Well, Casey Doothiers, so good to have you on the show. How's it going today? Great, thanks for having me. Well, I'm excited to have this conversation. You you and I met recently just from connecting, you know, digitally in the, you know, kind of international Christian nonprofit space. And it's been cool to kind of get to know you and the work that you guys are doing at Resilient Community Center.
And, you know, when I saw your doctoral work, I was like, okay, well now I really want to talk with Casey because... I think it's gonna be something that a lot of our listeners are going to resonate with and something that's very pertinent to just kind of the nonprofit sector right now. But before we jump into all of that, maybe we could just start by you introducing yourself to our audience and even just kind of sharing how God led you into community development.
Sure. So as you mentioned, I have a PhD in intercultural studies is kind of the umbrella major, but my focus is in nonprofit change management. And when I tell the story back, seems like a straight line that brought me there. But as, as everybody knows, the journey was full of twists and turns. But it kind of the story of how I got into this work is tied to my life story and testimony.
So I grew up in a nominally Catholic family, but we were members of a Catholic church and I went to the Catholic programming, like the Wednesday night programming, but I went to public school. And when I was in high school, they offered an invitation for high school students to go on a short-term mission trip, which I know a lot of people in this space that has been their entry into the space. And I am one of those many people.
So I attended the mission trip and the majority of the people on the mission trip had grown up going to Catholic school or in very serious Catholic families. I was actually the only person on the trip that was not from that demographic. And so the leaders of the trip had designed it to be a reintroduction to faith. And so every night when we did our debriefing during the trip, they would introduce a different way to pray.
And it was an invitation for people who had maybe like experienced boring prayer or had been tired or burnt out from their Catholic school experience. But for me, it was the first time I was ever introduced to talking to God. as a God who cared to listen. And so on that trip, not only was I exposed to poverty and injustice for the first time, I was also introduced to God for the first time. And so you can imagine how impactful that trip was for me.
And I eagerly accepted the invitation the next time that the church was going, just because I was like, wow, that was so amazing. The second time that I went, this project that we were working on was literally the exact same project we had done two years before. And it had, it sparked a question in my mind. What is going on here? Why do they need 14 year olds to come and do this project and now 16 year olds to come and do this project?
And how many years have teenagers been coming to do this project? And so I was there asking these questions in real time. probably the only 16 year old girl there who's like, there seems to be a problem with this. But one of the answers that somebody gave me when I was like, what's going on? Why are these problems continuing to exist? Was that they really wanted for their kids to have a better education system so that they could get out of the situation that they were in.
That inspired me to pursue a degree in teaching English as a second language. because I thought that would be a way that I could continue engaging with these communities in a way that they had told me they wanted help. And so from a very young age, that was truly just God moving in my heart. There's no other explanation for how I could have landed on that idea. But God just kind of led me in that direction. So I majored in ESL and Spanish education and just continued engaging with.
low income communities throughout that experience, taught in Title I schools in the United States for five years and just loved that experience of cross-cultural work. And that question of why does this problem continue to exist still was stuck in my head. And I couldn't really identify why Why are these problems of poverty continuing to exist after decades of cross-cultural helping has happened? And so I decided to pursue a master's in international community development.
And then after that, the next stepping stone for me was to continue the academic path of the PhD. And so that's kind of the journey and the experience of questioning like why do these problems continue to exist is actually the root question of my dissertation work. Yeah, which I'm excited to jump into more and a few things. So you mentioned your master's program, which you did with Forrest Inslee, who's been on the show, another greater Seattle area guy like me.
Although I don't really feel like I'm greater Seattle, but I do live here and Forrest is a great guy. Great, great person to study with. I imagine. and okay. So the, the initial trip, aside from like having very on in your Christian walk, kind of tied in with this cross-cultural engagement, which really seems like a gift, but then to also kind of be like, I'm stepping into this space and I'm realizing that nobody actually asks these people what they need or want.
