October 18, 2024 • 36 mins
In this episode, we talk with Ben Bain, volunteer Brick Yard leader for the Washington, D.C. area for the organization More Perfect Union. More Perfect Union seeks to strengthen communities through social connection, service, and civic engagement.
Ben is a veteran – and a dog lover – who wanted to find ways to weave connective tissue in his community. More Perfect Union allows him do this by working toward building relationships among people around him.
To check out MPU – and take the Coffee & Courage Challenge – go to MPU.US.
(Photo depicts MPU gathering)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We've got to stand together on common ground.
(00:08):
We've got to be together before we all fall down.
Welcome to This is Civity. I'm Gina Baleria.
Civity is a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different,
moving people from us versus them to we all belong.
To learn more, go to civity.org.
(00:29):
In this episode, we talk with Ben Bain, volunteer brickyard leader for the Washington, D.C. area for the organization, More Perfect Union.
More Perfect Union seeks to strengthen communities through social connection, service, and civic engagement.
Ben is a veteran and a dog lover who wanted to find ways to weave connective tissue in his community.
(00:52):
More Perfect Union allows him to do that by building relationships among people around him.
Well, let's start with you. We'll do a civity thing.
What is something that drew you to the work you're doing?
We'll talk about what that work is, but what is something that drew you to this space?
Well, it's part of the pro-democracy movement, which incorporates a lot of different people and organizations that are concerned about the country.
(01:19):
You know, they're all being driven by the same sense of we need to do something.
There's clearly a sense that we don't live in a perfect society, but I think there is shared hope that we can make a better society.
And looking around, sometimes it can feel really hard to think about where to identify what you can do as an individual.
And that's something that stood out to me.
(01:41):
So, you know, when I look around, where could I put my time besides my day job, doing something like this as a volunteer leader really stood out as an opportunity.
Great. That's wonderful. So talk to me a little bit about More Perfect Union.
What is the work that More Perfect Union is doing to try to get at this issue?
So More Perfect Union is a nonprofit organization.
We seek to be the next generation civic organization where we have brickyards.
(02:05):
So we use the term brickyards instead of chapters because we are trying to build the country back up brick by brick.
But we hope to have these brickyards in every town, every city around the country.
And so the kind of the method behind it or the idea behind it is that we want to try to unite the country and strengthen our communities through social connection, service and civic engagement.
And it's all about connecting people at the local level on a regular basis.
(02:31):
OK, so I actually made a note of those social connection, service and civic engagement as your sort of three priorities pillars.
And I want to talk a little bit about those. I want to save social connection for last because I think that's the I mean, they're all civility.
That's the most civility sort of woven in. I want to explore, first of all, service.
(02:52):
Why is service an aspect of this type of work?
Well, service can help build trust. So when you do a service project together, you're working towards a common goal.
You're addressing local needs at the same time.
You start to develop mutual respect and this sense of collective identity with the people you're working with in the space that you're working there.
(03:13):
And so ideally, when we have brickyard leaders around the country, you know, volunteer leaders like myself bringing people together for service project, you've identified some kind of local need.
You get people that are within the general area. So they've got some connection to that physical space, just like you do.
And then hopefully you, you know, maybe build a sweat, solve a problem, do something together, have at least a minimal shared success.
(03:37):
And we feel like that is a great way to start fostering longer lasting relationships and start to create a more resilient community.
I love that. And I know that there's research that backs that up.
The idea that when people actually do work together, there is this sort of built in thing that happens where they're somehow connected or they start to, yeah, like you said, start to trust each other.
(03:58):
And then civic engagement. And civic engagement seems like, well, of course.
So I teach at Sonoma State and my students, they want to be involved, but they have no roadmap to how to do it.
And just because we're in an election year, California, we've got CalMatters, this new nonprofit journalism organization.
And they came in, one of the guys came in and talked to my students through the propositions and how to, how to learn about them and how to discuss them and how to have parties.
(04:25):
They were so grateful. They were like, it was like they were starving and hungry.
And then at the end, this was, this was great. So there was that aspect of civic engagement, the civic, the voting, the being involved that way.
Which I think people need a roadmap for. And then, and I'd love to hear how More Perfect Union is envisioning civic engagement and how you are providing roadmaps for people or guides to help them do what they probably desire to do anyway.
(04:53):
Civic engagement is so important. This is, this is my favorite pillar for, for MPU. And I try to drive this and all the events that I pull together.
But this again comes down to building trust. But in this case, it's about building trust between individuals and our government. So if you care about the strength of our country, then you kind of have to care about the strength and health of our government.
(05:14):
And if we as a people continue to lose trust in our institutions and specifically in our government, then we're going to continue to face some significant challenges in supporting our democracy and making sure that we have a healthy lasting, long lasting democracy.
So when it comes to civic engagement, you know, that's part civic education. And that's at all levels. So I think everybody very quickly gets caught up into what's happening at the national level.
(05:40):
There are very partisan issues that are in the news every single day. You read the headlines. So even at the most local level, people are very informed on the national level news, but that's not always helpful.
So there's a lot of different ways to be civically engaged. You don't have to run for state level, national level office to be, you know, like fully civically engaged.
(06:02):
There's so many things we can do at the more local level. And those things can be really powerful and they can create this sense of empowerment, individual empowerment to be part of the bigger system and to support that, which then builds trust between citizens and government.
So when we hold an event, you know, we might structure a conversation around some form of civic education. So this is how things work. How do you feel about that? You know, what are your experiences yourself?
(06:27):
What are some issues in your local community that you might want to get involved in? We might bring in a guest speaker who talks about some past successes where they were able to make a change, you know, locally where it feels very tangible and real.
But ultimately, you know, active participation across a range of civic duties from voting to signing up to become an election judge, which I will do myself for the first time this year.
(06:49):
So I think that's all essential for healthy democracy. And we just try to create the space for people to think about it, to be inspired to go to do action, and then ideally come together and maybe actually take action together as a group.
So you're talking about like the working together, getting into the community, the civic engagement, and then the social connection. So connecting and seeing each other's humanity for civility is, as you know, is the primary driver of what we see as actually starting to solve problems.
(07:17):
So how is more perfect union seeing the concept of social connection? And how are you manifesting that?
Well, just to give a huge shout out to civility, I was so impressed when I first got introduced to civility, and how civility defines, you know, a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different.
And I went through a civility workshop, and one of the things that really stood out to me, I wrote it down and I already started using it.
(07:42):
When it comes to building relationships, conversation is action, and that's really powerful. I think from the very beginning for more perfect union, there's a discussion when you bring people together, is that enough? Is that okay?
Would you need to then organize them to go do effort? And I think it's actually both, but you don't want to dismiss or underappreciate the power of just building relationships and having a conversation.
(08:05):
So for us, everything starts with social gathering, because that is where you build understanding, and that's where you build empathy for others. We all live in our own bubbles and our own silos.
Physical, in our physical space, on our day to day, you know, whether you commute or whether you work from home, there are a limited number of people that you meaningfully engage with.
