Get to Know: Philly BOLT
Real community change and impact doesn’t start with large companies from the outside looking in; it starts with the residents who carry lived experiences and have a full understanding of what specific neighborhoods need to help them flourish. With a mission statement that reads “we cultivate, empower and support grassroots leaders in driving community-led change,” Philly BOLT (Build Our Lives Together) takes pride in creating a platform and support system for these very residents. Read along as we talk to Jude Husein, Philly BOLT’s Deputy Executive Director!
Following our commitment to equity in grant-making and in direct response to input from our community partners, WOMEN’S WAY launched the General Operating Fund in 2022 to provide unrestricted, 2-year grants to organizations primarily serving women, girls, and/or the gender-expansive community. You can learn more about the grant program here.
WOMEN’S WAY: Can you tell us about the mission and vision of your organization?
Jude Husein: Yeah, absolutely. At Philly BOLT, we cultivate, empower, and support grassroots leaders to really drive community led change. We believe in people power cultivating the neighbors that walk these blocks [and] breathe the air. [They] understand what’s happening on their blocks, and our neighbors are really the best suited to solve these neighborhood issues, because they’re the experts and they understand what goes on. We’ve really tried to scale their impact both in our adult cohort and our youth cohort. Hopefully, one day, Philly BOLT will cease to exist, because that means we’ve done our job. That means every neighborhood in Philly is thriving with the people living within those neighborhoods.
How are you working towards achieving this mission?
We have a few different ways to achieve the mission of a future where neighborhoods that face racial and economic injustice are now thriving. One way we do that is through our adult cohort, which is our school for grassroots leaders. Every year, we have a number of grassroots leaders who have a track record of doing the work in their community. We scale their impact in a variety of different ways whether it’s understanding how to pitch, having a grant template, or [figuring out] what are those foundational items that are needed to really scale their impact — [so that] instead of serving 500 individuals, they’re able to serve 1000,1500, 2000. For our adult cohort, it’s an eight-month accelerator program. We think about it as basically a master’s in nonprofit leadership and organization, because they learn everything from traditional organizational mechanisms and communications strategies to program development and theory of change. They go through each of those, and track them in tangible metrics; enabling them to scale and understand the different scopes of work that they have.
Then we have our Youth Fellowship program which we have really scaled into the academic year. We work with young people in the School District of Philadelphia and across the summer to help them navigate the local ecosystem. We pre and post survey them about what they’re super passionate about and support them with being the change that they want to see; creating that pipeline to becoming those leaders that we know they are.
Are you able to elaborate a bit more on what the exact demographic and/or groups that your organization is specifically trying to help?
As it relates to all our participants, they identify as 98% BIPOC. All of our participants are Philadelphians. Our Youth Fellowship specifically is low income [and] low income BIPOC students here in the City of Philadelphia. Our School for Grassroots Leaders are coming from all different sides of Philly, but that’s specifically who we are targeting!
Your vision statement states that at BOLT you “dream of a future where neighborhoods that face racial and economic and justices are instead thriving, led by people living there.” Can you tell me some of the indicators of a thriving neighborhood?
In Philadelphia, across the city we see people that are not from Philadelphia, or not from that neighborhood. They’ll try to build a rec center that doesn’t really cater to the Black and Brown individuals that live on those blocks, or we see them coming in and demolish a piece of land. [They’re] really not incorporating themselves within the neighborhood, or trying to get to know or involve the neighborhood. We see funding that gets catered to more of those larger organizations that don’t have direct impact within neighborhoods. What BOLT tries to do is redistribute some of that wealth into these grassroots leaders and the neighborhood organizations that are doing this work.
I’ll use the example of Hunting Park. One of our grassroots leaders, his name is Ryan Harris, operates As I Plant this Seed in Hunting Park in North Philly. He was just so sick and tired of [having] nowhere for his young people in the Hunting Park area to go to and no investment happening there that really benefited the community. He stood outside, in rain, snow, and sleet and raised $30,000! He would not leave, would not eat, would not do anything, until he raised $30,000 to buy a row home in Hunting Park. As I Plant this Seed now operates over 10 youth serving programs. [It] has a studio system upstairs for youth that are creatives, and a nail shop downstairs for those who are entrepreneurs and the people who are into that. That’s what a thriving neighborhood truly looks like! It’s the neighbors and residents that understand that there’s a need, and know how to tackle this problem because they’re the experts that have lived there day by day, and know what their neighbors want and need to see. They need to see economic opportunity.
Bringing resources and opportunities to these grassroots leaders and these neighbors is really what a thriving neighborhood looks like! It’s eliminating these barriers, it’s redirecting the wealth distribution to our grassroots organizations who do not have access to that capital, but are the ones that are doing the work.
Bringing resources and opportunities to these grassroots leaders and these neighbors is really what a thriving neighborhood looks like! It’s eliminating these barriers, it’s redirecting the wealth distribution to our grassroots organizations who do not have access to that capital, but are the ones that are doing the work.
Is there a relationship that Philly BOLT attempts to have with the folks who are coming into neighborhoods with a capitalistic take on gentrification? Is there some type of communication that happens with those folks who are actively working against what it is that you’re doing?
