How Community Leaders Build Trust and Inspire Real Change: Meet Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart

Real community change rarely fails because people do not care. It fails because leadership gets reduced to titles, meetings turn into status updates, and “helping” unintentionally reinforces the very conditions we are trying to change.

We sit down with Gabrielle Hawkins Stewart, a consultant and facilitator who brings systems theory, racial equity practice, and a poverty-informed, trauma-informed lens to nonprofit and community coalitions. Gabrielle shares the story behind Changemakers Leadership Institute and why she treats leadership as both science and art: evidence-based tools paired with reflection on how we show up, how our choices land, and what our behavior makes possible for other people.

From there, we get practical. Gabrielle breaks down the core traits of effective community leaders: being thoughtful and purposeful, collaborating without clinging to control, protecting the people doing the work while staying unapologetic about the mission, and role modeling values when it is hardest. We also unpack why systems change is so difficult to explain and implement, and why language matters when communities talk about poverty, “neglect,” and impact.

If you lead a nonprofit, facilitate coalition work, or want better community meetings that create momentum between sessions, you will leave with ideas you can apply immediately, plus a sharper lens for spotting when a program teaches people to “fish” in an empty pond.

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Guest Bio

Gabrielle Stewart is a consultant specializing in incorporating best practices in equity and diversity into technical assistance for non-profit and community organizations. She guides organizations and collaborative entities in staff development, organizational capacity building, strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation, utilizing sound governance practices and adjusting systems to be poverty- and trauma-competent. She combines a 20-year history of non-profit leadership with a deep understanding of systems theory, racial equity, relationship-building, and collective impact strategies to help organizations incorporate the voices of all stakeholders into decision-making. Get in touch with Gabrielle at gabriellecmli@pm.me and visit her website: https://www.cmlinstitute.com/ 

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Music by Zach Price: Zachpricet@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Ann Price 0:44

Hi, everybody. I hope you are doing well. Welcome back to Community Possibilities. This is Ann Price, and I am so happy you are here. You know, on the podcast, I try to bring you the most excellent folks who can provide you with tangible, actionable advice and examples of really great leadership in communities. So today, Gabrielle Hawkins Stewart joins me. Gabrielle and I have known each other probably for about 10 years at this point. Yeah, I think that's about right. Gabrielle is a consultant and uh facilitator. In fact, she's probably the one one of the best facilitators I've ever seen. And I just love working with her. Let me tell you a little bit more about her background. She specializes in incorporating best practices in equity and diversity into the TA that she provides for nonprofit and community organizations. She guides organizations and collaborative entities and staff development, organizational capacity building, strategic planning, implementation, yes, evaluation, and good governance practices. She combines a 20-year history of nonprofit leadership with a deep understanding of systems theory, racial equity, relationship building, and collective impact strategies to assist organizations in incorporating the voices of all stakeholders in decision making. Like I said, I just love working with Gabrielle. She's amazing. So without further delay, let's dive into the episode. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Community Possibilities. I have my uh good friend, Gabrielle Hawkins Stewart, who we actually, fun fact, have been chatting now for 20 minutes prior to our hit record because we haven't talked to each other before the holiday. So we're recording this in January 2026. Hey Gabrielle. Hey, good morning.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 2:57

How are you? I am good. I'm good. It's been a good start to the new year for sure.

Intentions For The New Year

Ann Price 3:04

Oh, good. Yeah, we're only um day six, and I just now finished my like really uh my reflection package. Do you know you know who Priya Parker is, right? She wrote The Art of Gathering. Love that book, everybody. You gotta go get that book if you are somebody who gathers groups together. But on Instagram, she was talking about this. I'm looking behind me just so I can see it. Uh, year compass and it helps you reflect on your past year and your the the year to come. So I just now finished that. So I I kind of I feel some kind of way about that. Like I should have already been setting, I don't, I don't do you do resolutions? I don't do resolutions.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 3:42

I don't do resolutions, but on the 31st every year, I write myself either a journal entry or a letter and I sort of recap what happened in the previous year and set some intentions for the next year, but there's they're really high-level intentions, they're not specific resolution. I've never been able to keep a resolution, so I I no longer try.

