By Greg Ranstrom (Class XXXVII)
This March I completed my final year as the Fellows Program Director, a role that has been one of the great privileges and joys of my life. I am filled with gratitude for the relationships, wisdom, and strength of this remarkable community. I plan to stay connected with the ALF network through my new project, wiwow.org, which works at the systems level to support regional, national, and global leadership networks.
In 2004, I led my first ALF Wilderness Week, not knowing how important ALF would become to me. I decided a few months earlier to shift my client portfolio from 100% for-profit enterprises to an even distribution of work across all sectors. This was one of those moments of synchronicity when my intentions seemed to shape my future. ALF offered even more than I could have imagined.
Sitting around the fire at Gold Lake, I was stunned by the breadth of perspective and experience in a conversation between a chief of police, union rep, faith leader, and housing advocate. I came into this role knowing how to create the psychological safety required to forge relationships and foster dialogue in groups, but I had never experienced any gathering quite like an ALF class. Sixteen years later, I have sat around the fire with 350 ALF-SV leaders and another 300 ALF leaders from the Houston and Oregon chapters. Of course, we do not have to go to the wilderness to experience the ALF alchemy of diversity and dialogue. I am confident that the new class of Fellows will thrive even as they navigate the restrictions of social distancing.
I am warmed and inspired by the beautiful connections and personal growth that occur through the Fellows experience, which lay the groundwork for community transformation. We ask Fellows to slow down and listen to one another so they don’t recreate or reinforce dysfunctional systems. We work on relationships first, and we build collective wisdom throughout the year. Our impact finally takes shape as Senior Fellows join to create a future that is distinct from the past. Non-profit leaders gather to disassemble institutional racism existing in their agencies, governmental leaders host community forums designed for actionable dialogue, corporate leaders foster cultures of trust and accountability, and Senior Fellows steer regional cross-sector initiatives to manifest hopeful visions and respond to community crisis.
I remain committed to support leaders like you who are building inclusive and integrated solutions for our communities. My vehicle for this work is WiWoW-Who is Working on What, a social graph that displays people who are working together on issues of common interest. For example, WiWoW can display the network of activity focused on reducing homelessness in Silicon Valley. Leaders can locate other leaders working in this domain, explore innovative programs, see who is isolated and how people are connected, discern where resources are allocated, and discover where gaps exist in the system. By displaying these networks of activity, others can more easily connect and collaborate.
Each time I see a new network mapped on WiWoW, I am struck by the number of people leading efforts to make our communities work better. I am filled with hope and inspired by the collective activity. As our fragile and inequitable systems fracture, new and creative solutions will emerge. If we can make it easy for others to see who is working on what, we can create the conditions to drive more inclusion, better integration across all sectors, and smarter solutions. Please reach out to me as you see opportunities to map your work.
I have received so much from this community—seven-minute talks, walks along the trail, transformative conversations. These gifts have profoundly shaped who I am and how I move through the world. When I was diagnosed with ALS, the ALF community once again astounded me. I was supported with financial contributions to help with accessible home improvements, medical expertise, a custom adaptive bike, flights for a family safari trip of a lifetime, kind words and well wishes. Your generosity and love continue to overwhelm me and your work in the community forever inspires me.
I look forward to deepening our connections, continuing to learn from our diverse perspectives, and supporting networks of action for the common good. I am in!