Which is unfortunately not uncommon in some of our cross-cultural engagement. All of that's super interesting, but the group that you were with, was like a Catholic youth project kind of thing. Are there differences that you're aware of in terms of kind of how Catholics, but that being part of your background and Protestants kind of engage in that space?
I love working with, I don't know if you still identify as Catholic, but we love those brothers and sisters and there's so much really kind of rich stuff in terms of their social teaching and so forth that really kind of lends itself to the space that we operate in. What differences, just kind of right off the bat, I'm interested in terms of what that engagement looked like between those different spheres of Christianity. Yeah, to answer your question, I don't continue to identify as Catholic.
So I am not the premier expert on this, but you identified the Catholic social teachings as an important teaching. And one thing that I would highlight as we're kind of comparing and contrasting the two different lines of Christian thought about this topic is they actually have something that's established as their Catholic social teachings. And I think that's a really helpful framework and guideline.
whether we agree with everything that the Catholic Church says and does, but just having a framework within which they have agreed to work and function definitely creates, you know, a vision for helping others and engaging in social work that I have not experienced Protestants having that same formalized document that can guide the work. Yeah, that's really interesting.
remember being in grad school and reading La D'Auto Si, which was, well, this would actually pertain to a lot of even what Dr. Inslee looks at because that was Pope Francis's writing on creation care, essentially. So all of that stuff kind of built into the infrastructure is really interesting and just gives me another idea for another episode to have a Catholic practitioner on here and just kind of give us all the theological underpinnings. But we'll save that for another day.
have this question that we ask everyone right off the bat Casey and would love to kind of get your thoughts. Why do you think it's important for Christians, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, hopefully all Christians, to not only think about their own family and their own community but also consider the needs of people globally. This is a great question. I think that Jesus modeled for us that God's heart is for people on the margins.
God cares about the people who are suffering in our community, those who carry extra burdens, who face injustices. We see this throughout scripture where Jesus is meeting with those on the margins. And I think if we take seriously to follow in the way of Jesus, that calling on our lives, then we have to examine ourselves and stretch ourselves to engage in the communities that he would be engaging with. I can get my thing off mute.
Yeah, what's interesting is yes, that tie-in with people that are on the margins. And then we have to kind of, brings up, almost begs the question in a way, when we look at global development spaces, why are people in certain countries the ones that are on the margins? You know, what is it about kind of our global infrastructure that actually lends itself to that? And I guess that's kind of what a lot of the practitioners and people that listen to this show are wrestling with every day.
How can we actually create more equity and justice in those spheres? So, all right, I want to dive in because as I mentioned in the intro, You have done your dissertation around change management, specifically within like transformational development, nonprofit, you know, type of operations. I would really be interested, maybe we'll just start introductory. Can you just kind of introduce us to your doctoral work and what were some of those key learnings as you look at change management?
Yeah. So as I mentioned, the premise of my study was rooted in the question that I was asking myself and that I've heard a lot of community development organizations asking, which is why does this problem still exist? We've been trying for decades to shift the needle on poverty on a global scale. And for decades, we've done large global aid programs. We've done niche one-way giving programs. It seems like things should be different right now, but the reality is that they're not.
And so the problem kind of boils down to the question of if what we're doing is not working, what should we do instead? And so transformational development or some might call it integral mission has been proposed as an alternative to the models that have been used for years and years and years. so transformational development centers on the idea that local voices can lead their own communities to solve local problems with local resources.
And so for my dissertation research, I identified some organizations that had shifted their programs from that traditional one way giving model and tried to embrace a transformational development model. One thing that I found out right away was the scale of my study was too small. And so I was going in with some preconceived notions that had to be kind of taken away as a researcher, which I think is just a great learning for those of us in the cross-cultural workspace.