A lot of those projects that neighbors would categorize as gentrification, or someone from the outside coming in to your point, have a purely capitalistic motivation! We lead with what our grassroots leaders want to see happen within their neighborhoods. For example, I’m from North Philadelphia. Hillary, BOLT’s Executive Director, is in West Philadelphia. We know those neighborhoods, but if our grassroots leaders mentioned, ‘This rec center is building up, we have no clue who these people are!,’ we really [have to] operate by following the lead of our leaders that live within those neighborhoods! We’ve had conversations where external stakeholders will say, ‘Can you support us with this or support us with that ?’ and we remain very true and steadfast in our mission that we believe every neighborhood thrives when the community members within those neighborhoods thrive. Our number one priority is integrating community voices and however we can do that, we’ll lead with that.
There’s often an issue of mistrust between marginalized communities and with those on the outside looking in, due to a lack of full transparency. What are some of the ways that Philly BOLT is addressing that?
We’ve taken immense pride in really building trusted community relationships. We don’t just come in and train, we’re there for our grassroots leaders. We’re Philadelphia natives ourselves and we believe Philly has so much to offer and has given so much, so we go in there and we’re boots on the ground. We spend every Saturday in person. [During] the week, we’re virtual, because we understand our grassroots leaders work two-three jobs [in order to] do what they’re doing. We go in with them as if it’s the first time we’re doing this program every single time. Because there are so many barriers that we face, we also offer them one on one monthly executive coaching to truly understand each participant and their individual needs. Hillary and I do that coaching. We compensate our leaders, because, again, it goes back to the point I made, they’re working two-three jobs, but they are experts and they do know what’s going on. Their lived experiences are just as valuable as a PhD. We truly believe in that. We walk the walk and talk the talk. I feel very confident in saying that because we’ve built it, and we’ll continue to build it as if we don’t have it. It’s important for our grassroots leaders to know that we’re walking with them too.
How do you talk to someone that you’re trying to encourage to go into this position or take on this responsibility of possibly being a leader?
I’ll start with our Youth Fellows Program. We work with all grades in high schools — freshmen, sophomores, rising juniors, rising seniors, and even seniors about to go into college. There’s really huge mistrust within the community, mistrust with the government, and mistrust across the board in the local ecosystem. I think really understanding [community members],the fundamentals of community organizing, and knowing that extraordinary things happen in an ordinary time is really important.
You don’t need 100 people to cultivate change, you need someone that is just able to step up, and it’ll then be contagious. You’ll get your 100 people by default; we know that. You have to be patient, an active listener, and also break down those barriers of ‘What is successful community organizing?’, ‘How do you become an organizer?’ and ‘What’s the difference between organizing and mobilizing?’. That in itself is really groundbreaking because everyone organizes, we just don’t know it. Every day we organize. Every single day. We just don’t know it. To be able to connect those dots with someone is really extraordinary.
What does a week as the Deputy Executive Director look like for you?
It’s never the same week. It’s always fun. We have our adult grassroots cohort ongoing and then we also have our academic year programming ongoing with our Youth Fellows. In the morning, throughout the week, I could be facilitating a lesson plan [about] what state government means to high school students at Palumbo or SLA or West Philly High, or supporting them writing letters to their local representatives. On Saturdays, I am at As I Plant this Seed in Hunting Park with our grassroots leaders talking about how to pitch and welcoming our guest speakers. Then in between, I’m strategizing and making sure we’re out there supporting our grassroots leaders, whether they’re [being] honored at some place, or having a cleanup in West Philly. [It’s] all types of running around the city of Philadelphia, but really with a lot of love. I don’t really look at it as work. It’s just hanging out with all these brilliant leaders, and that’s always a great time!
How has the WOMEN’S WAY General Operating Fund helped expand or impact Philly BOLT?
The WOMEN’S WAY [GOF] has been terrific for us and we’re happy to benefit from what we’ve received in a variety of different ways. We have our Youth Fellowship that we have been able to expand into the academic year, in partnership with the Philadelphia School District. We’re touching over 150 young people in the classroom and helping them become the local social change agents that we know they are. Also, we’ve been able to implement our alumni programming. We noticed that there was still a need for our former cohorts, who have been extraordinary, to still be tapped into this network that we’ve provided for them. We were able to provide quarterly alumni programming where we’re able to merge our current cohort, and our former cohort into a two hour professional development session, bringing in expert guest speakers. They’re able to learn from these guest speakers, but also collaborate with one another, and we’ve seen really tremendous collaboration across the City of Philadelphia. Those are the two main programming items that WOMEN’S WAY has supported us with.
Are there any new projects or opportunities that the organization sees on the horizon?
There’s a few items in the works to add and evolve the current programming that we have. For example, with our Youth Fellowship programming, we see a need for these young people to stick with BOLT through the remainder of school. So, what we’re doing is trying to have these young people that went through the program this past year become coaches for the young people that will be in the program at their school. This way, we have a peer to peer model, [and it’s] really extraordinary to ignite that culture of BOLT within that school!
Grassroots leaders of our adult cohort are really focusing on what neighbors [and] neighborhood networks to build upon. Our leaders come from across the City of Philadelphia and are really looking at how we can expand neighborhood power, specifically in each portion of the city. We’ll always continue to work across the City of Philadelphia, but [they’re] looking at evolving what neighborhood networks look like.
Are there any specific goals that you all have set for this year?
Yeah, absolutely. For the fall, we are continuing our Youth Fellowship program and scaling it to reach more young people across the City of Philadelphia, but this year we are adding more field explorations outside of Philadelphia which is very exciting. I would say a monetary goal that we have is hoping to raise at least an additional $60,000 by the end of the year, specifically for our Youth Fellows Program. That’s something that we’re looking to truly rally behind.
Stay connected with Philly BOLT by following them on Instagram: @phillybolt or heading to their website https://www.phillybolt.org/
