up with their circumstances.
I believe that most human beings can easily find empathy for others and that what most people are desperate for is to simply feel truly heard. In the same way that powerful transformation can take place when the right space is created and held in which to be truly listened to, David Kennedy has practiced creating this space for most of his professional career. I first became familiar with David’s work as we were searching for an organization that at a national scale, was capable of helping reduce violence created by criminal groups. David became nationally prominent for the data-driven outcomes of his work in Boston, referred to as the “Boston Miracle.”
NNSC has worked quietly and effectively in cities across the country and earned trust with citizens, elected leaders and law enforcement everywhere it has worked. NNSC’s “product” (as it were) is that it knows how to bring together everyone in a community that needs to be heard in order to really understand the special dynamics of homicide and gun violence — especially that there is an amazingly small number of people involved in the violence — and the problems that policing has contributed to causing in that community, partly by treating the entire community as dangerous. By truly providing space for people to be listened to (not a two way conversation), the patterns emerge that identify the elements that are most harmful to that community. Once that harm is known, NNSC helps cities find ways in which to acknowledge the past harms and just as crucially helps develops the policies that will reduce harm and improve safety most crucially, with the buy-in and support of law enforcement. This core work is supported by solid on-the-ground empirical research that has transformed the way homicide and gun violence is understood and effectively addressed (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-25/beyond-broken-windows-what-really-drives-urban-crime)
This is work you never hear of because it’s not clickbait. It’s hard, it’s long but it stops the bleeding. I am happy to provide an overview of their work and past successes. Too often, organizations like NNSC have to pay their own way to deliver the work they do, as there is so little understanding by the average citizen of why this work matters.
We’ve committed to fund and fundraise for $250k in seed funding for a new initiative that we have high confidence will help restore trust in their local governments, which we believe to be the foundation by which America is built upon, and where the foundation has been so deeply disturbed by the loss of institutional legitimacy.
Please consider a monthly donation (toggle between the one-time default and monthly option) here: https://donorbox.org/nnsc.
These two organizations mean a lot to me and my family. So much so that talking about them publicly makes me really uncomfortable and so I may choose to make this post biodegradable at the end of the week but am trying to do use the power of my networks to raise as much support for their work as possible. I appreciate you taking time to read and share this and especially to those who choose to donate.