We all come in with preconceived notions that we have to be willing to lay down. And so when I say the scale of my study was too small, what I mean is initially I was asking how have organizations changed in the last three to five years. And when I started asking organizations, how have you changed in that timeframe, they were saying that's not enough time to really change your model to a transformational development model. And so I learned right away, we need to extend the timeframe.
ended up looking at change over seven to ten years. So that's the time frame that we're looking at, which really lines up with the idea that transformational development is a long-term investment. Also changing to or adopting that model could be a long-term investment as well. Okay. I want to try to, so yes, transformational development. We've had Brian Fickard on the show before integral mission. had Ruth Vidia divorced on earlier.
So our listeners are familiar with, these terms and these models and what it is that we're speaking to within that space. right. I want to make sure, because what you're, what you're proposing is really intriguing because what I hear you saying is that these organizations, maybe we'll just say they were charities. Like if we kind of use that word. Mm-hmm.
Yes. like if we were to just kind of, and I don't mean this in a pejorative sense or anything, especially, you know, within the UK where I was on a board of an organization and they use the word charity in a very positive sense. Right? So I'm not trying to be like pejorative, but if we were to just kind of say it's a charity, meaning like they receive stuff and they give stuff, you know, just kind of like very basic kind of model. Is it those types of organizations that you were looking at?
And then they were trying to incorporate elements through the change management process to be. to be more relationally focused, to be more holistic in terms of their engagement, is that kind of the continuum that people were moving along? Yeah. So, one great example from my research was there was an organization that was a food pantry and they did exactly what you described. They received food and they gave out food. and that's kind of how I described the one way giving model.
There's a straight line from resourced to under resourced. And we just kind of funnel resources down that line. when this food pantry started asking questions about why do the same people continue to need our food pantry? or what would it take for our clients to stop needing our food pantry, they recognize that there is a key role for their clients or their stakeholders in the change management process.
And so it took years of them investing in those relationships, creating safe spaces for the clients to have an actual meaningful voice in the process in order for the changes that they wanted to see to happen. And so in actuality, when this organization started asking questions, they knew they wanted to adopt a transformational development model, but they didn't know what does that look like for this community?
Because they didn't have the voice of the right stakeholders at the table at the beginning of the process. And that's why it takes so many years because you have to build that trust and those spaces of meaningful conversation in order for a truly stakeholder grounded model to be developed. Yeah. Wow. And just as you kind of described that, and I just kind of envision how you said, you know, the scope of your timeline for research was too truncated. You had to expand it.
makes sense in a way because it is a really significant change. It's a significant, you know, transformation. And I would be kind of interested. So not only through your doctoral work, but also through what you guys are doing at Resilient Community Center. You are interacting with a lot of people in a lot of different organizations.
I would be interested just to kind of hear what are the key drivers that you're seeing that lead to organizations wanting to undergo change, whether that's changing from a, from a traditional charity model to a transformational development model or potentially some other change. What are some of those key drivers that you're seeing?
So specifically in this program model change, there typically are two kind of converging factors that drive organizations to take on, like you mentioned, this is significant change. This isn't just like we're switching from one model of a food pantry to a different model of food pantry. This is like significant change. So one factor would be a history of results that don't match the impact that they were hoping for.
And a second converging factor driving change would be that maybe they are exposed or introduced to a model in which things are different and it's kind of a light bulb moment. So the first of like having a long history, that's kind of the slow burn. And then the second option is like the aha moment, like the quick switch where they're like, I see things differently. And now I understand that we need to shift. So along those lines, there one, is there kind of one timeline that is preferable?
Like, okay, so I've been a part of an organization. It was run by a founder. That'll be another future topic. But there were different iterations of this organization that just like, all right, turn on a dime. We're changing now and now we're doing this. And it wasn't like from one. good model to another, it was just from one thing to another.
So I get worrisome when I see those quick changes, but I guess if you're changing to something good, I don't know, because then I also think, well, who are you leaving behind? You mentioned different stakeholders. So what would you kind of say? I know you're not going to be prescriptive necessarily, but what have you seen in terms of what tends to be a good timeline if you're changing from something decent to something better?
