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Healthy Maine Talks
Stories from people across Maine working to make their communities healthier and safer. Hosted by Maine Public Health Association.
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Healthy Maine Talks
Gabriela Alcalde MPH, DrPH: The Sewall Foundation's Theory of Change
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In this episode Matt speaks with Gabriela Alcalde MPH, DrPH, Executive Director of the Sewall Foundation. Gabriela shares Sewall's theory of change and how the foundation went through a radical re-thinking of its mission and strategy to center equity, community, and trust in all its work.
*This Healthy Maine Talks episode is supported by the New England Public Health Training Center*
Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Healthy Maine Talks. This is Matt Wellington, your host, and also Associate Director of Maine Public Health Association. For this month's episode, I sit down with Gabriela Alcalde, Executive Director of the Sewell Foundation, to talk about Sewell's theory of change and how they center trust and equity in everything that they do as a foundation and how they're working to achieve a just, healthy, and sustainable Maine. So please stay tuned for my conversation with Gabriella and thanks again for listening. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Healthy Maine Talks. This is Matt Wellington, and I am here with Gabriela Alcalde, the executive director of the Sewell Foundation. Hey Gabriella, how are you?
SPEAKER_00Hey Matt. Good to be here.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So I always like for folks to kick us off by just sharing some of their background with our listeners. And I'd love to hear more about you and how you ended up in this field and at the Sewell Foundation. Can you share that with us?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I'll I'll start way back a little bit just to give some context for who I am and how I approach my work. I was born and raised in Peru. So I am an immigrant. I moved around a lot as a kid. And growing up in a country with a lot of inequity, I was, I always knew I wanted to do something to work to serve communities. And I discovered public health a few years after undergrad and kind of fell in love with it because it felt like a mix of pragmatic and passion and social justice and science. So I studied, I got an MPH focusing on maternal child health and policy, and then worked for a number of years, sort of intentionally tried different sectors. So worked in a policy think tank, worked at a university as a researcher, worked in local government, worked as an independent consultant doing public health consulting. And then I decided to start a grassroots organization in Kentucky. And at the same time, I was approached by a funder who wanted to do some reproductive health work in Kentucky, which is where I was living at the time. I ended up deciding to, for some reason, I was a single mom at the time, and I decided it was a good time to go back to grad school. I had met some barriers in some of the jobs and sort of experiences that I wanted to have. So I decided to go back for a doctorate in public health, a DRPH, because I wanted to be applied. So I did a DRPH while running a grassroots organization. And during my qualitative research work, um ended up hearing so much about funding being such a critical aspect of particularly grassroots and community-based efforts, which is what I was leading and the people that I was working with and collaborating with, just kept mentioning funding as a both a thing that could open many doors and make many things possible, but also as a significant barrier to doing work in a way that was really community-led and community informed. So that was 12 years ago, and I decided that I should not criticize anything I don't understand. So I applied for a job at a foundation, and uh I've been working in philanthropy since then for 12 years. Specifically, I ended up in Maine because of the Sewell Foundation. Um, I had been working primarily at health foundations. And while I really love the work and the ability of philanthropy to convene people, and also to, because we have our own resources, the privilege allows you to really take some more risks and be much bolder about pushing your values and your point of view. Um I have been working in health equity the whole time, and I was very frustrated by how limiting our understanding of health equity seemed to be, at least at the health foundations where I work, where they did not include non-human animals or the environment. So anytime I wanted to do a more holistic approach, I would get told no, we just we do people health. Um so when I read about the Swell Foundation and they were looking for their next ED and they had a mission that included people, animals in the environment, I thought this is an opportunity to actually try to do health equity in that very holistic way, in the way that I think is the only way that's possible to actually attain equity. So I moved my family to Maine, even though we've never been to Maine. Um, and that was five years ago. So that's that's the long winding road that got me here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love to hear folks' trajectories and career paths because it's never what I think it's gonna be for how they ended up there. So I I think, you know, prepping for this, I kept thinking what struck me so much about Sewell's work, and one of the things was definitely that interconnectedness. So you said you focus on the interconnections between animal, human, and environmental health from working for 10 years and pursuing funding on different issues, one of which was how do we reduce antibiotic use