Seeding Dreams and Disruption
By Michelle Molitor
We’ve always wanted The Equity Lab to be more than just an organization; our dream has been to create a network of action and support that touches every corner of this country and branches out across the world.
It has sometimes been difficult over the past few years to stay connected to the stories of what is actually going right in our country and world. The volume of terrifying things that have happened — a devastating pandemic, the rise of fascism in our country, the suppression of history, book bannings, armed insurrections, and other attacks on democracy — always seem to be turned up so much louder than that of the good things. Over time, the overwhelm crowds out possibility and hope. Knowing this, I’ve become increasingly committed to saving my energy and focus for the people who are actively working not to destroy the world, but to save it. And the incredible thing is that, at The Equity Lab (TEL), our network is full of people and organizations who are trying to do just that.
We’ve always wanted The Equity Lab to be more than just an organization; our dream has been to create a network of action and support that touches every corner of this country and branches out across the world. Some people may not know that we are actually realizing that goal by seeding the work of revolution and liberation across all of our programs. At TEL, we are focused on the good news — not only the work that is being done to build connections and raise fertile coalitions in the fight for justice, but also the work of healing, loving, and dreaming that is so crucial to upending entrenched systems of oppression.
In 2017, Abigail Smith and I created the Seeding Disruption Fellowship in Washington, DC. Seeding Disruption brings together a diverse group of senior leaders in Washington, DC, from organizations doing work in PK–12 education, children’s health, early childhood, housing, juvenile justice, youth development, food justice, libraries, parks and rec, and other intersecting fields that directly impact children and families. Seeding Disruption builds knowledge, skills, and relationships across racial differences, organizations, and professional fields . Over the course of a year, the participants develop their skills and knowledge as leaders for equity. Together they build community; and generate, seed, and catalyze disruptive practices in Washington, DC. After the formal fellowship program, alumni join a growing network of senior DC leaders committed to dismantling inequitable systems and rebuilding more equitable ones.
With one city (or aspiring state) as our focus, Seeding Disruption Fellows have been able to center innovation and collaboration as they create transformation across sectors, breaking down the silos that so often limit progress. Leaders working in different organizations and fields - but with the same families and communities - leverage each other as resources to amplify, deepen, and accelerate their work in DC. One of our fellows used her Seeding Disruption experience to push the DC Child and Family Services Agency to develop a training module focused on positive racial identity development for white people who are fostering Black and brown children. A pair of fellows, one an executive director of a high school and the other an executive director of a youth civic engagement organization, teamed up to create a youth town hall on gun violence — which, in turn, informed the creation of DC’s Safe Passage program for travel to and from school.
Several fellows have received Seeding Disruption Small Bets grants; using the funds to launch new organizations or initiatives, like Access Coaching Collective, which offers coaching to emerging leaders of color at no cost to them. Over the next few years, as our fellows continue to work together, to nurture new ideas in their communities, and to actively disassemble systemic barriers in their work, even more of these efforts will grow across the District.
We’ve learned from leading eight Seeding Disruption cohorts (with a ninth on the way — applications open September 18th) that one of the critical silos we must also help break down is age. It’s impossible to build lasting change if we don’t start with intergenerational coalitions. That’s why in 2021, we started Seeding Disruption Remix (SDX), a Seeding Disruption experience for high school students from all over DC who come together over the course of the school year to build the skills, knowledge, relationships, and courage they need to make change in their communities.
Like the Seeding Disruption Fellowship, SDX Fellows choose one core injustice to spend the year learning about, identifying root causes of, and working to disrupt by advocating for their freedom dreams of a more just world. Over the course of the SDX experience, students learn how to connect with adult leaders and other students from across DC and develop important skills and powerful relationships to continue leading for change.
SDX Fellows also engage in youth participatory action research that gives them an opportunity to research a problem that affects their community and create solutions to address it. Throughout the program, Fellows develop a research question, create a power map, collect data, analyze the themes from the data, and then share their findings through their action project. Each student is paired with a mentor who can support their goal-setting and general success in life beyond the fellowship. Fellows receive access to seed money to get their projects off the ground, in addition to a stipend of $1,000 for their participation in the program.
As we look ahead, it’s incredibly exciting to think about the tremendous things that will come out of Seeding Disruption and SDX and the work the two groups will do together in DC. Our fellows are moving mountains in order to uncover a means to achieve justice, equity, and liberation in their city. And over the next few years, our goal is to partner with five new communities and/or cities to pilot their own localized version of the Seeding Disruption Fellowship. In each of those cities (which we hope you will help us identify), we will be building capacity for organizers, leaders, and organizations as we also focus on coalition building.
The work of our Seeding Disruption and SDX fellows, along with so many other pockets of success and action throughout our network, gives me hope and encourages me to continue to find ways to resist the oppressive forces that are trying to silence and erase our voices. Dismantling the barriers erected to keep us separate, tired, and overwhelmed, allows us to see a pathway to the freedom we all deserve.