Yeah, I think I'm glad you asked this question because what I was referring to when I said there's like the slow burn or the quick aha moment, what I was talking about there was the catalyst for change, not the change timeline. And so there might be a kind of a building need for change or a quick realization of the need for change, but regardless, the change timeframe is going to be longer than an organization. or donors would like for it to be probably.
Just because what I would argue is we need all stakeholders at the table and not just at the table as a token, but as genuine collaborators in workshopping a solution together. And that is going to take time to build trust amongst those different voices at the table. So if you're asking, what is the ideal timeline for change from something decent to something great? I would venture to guess it will always be a relatively long timeline. Okay. All right.
That's interesting. Now, Casey, I know you're, you're a more recent person into our, our podcast community, but, this podcast was initially set up specifically looking at orphan care, like global orphan care in particular. And a lot of the focus has been on how do we transition, orphanages, which are just. putting kids in a big box and leaving them. I am being a little pejorative there, but my listeners are familiar with that.
How do you switch from being an orphanage to being something that is family and community centered, right? And this has been like a profound riddle within orphan care, which is a multi-billion dollar industry, like charitable industry. So that's probably good for a lot of our. our long-term think orphan, think global do justice listeners to be aware that it takes time. It takes time.
Which is, which of course you can kind of feel that pressing in terms of like, but we got to get these kids home now or, but these people are not being empowered. Like, you know, we're, we're enabling instead of empowering. Like you can kind of like, you can get into that urgency, but the reality is I think if it's going to be a sustained shift, the reality is it takes time.
You know, and we don't want to just keep, sometimes if the organization just keeps switching, switching, switching, there's nothing that's going to be lasting because you didn't stick with it, you know, in faithfulness for the longterm to actually see that change go through. Yeah, and you might see some change fatigue as well. That, there's a word right there.
Okay. So I would be interested to hear, you mentioned the food pantry, but what have been some of the kind of most significant examples that you've seen in organizations that go through some sort of transformation? So when thinking about this question, the biggest thing that comes to mind is not necessarily one organization that's like, wow, they did this big, huge change.
But the trend that I saw as I was interacting with organizations is something that just blew me away was the impact of shifting power dynamics in an organization. And so, as I was describing earlier, that one way giving model also has kind of a totem pole power dynamic model where you have donors farthest removed from the problem. And then you have kind of the middleman of the organization. And I've heard other people on your podcast talk about this power dynamic. and so.
A huge component of the change if you're looking for it to be a stakeholder driven solution to a problem is kind of leveling out that totem pole to be more of a roundtable. And so it's really important just to recognize that one person in an organization is is really going to struggle to bring meaningful change unless they are able to gather other voices around the idea of a round table as opposed to the totem pole structure.
And so as the organizations in my study embarked on this organizational culture problem or issue, they recognize that their clients previously didn't have a significant enough influence on the solutions they were offering.
And so some of the ways that they shifted those power dynamics would be things like hosting focus groups with mixed stakeholders so that donors would be in the same room with clients or hosting classes where clients were teaching the donors about what the community's reality is like. So kind of flipping the script to try to shift power dynamics. And so I do have a quote from a client that I can share if that would be helpful.
So this was a client, she previously had been out of the organization was a food pantry and she previously had just been a recipient of the food pantry. But now she has been a part of the organizational change and now she's participating in the classes that are offered at this community market. So she said, they offered me the class and I took it. It's a 15 week program, which as a single mom is a huge commitment. But I did love that they made a space each week for me and my kids.
They fed us dinner and I thought that was really amazing. As a single mom, we have to think through and plan everything. Having those things taken care of allowed me to sit down and think objectively about my situation without worrying about everything else that comes with the situation. I appreciated that. So that gives you kind of, I mean that gives me goosebumps even just reading it back of how powerful a more holistic approach to solving the problem.
