Obama launches leadership network focused on local civic engagement

Allies of Barack Obama were amid months-long talks on how to advance one of the former president’s core goals — cultivating America’s next generation of leadership — when the water in Jackson, Miss., was turned off for more than a month last summer.

The local leaders who responded to that ongoing crisis displayed many of the traits that Obama, who began his career as a Chicago community organizer, wishes to cultivate across the country, according to those close to him. And they thought those leaders could have benefited from connecting with activists in other states who had faced similar challenges.

Now, Jackson will be among the first sites of a new leadership program Obama will soon launch to build a national network of young leaders from a range of regions, identities, backgrounds and political persuasions who are intent on improving their local communities at a time of intense polarization.

Named the Change Collective, the program intends to create a network of local leaders who will gain resources and share strategies to improve communities across the country. The program’s inaugural class will include 25 participants in each of three pilot cities: Chicago, Detroit and Jackson. The network aims to quickly expand to a variety of different communities of varying sizes across the country.

“Our country is changing. But I still believe there is more that unites us than divides us. And that’s because I believe in the power of community. Our physical communities — from neighborhoods and schools to offices and churches — bring us together,” Obama said in a video announcement he plans to release Tuesday morning.

The former president said he expects the program “will develop, connect and elevate changemakers across the country who are already working to strengthen their communities.”

“It’s a way to bring emerging leaders from different identities and backgrounds together, and help them build relationships and solve problems in their communities. Because real change happens one person, one community, one connection at a time. And the best time to start is right now,” Obama said.

The program will be overseen by several Obama administration alumni who hope to equip people with training and mentorship from a politically and professionally diverse set of advisers. It will be housed within Civic Nation, a nonprofit founded by Obama administration alumni that coordinates campaigns a variety of issues including voting rights, combating sexual assault and legal activism.

“We are looking for emerging leaders eager to address a real issue in their community, whether they are college students delivering clean water to seniors in Jackson, a parent running an after-school program at their kid’s school in Detroit, or an urban farmer addressing food insecurity issues in Chicago,” said Kalisha Dessources Figures, a former Obama aide who will lead the program.

The program also seeks to combat a general cynicism that close aides to the former president say they’ve observed among young people about the prospect of genuine progress.

“I’m in a different city almost every day, and what I hear is a feeling of disillusionment and social isolation and political polarization,” said Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser to the former president who chairs Civic Nation’s board and serves as head of the Obama Foundation.

“And I think local leaders today feel that same sense of isolation that is permeating our country. And we want them to know that they’re not alone. Not only do they have our support, but their goal is similar to people from all over the country, from all communities. They just want to make a difference and make the lives of their neighbors better. And that bond of commonality is something I think our country is actually hungry for,” Jarrett said.

The inaugural cities were chosen based on Civic Nation’s existing partnerships in the areas and tangible issues that participants will be able to work on.

“There are a lot of cities across this country where success as a leader means that you’re off to Washington, you’re off to New York,” Figures said. The Change Collective wants to change that dynamic, she said, by “giving them the skills and the network and the support to stay in those local communities and continue to build change.”

Potential participants must apply to the program and will be expected to live in the designated city, be able to commit time to all programming, have a clear history of local leadership and a specific project in mind they want to address in their community.

“Change happens from the ground up,” said Kyle Lierman, chief executive of Civic Nation. “How can we elevate, connect and develop changemakers? They have the best ideas, they have the energy. It’s just about unlocking their firepower to make change.”

The initiative will also stress a locally led approach to determining what’s best for a community, promote differences of background and identity as a positive, and downplay “politics” in favor of “building bridges,” according to program guidelines.

The long-term hope is that the program will create a dynamic network of civic leaders who can aid one another amid local and national crises.

“If we had had 10,000 Change Collective members when the pandemic hit, we would have had a network of 10,000 people who could jump in their communities and immediately organize to make sure folks were getting vaccinated,” Lierman said.

“Problems are certainly tailored to each community, but a lot of the problems are similar,” he continued. “And a lot of the solutions can be shared. Again, this is change not happening from the top down, but from the bottom out.”

Civic Nation, founded in 2015, has adopted or reimagined projects from the Obama White House over the years. The Change Collective echoes an Obama-era White House award series called “Champions of Change” that sought to highlight stories of people improving their communities. That initiative was conceived as a way to show local progress amid partisan gridlock and dysfunction at the national level.

The program’s focus on leadership is also part of an expansion of other Obama-aligned initiatives. In November, the Obama Foundation announced it will bring its six-month international leadership training program to the United States. The moves represent a broader effort among Obama’s inner circle to expand the former president’s legacy and address some of the most pressing political challenges facing the United States.

“We see so many young people who are really suffering from depression, and I think a large part of that is that they do feel isolated, and they feel that the challenges are almost insurmountable, and we believe that they’re not,” Jarrett said.

“We share this common belief that change does happen on the ground, but we also see the frustration of so many people that they aren’t able to make as big of a difference as they want to make. We want to help them make that difference,” she continued.