Gabrielle’s Path Into Community Work

Ann Price 4:10

Yeah, I started doing a word for the year uh a couple of years ago. Last year my word was focus. I am I I think I am a little ADD. Uh and and uh I can't remember what it was the other because then two years before that it was the same word. But anyway, uh this year it's joy, it's all about joy, and you bring me joy as the song goes, Gabrielle. You bring me joy. So um uh I could tell you all about what we were we were talking about, food and family and weddings and all sorts of things, but that's not what we're here to talk about today, Gabrielle. So uh let me just tell everybody. Gabrielle and I met, gosh, has it been like 10 years now? Probably. I think it's going on 11. Okay, you know you know the date because we were uh we worked for the same organization. I was a contractor, Gabrielle was a full-time employee at the Georgia Family Connection Partnership. She was the regional manager in region one, and I did evaluation technical assistance, and uh, I don't know, we became fast friends, and now we still get to work together in your current job. So all of that to say, thank you for being here. And I just want you to introduce, I know you obviously, but I want you to introduce you to my audience and just share anything you're comfortable with about your life. I always tell people don't share your business bio, don't read me your Vita, nobody cares about that. Tell us how you came to be who you are.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 5:40

I am very much like as a professional, I think I'm very much the product of both of my parents' professional legacies. So my dad was a systems engineer with IBM for 35-ish, 36 years. And he is very much has an engineer's mind. And from him, I got the ability to sort of see systems and see the big picture without losing sight of the little moving parts and how they work together. And I'm very interested about how things fit together and how they affect and um impact one another. And so that's sort of the the systems side of of where I come from. And then the other side is my mom. And my mom was um, she was an MSW out of Rutgers who came to the United States and she spent um about 14 years at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. And so growing up, I stepped envelopes and I volunteered at events, and I like very I was very interested in what she was doing and how she was contributing to community. And it's funny when I was thinking about this podcast um prepping for it and and really thinking about why I do what I do. I remember that um I went to uh summer camp every summer elementary school and in middle school, I was, you know, typical middle schooler, like, I'm too old for that and I don't want to do that anymore. And so my mom was like, you either go to summer camp or you get a volunteer job. Those are your options. Pick one. And so I was like, Well, I'm not going to camp. I'm gonna volunteer. Well, I started volunteering and I started engaging with community and I kind of just never left. Um, so I was a candy striper and I was worked for the Red Cross and I did, you know, a preschool summer camp for that was a free community camp for three and four-year-olds, and I just that's how I spent my summers was volunteering. And then by the time I got to high school, I was this doesn't exist anymore, but teens teens in action from Campfire was like a big thing in the 90s, and I served on their advisory council, and I um got to be a youth uh a youth board member for Campfire, and I just got to see behind the curtain of how people make decisions and and do things in that nonprofit space. Um and so it was, I, you know, I went to school and I thought I was gonna go do something else. I really thought I was gonna get into politics. And then when I studied politics, I realized how not suited for that that I am. But all of those concepts, all that the ideas of sharing and fighting over power and distributing resources and wealth, like all of those things were also part of the nonprofit space. And so I just I just ended up where I was supposed to be. Like I feel like I was kind of groomed to end up doing something social service, something community development oriented. And so I bring a little bit of my dad's systems thinking. I like to think of myself as like a social service engineer. Um, because I I do think about how people move around and how they fit together and how we put the parts together um without losing sight of the actual human beings that are doing those things.

Why She Built CMLI

Ann Price 9:20

Okay, I love that so much. One, because I've never heard that part where you consider going into politics. So I love that I just learned something new about you and the social service engineer. Hmm, I think you should lean into that one. Oh, that's so interesting. All right, so you started your company, Changemakers Leadership Institute. I want to say officially like a year-ish ago. Is that is that right? Something like that.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 9:47

I had I was percolating on it, but I didn't officially call myself opening the doors until I graduated um from grad school last May. So I think officially on the books as of June 1st, I was operating under that banner.

Ann Price 10:06

Okay, maybe it's because we've been talking about it for a while now. Maybe that's maybe that's why. Um, and we could go down that rabbit hole of how it feels to be a non-traditional student, but we're not gonna do that today. We we'll have that conversation another time because I definitely uh we have that in common. But I'm so curious about the name of your company. You know, people choose the names of their companies for very um different you know, everybody has their reasons, like some people choose their name. Uh, I wasn't that bold personally. Uh, but anyway, I'm very curious about that. So, what what's the Change Makers Leadership Institute? Each word is very intentional. Talk to me about that.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 10:52