in food production? It was so frustrating when I would go to funders who considered themselves health funders, right? Health and human services funders, and they would say that's a that's a food systems thing, that's an animal thing. So then I would go to the food systems people and the food systems funders would say, That's a heat, that's a health thing. Why are you talking to us? So I think that is one of the things that struck me and immediately when I was and and I didn't share earlier, but um the reason I wanted to have you on was I went to one of Sewell's retreats for your grantees, and I just it was an amazing meeting, and I really wanted to hear more about your process, how you operationalize some of the values that you shared at that meeting. And yeah, when I saw that that banner you put up about your values, and that was one of them, I was just like, yeah, and looking at the people in the room too, all kinds of different people from animal health, environmental. I just was like, I wanted to get down on my knees and say, thank you, thank you, finally. Um, because it is true, like it's all connected, right? That's so so core to public our public health associations' work, it's just so important. So, first thing that I wanted to share was that. So thank you. Um and so can you share a bit more history about the Sewell Foundation? How did it come about? How has it changed over time from your perspective? And and then we'll jump into the now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I've been with the Sewell Foundation for five years, but the Sewell Foundation has been around for about 13, 14 years. And it started out with um our founder, uh Elmina Sewell. Um, she had a strong passion for animals and she also really cared about the environment. Um, and while she wasn't born and raised in Maine, she made Maine her home and so really cared about the community. So initially, the Sewell Foundation stemmed from her passions and her commitment to serve. So she would literally, these are the stories I've heard, uh, she would write checks from her kitchen table for organizations that were doing work that she felt was really important for um at the beginning, particularly animal welfare and um environmental issues. Over time, as the foundation became a staffed foundation, um there was a recognition that, hey, you know who lives on the in this environment? People do, and so do animals. So, how do we how do we engage with that part of it? How do we um recognize that you really can't deal with with nature and the environment and place without engaging with the people that inhabit and use it for recreation or work, whatever it is. Um, so the foundation started expanding into doing more community-based work. And it was an iterative process, is you know, that as the foundation learned, they would apply what they learned. Um, and it grew significantly. So in 2019, when I joined the foundation, there were six staff, and the foundation was working, the primary initiative was Healthy People, Healthy Places, which uh recognizes the interconnectedness and the interdependence of humans and place. And part of the reason that I think I was hired was to bring that equity lens and to sort of think about how do we bring equity into every aspect of the work we do, especially when we have such a broad mission. Um, because as you said, I think for those of us who work at Sewell and for many others, particularly in public health, it's common sense. It's like, how can you do anything without considering the whole? And the whole is all connected. It's, you know, you pull one lever one place and it affects things way down the road. So with that recognition and also knowing if you try to do everything, you're not going to do anything well. So we really had to go through a process, and it's been a very emergent process. So the reason that our theory of change, which we shared at the convening that you mentioned, um, and thank you for the kind words. We we we were so excited about that. And it was really amazing experience to be there with so many partners. So I really appreciate your reflections on that. Um, and we realized that it really has to start with our values. So we really did exercises where we literally, you know, at the staff first, and then it moved into the board level as well. We would say, okay, what are our values? What does that mean? What does that look like? How do we know when we're practicing those values? So we would, you know, talk about what are the behaviors, what are the actions that actually personify values. And then we went through everything. I mean, literally everything. What does our application look like? What are our communications look like? What do our job titles say? We shifted from program officer to community partner to really reflect what the staff felt was their job, um, to how we thought of ourselves. Um, and part of that had to be confronting the power dynamics that funders have with their partners. And even the fact that we call our grantees partners, right? That already signals that we see that in a very different way. We recognize that if we want the values that we believe in to be true, then we actually have to change how we engaged in the work, that the what we did was not going to actually take hold if we didn't change how we did it. If because we were talking about equity, we were talking about trust, we were talking about community and relationships and creativity. Um, we're talking about changing system work and supporting those that do work for everyone. And we say everyone, again, we mean people, animals, and the environment. And so we recognized that how we did things was just as important, if not more important, than what we were focused on funding. And that led us down many years