A NAC Transition & Welcome to Summit
Hello, CfA Brigade Network!
In the last few months, our community held elections for National Advisory Council (NAC). After the votes were tallied and the new NAC members were announced, the outgoing, ongoing, and incoming NAC members all got together in San Francisco in early April.
What’s coming up next
Summit is…here! If you’re in Oakland or if you’re following along at home, check out Carl V. Lewis’ blog post on Brigade Day at Summit, and go here for your one-stop Summit info.
Why We convened
It was important for all of the NAC members, old and new, to convene. Old NAC members have invaluable context and expertise to continue to lend our network. And they’ve learned a thing or two from being part of the first NAC cohort that all of our continuing and new NAC members can learn from.
NAC alumni are invaluable members of our community. They’ve got context about NAC projects, Brigade Action Teams, and the inner workings of the NAC. So, what’s an alumnus do post-NAC? Jill Bjers, Chris Alfano, and Jason Hibbets are our outgoing members this year.
Outgoing NAC members see themselves as advisors for the network. While he was on NAC, Jason Hibbets piloted the idea of a Brigade Action Team (BAT) — and he’s still committed to developing and improving the BAT system and its ability to connect brigades. Chris Alfano set up a Discourse instance for the brigades and will continue to promote the usage of Discourse as a knowledge sharing platform.
Our outgoing chair Jill remains committed to ensuring effective brigade support and coordination networks. Jill has written up some Passing the Torch notes that are full of Brigade wisdom from her time on the NAC.
What’s this mean for you? It means that all of our outgoing members will continue to be valued and active members of our network. Phew.
What did we do?
We heard from Code for America staff to learn about their inner workings:
- Jen, ST, and Meredith talked about the role of the Brigade Network within Code for America’s work, CfA’s long term vision, and also how the Brigade Network fits into that vision.
- The Development Team discussed how they fundraise for CfA, how the Brigade Network Program specifically gets funded, and how opportunities for the Brigades to coordinate with the D-Team.
- We got a preliminary look at the Brigade Census results.
We went through several team exercises to transfer knowledge and build team cohesion:
- We documented the things we’ve learned as NAC and what we want our priorities to be over the next year.
- We established our working norms and our values as NAC.
- We put forward our skills, interests, and work styles to better understand each other and help us work together as a team.
On day 2, we had a facilitated workshop to plan a vision for the Brigade Network based on research on successful social change campaigns in “directed networks” similar to ours. We listed out potential mission statements and core activities for the Network as a whole. Then we brainstormed on a potential Day of Action that the Network could collectively participate in and that would be noticed by the people/groups we’re trying to influence.
Welcome to the New NAC!
Carl V. Lewis is the founder of OpenSavannah. He maintains a fantastic website called dataviz.tools, (his professional background is in data visualization as a longtime data journalist).. After our last NAC meeting, Carl created a word cloud almost instantly. If you don’t read our NAC meeting notes, you can get a good feel of the content by checking it out here:
Melanie Mazanec joins us from Asheville, where she’s the Digital Services Developer with the City of Asheville. Melanie is a Brigade aficionado; she’s been a member of Chicago Hack Night, Open Cleveland, and now volunteers at Code for Asheville. Melanie, in addition to being a thoughtful and eager addition to the NAC, brings a focus on accessibility to the National Advisory Council. We’re grateful to have her expertise and advocacy in our Network.
Ben Trevino comes to NAC from Honolulu, where he’s a Sustainability Planner with Honolulu Rapid Transit. Ben was a community fellow at Code for America and brings a useful perspective of both a fellow and a government employee. And, though all NAC members love our homes, Ben reps his home with love, passion, and a deep commitment to sharing the values and culture of Hawaii with the Brigade network. Here’s just one thing that Ben brought from home to our NAC weekend:
Stepping back to see the bigger picture
As current and former brigade leaders, NAC members are eager to roll up their sleeves and get the work done. That approach may help us move quickly but movement doesn’t necessarily equate to advancement. Now, as representatives and leaders of a larger network, part of NAC’s role is to ensure that the work happening across the country is in harmony, pushing forward our shared vision of the future.