So it's kind of two part, and the first part is the changemakers part. And when I I really knew that I wanted to take the skills that I had built, the experience that I had, and I wanted to invest that in leaders and growing leaders and helping them better understand how what they do and the way that they do it impacts the people around them. So I wanted to take sort of that behavioral health that I got, that education that I got in the Masters of Social Work program and make it palatable so leaders could understand um the science behind the impact they had uh on the people around them and ultimately for the purpose of creating positive change. And so, in in my mind, true transformational leaders are change makers, right? That is what they are about, that's what they aim to do, and they create change. And so I knew I wanted to have that in the title. And leadership, obviously, that's the thing that I wanted to focus on because when I think about how real change is made, it is through leadership, not just that leadership that's held or bestowed upon you because you have a title, but in those qualities of leadership that inspire and motivate others to see the vision and then live it. And then the institute part of it, again, a twofold kind of thing of one is the nod to the science and the the um research and the best practice that is part of being a leader and doing all of those things in the ways that make people uh able to be motivated and and happy in their jobs and productive in what they do, but also to the idea that there's an art form to it, that that we need to spend time mixing the art and the science together to find our own personal sort of leadership style that unlocks our potential to create that kind of change. And so it's kind of like, you know, it's like a wanted to to be sort of like a Juilliard for leadership development. I want you to really get the technical side of things, but also have the opportunity to experience and apply and really hone um the style, uh, right. And if I do a good job, then I've created the space and the activity as an environment for you to be able to do all of those things so that when you go back to the office, to the organization, to the community, you you're walking in with the ability to apply what you've learned versus needing time to digest all of those things, right? Like I wanted to not to the idea that I'm really trying to grow folks who can create change and that when they walk away from me, I have positioned them to do that in a better way.

Ann Price 14:08

I love that. Yeah, we were talking earlier about uh, you know, the confidence that we see in the younger generation, and it sounds like that's kind of what you want to instill in these folks is they get in touch with their own strengths, their own gifts, and get some skills so they can go and serve their communities in a in a better way.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 14:27

Yeah, because there's not just one way to be a leader, yeah. Um, and different leaders are effective for different reasons, right? And you can't it it's more than just a best practice. Like you can't just stead study the five habits and then expect that you can just go in and do what you need to do. There's this other layer of reflection and assessment around how you show up and how that impacts other people. And, you know, and some people as leaders, we um we gotta be able to sort of work with everybody and be the thing that everybody needs in the moment. Um, and that requires us to look at the environment and the people that we're working with in different ways and not assume everybody fits right, like that everybody is the same and you can use the exact same approach, the exact same words with everybody you work with, because that's just not the way we are.

Coaching Workshops And Coalition Support

Ann Price 15:28

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we we neglected to to have you share where this comes. Right. You have a lot of experience. You've worked with some of the best known nonprofits in the metro Atlanta area for sure. And you and I have been out in communities for a while. So you've seen a lot of leaders, the good and the bad and the not so pretty, right? So it comes from you know, a lot of experience. And now you've, you know, you got the the masters in social work, you got all that in place. Child is not to make you cry, gonna be gonna be launching in the next couple of years, and now you've got this this thing that is all your own. So when you think about the clients that you want to serve and the services that you provide, can you share what that looks Like? Does that look like workshops or trainings or coaching? What does it look like?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 16:29

It's kind of all those things, and like I love coaching, I love working one-on-one with folks. I there is just something magical that happens when you're talking through something with somebody and you can see on their face when they get like when they get it or they get an idea or when they're like truly inspired and you know they're gonna walk away from you and go do something like truly fabulous. They're that I know there's not nothing like that feeling. But I also like being in front of a room full of people and helping them come up with a strategy or a plan or figure out what the root cause of their challenges and and coalesce around figuring out you know how to how to address it or get it done. Like, and you know, you and I have done um some coalition meetings where there's also a lot of fun in just designing a fun, you know, 45-minute experience for 60 people. And you just like there is something powerful about the energy in the room and and the ripple effect that that can have. And so I I like working individually one-on-one with folks, but I also like small groups um and coalition development. And I really, I really just want to be the kind of whatever you want to call me, consultant, strategist, advisor that positions whoever it is that I'm working with to be better and to do without me in the future. If I do my job well, you don't need me next year. And I know that's like counterintuitive. It's a it's a working myself out of a job, but it's the value that I add and the seeds that I plant so the community is better when I go back home and I'm not there the next day.