I mean she probably sat down at that table and had a moment of clarity that she previously could never get even though the band-aid solution of having food delivered was occurring. Yeah. And I think that getting that particular client, beneficiary, participant, whatever we want to call that person in that seat, getting their buy-in is really critical because it may be easy for them to be like, I'm getting free food. Why would I want to change anything? You know what I mean?
Like, this is, I, I'm, I, this is an easy equation for me. Not necessarily taking into account. that hey, two years from now you're still receiving food. Maybe you didn't have that vision that two years from now you would still be in the same spot.
Maybe what you would rather have is a different model that hey, you're receiving food for now, but we're building towards something where you don't need to be receiving food, where you have higher income, you have other supports, social supports around you and so forth that are actually gonna. allow you. so I think that that's, I think that that's interesting. And I know that there's different tools and stuff out there for getting kind of, yeah, that stakeholder buy in piece.
But it's really critical, I guess, for an organization that is undergoing change. You know, one thing that kind of comes to mind for me, and it's also on the financial front, is just kind of the current landscape for nonprofits, both domestic and global. You know, and I'm just kind of interesting if you interested, why do I keep saying that I am interested? I cannot speak.
I'm interested to kind of hear your thoughts in terms of like the current constraining of the nonprofit space, impacting organizations desire to change. according to giving USA report, that was released in June, charitable giving has gone down by over 10 % from 2021 to 2023. Okay. So. I think that we're seeing this a lot. mean, I'm seeing organizations that are folding.
I'm seeing a lot of, like intermediary organizations, even that are closing ones that are like associations or those types that are kind of like a serving to nonprofits. but of course direct service nonprofits as well. so, and it's all a part of this kind of like, yeah, bigger thing. So are you seeing this as a factor leading to nonprofits wanting to change or. How do you kind of see those factors around charitable giving even affecting organizations?
Yeah, I would say as, as you're mentioning the, the demands on a nonprofit to make it work with less is it's right in our faces right now. and so my hope is that that could be a motivator for change. If we have less resources and bigger problems, we have to do something differently, right? And we can't just keep trucking along on the same road. We've been traveling for decades because the inefficiencies of that road might be contributing to giving going down.
And so if we adopt more democratic structures where we're having more local voice involved, the hope is that we could identify more local resources that could be leveraged to solve local problems. And instead of creating this perpetual need for donor funding, we would actually be creating independence and kind of breaking those structures of consistently needing more and more.
And so I guess this is maybe just a plug for the transformational development model, which looks at local assets and equips local leaders to leverage those. And I also do recognize like donors are always going to have an essential role to play. in the nonprofit structure, but hopefully as organizations are facing those constraints, they can think critically about, now what can we do with the resources that we have?
And then maybe they can even be surprised that we're actually having a bigger impact as we scale back our outside investment. Yeah, that's interesting. And we are definitely big proponents of asset based community development. I think that if we actually want to build towards sustainability, those types of models are essential. And, and yeah, it would be good.
This, this ties into so many different things and I don't want to go down too many rabbit trails, but I do kind of think of, you know, the, the rise of BRICS nations, the growth of Christianity more in the global south than the global north, and yet the global north is still the biggest donors into those spaces for transformational development type of work, even if that's what we're shooting for.
So yeah, there's so much wrapped in there, but yes, sustainability requires that we have an asset-based approach. Yeah, that's really good. as I'm thinking through all of this, And even as you mentioned, as we talk about the global space, know, one of the areas, and you alluded to this from the get-go as well, is that kind of cross-cultural engagement thing. You know, and a lot of global practitioners kind of get their feet wet in the same way.