We’re at the front of a social movement. Our vision is revolutionary, and the good news is that we’re not alone. But to win the fight for meaningful, sustained change we have to gain traction that is proportional to the size and talent of our network.
There is an incredible amount of energy within the network that has generated organically in a short period of time. Our grassroots beginnings were critical for the groundswell around the theory that government and can be positively changed by local communities. In our early phases, we demonstrated what could be possible with a group of dedicated volunteers. As we mature and refine our theory and practices, we see the value and potential of leveraging our collective power.
To unlock that power, we need more organization and structure than what we’ve had in the past. At the same time, we need to preserve the creativity and autonomy of brigades that has made the network successful thus far.
Finding the right balance in our approach will require time, thoughtfulness and reflection, a lot of listening, and collaborating closely with our network members and leaders. Though CfA staff and NAC are starting this conversation, it will continue with our community.
Keep an eye out for more updates and requests for input in the coming months. In particular, gatherings like Brigade Day and Congress are excellent opportunities for focused discussions.
What did we take away from the NAC transition?
Em: I felt inspired to commit to creating a coordinated day of action for Brigades!
Carl: I came away with a need to document more best practices and tips to others for getting the word out.
Dawn: My inspiration is to ensure a healthy collaboration between NAC members and the network team. While we each play roles in supporting the sustainability and health of the broader network, at the end of the day we’re a team with a shared goal. So ensuring that all members within that team feel safe, respected, and valued will be critical to our success.
Melanie: I feel inspired to better understand the victories, failures, and lessons learned from smaller brigades. Scaling the civic tech movement outside of giant cities is crucial but trying to make the Code for Oakland model fit in rural North Carolina is just not going to happen. Given what we as a NAC distilled from our discussion, it sounds like this group is in a good position to coordinate knowledge sharing.
Nina: I’m inspired to schedule one-on-one calls with Brigade leaders to just chat and learn about what they’re up to, what they’re interested in, and what they’re struggling with. In reflecting on where my strengths are, I feel that I can use direct conversations and building personal connections to strengthen our network.
Ben: I feel inspired to connect our brigade work with other civic infrastructure in our communities like libraries and public schools!
Laura: I’m inspired to create a clearer strategy for the NAC — which we can also communicate to the network. We came up with lots of lists which are related to each other, but hard to follow. My goal is to piece them into a coherent strategy so that we understand our individual roles on the NAC and so that the Network understands, too.
Janet: I’m starting 2 BATs: Solutions Journalism and Open Data Policy.
Ramy: My one thing: help the national network develop strong inclusive leadership plan among brigade members with clear suggestions and pitfalls to consider to get there. After seeing the preliminary census results, and synthesizing what we have heard from brigade leaders and Meredith about our movement, it is clear that we need to find ways as NAC to facilitate brigade members’ local and network-wide involvement. We should help provide a spectrum of ways that brigade members can plug in and be engaged.
See you at Summit?
Don’t miss this panel on Thursday:
Founding the National Advisory Council and Preparing the Next Generation of Leaders
Thu, May 30 4:00pm — 5:00pm
In this panel session, members of the Code for America National Advisory Council (past and present) will share insights on the establishing the first advisory council and transitioning leadership to the next round of elected members. This group of civic tech leaders will focus on why they joined the NAC, what they want to accomplish, and what success looks like for the Brigade network. Furthermore, we’ll explore the key parts of transitioning leadership to maximize the impact of the advisory council. By the end of this session, attendees will get a better understanding of the role the NAC plays in the Code for America ecosystem as well as the vision of the leadership behind the advisory council.
- Chris Alfano, CTO, Jarvus Innovations and Senior Advisor, Code for America
- Jill Bjers, Executive Director, Open Charlotte
- Ramy Kim, Western Regional Representative, Code for America National Advisory Council and Open Oakland
- Jason Hibbets, Senior Community Architect, Red Hat and Captain, Open Raleigh Brigade
- Dawn MacDougall, Northeast Regional Representative, National Advisory Council, Code for Philly
Follow along with the #CfASummit hashtag, and be on the lookout for Summit wrap-ups and upcoming plans for the year.
Ongoing NACers,
Em and Nina
