Good Day, April seventeenth, twenty twenty five, And have we got a story of citizen ing for you today? Hi, I'm Baritunde Thurston, host of the how to Citizen podcast which feed We are using to add a few stories into the mix. In this moment of attacks on democracy and undermining selfance, self governance, there is another story. There's a story of people practicing power, of committing to the collective,
of showing up and participating, of investing in relationships. And so we are counterprogramming this sense of collapse with short but potent stories of people power. And today's story represents all that. You know, It's really common to lean into a hero story where a savior shows up, a great business leader, a great community leader, a great politician, somebody great, maybe Alexander or something like that. They show up and they got the answers, and they're like, I have come
to save the people. You little people need saving. I'm a savior, so I'm gonna do my thing at you. And that's not what this moment needs. This moment does not need more centralized authority. It does not need paternalism and condescension and well intentioned but ultimately and inherently disrespectful way of treating people. And it turns out that the people who seem like they need the most, what they need the least is somebody telling them what they need.
And you'll hear that in the setup to this story. John Alexander, my colleague in this mission right now, author of the book Citizens, is real big on this idea that people want to be involved. I sense it myself. There is what I call put me in coach energy. And John tells the story of QAnon, which essentially comes down to that was a recruitment to purpose, you know,
you know, people who've fallen into that rabbit hole. Part of what drew them in was the since that they were part of a mission, that they were being asked to do something. And again I love doing this collaboration with John because he has his version of a story. I weave my version of the story. But we're both just happening into a story that already exists. We're not authors, we're amplifiers and co authors at a minimum, maybe editors, you know. But the material, the raw story, the threads
of the plotlines, that's you. That's out there, it's already among the people, and part of what the people need is to be needed. That's really what this story is about. So enjoy this one. Think about organizations, operations, people you know who start with a question rather than a statement, who start with listening rather than speaking, uh, speaking of listening. Check out stories dot howdocitizen dot com. Fill out our form, share with us if you have more of these stories,
and if you are down to hear more of them. Alright, I'm Beartunde signing off for the moment roll tape. It's it's not a tape and if you wanna see it visually check out the show notes on this one, or subscribe to the emails stories about howdo citizen dot com. We're dropping these every day and hosting them on Instagram, LinkedIn substack blue sky and you know your television, I have access to it. That's a different episode piece. You know what, people in need don't need other people telling
them what they need. Assume that they can and want to contribute, and that the first step is to ask and to listen. This is that story.
They all left with a sense of empowerment. We asked for this, it got done. But now we're also walking out of here with knowledge. I am the executive director of Step by Step, which is a nonprofit working to walk alongside young single mothers ages twelve to twenty four and their children. These moms are their incredibles. They're looking for resources, they're looking for community and connection. When I
first came in, I knew what they needed. They needed to get high self esteem and they needed to rise above and work really hard. I started to get to know these young women. I realized there's so much more that we could do as an organization. We could actually have programming that really meets their needs and their desires, and we could grow leadership among them. People take their agency away from them and we get the opportunity to listen,
be a listening ear. What does it look like to flip it upside down to say to the young women, what do you need? I got to just sit down with them and say, your voices have never been the focus. And it felt like a big collective sigh in the room, like, wait, someone's listening to me. Are you sure you really want to hear from me? When I say I want this, are you going to follow through? And it became this thing about trust moving at the speed of trust. It is a slow burn and so we have to show
up consistently every single time in the same way. And they said, we need a NARCAN training. We want to know how to save lives in our community. We did in NARCAN training for our volunteers, so we didn't even consider that our moms would want to do that. And so our local health department has an incredible NARCAN program and the moms are asking questions, raising their hands saying can you tell me more about this? They're leading it right, how does this work for us? And what do we
need to get out of this session? They're just going to ask and it was really empowering for my team to say, look, this is an example. If we listen and respond with what it is that they need, they can take the lead. And they all left with a sense of empowerment. We asked for this, it got done. But now we're also walking out of here with knowledge and an action plan. We can take action ourselves, and so that also builds more community and it builds more
agency in themselves and each other. People know what they need, they know what they want, They need to be in a space where they have opportunity and support to do that.