And then it's the same thing in our digital lives. So you might download an app that has very specific news that's tailored towards your interests, or you might build up the algorithm that's only going to show you the things that you really care about.
(08:39):
So we don't really get exposed to all these other things in the world and all these other perspectives in a meaningful way.
So if you can just bring people together in real life, in a relaxed, informal setting, then they have the opportunity to share stories, experiences, perspectives, you start to understand things in a different way, and you can start to lay the foundation for deeper understanding across the community.
(09:01):
You're right. That is very Civiti, and I'm so glad that Civiti's concepts are working for you. I love that too, the conversation is the action when it comes to relationships.
And I would love to do a Civiti thing with you. It would be a lot of fun to do a quick to share a story about yourself, something that matters to you in your community.
Having talked to a lot of people through MPU and just my daily life, I think a lot of other people feel the same way. And so I'll share this because I think others might, it might resonate with others.
(09:30):
When you walk around your community, you really hope to see vibrancy. You want to see people talking to each other. You want to see people walking on the street with, you know, smiling and laughing.
You want to see the local stores and restaurants having a lot of people and having success.
But oftentimes we don't feel like we want that around us, but we don't feel like we need to contribute actively to it ourselves.
(09:55):
So you can be part of it, but also a part at the same time. And what I hope, what I've experienced with MPU and just through this experience is that, well, I need to do my part too.
You know, it doesn't just happen naturally. When you have a healthy, vibrant community and you walk around, you just feel it when you walk around the streets in some communities versus others.
And when it doesn't happen by itself, every single individual has to contribute to that. And so getting people to think about, and I've had to do this myself, getting out of my own head and out of my own daily priorities and concerns and fears,
(10:30):
what am I doing to contribute to that besides just walking along the street myself? And so I try to challenge myself. And that's my hope for the community is that everybody looks around and says, how can I kind of contribute to this?
Because that's when you really get a special community.
Yeah, I totally agree. Can you think of a moment, I mean, outside of More Perfect Union, but just you in your community, when you felt yourself contributing to that and felt the energy of the response?
(10:55):
So I live in Silver Spring, Maryland, so just outside of DC. And Silver Spring has a really incredible center area where people will come together and seems like every weekend there's a big festival, there's music, there's different types of food, there are vendors that are selling things.
And it's a very diverse community in the best of ways where people from all over the world with many different backgrounds, all kinds of different socioeconomic statuses come together in the same place and just being there and talking to people, especially some of the local vendors, but bumping into people that could be my neighbors and saying hi and petting dogs and watching the kids run around.
(11:35):
Just kind of being in that space is high energy. So even if it's not the most active contribution, sometimes those are the times when I feel the most connected to my community, when everybody's out and enjoying themselves kind of around some kind of shared thing.
I love that. And that's so Siby, that small scale interaction, that moment of just small connections, that weaves your community together.
(11:57):
And I feel the same way when I walk around. I live in San Francisco. I love walking around the entire city because I always look up, I smile at everybody and I love doing that and I love getting smiles back and it just makes me feel so good.
A buddy of mine took things a step further and Malke knows him too. He lived in Oakland and he wanted to bring his neighborhood together. They had those little parklets. We call them in California. I don't know if you have parklets in DC, but they're just like really tiny little like a median or something that you could put apart.
(12:25):
So he put flyers that I'm going to have a barbecue. I'm going to be out there barbecuing if you want to join me. And everybody in the neighborhood came out and they're like, we haven't seen our neighbors in so long. This is so great. And they made it a regular thing.
So that idea of being proactive about building community and then building those like human connections is great.
I think anytime you go out of your way to create space for people to come together in a safe, kind of meaningful way, you always get surprised about who shows up, how do they engage, how quickly does it turn personal in a good way.
(12:58):
I think the more that we can we can all try to strive to do that, I think the better. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. So on that note, you know, you talked earlier about what's going on in the world and why more perfect union is important in that context.
But I really would love to hear from you. I mean, you shared a little bit about what matters to you as far as how you build your own community. But I'd love to hear from you about why you decided yourself. What drew you or drove you or led your path to more perfect union?
(13:27):
Well, I got guilted into it by one of my best friends. Okay, that's awesome.
That's I guess that's how a lot of these things start where and again, this is something that probably resonates with others. You're sitting there, you see a problem, you probably should do something, but you've got the rest of your life happening.
It's it takes a lot to commit to anything. It takes a lot to commit to a single event if you were just going to show up. And I see this every time I run an MPU event.
(13:52):
You know, people have lives, they've got their kids, their jobs, their stresses, something happens, it's hard to take a few hours after work, it's hard to go do a few hours on the weekend for a service project.
It can take a lot to overcome that initial just, you know, that stop energy where you're like, No, no, I just don't have time for that. Let alone try to become a regular volunteer leader over time that we're going to try to make a big commitment of your time, it really takes more than just caring about it.
(14:19):
Sometimes it takes a little bit extra push. So, Garrett Cathgard, who's co founder and executive director for more perfect union.
I'd gone back years with him. We were both in the army together, and actually met him when we were both out of the army. And he had gone through a series of really interesting positions from team bright white and blue to mission roll call and then to more
(14:40):
than just being a volunteer leader. And he's starting this new thing and he says, I want you to be a part of this. And because it's Garrett, I said, Sure, whatever it is, I'm there. And then it turned into this whole thing. So now three years later, I'm still holding events and trying to do the best I can.
That's so cool. So beyond just you were guilted into it, it really resonated with you hit you. I think it came at the right time. So again, you know, a few years ago, you start to look around.
(15:06):
It's never like a perfect time in our country. There's always challenges at the at the international level at the national level down at the local community where you feel it where you feel like something's off. So we're always striving for that more perfect union to put it right in our name.
But I think when Garrett reached out, it was just at the right time when I was looking around and said, What can I do if I'm going to raise my hand and say, I want to be a part of a solution. I thought this was a great way to go about to ruminate on your name for a minute.
(15:32):
I really love that that is the phrase that's in our founding documents and also that you chose it because it leaves room for work like it's not a perfect union, it's a more perfect union. So we always do have to do the work and be active and be engaged.
Yeah, well, if we don't do that, nobody will on a daily basis living here in DC doing the type of work that I do. Everybody likes to complain about government. It's really easy to complain that government doesn't do something fast enough, well enough.
(15:58):
It's not treating everybody right. It's not doing his job. It's totally dysfunctional. But really, government is us. And I say this a lot where if we're not trying to be part of the solution, you look around, nobody else is going to be able to fix this.
And so anytime somebody complains about the state of our country and our democracy, well, there's things that we can do, even though it feels small, all those things start to add up.
(16:19):
Yeah, very true. I'd love to hear some anecdotes over your time with More Perfect Union about just moments that you remember where people were moved or touched or connected or transformed or just a small moment in which someone opened up a little bit.
I would love to hear some stories from you if you're willing to share some.
(16:42):
Sure. And this happens pretty much every time. You know, when you can create, like I said, when you can create the space for people to trust who they're talking to and to share personal stories, it gets real very quickly in the best of ways.