Ann Price 18:31

Yeah, gotcha. That's the goal. So I want to dive a little deeper into this idea of effective leaders because you and I both agree. So uh, so if we talk about like a community coalition, for example, you've got the the de facto head of the administrative lead, basically, of the coalition, the the coalition manager, but the coalition is actually the group of people who make up the coalition, right? And so what you and I talk about a lot, and my friend Susan Wolf uh does too, is everybody in that coalition needs to see themselves as a leader. And there's a certain skills that are needed, there's different like developmental stages you can think about of a coalition, but just in general, let's talk about the qualities of effective leaders and maybe a few like essential characteristics of effective leaders. What does that look like?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 19:24

I think at the core, regardless of where you are in the hierarchy, if you're an effective leader, then you are thoughtful and purposeful. Um and and you're thoughtful all the time, right? You're asking yourself and the people around you those questions that help you better understand. And I like uncover the things that need to be done, need to be changed, um find the golden nuggets of capacity that are hidden within your group, right? You're you're you've got the purpose in mind and you're driving towards that purpose and you're being thoughtful about how you and the group get yourself there. So I at the core, I don't I don't think you can be effective if you're not thoughtful and purposeful, but you've also got to be collaborative, right? Like you can't you can't have a need to own all of the things. Um, because whether you're unless you're an organization of one, you can't do it all by yourself. And so if you can't play well with others, if you can't be in relationship with lots of different people, you're gonna struggle as a leader because that's what's required, right? Whether you have the title where you sit as the chair or you're a member of a work group and you're just doing your thing, you still have to be able to engage with and operate with people who are not always like you, who don't have the same work style, who don't believe all of the same things, right? But are but are in the room because they're working towards that common goal. Well, as leaders, we have to figure out how to co-create with other people. Um, and we have to put the goal, the common goal, like that goes back to the purpose, right? We we have to remain purpose-driven by while recognizing that we still have to do that with other people. Um I think that you have to be unapologetic about achieving the mission and taking care of the people doing the work. Um, and I sometimes that forces folks out of their comfort zone. Like you, you know, something isn't working for staff or for volunteers or partners or for even the clients you serve, but it's the way that it's always been done. And so there's this fear of resistance to that. And I I think good leaders push through the resistance and say, At the end of the day, what's most important are the people we serve and the people serving them. And so this might not be super popular or the thing that everybody else is always doing, but we're gonna do it because it makes the most sense and it and it moves forward the mission and protects the people doing the work. And I think we have to get comfortable. Good leaders have to be comfortable with that. And then the final thing is that you're a role model, right? So you model the behavior, the characteristics, the core values that you want to see in the group and in others that get you towards the achievement of that mission, and you model it all the time. Not just when you're on stage, not just when you're leading the meeting, but all the time in the quiet spots, in the um disagreements, right, with people who want to do something different than you in the times where you get the bad news and you lose the funding and you're angry and disappointed that you still model those characteristics of the people that you right, of the values that you want to see um move forward in the mission you want to achieve. Right.

Ann Price 23:16

Yeah. I don't know why this jumped in my head, but what comes to my mind is, you know, when we spend so much time talking about collaboration, but we choose the mode of control, either out of fear or our own, that's just kind of how our personality is, or we get scared about a certain situation. So we feel like we have to grab it, that there's got to be an integrity there, right? We can't like I think that's what you're saying, right? You can't say the one thing and behave in a completely different other way and expect people to respect you, you know, as a leader. I don't know, that just jumps in.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 23:54

But I mean, here's the here's the deal that most of us kind of think this way, whether we say it out loud or not. It's easy to say words, right? And it's easy to say words that we don't necessarily think, feel, believe in. It is harder to lie in action, right? And so oftentimes when we don't believe a thing we're saying, we do in action the thing that we truly believe. Um that was dope, right? And and so we if we really believe if those are truly our core values, if that's truly what it we aspire to, then 24-7, that's who we're supposed to be.

Poverty Trauma And Helper Pitfalls

Ann Price 24:41

Yeah, yeah. It's to me, it's all about integrity. So um, you don't just make this stuff up. You actually have spent time getting training in trust-based relational intervention, you've done training in trauma, trauma, and poverty-informed approaches. And I know because I know you that all of this comes together in the work you do in community. So, can you share a little bit about how that kind of underlines everything you do?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 25:08

So I think common poverty-informed care probably underlines everything, social service, helper-y, um, Ryan. Like, everything.