They don't always have a salvation experience on the same trip like you did, but a lot of them are kind of getting their feet wet with short-term missions. I would love to kind of hear a little bit even more in terms of your experiences, insights, really around this area of engagement. Is there even a future for short-term missions? And if so, what might that look like? This one is a tough nut to crack.
think the history and the patterns of short-term mission trips, I think we can all agree there's some issues there. And so without going into all of the shortcomings or potential ways to change the industry as a whole, I would just say my big piece of advice I would give about short-term mission trips is rooting everything in relationship. If we believe in a relational approach to poverty, then our solution to poverty should also be relational.
And so as I've been mentioning, like elevating stakeholder voices, specifically the clients or the program participants or recipients, just allowing those people to be the drivers of what our short-term engagement looks like. And also I would strongly encourage having that short-term visit be a piece of a much larger relational experience that is a more long-term thing.
I don't think many people experience transformation or lasting sustainable change from a one-week experience, but if that is in a context of a much larger endeavor, we can actually see fruitfulness come from that engagement. Do you see, so like I'm thinking of my years in Tanzania and we hear about localization. Obviously it's important. Obviously the broader aid industry does not know how to do localization.
Even USAID, which had these pretty lofty goals in terms of localizing aid has made progress, under Samantha Powers, but Not to the degree that they were estimating, right? So we see all of that. My thought, my quandary is with localization and specifically with like Western Christian groups, is there a way for, the, it's like, okay, when we would host short-term missions teams, they were coming to us. We were Westerners.
we were affiliated with the same university where I now teach or some other connection with a California based nonprofit, right? And they were coming, they would interact with us. We kind of like stewarded their time. They met Tanzanians of course, but we were kind of the arbiters of that, right? And the nonprofit can make money on that and they often do, but is there a way?
or have you seen examples where people are doing short-term missions but they're just connecting with local organizations and it's not in a situation where it's like corrupt? You know what I mean? Because I think that that's like a concern for people. they go, and again, to liken this to orphan care, they go and they go to a high tourism area and they get some local guy that says, hey, come visit this orphanage. And really it's an exploitative model, right?
Where he's actually gonna make money off of those. Now that's not all of them, but I would just be kind of curious, like is there a way for short-term missions to kind of feed into a broader localization effort that doesn't necessitate a kind of Western go-through? The way that I've seen this play out in our organization, so I work for Resilient Community Center, which is the training arm of a larger organization called Discipling for Development.
And we have practitioners all around the world who do transformational development in their communities. And so a lot of times what it looks like is there is an initiating group that might have outsiders or might be just locally led. they have some principles and practices of transformational development that they equip their community in and then the community takes it and runs with it.
And then a neighboring community might see it and say, hey, could you guys teach us what you guys are doing and we can do it over here? It's very grassroots and word of mouth. And so what has happened over time is we have these initiating groups who are like the coaches of the coaches of the coaches, know, kind of chain linking back. So when they host short-term teams, what they're doing is just taking them to all these communities where it's kind of spread.
And then they ask the question, what might this look like in your church? What might this look like when you go home and you apply these same principles and practices in your community? And so the people who are coming home from these trips are typically the people who come through our training programs, because they're like, help us think about. these principles and practices in our own neighborhood, in our own communities.
And so this is an example where we're having local leaders in the global South modeling for their Western visitors what transformation in the community could look like in a way that is, I mean, it catches like wildfire when people see it, when people see local communities. coming around each other, practicing solidarity and building resilience together. You want that in your home community too. Absolutely. No, I actually love that.
And I was not aware that that's kind of part of your guys's approach. This is the benefit of Brandon going off script with some of these questions. No, I mean, it was really interesting because I know when I came back from my first trip to Tanzania, which was 2008, it was a two week trip affiliated with Vanguard University where I teach now. And I came back and was just like.
wow, like when we were there, like we were out there and we were bold and we were talking about God and we were doing all this stuff. And then I get back to Orange County and it's like, and now I don't, like it just didn't, like the two don't, it doesn't align. So for me and for another friend who had been on a different trip to a different African country, her and I decided let's do something about it.