And that's when you really make a connection versus just staying at the surface, which I believe is the difference between running into somebody on the street or bumping elbows with somebody on the metro train on your commute where you've made no connection to sharing your story.
(17:11):
And to sharing a personal story and having a genuine meaningful connection. That's a real big difference.
You're listening to This is Civity. I'm Gina Baleria. We're talking with Ben Bain about the importance of actively contributing toward building connections and relationships in our communities.
And Ben's hope that humanity can overcome polarization.
(17:32):
I guess it would start with the Brickyard Leadership Training that I went through. First cohort of Brickyard leaders, volunteer leaders like myself, they brought us together. 14, 15 people that year. I think it was a two or three hour introduction session where everybody goes deep and tells their real story.
You know, everybody goes around shares everything that they're concerned about, where they've come from, the challenges that they've had to overcome, things that are happening in life right now.
(17:56):
And again, it's all about creating that space. They created that space. So that was my very first interaction of, wow, you really got to go deep and open yourself because this is how you form those new connections.
But then the first time I came back to DC and I ran an event, used a structured conversation around the American dream. So essentially three questions all around what does the American dream mean to you?
(18:19):
And I think I had eight people in my group because we break up into small groups, so everybody has a chance to talk and listen.
And every single person had a story about opportunity and somebody that they know, mostly family members, one or two generations back, of rising in society and starting from really hard circumstances and somehow making the best out of all the opportunity that America can provide.
(18:50):
And that showed right off that there's still this sense of idealism. Again, society is not perfect. It's not equal opportunity for all.
But there is opportunity. There is this sense that the United States can offer that to people and so many people have a direct connection to real stories of people that did that.
And that really stood out to me. I think that's one example where eight people, totally different backgrounds, coming from very different places in the world, all sharing very similar stories.
(19:21):
And to show that connection across differences was very powerful.
That really helps humanize someone that you walk in thinking is so far from you and you realize you have those connections on whatever point in the path you're on.
What about later on as you got more involved with more perfect union? Are there any anecdotes of people that you've connected with that have resonated or stayed with you?
(19:44):
So I hosted a dinner at my house one evening. And the best part of that evening was we had people from very different ages all attend.
So we had two young people that were in high school. We had some mid-career, senior career professionals, and we had a couple who were retired, recently retired.
(20:06):
And that really made the conversation way more interesting. So there's a lot of ways that you can bring differences together.
So it can be race, religion, jobs, politics, geographical backgrounds. But I think age is one of the most interesting, and I think that's undervalued in bringing people together who've just seen the world so differently.
(20:27):
They've grown up with different technology. They've grown up seeing very different history.
The 23rd anniversary of 9-11, working with people who were not born when 9-11 happened, those are massive shaping events.
And so I just remember that one evening really standing out when the high school students would share their perspectives and everybody else would be like, oh, wow, that's how you're seeing this issue of the American dream or anything else.
(20:57):
And I think that's so different. And I feel like in all the ways that we create silos for ourselves, the age differences is one of the most significant.
I really love that you brought up all of the socially salient differences and divides that could come up because so much of society focuses on the left-right divide, which is honestly made up of all these other divides and these divides crisscross it.
(21:19):
And so if you put that aside and also focuses on those socially salient differences in whatever community, and it sounds like More Perfect Union does as well, you really get at it a little bit more honestly.
And people can really take a journey across a divide when you actually identify what the divide is beyond just this moniker.
I think it's really hard. I think if I pulled one thing away from my experience with More Perfect Union and that it is incredibly hard to get outside of our silos or bubbles and whatever you want to call it.
(21:49):
And when we went to that first training where we brought everybody together and everybody gets really excited, we're going to go home, we're going to break down these barriers, we're going to connect with all these people that are different than us.
It's just hard to get people that are different than you to come together under the right circumstances to have a meaningful engagement, to then build empathy, to build trust, let alone to build ownership of our community and our government and what can we do together.
(22:15):
And it's not surprising, but I came home and so I served in the Army. So I'm a veteran, I'm a white male. I come home and I put on some events and who are most of the people that are coming?
I'm a male veteran. Well, this is great. We think differently, we've got different experiences, we might have different political differences, but that's not enough.
And so it's just hard to reach out across all the differences just to tee up and to create that special space where people can share personal stories, but about kind of our shared values for our country and our future together.
(22:47):
That's just what I found. This is hard going. A lot of people like to talk about the issues that we see in our country. They'll do research, but there's not that many people that are actively bringing folks together and setting the conditions for these kind of conversations because it's really hard.
It's so true. And people often self-select into these groups. There are people who actively want to make this better who come and then how do you reach the people who feel defeated or who feel as if they don't have a seat at the table and it's difficult.
(23:16):
How are you trying to address that? And I know it's difficult and none of us have the answer, but how are you trying to sort of get at that?
Part of it is try to learn from other brickyard leaders. So we've got volunteer leaders just like myself around the country, across many states, and trying to learn from what they do.
How do they reach out into their community? There's a lot of different ways you can go about doing that. How do you advertise? On what platforms are you doing advertising? If it's just trying to do it on LinkedIn, then you're only going to hit a subset of people in your relatively narrow network, no matter how popular you are.
(23:54):
But if you choose Instagram or any other social media platform, there's going to be benefits, but also limits to those.
And then how do you create some kind of meaningful relationships with key people in your community that might have more direct access and trust, established trust with different parts of the community?
And that's something I'm constantly trying to work on. It can always be better. There's always ways to bring more people together that have different kinds of differences.
(24:19):
There's always more we can do to do that, but it's a constant challenge. Yeah, how do you reach the people that aren't just self-selecting?
But even when you get those people that say, hey, I'm interested in this, that's still really meaningful. Because again, how do we give an opportunity for somebody to say that when they raise their hand and they want to do something about it, they want to be part of some kind of solution.
I feel like MPU can start to offer that. When you're dealing across a generational difference or a difference in which someone's like, look, you can't, it's always been dysfunctional. It is what it is.
(24:49):
I'm here, but I don't see how we're going to get this done. What is your strategy or more perfect union strategy to not change their mind, but nudge them on a path toward maybe seeing that other things are possible?
Yeah, we definitely don't try to change anyone's minds. It's really about, so I'm the big fan of structured conversations. I think it gives everybody a chance to speak, gives everybody a chance to listen.
(25:14):
Everybody has a chance to answer the same question. And you have to deliberately pick what those questions are instead of just letting free flow of conversation.
So there is a time and place for pure social gathering, informal. People can chat. They can share whatever they would like to share, whether it's about their jobs, whether it's about their hobbies, or what they feel about what's happening in the country.
(25:37):
But if you really want to get down into more specifics, you've got to structure. You have to really think deliberatively about what do you want them to answer and share and talk about.
And so I think in those cases, especially when you've got folks from very different ages who have all these different experiences and views of the world, tee up the questions that start at the basics and look for the shared values.
(26:04):
Because I think that really starts to change things, because ideally, we're not hopeless optimists at Morpah Puget Union. At least I can't speak for everyone. I don't feel like I'm a hopeless optimist, but I'd like to shape these conversations with some sense of there's a positive future.