Ann Price 25:18

Oh, I love that word, helpery.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 25:21

Yeah, everything sort of community development. Because I mean, let's be real. Poverty drives a lot of the challenges, suffering that the folks that we as social service providers and coalitions and community organizations and nonprofits are trying to address. The folks that we work with that the general population labels is underserved or disadvantaged or whatever label we want to put on it, the label comes from poverty, from living a poverty experience and oh, by the way, being traumatized by that life experience, right? And so poverty and trauma-informed care is really just about opening up providers' eyes to the reality of the lived experience that clients have and helping them recognize that, oh no, some of the things that we set up, some of the things that we do in our sweetest, most loving, helping hearts also traumatize, also hold people in the place where they are. And because we ourselves may not have experienced it or experienced it in the same way, as leaders who are educated and we believe we're experts in these things. And so we design programs as if we're the ones being served, and we're not. Um, and book learning and this those science, right? The research and the science doesn't get to the nuance of the actual lived experience. And I think trauma and poverty informed care is just a framework for slowing down and asking people to consider that there is more than what they can see on the surface, and that the uniqueness of every single human being means that we can't take cookie-cutter approaches to things. And oh, by the way, the traditional way that we have been doing things may be not as helpful as we thought that it was. And it's not that they aren't good things, and it's not that they don't serve people in important and meaningful ways, but there's an and, right? There's this other space and this deeper um work that we should be doing that we're not looking at because we're staying at the service, and trauma and poverty informed care invites us to look under the surface and really think about our actions um and not just the actions of the people we serve.

Ann Price 28:01

Right. You know, that one this makes me um think about a post that I saw. I don't know if you know uh Sarah Winograd uh Babluski, who's like an unapologetic, unapologetic advocate for families tangled up in foster care. And her LinkedIn post this morning was basically calling us out for um calling uh using the word neglect, right, to talk about uh families that are involved in foster care, because we know that you know most of most of the families involved in foster care are there because of poverty, not because of neglect, but it's the system who uses that word neglect when actually most parents are very loving, they don't necessarily have the resources that others have. I I and of course she always does she always says it so much better than me, but it was just a gut punch because she's right, she's a hundred percent right. And I think that's also kind of what you're you're you're saying is that that that that poverty that folks are living in um and the trauma that has been caused by that, it explains so much about their situation. But we come in as the helpers with our our little like bag of tricks and our perspectives and do, you know, to people rather than like with people.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 29:24

Well, we we're still operating off that old proverb that uh give a man a fish, teach a man to fish, right? So we like we know that we have to do feeding programs and housing and and clothing, and we know we have to do those emergency support things and we do them, but then we get frustrated by them because people are still in need and people still have to come back month after month. And so we're like, oh no, we're not just gonna give them a fish, we're not just gonna give it to them, we're going to teach them to fish. And we're like, right? So then we ask people whose true problem is they earn $1,200 a month, they need $800 a month to live, but then we tell them, well, you can get your these services as long as you participate in this financial literacy program, right? So because the goal is we we're gonna give you this skill set. So we're gonna teach you to fish, right? So here's my thing, Ann. If you sit a pro fisher in front of a lake that has no fish in it, his skill set is awesome, but he's gonna come up empty and he's gonna be hungry every single day, right? So we also have to stock the pond. We also have to make sure there's fish there because if we're going to give you the skills, then we're gonna we have to make sure that you're able to use that to your benefit. So it's like that single mom with three kids who we have built all this work, put, poured workforce development into, and she has a work ethic and she shows up every day and she gets promoted and she gets a little bit of a raise, and it's 25 cents an hour, not a big deal, but there's pride in the title and that little bit of money. But oh, by the way, this new $40 a month that she is gonna get is going to kick her off of $1,300, $1,400 a month worth of benefits. And so when she refuses that job, we call her a parasite and we say that she is milk in the system, right? But really, we taught her to fish and then we stuck her in front of a pond that has no fish in it, right? And then are mad at her because she's still hungry. Right. It just doesn't make any sense. And I think the point of trauma and poverty informed care is to have us start thinking differently. And why I love it so much is because it doesn't allow you to overlook the need for systems change, right? Like if you are if you are truly bought in to a trauma and poverty-informed approach, then you recognize it's not enough to program. You've also got to change the environment and the systems within which the folks that you work with operate.

Why Systems Change Feels So Hard

Ann Price 32:18

Yeah. So let's let's go right there, uh, because we're gonna go there anyway. And you and I are gonna be doing some workshops this year together on, you know, system change. And it's so hard, right? And that's the challenge for us is I don't know why it's hard, but it's so hard for community members and organizations to wrap their head around what do we mean by systems change? Getting back to what you said earlier about words, words, words. Um impact is another one, right? That I think we're gonna unfortunately hear more and more of. Systems is another one, right? Well, we need to change the system. And people like, right, yeah, well, I don't, I don't, they don't literally don't get that. So that's why your metaphor of the the pro fisher in front of the empty lake. Anybody who's uh ever fished with, you know, or fished with their kids can recognize that one, right? Metaphors are so important. So, why, first of all, why is it so hard for folks to wrap their head around systems approaches? And what do we need to do differently to help in that regard? Because systems will not change, people will still go hungry, there will still be poverty if we do not change the systems. There's I think there's been so big.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 33:36

