All posts by Mark Holmgren

About Mark Holmgren

Mark Holmgren is the Executive Director of the Edmonton Community Development Company.

Collective Impact as Uprising

Change, Collective Impact, Community Engagement, economic choice, Homelessness, Human Rights, Income Inequality, Leadership, Movement, Possibility, Poverty

I have written in the past about what I call the pendulum swing or the bandwagon effect. I think this is what has happened with respect to collective impact over the past 10 years. I suggest it also occurred  in the late 1980s when outcome measurement rode into town on its stallion named Logic Model. And it is also happening with the word, “movement.” Today, just about everything is a movement. Also see Collective Impact: Watch out for the Pendulum Swing (click image below for the paper), a piece I wrote for Tamarack in 2015 while I was the CEO of Bissell Centre.

Click Image for Paper

I am simultaneously a proponent and opponent of collective impact. I do not think large-scale change efforts have to embrace the CI framework but also think CI can help create large-scale change. It all depends on how committed folks are to truly changing themselves and their organizations and how well they design and execute their collective efforts. Continue reading Collective Impact as Uprising →

To not be a racist you have to know you are a racist. 

Change, Complexity, Government, provocations, Racism, Upside Down Thinking

There’s so much I wish would change.

I am sure you feel the same way, too.

Problem is sometimes what I want to change are those that would, if they could, transform me into a variation of them. And, yeh, that’s about the same thing I want to do to them.

What is it about us that insists others should live as we want them to? Could it simply be arrogance or pride or that old self-aggrandizing, snide sense of entitlement? Why is it so many of us think the disenfranchisement of others is caused by some thing or somebody over there.?

I believe that who we are is a complex web of yin-yang attributes. Good and evil are coupled together. The same with love and hate. You get the picture. Who we are is about which we way we are pulled or influenced to lean. Sometimes we actually do not realize which way we turned or why.

Raise your hand if you are against racism. Continue reading To not be a racist you have to know you are a racist.  →

My Basketball Coach

Leadership, Little Stories, Upside Down Thinking, Vision

I have always been tall and husky.  I was my current height, 6 foot 7 inches, in my freshman year of high school, and I was a basketball player and I was pretty good at that game. Back then a guy my size was automatically assigned the center position.  And that’s where my coach put me – in the center of the action. Today most guards in the pros are taller than I am.

I was a good passer and had a half decent hook shot and turn around jumper, but I felt out of sorts as the team’s center. I really wanted to play the forward position. I dribbled rather well for a big guy and I could shoot well from a distance.  In fact, I could hit from three-point range before there was a three-point rule. I knew I could score more and pass even better as a forward, but I said nothing.

Fortunately I had a coach who paid attention to his players. Each day before the official start of practice, I shot hoops and did some dribbling exercises. My coach was always there early as well and he saw over time that I was a high percentage shooter from the outside and that I could drive well to the basket when I had to.

When he told me he was moving to me to forward, I was averaging about 12 points a game, with 6 assists and about as many rebounds. As a forward, my average points per game doubled, assists rose to 10 a game, and I ended up being the second highest rebounder in the league. We were 2 and 2 when coach moved me. At the end of the year we were 12 and 3 and made the District Championship, winning it with a 20 footer at the buzzer. I was driving to the basket when I saw our point guard was all by his lonesome at the free throw line. I was half way to the hoop when I passed back to him. His shot rose into the air in slow motion and every player on the floor watched it float through the air and swish into the net as the buzzer buzzed.

Back then, it seemed like every coach discouraged the long game. They wanted lay ups and jump shots taken in the lane. That makes sense  but a good coach keeps an eye out for what can work best for the team, even if what works best defies common practice, defies the norm.

Truth be told, our players were successful with layups and short shots even more so than we had been because now they had a point guard and a forward that could shoot from the outside. That drew the defense out further and further and opened up other players for the easier shots.

My coach chose what would work best for the team, even though his choice was not conventional at the time. Instead of keeping me in the center position he worked with me to refine my jump shot. He taught me how to follow through with my wrist and how to put the proper spin on the ball.  He made me dribble more with my left hand because I wasn’t as good with my left as I was with my right. He worked with me to improve my talent.

My coach was the first leader in my life, after my father. What he taught me about the game of basketball contributed to who I am today and how I see what is going on around me.  I am grateful for his lessons and his willingness to believe in something different from what he was expected to believe in.

The day my coach told me he was moving me to forward, I told him that’s what I had hoped for but didn’t want to ask.

“How come?” He bounced the ball twice and added. “You should always speak up about how you think you can contribute.”

That was the biggest lesson of all.

Development as Community Strategy

Change, Community Engagement, Development, Uncategorized

Posted first on the blog of the Edmonton Community Development Company, where I am the Executive Director

In my first three months as the executive director of the Edmonton Community Development Company, I estimate I have had over 100 meetings, most of them being one to one conversations or small group discussions about the communities in which people live and/or work. We talked about community aspirations, community pain, and the plethora of ideas people and groups have and are working on to strengthen communities, in particular the people who reside in them.

I believe that change begins with conversation and that we must have conversations with others who see possibilities others don’t and who view challenges through a diversity of lenses.  One of my major goals has been – and will continue to be – understanding others, understanding what drives them, why they see the solutions they see, and also understanding our differences, and yes, our disparate perspectives on community change. Understanding one another may not always lead to agreement, but I daresay agreement is nigh impossible if we do not understand one another.
meeting-icon-clean1I also believe, based on my experience, understanding our differences is the only way we can resolve them. It’s not easy, is it? After all, don’t we come across others whose ideas rankle us, who advocate for actions we believe are misguided or just plain wrong? The challenge is how to hold up our difference and then work with them in order to find ways for us to move forward together. Continue reading Development as Community Strategy →

Some Days Are Rich!

Uncategorized

Some days are rich. I meet and talk with incredible people, people working hard to make positive change in their (in our) community. Yesterday I met with a delightful woman who is working with others to craft innovative approaches to ending racism. Ending racism is one of the game-change strategies of End Poverty Edmonton. Can you imagine how much better life would be if people celebrated our differences rather than lashed out at them?

I met with another inspiring woman who is leading major development in our city, dedicated to creating change with a clear commitment to, and passion for, doing so in ways that respect and honour the ideas, wishes, and concerns of local residents. Imagine if all major development in our city was founded on authentic community engagement by leaders and doers who believe that all development is ultimately about people.

And I spend two hours with the CEO of a major human service organization. We explored possibilities of partnership and alignment with respect development that would not only benefit their clients but would enrich the lives of the community in which his agency lives. We explored how we might increase food security in the area, create needed child care space, create living wage jobs, and develop or renovate housing, again not just for his clients but for the community: affordable but also market housing.

I drove home at the end of the day, energized and hopeful and even more so committed to undertaking work at my non-profit organization, the Edmonton Community Development Company, that will strengthen neighbourhoods, add to their local economies, while fostering relationships and trust to do more and more of the kinds of development that put people first.

Thanks to those 3 people for inspiring me.