I think if we lose the sense of positive future, then what are we doing here? You just start to throw everything out the window.
(26:27):
It's hard. There's a lot of really significant tensions across our society. But if you can find the shared values and you can instill that sense of positivity and optimism for like, we can create a better future, it is within our grasp.
That goes a long way towards fostering those meaningful conversations.
You said that you really appreciate the way Civity kind of approaches this. How do you see Civity informing your work or Morpah Puget Union's work?
(26:53):
Well, so I want to beg, borrow, and steal from everyone. I think anybody that's doing good things would love to try to incorporate the way that they frame certain ideas, specific wording, and give them credit where credit is due.
Just as that example, when Civity said, when it comes to building relationships, conversation is action, I immediately put that into my introduction for what do we do at MPU.
(27:14):
And I think there's tremendous overlap. If you go deeper into what Civity puts forward is building relationships across difference to transform communities. In so many ways, I think that's what Morpah Puget Union does.
We're trying to do it on a maybe not day-to-day basis, but every time I do an event, that's kind of the purpose. And so if I can learn from Civity all of the experience that they've built up from people across the country, across the world, that's only going to make this better.
(27:43):
I feel like Morpah Puget Union is one of many organizations that have sprung up in the last, let's just say, five years that want to do something different, that want to see change in our world, because everybody's seeing the same thing.
They're looking around and saying, this is not okay. This could be better. I want to do something about it. So you get these fearless, passionate, inspirational leaders like Jake Herriman and Gary Cathcart, our two founders, to say, well, we're going to try to organize it.
(28:09):
We're going to create space for others to do meaningful things. But there's other organizations that are doing either similar things or complementary things, and we all need to be working together.
There's a growing movement for bringing together multiple types of pro-democracy groups to make the sum more than just the sum total of the parts.
So just to give you an example, there are people that are working for structural change around election. There are people that are working for political change because they want to get the right types of people in office.
(28:36):
But then you've got a whole range of bridging organizations, and MPU is just one of those. So we feel like we have a great model, but we're not the only ones that are trying to support democracy.
Yeah. And that's what I love about the bridging space is that everyone really is nurturing of each other. With regard to more perfect community, your values even, you mentioned, community has come up a lot.
(28:57):
And the values, even if they are a value that's defined in a million different ways, your organization is defining them all as community-focused. I noticed that you used the term servant leaders, like leaders who serve the community, treating each other with compassion, having open hearts.
These are things that don't have to be said, but they've woven their way into your definitions. And so it just really resonates with me the way that you're seeing the work you're doing as nurturing community and cultivating community.
(29:27):
And so the entire organization is veteran-inspired. So Jake Harriman served in the Marine Corps, Garrett Cathgard served in the Army, a range of our kind of small but mighty core headquarters staff, served in some capacity. A lot of our brickyard leaders all have, not all, but many have military service.
So it's veteran-inspired, not veteran-led, that goes throughout everything that we do. So when it comes to servant leadership, how do you put the community first? How are you taking care of your people? A lot of that naturally comes through the incredible military training that you can get when you serve in uniform.
(30:02):
But veterans are not the only ones that have something to say on this. So we've got a full range of public sector leaders. We've got incredible private sector leaders as well that have done incredible things. But I think when you start to talk about our values, our values of service, virtue, mercy, humility, courage, and hope, you're right. They all are kind of focused on the community because that's what we're trying to change. How do you change the country by starting with the community?
(30:27):
The next civity question. You've defined yourself as someone who cares about the community. And you've also defined yourself as a veteran, a white male who lives on the East Coast. And those are all wonderful things. What is something someone might not know about you? Or what do you wish someone would know about you other than what they see or what's out there?
Well, it doesn't take you very long to know me to learn this, but my wife and I love to foster dogs. And so, you know, this is just something that it's like another way to well, it's also very selfish, because we love having a dog around. But it's just another form of service in a way of like, how do we create a safe home for some of these incredible dogs? Most are incredible. Some some are a little troublesome, but they're all very cute. In order for them to find their forever homes. And so, like I said, it doesn't take very long for you to know me for me to bring up a picture of my dog.
(31:12):
Or to talk about the last story that we had with this crazy foster dog. But that's something that is a big part of my life. So I've got my job, got my family. I've got empty you and then we've got a bunch of dogs just to connect with you. I also loved I cannot go buy a dog with I don't even see the owner. I'm just like dog. And my husband's like, why can't you be this excited about baby? But look at the dog. It's Yeah, exactly. As we've talked about all of this, and you've shared your stories. What are you most excited about? What are you most excited about?
(31:42):
What are you most proud of with regard to your work here at more perfect union or your work building community?
Sticking with it. I'm most most proud about just trying to stick with this effort. It is really hard. Sometimes, you know, I'll organize an event, try to put a lot of thought into it. And then not many people show up. But then the next time I'll do the same thing, haven't figured out what the difference is, I'll get 20 or 30 people to sign up to show up.
(32:06):
But even when just one person shows up, it still is meaningful. It almost gives you a chance for a deeper connection for even smaller groups. So it's not always about numbers, but it's about consistency and sticking with it. And I think, you know, if more perfect union is really going to scale, we can really turn into the next generation civic organization, where we're all over the country, we are creating that that space for people to come together. Then it's going to take a lot of people like me that are just sticking with it. Event by event.
(32:36):
Trying to bring people together, always trying to figure out how do you expand who even hears about your events, who shows up to the events? How do you lower the barrier to entry so people aren't scared? Or, you know, how do you make it more compelling than you know, somebody had a great line the other day, you have to make it more compelling than somebody taking a well deserved nap. Or, you know, when they're when they're driving home from work, and they're exhausted, why should they stop and go do that two hour MPU event on the way home, you got to make it pretty compelling.
(33:05):
Free food goes a long way, but that's not it.
Is there anything you want to say that I haven't asked you that you think it's important for people to know?
We launched a coffee encourage challenge. And very excited about this. This is a great idea coming from our headquarter leaders. And what it is, is people will should, you know, get to go go out and invite somebody that's not like them for coffee, have coffee and ask each other what is American Dream mean to you.
(33:31):
That's the core question. And then we asked them to take a short video 30 seconds minute tops about where did they find overlap, where did they find connection, where do they find shared understanding, and why is it important.
And the idea is to make this a viral challenge. So once you do that you tag three others and you hope that they will go do the similar coffee.
And so, why I'm really excited about this is like, one I like coffee so that's always great fostering more one on one conversations is definitely a good thing if you can do it at scale, fantastic.
(34:04):
But maybe the most important thing that I think this has the chance to do, if enough people will do this is you start to change the narrative of what's happening around our country.
And when people see something positive to people come together over their differences over coffee to talk about shared values and American Dream.
It's not all, you know, partisan warfare. It's not all the country is doomed. It's not all, you know, there's dysfunction around here we're never going to be able to get along, we've never seen you know worst time in our in our in our lives in our country,
(34:35):
which just isn't true. The more we can start to change that narrative and get people to identify with that more than what they see on you know headlines for most of the national news that that is a real game changer so we're going to run this through, probably
through the election, it's really important to get the word out there so if any listeners want to be part of this this is the coffee encourage challenge more perfect union is npu.us that's our website there's a couple different more perfect unions out there.