There's so many contributing factors, but the number one thing is I think that we are not taught about systems. So, you know, short of elementary middle school science, where we have a little thing about an ecosystem, and we we're just not taught about the fact that we are preparing ourselves for careers in specific systems. So we call them sectors, we call them industries, right? Like we our vocabulary muddies the water a little bit because we're not talking about organizations and and and systems in the way that they actually are, but then we also are very individual in our approach to career. And so we are looking for a specific job, right? We're preparing ourselves to do a specific thing and we're we're making sure that we can check off all the bullet points in a job description, but we're not really thinking about that from the perspective of, oh, once I get in here, then I'm part of this larger thing. And I need to know as much what my job is as everything else around me and how it works together, right? Like at best, when we get onboarded, we get an org chart and we know who reports to who and what their titles are, but we don't get that deep dive of, oh no, this is what this person does, this is what this team does, and here's how they intersect and work together. And then we get on the job and we get these mixed messages, right? Like you need to be really good at your job and you need to meet these goals that are specific to you. But oh, by the way, you're part of a bigger team, and the bigger team is working towards this thing, but stay in your lane, right? Work together, but stay in your lane. Make sure that everybody achieves the goal, but also don't step on anybody's toes or get in anybody's way, right? Um, and then and so we we don't understand how even our own organizations actually work, right? The moving parts of our own organizations, and we're sometimes siloed within them. And so then when we get into the community room and you got that times 20, it gets overwhelming. And then it's, you know, it's easy to be like, well, my title doesn't dictate that I do that, or I can't make those decisions, right? I need to stay in my lane and just get the thing that I need to get done done. But oh, I'm not gonna make my goal because I can't make my goal because it's unrealistic in the way I'm doing it, right? But I'm afraid to say anything because who am I to change that? And I think the answer is twofold. I think it's empowering people to recognize that within their sphere of influence, they have the ability to change. I do not have to show up tomorrow the way I showed up yesterday. I can with right, even in that job description with the bullet points, I can execute those things in a slightly different way. And that's for sort of that first domino of change. Um, and then the other part is that we just have to start talking about it, how we impact and affect each other, and start talking about where we overlap and and allowing folks to give feedback that we sometimes don't want to hear, because the truth is that feedback uncovers the thing that needs to change, right? And if one person is feeling it, there's probably more than one. And if we give space and allow people to not just say when when they're uncomfortable, but also to come with a solution, right? And maybe they're not the expert in the field, but they're the expert in their experience and the job that they're trying to do. Um, and so I I do think I it goes back to that co-creating, that collaboration thing, right? Part of collaboration means that we have to open up the space to have conversations about what's not working as much as what's it what is working. And if we can't educate on systems change, we can at least find the challenges and drill them down to the root and figure out how to address that one challenge at a time, right? That still makes change.

Ann Price 38:02

Yeah. And the yeah, and the specific nuggets I kind of want to pull back is going back to your your uh, I think you said eighth grade, maybe it's sixth grade science experiment where where you had to like grow a plant, right? Does the plant grow better listening to music in the dark in the sun, right? Fertilizer and uh water and you know, all the things, right? Maybe we need uh to start there. I think it starts first to understand, right? So what is a system? What is my role in the system? Where am I maintaining, you know, uh um I wouldn't say this in a community uh group because I I think our language kind of gets in the way sometimes, but the status quo, right? If we call, getting back to the foster care example, right? If we call uh something neglect rather than poverty, that's a whole different mindset that show that you do you do you know what I mean? That helps us like look through a very different window to think about solutions in a different way, think about the people we're trying to serve in a different way. So I guess what I'm saying is I think those metaphors help. I think um language helps, right? Yeah. Um, and we probably need to do more of that than just the words, words, words.

Better Community Meetings That Matter

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 39:18

Yeah. Language helps, semantics hurts. And if we don't like break down what we're right, because we all use words, the same words in very different ways. Um, and so you know, part of that thoughtfulness that I was talking about in leadership is is recognizing that it means something when you say it to one person, and it means something different when you say it to the other person. So, how do you create the kinds of conversations that get you to be on the same page so that in the right, so that when you're talking about making change, when you're talking about what needs to happen and what parts of the system need to be adjusted, you're actually talking about the same things, right? Um and and I don't know that we always do that. We we kind of sometimes make assumptions that people have heard what we've said as we intended, and that's not always so.

