Pacific Region - Small Brigades
Annie Steenson, Code for San Jose
Biography:
Full-time Software Engineer (SWE) by day. Brigade captain by night - going strong for 2.5 years. Have a BS in SWE with a minor in Leadership Studies & am a MS candidate in Applied Economics. I obsess over user experience and collaboration dynamics.
The civic tech community is growing up, and I’ll help it continue to mature by…
Running a brigade is not easy. It can take as much time (if not more) than a part-time or a full-time job and a lot of us do it on top of our day jobs - I know I do.
As a brigade captain, I have seen the highs and lows. I’ve tackled low turnout, low volunteer retention, building a core team, courting local government & establishing strategic partnerships.
No-code automation, volunteer coordination processes, and a restructured leadership team enabled CFSJ to grow to 121 weekly active members & partnerships with 8 other non-profits, 2 Stanford organizations, & 2 departments at the City of San Jose.
Being able to brainstorm with others and rely a core team to help you execute on operations is critical.
I’d help mature our community by creating a tight knit group of brigade leaders who are eager to share knowledge and share volunteer power. My ultimate goal would be to enable you to operate your brigade more efficiently and effectively.
In 2021, all NAC seats are elected regionally, with two members representing each region. How will you represent and support all Brigades in your region? How will you collaborate with your NAC region counterpart?
I will try to ensure all brigades in my region are supported by trying to build a relationship with each brigade. Depending on the degree of overlapping issues, I would encourage folks to host workshops & knowledge sharing sessions. I would encourage more open dialogue by posting thought provoking questions via slack or discourse. I would enable each brigade to use the network as much as possible so they don’t have to jump every hurdle alone.
I will collaborate with my NAC counterpart by having recurring sync ups & strategic planning sessions.
What do you see as a key problem that the NAC should help the Network solve in the next year?
A key problem I see is the lack of ongoing conversations about tried and true methods that developing or even established brigades can easily adopt. For instance, volunteer management is something almost all brigades have to tackle. Because solutions are not one size fit all, the network could provide more building blocks that brigades could mix and match.
How will you balance your work with your local Brigade with serving on the National Advisory Council?
I would rely heavily on the rest of the core team. CFSJ has a core team (“exec team”) of 14 directors and 11 project team leaders.
I have discussed this with my core team and they are supportive of my candidacy and are willing to fill in any gaps.
(S/O to CFSJ leadership team. It takes a village and you are the homies. Words cannot describe how appreciative I am of you!)
How can the NAC and the Network team support your efforts to make your brigade more diverse and inclusive? Can you speak to what work you’ve already done in this area?
Diversity is a spectrum and can be measured on many dimensions (i.e. race, gender identity, sexual orientation, political ideology, socio-economic background, the list goes on…)
The brigades can play a critical role as grass roots organizations that work to not only innovate civic technology, but also unite our communities one conversation at a time.
NAC and the Network team can help us define general KPIs that brigades can use to take their diversity & inclusion temperature. NAC & the network team can also help brigades navigate controversial political events by providing resource guides and thought leadership.
CFSJ rewrote our mission statement and value statement in March of 2020. CFSJ has recently appointed a Director of Member Engagement who is focused on Inclusion and Diversity. CFSJ has also issued statements regarding BLM and AAPI hate violence.
CFSJ has made it known to our community that we do not stand for violence or hate.