(35:00):
So go to the right website, find out the coffee encourage challenge. Have a coffee with somebody share share your story, but also tell the story to the world because that's what we really need right now.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate having you on this podcast. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Civity is an outstanding organization so the more I can learn and more I can share that around and view I think we'll all be better off.
(35:24):
Thank you to my guest, Ben Bain, volunteer brickyard leader for the organization more perfect union to check out mpu and to take the coffee and courage challenge.
Go to mpu.us.
Civity is a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different, moving people from us versus them to we all belong to learn more, go to civity.org.
(35:53):
Right.
Black or white.
All the same.
Wake up people.
It's time to build a brand new day.
We're gonna stand together on common ground.
We've got to stand together on common ground.
(00:08):
We've got to be together before we all fall down.
Welcome to This is Civity. I'm Gina Baleria.
Civity is a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different,
moving people from us versus them to we all belong.
To learn more, go to civity.org.
(00:29):
In this episode, we talk with Ben Bain, volunteer brickyard leader for the Washington, D.C. area for the organization, More Perfect Union.
More Perfect Union seeks to strengthen communities through social connection, service, and civic engagement.
Ben is a veteran and a dog lover who wanted to find ways to weave connective tissue in his community.
(00:52):
More Perfect Union allows him to do that by building relationships among people around him.
Well, let's start with you. We'll do a civity thing.
What is something that drew you to the work you're doing?
We'll talk about what that work is, but what is something that drew you to this space?
Well, it's part of the pro-democracy movement, which incorporates a lot of different people and organizations that are concerned about the country.
(01:19):
You know, they're all being driven by the same sense of we need to do something.
There's clearly a sense that we don't live in a perfect society, but I think there is shared hope that we can make a better society.
And looking around, sometimes it can feel really hard to think about where to identify what you can do as an individual.
And that's something that stood out to me.
(01:41):
So, you know, when I look around, where could I put my time besides my day job, doing something like this as a volunteer leader really stood out as an opportunity.
Great. That's wonderful. So talk to me a little bit about More Perfect Union.
What is the work that More Perfect Union is doing to try to get at this issue?
So More Perfect Union is a nonprofit organization.
We seek to be the next generation civic organization where we have brickyards.
(02:05):
So we use the term brickyards instead of chapters because we are trying to build the country back up brick by brick.
But we hope to have these brickyards in every town, every city around the country.
And so the kind of the method behind it or the idea behind it is that we want to try to unite the country and strengthen our communities through social connection, service and civic engagement.
And it's all about connecting people at the local level on a regular basis.
(02:31):
OK, so I actually made a note of those social connection, service and civic engagement as your sort of three priorities pillars.
And I want to talk a little bit about those. I want to save social connection for last because I think that's the I mean, they're all civility.
That's the most civility sort of woven in. I want to explore, first of all, service.
(02:52):
Why is service an aspect of this type of work?
Well, service can help build trust. So when you do a service project together, you're working towards a common goal.
You're addressing local needs at the same time.
You start to develop mutual respect and this sense of collective identity with the people you're working with in the space that you're working there.
(03:13):
And so ideally, when we have brickyard leaders around the country, you know, volunteer leaders like myself bringing people together for service project, you've identified some kind of local need.
You get people that are within the general area. So they've got some connection to that physical space, just like you do.
And then hopefully you, you know, maybe build a sweat, solve a problem, do something together, have at least a minimal shared success.
(03:37):
And we feel like that is a great way to start fostering longer lasting relationships and start to create a more resilient community.
I love that. And I know that there's research that backs that up.
The idea that when people actually do work together, there is this sort of built in thing that happens where they're somehow connected or they start to, yeah, like you said, start to trust each other.
(03:58):
And then civic engagement. And civic engagement seems like, well, of course.
So I teach at Sonoma State and my students, they want to be involved, but they have no roadmap to how to do it.
And just because we're in an election year, California, we've got CalMatters, this new nonprofit journalism organization.
And they came in, one of the guys came in and talked to my students through the propositions and how to, how to learn about them and how to discuss them and how to have parties.
(04:25):
They were so grateful. They were like, it was like they were starving and hungry.
And then at the end, this was, this was great. So there was that aspect of civic engagement, the civic, the voting, the being involved that way.
Which I think people need a roadmap for. And then, and I'd love to hear how More Perfect Union is envisioning civic engagement and how you are providing roadmaps for people or guides to help them do what they probably desire to do anyway.
(04:53):
Civic engagement is so important. This is, this is my favorite pillar for, for MPU. And I try to drive this and all the events that I pull together.
But this again comes down to building trust. But in this case, it's about building trust between individuals and our government. So if you care about the strength of our country, then you kind of have to care about the strength and health of our government.
(05:14):
And if we as a people continue to lose trust in our institutions and specifically in our government, then we're going to continue to face some significant challenges in supporting our democracy and making sure that we have a healthy lasting, long lasting democracy.
So when it comes to civic engagement, you know, that's part civic education. And that's at all levels. So I think everybody very quickly gets caught up into what's happening at the national level.
(05:40):
There are very partisan issues that are in the news every single day. You read the headlines. So even at the most local level, people are very informed on the national level news, but that's not always helpful.
So there's a lot of different ways to be civically engaged. You don't have to run for state level, national level office to be, you know, like fully civically engaged.
(06:02):
There's so many things we can do at the more local level. And those things can be really powerful and they can create this sense of empowerment, individual empowerment to be part of the bigger system and to support that, which then builds trust between citizens and government.
So when we hold an event, you know, we might structure a conversation around some form of civic education. So this is how things work. How do you feel about that? You know, what are your experiences yourself?
(06:27):
What are some issues in your local community that you might want to get involved in? We might bring in a guest speaker who talks about some past successes where they were able to make a change, you know, locally where it feels very tangible and real.
But ultimately, you know, active participation across a range of civic duties from voting to signing up to become an election judge, which I will do myself for the first time this year.
(06:49):
So I think that's all essential for healthy democracy. And we just try to create the space for people to think about it, to be inspired to go to do action, and then ideally come together and maybe actually take action together as a group.
So you're talking about like the working together, getting into the community, the civic engagement, and then the social connection. So connecting and seeing each other's humanity for civility is, as you know, is the primary driver of what we see as actually starting to solve problems.
(07:17):
So how is more perfect union seeing the concept of social connection? And how are you manifesting that?
Well, just to give a huge shout out to civility, I was so impressed when I first got introduced to civility, and how civility defines, you know, a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different.
And I went through a civility workshop, and one of the things that really stood out to me, I wrote it down and I already started using it.
(07:42):
When it comes to building relationships, conversation is action, and that's really powerful. I think from the very beginning for more perfect union, there's a discussion when you bring people together, is that enough? Is that okay?
Would you need to then organize them to go do effort? And I think it's actually both, but you don't want to dismiss or underappreciate the power of just building relationships and having a conversation.
