Embracing Changes & Challenges
This September, I'm celebrating my fifth anniversary as CEO of ChangeLab Solutions. I came to ChangeLab five years ago because of this organization’s deep commitment to justice, national reach, and focus on policy levers to promote health and equity. One of the first things we accomplished together as a team was embracing a bold vision to help changemakers dismantle structural racism and discrimination through law and policy. Working together to collectively reimagine our vision and strategies in order to create our five-year plan gave the ChangeLab team a shared language, a common goal, and a purpose during a time of extraordinary change that was felt by all of us. Despite unexpected twists and turns in these past few years, ChangeLab is strongly positioned in the field of equity-first policymaking and community leadership. We will continue to bring our forward-thinking tools, trainings, and technical assistance to changemakers who are working to realize their policy goals.
Developing Innovative Resources to Address Structural Discrimination & Racism
I am grateful and inspired when I travel around the country and often hear, “ChangeLab! I love your tools and use them all the time!” Testimonials like this let me know that our work is having an impact, that we are reaching policymakers and community members, and that we are delivering tools and resources that help uproot the drivers of health inequity.
Through carefully cultivated and thoughtful dissemination strategies, we are engaging and growing our primary audiences — government staff and community organizations — and responding to their needs. We’ve added more than 400 publications to our online library since 2019! Over the past five years, our engaged email subscribers have more than doubled, and our publications have been downloaded more than 280,000 times. Our tools and resources help changemakers dismantle racist and discriminatory policies, practices, cultures, and norms to create equitable, health-promoting systems and structures. Here are some of our recent resources:
- An interactive web tool that helps policymakers and community members better understand and address the drivers of health inequity
- Public Health Law Academy trainings for government staff, practitioners, and students that offer opportunities to integrate law and policy into your work
- Curated collections of policy solutions for local and state changemakers on important topics like rural prosperity, affordable housing, positive school discipline strategies, children’s mental health, and Vision Zero plans.
In addition to creating tools and trainings, in 2020, ChangeLab began exploring new ways to support health and equity through our engagement in a successful lawsuit in California that opposed harmful preemption aimed at limiting local authority. This legal fight is multi-pronged and will likely take more time to resolve, but our engagement demonstrates our tenacity and determination when it comes to championing laws and policies that advance health, equity, and local solutions.
Aligning ChangeLab’s Internal Culture with Our Values
Development of our innovative law and policy resources is driven by our creative, energetic, and dedicated interdisciplinary staff. To respond to high demand for our services at the beginning of the pandemic, we hired close to 20 staff members to bolster capacity across every department. Like many other organizations, we shifted to a permanently remote workforce, meaning that our primarily California-based team morphed into one that is distributed across the nation, from Honolulu to Boston and many places in between. We currently have staff members in 16 states! Today, our staff of 60 brings geographic, racial and ethnic, and cross-sectoral diversity and experience to our work.
Expanding and shifting in these ways has raised important culture, equity, and workflow questions and needs for our consideration. To embrace the diverse experiences, needs, and strengths of our team, we've invested resources and time to support supervisors and their teams, clarify the process for compensation and promotion decisions, and foster relationship building among our entirely virtual staff. The tools we now have to support our equity goals and values include a compensation plan and philosophy; a core capacities framework for every level of the organization; a new paid leave plan for medical and parental leave; and staff gatherings to build and maintain connections. We’ve been on a journey of learning: we have made mistakes, had tough conversations, and are making space to celebrate gains and growth. I have so much pride in and respect for our team members, who embody our organizational values of justice, learning, collaboration, community, and integrity.
Reflecting on My Leadership Journey
Five years is a significant personal milestone that has moved me to reflect on how much I have learned from navigating many unexpected changes. I am fortunate to work alongside ChangeLab's community of staff and board members — committed professionals who have taken our work to extraordinary levels. I’m also grateful for my fellow executive leaders within ChangeLab and at partner organizations, whom I regularly collaborate and convene with, to exchange advice, guidance, partnership, and solace during chaotic and uncertain times.
Nonprofit leaders support a multigenerational workforce, build future leaders, and often are responsible for on-the-job training for new professionals, all while caring for our families and communities, being tasked with new solutions to address complex challenges, and running a business. Over the years, I have come to realize that much needs to be done to support our nonprofit leaders generally, but especially when uncertain times and extraordinary shifts take a toll on staff, budgets, and resources (for example, during national elections and changing economic conditions). I am also consistently motivated and inspired by our partners across the nation, who also navigate these complex issues.
And then there is the other side of work-life balance and priorities: in addition to being a leader and a colleague, I’m also a mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend. These relationships sustain me, keep me grounded, and grow my confidence. My family’s support has been instrumental in my leadership growth. Leading an organization, no matter how large or small, is a privilege, yet it can also be stressful and demanding. No matter what, my family has been there to support me during the tough times and be my biggest cheerleader when we achieve our most fulfilling successes.
Looking Ahead to 2025 & Beyond
As we at ChangeLab Solutions look toward 2025 and the rest of this decade, we know that community leaders and policymakers at federal, state, local, and tribal levels will need legal and policy tools and equitable solutions to support their communities. ChangeLab stands ready to answer this call. In the coming year, we will focus our tools, trainings, and technical assistance on strengthening democracy through good governance practices, supporting and building power with community partners, and, as always, advancing laws and policies that promote health and equity.
ChangeLab is currently planning to hold a series of in-person regional convenings across the nation. The focus of these convenings will be bringing our tools and strategies to life in collaboration with partners and changemakers in the communities that they serve. We will also continue to support communities that cannot attend our in-person convenings through our online offerings and engagements. No matter what happens with the national election, policymakers at all levels must be ready to design, implement, and enforce equitable laws and policies.
I am privileged to be a leader in this health equity–promoting space. I’m grateful for what I’ve learned during these past five years of guiding ChangeLab through a time of extraordinary change, developing meaningful partnerships with internal and external colleagues, supporting staff through internal culture improvements, and directing our work to address structural racism and discrimination. All of these activities serve our mission to create healthier communities for all through equitable laws and policies. I can’t imagine a better place to be.
Connect with Sarah de Guia on LinkedIn, or reach out to her executive assistant, Karina Bielecki, at kbielecki@changelabsolutions.org to schedule a meeting or invite Sarah to speak.
9/25/2024