of change. Now, at the same time that we were doing this, about six, seven months into my tenure, COVID-19 hit. So we also had to change into a very paper-based, you know, in the office, six people working there day in, day out, to okay, everybody, because of my background in public health, is you know, I had been following COVID-19. And I think the the first or second of March, I had said to some of my staff, as soon as the schools mentioned that they're closing, which will be soon, we're closing too. So everybody started packing up. And so we started thinking about how are we going to do this. So while that was extremely challenging and obviously led to global catastrophe in many ways, because public health was was not um was not supported in the way that it really should be. It also created an opportunity for us to have to be way more creative than we would have been otherwise. And so we had sort of a moment of okay, we can we can make the changes that we were talking about making. And some of them we didn't even know. We just knew we need to be more values aligned, whatever that means. We're gonna find out, and as we find out, we'll do it. Um, but I had imagined that that would take, you know, would happen over a number of years. With the pandemic, what the question was, are we actually going to try to do something in an incremental way when there's such dire need, when we're at an impasse, really? Um and we said, no, we're gonna, we're gonna go all in. We're going to like step on the brake. I mean, sorry, step on the gas, let go of the break, and just go, just go through it. So we we just really like from our um personnal to um the way we did our budget, um, to the way we organized ourselves, so our organizational structure changed, um, to the way we thought about the board. Um, all of that had to be challenged for us to actually create the change in the culture. And um, I firmly believe that culture is where it all has to happen. As an immigrant, I'm very, very cognizant of how invisible culture can seem to people who are comfortable and who belong to a culture, and how jarring it can be when you're not of that culture and how exclusion can feel and can harm your health. And we know so much through public health research around loneliness and othering and all of um all of those sort of like harder to measure pieces. So we really leaned into how do we change the culture of the organization. And at the same time, we discovered trust-based philanthropy. Uh, we were engaging with emergent learning, and we already had committed to an applied equity lens. So those three together became sort of our north star of how to go about uh exploring every aspect and every um every dimension of our work to align it with our values.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is really helpful context and background. And I want to follow up on a couple things that you mentioned and some things I saw on the website and at the retreat as well. So the first thing was you just said, you know, you have to take a systems approach and a holistic approach, but it also means that you have to be careful the more you take on, the harder it is to be successful at certain things. And so, you know, it definitely is easier to measure success when you have a really narrow focus. So I am curious, how do you measure success towards your vision for Maine, you know, a healthy Maine? How do you or how are you thinking about measuring success through the Sewell Foundation's work?
SPEAKER_00That's a huge question, Matt. I think um one of the first things we had to do is to recognize that how unrealistic evaluation often is um for organizations that are working on social change. Social change is not linear. So anytime we set yourself up with an approach that is linear, it's already incongruent to reality. Um the other piece is even though philanthropy has a lot of privilege because of the resources we have, we just don't have that much control. And while our endowment seems huge to a normal person, like in the grand scheme of what needs to be invested into communities and what governments spend, for example, what philanthropy in general, and specifically what our foundation could do, is tiny. So we had to really right-size our expectations. And so one of the first things we did was to say, instead of trying to focus on how is each individual grantee doing this work, why don't we focus on the only thing that we actually can control, which is the way we behave, how we show up, the how. So a lot of our learning has been around how are we engaging with our partners, how are we uh creating barriers or removing barriers to access resources and opportunities and influence. And that has actually really helped us. And initially it felt like, well, that's we're doing it because it's the right thing to do. The more we did it, the more we realized actually, we are changing the system by behaving differently. Just by the fact that we are changing the way we interact with each other. And because we, you know, we have uh around 300 or more grantees, all of those interactions add up. You know, the moving from having a 12 question application to a three-question application with no word limits, like that creates a change. Um, so a lot of the way we're thinking about our impact is initially to be much more humble and to recognize what we need to do is focus on what we can control and then to follow the guidance of our communities. So we ask open-ended questions and it's very challenging to measure when you have such a broad mission. Like, how do you measure that there's more interconnectedness? So there's some qualitative um insights that we can gather through storytelling, through conversations, but we're also looking at how well resourced are our partners.