Ann Price 40:21

Yeah, yeah, because it's hard to know um, you know, who's in front of you. Speaking about who's in front of you, um one of the things I think you and I do really well together as a team is really fun engaging community meetings. Cause I I just wrote this down like, okay, I'm gonna do this thing at Halloween and I'm gonna do a coalition series and I'm gonna put uh like the scaries and number one on my I literally wrote this down, no meet and talk meetings as a as a Halloween coalition scary. Like, oh my God, don't do it. So, what are some of your specific tips um for effective community meetings that really help, you know, move an organization forward? Because we know the meet and talk where somebody just says their name, their title, uh, my manager told me to come here, and here's what's going on in our organization is not an effective meeting. So, what are your some some of your favorite tips?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 41:18

So I go back to what I said in the beginning, thoughtful and purposeful, right? When you think about the fact that these community meetings, you maybe have 12 of them a year. If you're lucky, you get folks for an hour and a half, probably more like an hour. So we're talking about 12-ish to you know, to 18 hours a year that you have people in front of you that you can move forward some work. Um, and so I think that the agenda has to be very thoughtful and purposeful around the mission and the vision, and it has to be fun. So I'm not saying you can't do updates and I'm not saying you can't do intros, and I'm not saying you can't have people come and present, but that needs to be tied and anchored to something, right? Um, that needs to people need to understand why that person, why this organization gets a platform. What is the special sauce about this this presentation that is going to arm us with a new tool, a new resource, a new way of thinking that's gonna help us move forward our mission? And have we built in the time into the meeting to process what we have learned so that we can apply it when we lead? Um, and people want to have a good time at a meeting, right? If if I know I'm just gonna come and get lunch, which is really what's driving me there, and I'm gonna sit through this thing um that I'm I feel like I could present myself or I'm not super, super interested in, and something comes up, then I'm choosing the something, right? Because I can get the minutes and be all caught up and not feel like I've missed anything. And we've got to make meetings where people feel like they're missing out. Because when we can engage them in that hour, hour and a half we have them, then they're more likely to do things to move forward the work in between. And when we don't, when we have those meet and talks, we'll, as the leaders of those, we'll look around and we'll realize that there's five of us doing everything. And that's because the other 20-ish people we're getting to come for lunch and a presentation once a month don't feel like they're invested in the work. And so they don't contribute to moving it forward. And so, really getting thoughtful about how we engage folks so they can build relationships with one another and trust one another and get inspired to do the work we want to see them move forward. Right.

Ann Price 43:55

Yeah, you're looking for critical mass, you want the same group coming back. With new people, of course. You're always inviting new folks, but you don't want uh different different faces every time you have you know a community meeting, not not in an organization that's really doing the work of community change.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 44:14

And that's even that is the worst meeting than the meet and talk meeting. You're always starting over, right? Is when you're on month number four and you're having the exact same conversation with a different group of people whose opinions is slightly different. You're like stuck in analysis paralysis and you're not moving forward. And then you feel like, what is the point of giving my contribution if we're if it's not gonna go anywhere, right? If I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna be put in a position to say the exact same thing the next day. Um, and so I think those, in addition to being purposeful, we also have to make sure that when we ask for feedback, when we get people to do the fun sticky wall thing or to give us a profile or whatever it is that we ask and we collect, then we gotta use that information. We've got to put it back in front of folks to and help them understand why their contribution is so important to moving forward the work and how we're going to use it to move forward.

Rapid Fire And Future Possibilities

Ann Price 45:22

Correct. Yeah, agree. You got to carry that all forward, you know, that thread. Okay, so I want to ask you some rapid fire questions as we move towards uh closing out here today. What is your favorite song to play at the start of a community meeting? Do you have a like get them fired up song? Oh, oh gosh.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 45:42

Um feeling good. And I'm now I'm blanking. It's old, it's an old song. Um birds in the sky, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um that like it energizes me. Plus, they like remixed it recently, and so there's like a a very an almost techie upbeat version of it that makes me super happy. But I that's a good one. I love it.

Ann Price 46:10

I love that. I actually think I have that on my stress-free playlist. That that version. Uh, favorite theme you've used to fire up a group recently.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 46:19

Oh my gosh, it was the superheroes thing that we did um with the resilient middle of Georgia. And I'm done, I have used that superhero theme to talk about skill set, like superpowers and skill sets before. But that group and and all of them in their capes, um, like that was one of those things where you're like, ah, the group really, really likes this. And we got such good information from them because they were so engaged with it. And I and I love it because I think it did make people feel special, like we forget that our capacity is our superpowers, and we should treat them like that. So that one's my favorite one from last year.

