August 31, 2026
David Crowley is a Remarkable Leader
I wrote this opinion in Madison’s Cap Times about my experience watching David Crowley’s leadership grow for more than a decade.
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I wrote this opinion in Madison’s Cap Times about my experience watching David Crowley’s leadership grow for more than a decade.
Read more >My reading in 2025 not much different than past years. I continued to learn history, including Iran, Africa, Chinese Americans, Native Americans, Abolition, Reconstruction, Civil Rights, and the rise of the new right and our current polarizaiton. I also read a few books that made many best of lists and especially liked the Brian Goldstone’s Pulitzer Prize winning There is…
Read more >I often go in cycles with my reading. I delved into the Beatles and Bob Dylan during the first part of the year also reading about Chuck Berry, Robyn Hitchcock, and Joni Mitchell. I couldn’t help but read German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s memoir with a title like “Every Man For Himself and God Against All.” I thought Monsters was an…
Read more >This year’s reading list involved learning more about Mexican civil rights, transgender history and theory, Native American history and present, tyranny, the FBI, poverty, the economics of slavery, abolition, women’s rights in Iceland, demographic analysis of voter attitudes during the last election, Palestine and Israel, and biographies of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. On the music end,…
Read more >Dominique Samari and I have created a comprehensive Racial Equity Toolkit for centering racial equity in collective impact. It includes six sections Looking Inward: Racial Equity Begins Within: activities for individual and team reflection Ground the work in Data and Context, Target Solutions: approaching strategy with targeted universalism and approaching data in asset-based, community-informed way Focusing on Systems Change, in…
Read more >I joined the Freewheeling’ Rob Kelly on his podcast that goes song by song through the Bob Dylan catalogue to discuss the humorous “Motorpsycho Nitemare” from 1964. I talk about my journey to becoming a fan and provide some personal experience and analysis related to the song.
Read more >My 2022 Reading List began studying Liberia, exploring Native American history, a study of broken systems in child welfare and homelessness through the eyes of a child, then a journey through Abolition, Reconstruction, Ida B Wells, WEB DuBois, and William Lloyd Garrison. This year also included a look at racist violence, union challenges, a pandemic, and widening wealth gaps a…
Read more >This year, I studied and read books about policing and criminal justice, early American history, Latino history, Native American history in the South, reckoning with our history, Juneteenth, the filibuster, democracy, the darkness of the Trump years and a hopeful read of history that could restore us. I also wrestled with conservative philosophy. On music, I dug into my two…
Read more >In 2020, my reading journey included a deep dive into the four decade rise of the modern conservative movement, a deep dive into Reconstruction through the coup in Wilmington, a study of the Trail of Tears, the Great Migration, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I also explored Caste, James Baldwin’s ideas, the legal structures of systemic racism, the polarization…
Read more >Dear Mayor Barrett, I have been a supporter of yours since 1992, and today I’ve never been more disappointed in your leadership. My friends, my neighbors, my children, and I are all marching, and you have enabled the police and national guard to operate as an occupying military force that is treating our citizens as enemy combatants rather than concerned citizens…
Read more >This blog is also posted at The Collective Impact Forum with a downloadable tool. Status Quo is not an option. During the past month, many of us have had our lives and livelihoods completely upended. We have been forced to respond to emergencies in our work and for some of us, in our lives. For those of us still working,…
Read more >This blog was written for The Collective Impact Forum and is reprinted below. —- We are living in an unprecedented, unpredictable, and scary time. It is hard for all of us. After several conversations with colleagues and much reflection on how collective impact efforts respond, I hope the following thoughts and recommendations may be helpful. “It’s OK to not be…
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