And we started doing evangelism at Newport Beach Pier and we would like lead worship and like we would, get other friends from church and go around and pray for people. And I preached a couple times. I was like the crazy guy preaching at the pier or whatever in Newport. But it was just kind of like, our trips could be something more and they don't have to be confined to that one or two weeks that you were in a different context, right?
So I... exactly what I tend to advocate to churches is let's do some serious prep work about learning about poverty, how complicated it is. And then let's do some intentional follow-up of applying what you learned on that trip. Bring it home and be disciples wherever you are. and be disciple makers wherever you are as well. Yeah, absolutely. You you bring up Resilient Community Center and you guys are doing such important work.
And I think you guys are kind of, you know, even beyond what you're describing, you guys are really kind of filling a need within kind of the broader, you know, nonprofit ecosystem, especially on the global side. You know, I had mentioned some of the constraining, especially post pandemic of some of the donor base and like that aspect of nonprofit space.
And recently I was having a conversation with some educators at CCDA and we were talking about how this is also happening within higher ed. know, a higher ed is supposed to be where we're getting equipped and getting informed so that we can go out and be more effective, you know, especially pursuing transformational development type of stuff for those that that that are in Christian global development.
But as that constraining is taking place and even universities are closing down and all of that. There's also kind of a need for new education and training. So I would be interested to kind of hear what you guys are seeing.
Obviously you've been a professor before as well and kind of that more traditional setting, but can you just kind of share with us a little bit about what you guys are doing at Resilient Community Center and how it equips people for work in kind of the global community development space?
Yeah, I think you're hitting on a very specific need that is coming to the surface right now in the landscape of higher ed, but also in the field of nonprofit work or community development, we don't have a formalized continuing education structure in the same way that say a therapist has to do continuing ed. And so, Those two needs are some of the needs that Resilient Community Center seeks to meet. And so all of our programs are very practitioner focused.
They're designed for you to be able to do as part of your regular job. And so by that I mean it's just a few hours commitment a week, but you can see true transformation happen over time when you commit just a small chunk of time. So we have a few different offerings. the first is kind of our cornerstone, like full meal deal. It's a 10 month community of practice.
And this space is meant for people who are either trying to get into the nonprofit space, have been in the nonprofit space for a while, or maybe they're just, maybe they're at one of those kind of change catalyzing points and they're like, what do I do? and so it's a, it's a community of practitioners who are asking these really hard questions together. We walk through practice for 10 months. share principles and practices of transformational development.
There's group coaching, individual mentoring. It's kind of like the full meal deal of our programming. If we had somebody coming to us and they're like, what you talked about with change management, it's really relevant, but I can't do the full 10 months. We would say, hey, just do one unit with us or one module that's relevant to what you were talking about. So even though it's 10 months, know, of course we go through different focus areas across those 10 months.
So somebody can just kind of dip in for the part that they have a really strong felt need about. And then maybe the next year they have more bandwidth for the 10 months they'd be invited to join. So those are kind of like the two traditional class structures that we have. And then we also have coaching packages that I offer coaching specifically in change management and strategic planning, but we have two other coaches on our staff.
Our director, Lane LaRue, is certified in cultural intelligence, and so he focuses on inclusive leadership and just cross-cultural intelligence in general. And then we have Rachel Chang, who has a certificate in mental health coaching. And she specifically helps organizations as they think through how to be responsive to the traumas that their clients face. so she offers trauma informed community development coaching as well as mental health support for community development practitioners.
And I hope you're hearing the theme running through all of these. We know this is hard work. This is really hard work and these are really complicated problems that Each organization and each practitioner is facing every day. And so resilient community center just wants to be a resource and community that kind of wraps around you where you're at lifts you up.
And just becomes your community as you explore the questions of how do we make these changes or how do we go from something good to something great. No, it's so helpful and I would just attest. mean, I know in my own professional life, I've been a part of the same community of practice for almost five years now. And everybody in that group will say it is, you can't necessarily quantify the value.
