Possibility, Change, and Springboard's Serviceberries

Someone asked me recently if this was really the right time for a leadership transition, when there are so many threats to the arts, the stakes in our community are so high, and Springboard’s work isn’t “done.”

That’s certainly one way to think about it. But as I’ve sat with this question, I realized that my task was never to complete the mission—it was to make the mission matter. I believe that organizations with system-change missions should push towards a day when they won’t need to exist anymore. But I also believe that we need the humility to know that change only happens in a relay, and likely not within any one person’s tenure or even their lifetime.

So, is Springboard’s work finished? Absolutely not. But do I think we’ve proved that this work is vital and important and necessary? Absolutely yes.

We’ve proved that an organization like Springboard needs to exist, here in Minnesota and across the country. That a reciprocal relationship between communities and their artists is essential. That an ecosystem where artists are visible and valued for their contributions to the health of their community is possible. That this ecosystem is grown by combining direct, practical services and support for creative people with opportunities for those same creative people to build community power, influence policy and help their neighbors address big community challenges. That it is possible to value creative people over creative products. That an arts organization can value movement building over curation. We have proved that creative people belong at the table of economic security, public health, environmental stewardship, community development, crisis response, and social justice.

In fact, this next chapter of work for me, supporting communities and organizations across the country to grow and tend their own creative ecosystems, is only possible because of what we have proved here at Springboard. We’ve also shown that growth and change are necessary to keeping a mission vibrant and effective. I’m thrilled to be handing the baton to my brilliant colleagues at Springboard and to watch them evolve, grow and change this mission to meet the future. And I’m thrilled that I get to still play a role in that work.

This week the serviceberries are ripe and abundant on the trees in the lot of Springboard’s Saint Paul home. I picked a big batch and thought about transitions and cycles and change. I thought about the privilege of planting trees that can feed people into the future. And I thought about Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful meditation on reciprocity and taking inspiration from the natural world to guide our approach to relationships and economies.

I am so grateful for the gifts I have received from this work and am committed to carrying these gifts, relationships and values into the future. Another world is possible, and we’re building it every day.

“I want to live in a society where the currency of exchange is gratitude and the infinitely renewable resource of kindness, which multiplies every time it is shared rather than depreciating with use.”

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World