The Emergent Strategy Podcast

Founder and CEO of BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health), Yolo Akili Robinson, visits with ESII host, adrienne, to talk about questioning capitalist, nonprofit urgency. Often, nonprofit timelines are not on community timelines. Hear how Robinson and team members navigate circumstances that are at odds.     

"All of us got rhythm because all of us have hearts," says Shalewa Mackall choreographer, poet, mother, and artist. Mackall joins Emergent Strategy Podcast host, Mia Herndon, on this week's episode to talk about being in touch with our own rhythms (it's not easy), not gaslighting yourself (okay), and learning to be in touch with your needs.

Organizer, facilitator and organizational strategist, PG Watkins, talks with host adrienne this week on the Emergent Strategy podcast. The two shower some love on Detroit and the rich possibilities in organizing that exist in the city as well as taking better care of ourselves and one another in movement building. 

"...and the medicine showed me that many of the ways in which I did social justice work in the world, actually upheld all of the systems of oppression that I was trying to dismantle," says Mallika Dutt strategic innovator. Dutt joins Emergent Strategy podcast host, Mia Herndon, and shares her journey from from activist to innovator and how Spirit and centering with the earth was crucial to that process.    

"White supremacy and capitalism wants us to believe that they are the most important thing going on and that the whole world is against us. The whole world is not against us," says Sendolo Diaminah, co-director of the Carolina Federation. Diaminah joins ESII host, adrienne maree brown, this week to talk about love of strategy, softer rigor (at times), and living out a new politics.    Transcript found here.

How do we continue towards freedom and care for one another during pandemic times? What does pivoting look like when the world demands we change our plans? This week, Jennifer Toles and Jonathan Stith of Black Organizing for Leadership and Change (BOLD) talk with The Emergent Strategy podcast host, adrienne about centering, adaptation and holding one another.   Transcript found here.

"What does it mean for the Black body to have a home on this continent that is not tethered to labor but is imbued by your spiritual abundance?" Jonathan McCrory, Executive Artistic Director of the National Black Theater, joins host, Sage Crump, on the Emergent Strategy podcast this week to discuss bringing the book, Emergent Strategy, to the theatrical sphere and divine co-creation.  

"I think it's a big opportunity in terms of emergence of allowing for new possibilities of things you never imagined. I think that is something important to center in the context of moments where there is a lot of pain, there's grief, there's loss and it's really important to be able to see that -- even in those moments --something new will emerge," says Xiomara Caro-Diaz about organizing and collaborating post Hurricane Maria. Caro-Diaz is the Executive Director of the Maria Fund and joins host, Mia Herndon, to talk about transformative funding, making space for people's humanity and what the U.S. could learn from Puerto Rico.  Sweet coqui frogs make a special appearance.    

"Who are you when you walk into a space with young people?" asks Ana Luis, education facilitator and one of three guests on the Emergent Strategy podcast this week. Luis is joined by educators Marinieves Alba and Luis Alejandro Tapia to talk about what emergent strategy could look like when applied to the teacher-student dynamic.    

"Philanthropy is a system that will die with capitalism," says this week's guest, Javier Torres-Campos, program director of the Thriving Cultures program at Surdna Foundation. Torres-Campos manages a $9 million grantmaking portfolio. He talks with host, Sage Crump, about encouraging an imagination in the philanthropy field and creating new values around grantmaking processes.