SPEAKER_01The other thing I appreciate too is the community-led piece of what you do. Because I, you know, I've worked again for 10 years doing grant fundraising. And this is not to throw shade on other funders by any means, but just I think typically foundations have a focus and a mission, and they're looking to support people who fit within that mission and focus. For you all, it seems like it's the other way around. People come to you and say, here's what I see in my community that needs to change. Here's the problems we see in the state of Maine that need to change. And I just so appreciate that flexibility. And then the thing you said just now, which that was the other thing I wanted to follow up from the meeting, is social change is not linear. Um, it's the first time I've that that meeting was the first time I've heard somebody say it in that way. And it's just so true. So another question I had, and I don't know if this episode will come out before or after the one I'm about about to reference, but I spoke with the main association of nonprofits pretty recently for the podcast. And we talked about the role of funders in the state and more specifically about nonprofits, and it is so overwhelming the amount of work our state, Maine, depends on nonprofits to do and the gaps that they depend on them to fill for health and human services for so many things, and so funders have a huge role to play in that, right? Because you support those nonprofits. And I always wonder how coordinated funders are. So, can you share anything about that? Are you in contact pretty regularly with other foundations in Maine? Do you all coordinate on approaches, on you know, movement building? What does that coordination look like?
SPEAKER_00That's such a good question. You know, funders often um invite, recommend, coerce nonprofits to collaborate. Um, but I don't believe that philanthropy does as good a job in collaborating. Now, I will say in Maine, I think in part because of the size of the state, uh population-wise, the philanthropic community is very connected. And we have a really excellent um philanthropy supporting organization and Maine Philanthropy Center that helps to pull us together, to coordinate us, to gather us by affinity groups and also more generally. So I think during the pandemic, for example, funders were meeting every Friday, uh, pulled together by MPC to coordinate, to learn from each other, to say, hey, how are you doing this? How are you? I mean, everything down to like, how are you finding hand sanitizer? You know, our grantees are asking us for this. Um, more recently, last year, when um the horrible gun violence in Lewiston happened, funders also immediately pull together and have been meeting on a weekly basis to coordinate and to listen to community, which sort of tying back to our prior comments. So it's it's not just the importance of funders connecting and coordinating, and ideally also collaborating, to align resources, to align approaches, to decrease those barriers and to not be going to the same nonprofits and asking them to share the same information over and over and over again. Um, but it's also how are funders trying to learn what community prioritize, you know, to listen to communities. We don't, for example, with the convening that you referenced, if every funder wanted to gather all of their Grantees, that would be a burden. So instead, how can funders connect with each other and share with each other, invite each other to convenings? So I actually think that happens more often than the average in Maine. Maybe the pandemic caused other states to have the same level of collaboration. I have heard that that did increase. Will that continue? That is, I think, still to be seen, honestly. There are a lot of things that I think many of us thought that we learned during the pandemic that seemed to be going by the wayside all too quickly. So I do think that there's there's a lot more that philanthropy can do to coordinate, to collaborate, to share with each other, to pool funds, to um to decrease the barriers. I mean, one of the really simple truths is that foundations can't meet their missions without their grantee partners. Like we're one of those sectors where we don't do our work. Other people do it for us. And our job is to be in the background, providing support, listening, learning, taking the guidance from those who are actually out in community doing