(08:05):
So for us, everything starts with social gathering, because that is where you build understanding, and that's where you build empathy for others. We all live in our own bubbles and our own silos.
Physical, in our physical space, on our day to day, you know, whether you commute or whether you work from home, there are a limited number of people that you meaningfully engage with.
And then it's the same thing in our digital lives. So you might download an app that has very specific news that's tailored towards your interests, or you might build up the algorithm that's only going to show you the things that you really care about.
(08:39):
So we don't really get exposed to all these other things in the world and all these other perspectives in a meaningful way.
So if you can just bring people together in real life, in a relaxed, informal setting, then they have the opportunity to share stories, experiences, perspectives, you start to understand things in a different way, and you can start to lay the foundation for deeper understanding across the community.
(09:01):
You're right. That is very Civiti, and I'm so glad that Civiti's concepts are working for you. I love that too, the conversation is the action when it comes to relationships.
And I would love to do a Civiti thing with you. It would be a lot of fun to do a quick to share a story about yourself, something that matters to you in your community.
Having talked to a lot of people through MPU and just my daily life, I think a lot of other people feel the same way. And so I'll share this because I think others might, it might resonate with others.
(09:30):
When you walk around your community, you really hope to see vibrancy. You want to see people talking to each other. You want to see people walking on the street with, you know, smiling and laughing.
You want to see the local stores and restaurants having a lot of people and having success.
But oftentimes we don't feel like we want that around us, but we don't feel like we need to contribute actively to it ourselves.
(09:55):
So you can be part of it, but also a part at the same time. And what I hope, what I've experienced with MPU and just through this experience is that, well, I need to do my part too.
You know, it doesn't just happen naturally. When you have a healthy, vibrant community and you walk around, you just feel it when you walk around the streets in some communities versus others.
And when it doesn't happen by itself, every single individual has to contribute to that. And so getting people to think about, and I've had to do this myself, getting out of my own head and out of my own daily priorities and concerns and fears,
(10:30):
what am I doing to contribute to that besides just walking along the street myself? And so I try to challenge myself. And that's my hope for the community is that everybody looks around and says, how can I kind of contribute to this?
Because that's when you really get a special community.
Yeah, I totally agree. Can you think of a moment, I mean, outside of More Perfect Union, but just you in your community, when you felt yourself contributing to that and felt the energy of the response?
(10:55):
So I live in Silver Spring, Maryland, so just outside of DC. And Silver Spring has a really incredible center area where people will come together and seems like every weekend there's a big festival, there's music, there's different types of food, there are vendors that are selling things.
And it's a very diverse community in the best of ways where people from all over the world with many different backgrounds, all kinds of different socioeconomic statuses come together in the same place and just being there and talking to people, especially some of the local vendors, but bumping into people that could be my neighbors and saying hi and petting dogs and watching the kids run around.
(11:35):
Just kind of being in that space is high energy. So even if it's not the most active contribution, sometimes those are the times when I feel the most connected to my community, when everybody's out and enjoying themselves kind of around some kind of shared thing.
I love that. And that's so Siby, that small scale interaction, that moment of just small connections, that weaves your community together.
(11:57):
And I feel the same way when I walk around. I live in San Francisco. I love walking around the entire city because I always look up, I smile at everybody and I love doing that and I love getting smiles back and it just makes me feel so good.
A buddy of mine took things a step further and Malke knows him too. He lived in Oakland and he wanted to bring his neighborhood together. They had those little parklets. We call them in California. I don't know if you have parklets in DC, but they're just like really tiny little like a median or something that you could put apart.
(12:25):
So he put flyers that I'm going to have a barbecue. I'm going to be out there barbecuing if you want to join me. And everybody in the neighborhood came out and they're like, we haven't seen our neighbors in so long. This is so great. And they made it a regular thing.
So that idea of being proactive about building community and then building those like human connections is great.
I think anytime you go out of your way to create space for people to come together in a safe, kind of meaningful way, you always get surprised about who shows up, how do they engage, how quickly does it turn personal in a good way.
(12:58):
I think the more that we can we can all try to strive to do that, I think the better. Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. So on that note, you know, you talked earlier about what's going on in the world and why more perfect union is important in that context.
But I really would love to hear from you. I mean, you shared a little bit about what matters to you as far as how you build your own community. But I'd love to hear from you about why you decided yourself. What drew you or drove you or led your path to more perfect union?
(13:27):
Well, I got guilted into it by one of my best friends. Okay, that's awesome.
That's I guess that's how a lot of these things start where and again, this is something that probably resonates with others. You're sitting there, you see a problem, you probably should do something, but you've got the rest of your life happening.
It's it takes a lot to commit to anything. It takes a lot to commit to a single event if you were just going to show up. And I see this every time I run an MPU event.
(13:52):
You know, people have lives, they've got their kids, their jobs, their stresses, something happens, it's hard to take a few hours after work, it's hard to go do a few hours on the weekend for a service project.
It can take a lot to overcome that initial just, you know, that stop energy where you're like, No, no, I just don't have time for that. Let alone try to become a regular volunteer leader over time that we're going to try to make a big commitment of your time, it really takes more than just caring about it.
(14:19):
Sometimes it takes a little bit extra push. So, Garrett Cathgard, who's co founder and executive director for more perfect union.
I'd gone back years with him. We were both in the army together, and actually met him when we were both out of the army. And he had gone through a series of really interesting positions from team bright white and blue to mission roll call and then to more
(14:40):
than just being a volunteer leader. And he's starting this new thing and he says, I want you to be a part of this. And because it's Garrett, I said, Sure, whatever it is, I'm there. And then it turned into this whole thing. So now three years later, I'm still holding events and trying to do the best I can.
That's so cool. So beyond just you were guilted into it, it really resonated with you hit you. I think it came at the right time. So again, you know, a few years ago, you start to look around.
(15:06):
It's never like a perfect time in our country. There's always challenges at the at the international level at the national level down at the local community where you feel it where you feel like something's off. So we're always striving for that more perfect union to put it right in our name.
But I think when Garrett reached out, it was just at the right time when I was looking around and said, What can I do if I'm going to raise my hand and say, I want to be a part of a solution. I thought this was a great way to go about to ruminate on your name for a minute.
(15:32):
I really love that that is the phrase that's in our founding documents and also that you chose it because it leaves room for work like it's not a perfect union, it's a more perfect union. So we always do have to do the work and be active and be engaged.
Yeah, well, if we don't do that, nobody will on a daily basis living here in DC doing the type of work that I do. Everybody likes to complain about government. It's really easy to complain that government doesn't do something fast enough, well enough.
(15:58):
It's not treating everybody right. It's not doing his job. It's totally dysfunctional. But really, government is us. And I say this a lot where if we're not trying to be part of the solution, you look around, nobody else is going to be able to fix this.
And so anytime somebody complains about the state of our country and our democracy, well, there's things that we can do, even though it feels small, all those things start to add up.