Like, And we, you know, are just in that space and we throw around different topics, but we feed into one another the opportunity to hear from peers, the opportunity to have that facilitated and encouraged and coached through is just, you can't quantify the value of it. And I would just really encourage, you know, as somebody who does, yeah, facilitate communities of practice and do remote teaching and all that kind of stuff.
I would really encourage our listeners to check out Resilient Community Center because we can't do this on our own. And sometimes, you may have the best coworkers in the world, but it's also good to connect with people that are working in this professional space that are not your coworkers because you're going to get other ideas. You're going to be able to share some things that maybe you can't always share. There's just so much value on so many different fronts.
So I would really encourage our listeners to check out what you guys are doing because it's just so needed. And even the way that you framed it around continuing education, mean, working in child welfare as much as I have, I have so many colleagues that are like therapists and like clinical social workers and like all of these people that is just like, yeah, I got to get my hours in, you know, and I'm just like, why don't we have that in community development? Like we really should.
And especially if we kind of want to continue to kind of be on the, on the cutting edge. you know, when it comes to, because if we were doing community development, like they were doing it in the seventies or the eighties, like we would be way behind. So the opportunity to actually do continuing education and to do it in a facilitated, a coached, a taught manner is, fantastic. So, I really encourage our listeners to check out what they're doing at resilient community center.
they got a great people that are leading that. And then also people that are coming in from different places. So. Very, very cool. All right, Casey, we've talked a lot about transformational development. I wanna end before I get to my last, question, which is always the last question. When we think about transformational development, when we think about integral mission, you know, it's November, 2024. What gives you hope? Where do you see God moving in these spaces? Yeah, great question.
One thing that gives me a lot of hope and I've been especially encouraged over the last few months as a lot of like nonprofit conventions or conferences have been happening. The theme that I'm hearing coming out of them is openness to collaboration. And there's just so many organizations that do really good work and it doesn't make sense to say, Hey, what you're doing isn't enough. You need to expand, but instead let's say, Hey, what you're doing is great. And what I'm doing is great.
And let's work together so that we can solve more of the problem than we could on our own. And I think that's really responsive to some of the constraints you were mentioning earlier. And also just acknowledging as the body of Christ, we are not called to operate alone. We are really called to be a body that functions together. And so. Just hearing that additional openness to collaboration and hopefully seeing some actual movement towards it is what is inspiring me these days. I love that.
And because I know you were at One Accord, shout out to Accord Network, I know that one of the speakers was our buddy, Peter Greer, and he wrote Rooting for Rivals, which is a fantastic book specifically focusing on what you're seeing. And may there be more of it. We're one body. Let's collaborate. It's good. All right. Last question. You ready? For someone that is pursuing God's heart of justice in the nations, what would be one thing that you would recommend that they do?
aside from go to Resilient Community Center and find out your guys' offerings. No, just kidding. Yeah, there you go. I would say like the number one thing and I actually have people ask me this question all the time and I feel like the response I give is a little bit anti-climatic because I don't have the answer to all the world's problems but I do know that when we lean into relationships, things change.
And I think relationships are the context within which we can form mutuality, we can pursue equity and it can't happen without trusting relationships. And so I would just say, lean into relationship, whether that is in your family, your neighborhood, your local community, or if your church or nonprofit is engaged cross-culturally, just really pushing into, these relationships fostering mutuality and equity? And if they're not, how can I lean in to make that happen? Whew, that is a good word.
We need relationships and we can't do a relational model in transformational development without them. So Casey, thank you so much for being on Think Global Do Justice. I know our listeners learned a lot. Thank you, Bremen.
Alright, and to our listeners, may Almighty God who created us in his own image grant us grace to fearlessly contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression, and that we may reverently use our freedom to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations. To the glory of God's holy name through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen, and we will see you guys on the next episode of Think Global, Do Justice.