By Helen Chin, Emergent Strategies and Systems Change Advisor

Cities & People Advisors (C&P) is finalizing its 4-year work planning process with First 5 Alameda County’s Neighborhoods Ready For School (NRFS) Grantees; creating a cohort-based learning community in which we guided and supported the four grantees in creating four year work plans for their work to uplift families with children ages 0-5. We also had the honor of co-creating a data profile with each grantee to showcase their impact on and with families in their respective neighborhoods. Here, C&P Advisor Helen Chin (they/she), shares lessons learned and thoughts as we move forward to support another funder supported cohort, the Environmental Leadership Institute Fellows, a program of the Liberty Hill Foundation. 

Why do we love cohort-based learning?

We are life-long learners! Learning together enhances the experience of taking in new information, processing it together with our peers, asking questions, and developing our own thoughts over the course of our time and discussions together. Learning in community challenges dominant culture because the learning is multidirectional and cyclical, not linear and prescriptive. All people in the room are experts, all have stories and knowledge to share, and learning together enables us to grow in our knowledge.

What did we learn working with the NRFS grantees?

A wonderful aspect of cohort-learning is the alchemy that can take place when individuals and organizations convene and feel supported enough to plant the seeds of trust and to grow their relationships with each other. Cultivating that space for NRFS grantee partners to learn together, build relationships, and dream of new worlds is a responsibility we take seriously. 

With the NRFS 4-year planning project, we learned about the differences between each organization, their different needs and capacities. However, we were able to locate and support the throughline in their commitment and dedication to 0-5 kindergarten readiness and their interest in expanding the possibility of deeper investment in their own neighborhoods individually and collectively. 

We endeavor to perform rigorous work, while also moving at the speed of trust and giving space for emergence. The relationships we have built to proceed with project planning do not just end because the project has been finalized. We understand the nature of consultant-client relationships and are mindful of ensuring that we don’t replicate cycles of extraction and harm (helicoptering in and helicoptering out) for the purpose of starting and completing projects. A long-term project enables that ongoing trust-building process, especially when there are grantees, a funder, and consultants involved who are all building trust with and among each other. 

We had values-aligned partners with First 5 Alameda County, which enabled us to lead with our hearts in working closely with the NRFS grantee partners. Having worked within local government, nonprofits, and community-based organizations ourselves, we are conscientious of people’s time and availability and we recognize that they are answering questions they may have answered repeatedly for past consultants and funders. We practiced transparency, open communication, and incorporated feedback in real time to remain responsive.

The NRFS grantees also gave us their trust, (which we are so grateful for) and that allowed us to learn more about how we can support each organization individually and all of them collectively. And we are grateful to First 5 Alameda County for their trust, partnership, and openness to our feedback and thought partnership throughout the project     

What are we thinking about going into the Liberty Hill project?

We worked closely with the Liberty Hill Foundation Environmental Leadership Institute (ELI) staff to facilitate parts of the 2-day orientation for the first ELI Fellowship cohort. We are committed to cultivating and maintaining a nurturing space for the ELI fellows to be curious, to play, and to tackle serious environmental justice work, while also dreaming of and building a liberated future and remaining connected to each other and to the program. We look forward to sharing more about this partnership as it moves forward!