(16:19):
Yeah, very true. I'd love to hear some anecdotes over your time with More Perfect Union about just moments that you remember where people were moved or touched or connected or transformed or just a small moment in which someone opened up a little bit.
I would love to hear some stories from you if you're willing to share some.
(16:42):
Sure. And this happens pretty much every time. You know, when you can create, like I said, when you can create the space for people to trust who they're talking to and to share personal stories, it gets real very quickly in the best of ways.
And that's when you really make a connection versus just staying at the surface, which I believe is the difference between running into somebody on the street or bumping elbows with somebody on the metro train on your commute where you've made no connection to sharing your story.
(17:11):
And to sharing a personal story and having a genuine meaningful connection. That's a real big difference.
You're listening to This is Civity. I'm Gina Baleria. We're talking with Ben Bain about the importance of actively contributing toward building connections and relationships in our communities.
And Ben's hope that humanity can overcome polarization.
(17:32):
I guess it would start with the Brickyard Leadership Training that I went through. First cohort of Brickyard leaders, volunteer leaders like myself, they brought us together. 14, 15 people that year. I think it was a two or three hour introduction session where everybody goes deep and tells their real story.
You know, everybody goes around shares everything that they're concerned about, where they've come from, the challenges that they've had to overcome, things that are happening in life right now.
(17:56):
And again, it's all about creating that space. They created that space. So that was my very first interaction of, wow, you really got to go deep and open yourself because this is how you form those new connections.
But then the first time I came back to DC and I ran an event, used a structured conversation around the American dream. So essentially three questions all around what does the American dream mean to you?
(18:19):
And I think I had eight people in my group because we break up into small groups, so everybody has a chance to talk and listen.
And every single person had a story about opportunity and somebody that they know, mostly family members, one or two generations back, of rising in society and starting from really hard circumstances and somehow making the best out of all the opportunity that America can provide.
(18:50):
And that showed right off that there's still this sense of idealism. Again, society is not perfect. It's not equal opportunity for all.
But there is opportunity. There is this sense that the United States can offer that to people and so many people have a direct connection to real stories of people that did that.
And that really stood out to me. I think that's one example where eight people, totally different backgrounds, coming from very different places in the world, all sharing very similar stories.
(19:21):
And to show that connection across differences was very powerful.
That really helps humanize someone that you walk in thinking is so far from you and you realize you have those connections on whatever point in the path you're on.
What about later on as you got more involved with more perfect union? Are there any anecdotes of people that you've connected with that have resonated or stayed with you?
(19:44):
So I hosted a dinner at my house one evening. And the best part of that evening was we had people from very different ages all attend.
So we had two young people that were in high school. We had some mid-career, senior career professionals, and we had a couple who were retired, recently retired.
(20:06):
And that really made the conversation way more interesting. So there's a lot of ways that you can bring differences together.
So it can be race, religion, jobs, politics, geographical backgrounds. But I think age is one of the most interesting, and I think that's undervalued in bringing people together who've just seen the world so differently.
(20:27):
They've grown up with different technology. They've grown up seeing very different history.
The 23rd anniversary of 9-11, working with people who were not born when 9-11 happened, those are massive shaping events.
And so I just remember that one evening really standing out when the high school students would share their perspectives and everybody else would be like, oh, wow, that's how you're seeing this issue of the American dream or anything else.
(20:57):
And I think that's so different. And I feel like in all the ways that we create silos for ourselves, the age differences is one of the most significant.
I really love that you brought up all of the socially salient differences and divides that could come up because so much of society focuses on the left-right divide, which is honestly made up of all these other divides and these divides crisscross it.
(21:19):
And so if you put that aside and also focuses on those socially salient differences in whatever community, and it sounds like More Perfect Union does as well, you really get at it a little bit more honestly.
And people can really take a journey across a divide when you actually identify what the divide is beyond just this moniker.
I think it's really hard. I think if I pulled one thing away from my experience with More Perfect Union and that it is incredibly hard to get outside of our silos or bubbles and whatever you want to call it.
(21:49):
And when we went to that first training where we brought everybody together and everybody gets really excited, we're going to go home, we're going to break down these barriers, we're going to connect with all these people that are different than us.
It's just hard to get people that are different than you to come together under the right circumstances to have a meaningful engagement, to then build empathy, to build trust, let alone to build ownership of our community and our government and what can we do together.
(22:15):
And it's not surprising, but I came home and so I served in the Army. So I'm a veteran, I'm a white male. I come home and I put on some events and who are most of the people that are coming?
I'm a male veteran. Well, this is great. We think differently, we've got different experiences, we might have different political differences, but that's not enough.
And so it's just hard to reach out across all the differences just to tee up and to create that special space where people can share personal stories, but about kind of our shared values for our country and our future together.
(22:47):
That's just what I found. This is hard going. A lot of people like to talk about the issues that we see in our country. They'll do research, but there's not that many people that are actively bringing folks together and setting the conditions for these kind of conversations because it's really hard.
It's so true. And people often self-select into these groups. There are people who actively want to make this better who come and then how do you reach the people who feel defeated or who feel as if they don't have a seat at the table and it's difficult.
(23:16):
How are you trying to address that? And I know it's difficult and none of us have the answer, but how are you trying to sort of get at that?
Part of it is try to learn from other brickyard leaders. So we've got volunteer leaders just like myself around the country, across many states, and trying to learn from what they do.
How do they reach out into their community? There's a lot of different ways you can go about doing that. How do you advertise? On what platforms are you doing advertising? If it's just trying to do it on LinkedIn, then you're only going to hit a subset of people in your relatively narrow network, no matter how popular you are.
(23:54):
But if you choose Instagram or any other social media platform, there's going to be benefits, but also limits to those.
And then how do you create some kind of meaningful relationships with key people in your community that might have more direct access and trust, established trust with different parts of the community?
And that's something I'm constantly trying to work on. It can always be better. There's always ways to bring more people together that have different kinds of differences.
(24:19):
There's always more we can do to do that, but it's a constant challenge. Yeah, how do you reach the people that aren't just self-selecting?
But even when you get those people that say, hey, I'm interested in this, that's still really meaningful. Because again, how do we give an opportunity for somebody to say that when they raise their hand and they want to do something about it, they want to be part of some kind of solution.
I feel like MPU can start to offer that. When you're dealing across a generational difference or a difference in which someone's like, look, you can't, it's always been dysfunctional. It is what it is.
(24:49):
I'm here, but I don't see how we're going to get this done. What is your strategy or more perfect union strategy to not change their mind, but nudge them on a path toward maybe seeing that other things are possible?
Yeah, we definitely don't try to change anyone's minds. It's really about, so I'm the big fan of structured conversations. I think it gives everybody a chance to speak, gives everybody a chance to listen.
(25:14):
Everybody has a chance to answer the same question. And you have to deliberately pick what those questions are instead of just letting free flow of conversation.
So there is a time and place for pure social gathering, informal. People can chat. They can share whatever they would like to share, whether it's about their jobs, whether it's about their hobbies, or what they feel about what's happening in the country.
(25:37):
But if you really want to get down into more specifics, you've got to structure. You have to really think deliberatively about what do you want them to answer and share and talk about.
