Rethink Community: The Podcast

Perhaps the greatest act of resisting the divides that exist in our communities and in our nation is the simple but radical act of building a genuine friendship with another person across that divide. Today two women join us to share the story of how they met nine years ago - one of them a single mom working to get out of poverty, the other finding herself isolated in a middle-class bubble. You'll...

Essential Partners

What does it really take to expand your circle - the people you know and interact with on a regular basis? How can an individual begin to build bridges across the socioecononomic, ethnic, or racial lines in their community, and form real connections and relationships with those who come from a different place? Steve Eisentrager is a business leader who has quite simply made it a personal practice...

Sometimes it is difficult for us to see how our nation's past has shaped its current pain. In Canada today, 7% of all children are Indigenous - yet shockingly make up 52% of all children in foster care. Two leaders with CareImpact, a faith-based nonprofit organization in Winnipeg, Manitoba, offer us a lens for our own communities, by exploring how Canada's history with Indigenous peoples have led...

NBC Dateline Interview The Frederick Douglass Project

What does it look like for a white, middle-class pastor with degrees and titles to become embedded in a neighborhood that's in the epicenter of the heroin epidemic? Pastor Steve Gill shares how this experience and decades of service in unlikely places, and the people he's met along the way, have changed his perspective on poverty, on himself, and on faith; and brought a richer understanding of com...

Bishop Mark McGuire is known in his community as a bridge-builder. In much the same vein as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s work, Bishop McGuire has spent decades using his voice and his energy to not only lead the church but to lead his community toward greater justice and equity, with a special focus on incarceration and reentry. In this episode, Bishop McGuire joins John to share some of his perso...

Examining the story we tell about poverty also involves reexamining the story we tell about the opposite of poverty - what we might call success, or the American Dream. Today on the podcast, Brett and Christine Duncan of the Change Leader Alliance, share the story of when their own version of success crumbled into sudden situational poverty, and how that experience helped to reshape their own narr...

In his book The Alternative, Mauricio Lim Miller challenges the helping industry as we know it to rethink much of how we've built our response to poverty. We were honored to have Mauricio join our Executive Director Marlo Fox to share the stories from his life and his work that have shaped his convictions. In this episode, Mauricio shares how he came to believe that well-intentioned helping could...

Hear the story of how a church moved from "drive-through ministry" in their neighborhood, to truly partnering with their neighbors for positive change. Lynette Fields, now the Director of Poverty Solutions Group in Winter Garden, Florida, and Sebrenia Brown, a resident and community partner in the neighborhood, talk about what it looks like to build trust, to have the hard conversations, and to gi...

Who helped you fill out your first FAFSA? How did you get to your first campus tour? In this episode, a first-generation student from Clark State College and a dean who was once a first-generation student himself, talk about what it means for colleges not to just deliver education, but to walk alongside students who are the first in their families to navigate that significant journey.

Can a high-poverty school district become high-performing? Hear the story of how one California school district in a community of migrant farmworkers has reinvented education with the voices of learners and their families at the center - and gotten remarkable results.

Each year in the United States, nearly 700,000 kids are part of a system that is largely invisible to many of us: the foster care system. When we think about child welfare, we might first think of agencies and caseworkers and formal policies. But what about the families - both relatives and strangers - who welcome these children into their homes? This episode shares the lens of two families who ha...

When a suburban school district arranged for a town hall listening session with a local public housing project, the results were powerful - and even uncomfortable. In this episode, Megan LeMaster and Rameka Nelson share that story, and continue their own conversation about race, poverty, leadership, what it means to be heard, and what can happen when organizations take the time to listen.

Today ShayLynn Hespeth is a passionate young educator and leader, but in this episode you'll rewind ten years ago to when she was a middle schooler meeting her new mentor. ShayLynn and Lori Parks - the suburban mom who was that new mentor - share their stories in this episode about what their mentoring relationship meant to them then and now, and what it means to develop social capital at the deep...

A message to our listeners: This podcast was pre-recorded and scheduled for release prior to the horrific death of George Floyd and the subsequent pain of repeated wounds and cries for justice for black and brown lives across our nation.    Think Tank's core work is the pursuit of greater understanding and action to combat the marginalization and discrimination enacted upon racial and ethnic minor...

What if we looked at addiction and recovery not just as issues, but through the experience of real people? In this episode you'll hear the story of Eric Mata, who has made the journey from addiction, to recovery, to entrepreneurship and a mission to help others. Links in this episode: Elijah Hamilton Music

On this episode, you'll meet the federal judge who invited the drug dealer he sentenced to shake his hand when he got out of prison. And you'll meet the ex-offender who took him up on that handshake and is now working to help young men in his community choose a different path.

With raw honesty and extraordinary courage, Andrea shares the story of her journey from being an award-winning educator, to addiction, incarceration, re-entry, finding love, and now using her story to help others find hope. Links in this episode: Elijah Hamilton Music

Hear the story of how a former social worker realized that our "culture of helping" needed a new operating system, and founded a nonprofit organization with that mission. Marlo Fox is now the Executive Director of Think Tank, Inc. In this episode, she shares the story of how she and Think Tank are seeking to turn the tide. Links in this episode: Elijah Hamilton Music Cost of Poverty Experience