the work and you know, hopefully assuring that those that we support are then listening to the community themselves so that it is actually very community informed at the very least, if not community-led. Um, and that's I see a lot more work in that because the system is not built in that way. And so we're really sort of moving against the current when we try to coordinate. We get into a lot of like, oh wait, but my system's not set up for that. So I, you know, there are more conversations. I mean, I there are many instances where um other funders will will call each other, will email each other and say, hey, there's this amazing opportunity or this challenge, or there's this great organization that we're funding, they need more funding. Would you be able to that happens so much more here than what I was used to experiencing? So I think that's a that's a very positive aspect of the philanthropic sector in Maine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's super helpful. And, you know, again, our audience is fairly mixed. I know that there are some nonprofit folks out there who are always looking for funding. And so what advice do you have for organizations who are trying to build their resources from a funder's perspective? You know, Sewell's perspective is probably unique, but also just generally, what advice would you have for them as they're going through that process?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think going back to the values, make sure that your values are aligned with the values of the foundation. Um, because that's that's going to determine a lot what that relationship is going to be like and what work they're going to support or not. The other one is just that it is very relational. So reach out, have conversations, um ask questions. You know, I think that that there's as much as there is a need for philanthropy to change, um, to be more trust-based and to be more power aware and to use its power to advance its mission, but not to not to impose its perspective. Uh so it's a balance. Um I it there's also we're all people and in a community like in Maine, you know, reach out and have conversations. I think a lot of times um there's this sort of like, oh, you don't, you know, don't challenge the funder, or that's just the way it is. I think that inviting conversations is very healthy and wanting to understand why um things are also leverage, leverage your existing relationships with funders to connect with other funders. That's something that we at School are very committed to. And I know that many other funders in Maine and across the country do that, where you know we're committed to our grantee partners being successful in their mission. So we want them to have all the resources necessary. And when we get into a situation where we cannot provide everything they need, which is always the case, is we can't provide everything anybody needs, um, we will connect with others. You know, we'll make an introduction. Um, so I think that leveraging existing relationships is really important and tell your story. I think even, you know, funders are still a little too stuck in the quantitative and like the metrics of impact. But really, we're talking, we're talking about change again, social change. It's complex, and storytelling is probably the best tool we have for really understanding complex change.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's refreshing too. I I I mean, I find it refreshing to not to focus more on the big picture story. How what is your theory for change? How are you going to achieve your mission versus the, you know, with this funding, I'm going to produce 10 of these things and five of these things and two of these things. Yeah. So I think most people out there will probably breathe a sigh of relief hearing you say that from a funder's perspective. Um, no, this is great. And so the the last question I have is kind of a big one. And you have, I think, a unique position where you you are able to get such a view of the state, working with so many different grantees in different areas. What do you think is the state of Maine right now in terms of a healthy, safe community for animals, people, and the environment? What do you think is the state of Maine right now? And what do you think, what's top of mind for you as we move towards a better future in the state? Yeah. Again, big question. So feel free to take a second.
