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Dear Task Force colleagues,
I have been thinking quite a lot since our meeting about the work ahead of us
and how excited I am to be a part of this task force. I have come to some fairly
interesting realizations – at least interesting to me. So I decided to use this
format of a memo to you as a way to put down my thoughts. I initially thought
this would be a note to self – but thought I’d share and see if any of you have
been reflecting on the community governance part of your Antioch experience in
your continuing life. This is about community – it’s actually not about me,
although it may seem that way….
While I was a student at Antioch, I was of course a member of the community, I
benefitted from all that community provided, but I was never really active in CG,
ComCil or AdCil. I voted, I knew who had been elected, I followed things in the
Record, but it surprises me now that I did not take more advantage of the
learning experience of community and community governance while I was there.
Antioch was part of my very shy phase….
But here are some examples of how ingrained community became in the fiber of
who I am.
· Women Executive Directors’ community: In 1975 [after I’d established the
DC office of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) in 1973], I was
asked to be the Executive Director and the national office was moved to DC from
New York. Knowing the challenge this would be for a young woman who had
never taken a management course, I approached about 8 women who were
leading nonprofit groups. I did not know most of them but knew they must be
pretty amazing since our generation of women had not been raised to be
leaders. I asked if they’d help if I needed help. They all confessed that they also
had never taken management courses and I asked if they would all like to meet
as a group. We formed a community that met monthly for several years. We
helped write each other’s bylaws and personnel policies; we helped each other
deal with difficult boards and board chairs; we discussed how to fire difficult staff;
we brought in experts when we needed them; we were a strong support system.
Everything we said in our meetings was in confidence and this became a model
of community that I have recreated many times.
· ConsultingWomen: For instance, in 1990 after I had my own consulting
business for two years, I started being approached by friends who wanted to
know how to start a business; how to set fees; how to market and even know
how to describe skills and experiences. I said I did not know – that I was just
making it up as I went along, but that I’d be happy to meet. Initially there were 7
or 8 of us who met monthly and it was another amazing support network in which
we helped each other with marketing messages, wrote each other into contracts
and talked through problem solving. After a year or so the group grew, but the
men stopped coming. Eventually, we started calling ourselves
ConsultingWomen. I believe it is because we were often admitting that there
were things we did not know and that we were sharing what we did know. This is
a style that was more comfortable for women than for men – at that time. And in
Washington, information is power and sharing information is like sharing power –
and that did not happen often…. In any case, the group kept growing with
meetings usually around my conference room table; and it morphed to adapt to
changing communications with the internet. Now it is an active professional
listserv that I manage for over 550 women who have their own consulting
businesses in the DC area. Basic membership is free for the listserv, and full
membership allows members to post their profiles on www.comsultingwomen.com,
a website I manage that we use for marketing our work and services. There are
numerous subgroups of this community, such as MD and VA groups and the DC
and International ConsultingWomen groups that I convene. And in every case,
the sub-network is a support group, responding to requests for information,
collaborating and helping each other find clients, writing each other into contracts
and offering training to each other.
· Community office space: The second year of my consulting business, I
moved my office from my home to a central downtown location. I signed a lease
for 3,000 square feet, many times more than I needed with the vision of
subleasing to other consultants – creating a community. I stayed in that office
location for over 20 years. There were challenges of managing this community
[with ever-changing subleases], but the community spirit of sharing, collaborating
and mutual support was worth it!
· Women’s Information Network (WIN) When I was just beginning my
consulting business, I was asked by the Dukakis for President campaign if I’d go
to Iowa before the caucuses. The campaign had many 20 somethings and
needed some grownups – I was told. I met and worked with an exceptional
young woman who was coordinating the Ames region as her first job out of
college — and we became lifelong friends. She and other young women who’d
worked in the ’88 presidential campaign moved to DC after the election and
approached me after a few months for guidance on how to make Washington
more welcoming to young, prochoice, Democratic women. They said they’d
expected more from the second generation feminists (my age cohort) and did not
find us helpful in opening doors for younger women. What emerged at a dinner I
hosted with 8 young women and about the same number of my friends, was
Women’s Information Network, WIN www.winonline.org, a powerful network
established to empower young women, create networking and mentoring
opportunities and form networks (communities) specific to various careers and
issues. I was asked to form and chair the Advisory Council [of mostly former
young women] and each year since 1994, the Karen Mulhauser Award is given to
the Washington woman leader who has done the most that year to help young
women. WIN is a rare intergenerational community.
· Even while I was the national Executive Director of groups such as NARAL,
Center for Education on Nuclear War and Citizens Against Nuclear War, I was
usually the one who convened coalition and networking meetings. I always
thought it was fine that there were many organizations with common goals
because they often had different tactics and could offer different doors to enter
the common challenge — and the policy debates. Some wanted to chain
themselves to the White House fence while others wanted to sit in meetings – all
are important if they respected each other’s goals. I convened the coalition
meetings, I organized collaborative efforts to approached candidates for
Congress and delegates elected to the Democrat and Republican conventions, I
mobilized collaborative networks to engage in voter registration and get out the
vote efforts. It just made more sense to me to collaborate – build community.
Women for Obama: Now that I think of it, it is likely that Barack Obama’s
community organizing background is what attracted me early to his presidential
campaign resulting in a contract as Senior Advisor to coordinate Women for
Obama in the DC area.
· National / grassroots connection Since I was Executive Director of NARAL, I
have acted on the belief that a national organization – especially if it has a
Congressional agenda – is only as strong as its grassroots. It is not enough to
have clever, well dressed, articulate lobbyists – there needs to be strong, active,
visible constituent support to promote an advocacy agenda. In a way, even this
is a kind of community building. This has played out in the kind of consulting I
have done with nonprofits and I suppose it’s why I’ve led the Antioch DC area
chapter all these years.
I have often wondered why my whole modus operandi has been to build and
strengthen community and coalitions. Now I know – my Antioch Community
experience. After meeting with you recently, it is now clear to me that one does
not have to be an active, visible member of Antioch’s community and community
governance to be a beneficiary of this valuable element of Antioch College. I
also see why the University never did get it. Its students did not think of the
campus as their community. As a University Trustee, I made a point of trying to
find community on other campuses – and could not. Students had community
back home where they lived and worked.
So, Task Force colleagues, if you got this far…. I’d be curious how Antioch
community and community governance had an impact on you. And I look
forward to working with you in the months ahead.
Karen