Ann Price 47:05

Yeah, I I agree that it's crazy that you bought capes, but this uh one of the women from the community, I think she was from the library, came in and she had the whole bag of capes. So everybody was wearing a cape. The coalition director did such a great job. She got all of these um tchotchkis and uh signs and table table things. I mean, they so owned it. And to your point, they really own the idea of what is their superpower, what do I bring to this work? And I think that's um what we try to do when we're working with coalitions, right? We're always trying to remind them that they are the leader and they, you know, they bring their specialness to the work. Okay, so we just started a new year. What are your hopes for this year?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 47:48

So my hope for this year is that um I keep strengthening the relationships with the partners that I currently have, and I I keep expanding them and getting to meet and work with new people. Like the first six months of really officially doing this job were exciting. I got to do a couple of things that I'd never done before, like giving it a keynote at a breakfast that was super special for me. And it wasn't something that I felt qualified to do or had done in the past, but it was I had so much fun prepping it. I had so much fun doing it. And so my hope is that I get more experiences like that. Like I really want to inspire folks to create those environments where we all feel comfortable and like we belong and we prosper. And the more people I connect with, the more I can spread that message. And that's what I want this year to be about.

Ann Price 48:47

I love it. What's one piece of advice you have for community leaders doing systems change work?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 48:57

Model the change that you want to be and see and just embed it into who and how you are because that's infectious and inspiring, and it will get people to listen to you when you say it's time to make change.

Ann Price 49:15

I love it. I love it. Well, Gabrielle, thank you so much for joining me today. Before I let you go, let me ask you one last question. When you look to the future, what community possibilities do you see?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 49:30

I think that we are all perfectly capable of making communities where everybody feels welcome and where people even who don't believe the same things or look the same way can can um come together and have deep and meaningful relationships. I just know that that is possible. Um, and so I I I think that's our opportunity. I think our opportunity is to create the communities that we, every single one of us have always wanted to live in. I think that's possible.

Ann Price 50:12

Awesome. So just lastly, before I let you go, how can people learn more about your new company, CMLI, and get in touch with you?

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 50:22

So the um the website is um cmlinstitute.com. Um you can find me there. I'm also on LinkedIn, Gabrielle Hawkins Stewart, and I am I, you know, I'm old school, so I'm not as uh social media media savvy as I probably should be. Um, but I am also on Instagram uh as lead for change at lead for change, all one word. Oh, awesome.

Ann Price 50:54

I don't think I'm following you.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 50:55

I need to go do that. I know I'm I'm getting better about the all things social media. So this is my year to really lean into to developing that new skill set.

Ann Price 51:08

Gotcha. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.

Gabrielle Hawkins-Stewart 51:12

Thanks for having me. I had a lot of fun. Um, I usually am uncomfortable talking about myself. You made it very easy. Um, and it was real like I've had a really good time with Yan. Awesome.

Evaluation Resources And Closing

Ann Price 51:26

All right, we'll see you later, friend. Bye. Hi, everybody. Thanks Thank you for listening to today's episode of Community Possibilities. You know, running a nonprofit can feel a lot like bowling without bumpers. And if you're anything like me, boy, you need those bumpers. You line everything up, you give it your best shot, and you hope that ball stays on course. But with so many moving parts, you know what I mean: outcomes, activities, community meetings, data collection, reporting, managing your staff, gathering participant feedback, and oh yeah, let's not forget funding. Funding is so much fun right now, isn't it? It's so easy for things to get off track. Even with the best intention, it's easy to get pulled into the day-to-day work and lose sight of whether or not you are really making a difference. One small misstep in planning, a missed data point, or just unclear goals can just throw everything off. But evaluation isn't about pointing fingers or adding more paperwork, it's about learning what truly makes a difference. And done right, evaluation becomes less of a hoop to jump through and more of a compass guiding your mission. To help you through the process, check out our digital resource, the nonprofit program evaluation checklist. You can find it on our website at Community Evaluation Solutions.com. Just check out our resource page. Think of it as your set of bumpers, keeping your efforts on track, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks, and guiding your organization towards measurable lasting change. Want to go deeper on evaluation? Take your skills to the next level with our online course, Powerful Evidence Evaluation for Non-Evaluators. It will teach you how to plan, measure, analyze, and use those evaluation results effectively, even if you've never done it before. And lastly, as always, please like and share this episode. It helps so much. Thanks everybody, and I'll see you next time.