SPEAKER_00Um I don't think there's one answer for that, obviously, but it, you know, something that comes to mind is just the challenges and opportunities in terms of infrastructure and infrastructure very broadly spelled with climate change. I mean, I think that's that's an existential threat that we can't ignore. So with the Gulf of Maine, warming very warmly, one of the fastest warming bodies of water in the world, that's going to affect the economy. It's going to affect people's livelihoods, it's going to affect where people can live. We've seen the storms increasingly cost mayhem and obviously have an economic impact. Um, Maine's also, the demographics of Maine present some challenges and some opportunities. Um, we have the oldest um population in the country. It's also the whitest state in the nation. And you know, when people have asked me, why are you doing racial equity work in Maine? Um, first of all, there are people of color in Maine, and there are five, there are five tribes, uh, Wabanaki tribes, um, Wabanaki nations. So that's important to state that even though it is predominantly white, there are communities of color. And the other question is like, why is Maine so white? So what historical contexts and and occurrences led it to be this way? Um, and I think that those are those are pieces that can be addressed. And we need the di we know that from research that diversity leads to more creativity, more effective um decision making. Um, we need younger people to move here and make this their home. And we need to do that in a way that respects the environment and respects some of the natural beauty and what is so amazing about Maine, right? I think Maine has a really deep sense of community. Um how do you how do you keep that sense of community while opening up to new people with different worldviews and different cultures coming into the state and contributing to that shared vision for a just healthy, sustainable Maine? Um I think that there's a lot that needs to be done with infrastructure. It's a very rural state, so transportation is an issue, housing, healthy housing, sustainable housing, food security. There's high hunger rates and high poverty rates. So I think that in a way, Maine is a microcosm of what's happening in the US and globally. We need to attend to our very basic needs. You know, we need to eat, we need to, we need shelter. Um, there are challenges with with our healthcare system, with not having sufficient healthcare providers for um growing populations in certain areas, transportation, um, broadband is clearly an issue around equity. Um, and we have to, you know, during the pandemic, Maine had one of the worst racial disparity rates. So I think we need to pay attention to that. We need to pay attention to the qualitative aspects of how we provide services and how we engage each other in community.
SPEAKER_01I do like what you said about seeing some of these things as opportunities. Having worked across the country on different issues, I do see it as an opportunity, our our size. There's a you know, a million, barely over a million people in this entire state. That's a scope we can work with and make real change that we can see in our communities. It just feels more manageable, manageable is probably not the right word, but you know what I mean? Like it's totally no.
SPEAKER_00It was one of the reasons that I was so attracted to the job with Swell. Yeah. I thought, you know, it can be very frustrating to work in equity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, trying to change systems feels overwhelming and daunting and like, oh, like Sisyphus. And then I thought, wow, Maine has under a million and a half people. You know, I was born in a city that has 10, 11 million people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the fact that his entire state had less than a million and a half people, I thought that's that's something we can wrap our brains around. That's something that that a coordinated effort across sectors can actually do something about. And that to me is what's very hopeful, and like to your point, what the opportunity is. Um, and just to loop back to something we said earlier where you know, school is very committed to community leading the way and guiding us. And we have a point of view and we have values. So we try to be very transparent about that so that it's yes, we want to listen to and follow the lead of community, and we will do that within the parameters of our values. We have certain beliefs that we're very explicit about. That's part of the reason we wanted to put a theory of change out there, so that we would increase our transparency, because um we really believe that in order to build real trust that you can actually operate from, you need to be transparent and you need to have mutual accountability. And those things are not possible when there's when things are opaque, which is another thing that philanthropy has done for much too long, is simply like just we make our decisions, you don't need to ask why. You know, so we've really been trying to be as transparent as possible so that people can call us to pass. They they can hold us accountable for saying, well, you said this, but then you did this. And that's that's what a real relationship looks like. It's got to give and take, it's a mutuality. And I think that that's that's a place where philanthropy has a lot of growth to do.
SPEAKER_01And again, I'll say from the other side of it, as a grantee, a partner, as you would say, it's so refreshing, right? Like it's really refreshing and helpful um to take this approach from from my perspective. So I think we can end there and and thank you so much for doing this. I'll put the website for Sewell in the show notes here and encourage folks to check it out. Um, I also will just give another plug for your artist who I think is on staff who amazing, amazing work illustrating some of these concepts in these beautiful visual ways. So big shout out to them. Um, and yeah, just thank you again for doing this and for your work and how you support Maine's communities.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, Matt. This was really fun. I appreciate you inviting me.
SPEAKER_01Of course. Thanks.