And so I think in those cases, especially when you've got folks from very different ages who have all these different experiences and views of the world, tee up the questions that start at the basics and look for the shared values.
(26:04):
Because I think that really starts to change things, because ideally, we're not hopeless optimists at Morpah Puget Union. At least I can't speak for everyone. I don't feel like I'm a hopeless optimist, but I'd like to shape these conversations with some sense of there's a positive future.
I think if we lose the sense of positive future, then what are we doing here? You just start to throw everything out the window.
(26:27):
It's hard. There's a lot of really significant tensions across our society. But if you can find the shared values and you can instill that sense of positivity and optimism for like, we can create a better future, it is within our grasp.
That goes a long way towards fostering those meaningful conversations.
You said that you really appreciate the way Civity kind of approaches this. How do you see Civity informing your work or Morpah Puget Union's work?
(26:53):
Well, so I want to beg, borrow, and steal from everyone. I think anybody that's doing good things would love to try to incorporate the way that they frame certain ideas, specific wording, and give them credit where credit is due.
Just as that example, when Civity said, when it comes to building relationships, conversation is action, I immediately put that into my introduction for what do we do at MPU.
(27:14):
And I think there's tremendous overlap. If you go deeper into what Civity puts forward is building relationships across difference to transform communities. In so many ways, I think that's what Morpah Puget Union does.
We're trying to do it on a maybe not day-to-day basis, but every time I do an event, that's kind of the purpose. And so if I can learn from Civity all of the experience that they've built up from people across the country, across the world, that's only going to make this better.
(27:43):
I feel like Morpah Puget Union is one of many organizations that have sprung up in the last, let's just say, five years that want to do something different, that want to see change in our world, because everybody's seeing the same thing.
They're looking around and saying, this is not okay. This could be better. I want to do something about it. So you get these fearless, passionate, inspirational leaders like Jake Herriman and Gary Cathcart, our two founders, to say, well, we're going to try to organize it.
(28:09):
We're going to create space for others to do meaningful things. But there's other organizations that are doing either similar things or complementary things, and we all need to be working together.
There's a growing movement for bringing together multiple types of pro-democracy groups to make the sum more than just the sum total of the parts.
So just to give you an example, there are people that are working for structural change around election. There are people that are working for political change because they want to get the right types of people in office.
(28:36):
But then you've got a whole range of bridging organizations, and MPU is just one of those. So we feel like we have a great model, but we're not the only ones that are trying to support democracy.
Yeah. And that's what I love about the bridging space is that everyone really is nurturing of each other. With regard to more perfect community, your values even, you mentioned, community has come up a lot.
(28:57):
And the values, even if they are a value that's defined in a million different ways, your organization is defining them all as community-focused. I noticed that you used the term servant leaders, like leaders who serve the community, treating each other with compassion, having open hearts.
These are things that don't have to be said, but they've woven their way into your definitions. And so it just really resonates with me the way that you're seeing the work you're doing as nurturing community and cultivating community.
(29:27):
And so the entire organization is veteran-inspired. So Jake Harriman served in the Marine Corps, Garrett Cathgard served in the Army, a range of our kind of small but mighty core headquarters staff, served in some capacity. A lot of our brickyard leaders all have, not all, but many have military service.
So it's veteran-inspired, not veteran-led, that goes throughout everything that we do. So when it comes to servant leadership, how do you put the community first? How are you taking care of your people? A lot of that naturally comes through the incredible military training that you can get when you serve in uniform.
(30:02):
But veterans are not the only ones that have something to say on this. So we've got a full range of public sector leaders. We've got incredible private sector leaders as well that have done incredible things. But I think when you start to talk about our values, our values of service, virtue, mercy, humility, courage, and hope, you're right. They all are kind of focused on the community because that's what we're trying to change. How do you change the country by starting with the community?
(30:27):
The next civity question. You've defined yourself as someone who cares about the community. And you've also defined yourself as a veteran, a white male who lives on the East Coast. And those are all wonderful things. What is something someone might not know about you? Or what do you wish someone would know about you other than what they see or what's out there?
Well, it doesn't take you very long to know me to learn this, but my wife and I love to foster dogs. And so, you know, this is just something that it's like another way to well, it's also very selfish, because we love having a dog around. But it's just another form of service in a way of like, how do we create a safe home for some of these incredible dogs? Most are incredible. Some some are a little troublesome, but they're all very cute. In order for them to find their forever homes. And so, like I said, it doesn't take very long for you to know me for me to bring up a picture of my dog.
(31:12):
Or to talk about the last story that we had with this crazy foster dog. But that's something that is a big part of my life. So I've got my job, got my family. I've got empty you and then we've got a bunch of dogs just to connect with you. I also loved I cannot go buy a dog with I don't even see the owner. I'm just like dog. And my husband's like, why can't you be this excited about baby? But look at the dog. It's Yeah, exactly. As we've talked about all of this, and you've shared your stories. What are you most excited about? What are you most excited about?
(31:42):
What are you most proud of with regard to your work here at more perfect union or your work building community?
Sticking with it. I'm most most proud about just trying to stick with this effort. It is really hard. Sometimes, you know, I'll organize an event, try to put a lot of thought into it. And then not many people show up. But then the next time I'll do the same thing, haven't figured out what the difference is, I'll get 20 or 30 people to sign up to show up.
(32:06):
But even when just one person shows up, it still is meaningful. It almost gives you a chance for a deeper connection for even smaller groups. So it's not always about numbers, but it's about consistency and sticking with it. And I think, you know, if more perfect union is really going to scale, we can really turn into the next generation civic organization, where we're all over the country, we are creating that that space for people to come together. Then it's going to take a lot of people like me that are just sticking with it. Event by event.
(32:36):
Trying to bring people together, always trying to figure out how do you expand who even hears about your events, who shows up to the events? How do you lower the barrier to entry so people aren't scared? Or, you know, how do you make it more compelling than you know, somebody had a great line the other day, you have to make it more compelling than somebody taking a well deserved nap. Or, you know, when they're when they're driving home from work, and they're exhausted, why should they stop and go do that two hour MPU event on the way home, you got to make it pretty compelling.
(33:05):
Free food goes a long way, but that's not it.
Is there anything you want to say that I haven't asked you that you think it's important for people to know?
We launched a coffee encourage challenge. And very excited about this. This is a great idea coming from our headquarter leaders. And what it is, is people will should, you know, get to go go out and invite somebody that's not like them for coffee, have coffee and ask each other what is American Dream mean to you.
(33:31):
That's the core question. And then we asked them to take a short video 30 seconds minute tops about where did they find overlap, where did they find connection, where do they find shared understanding, and why is it important.
And the idea is to make this a viral challenge. So once you do that you tag three others and you hope that they will go do the similar coffee.
And so, why I'm really excited about this is like, one I like coffee so that's always great fostering more one on one conversations is definitely a good thing if you can do it at scale, fantastic.
(34:04):
But maybe the most important thing that I think this has the chance to do, if enough people will do this is you start to change the narrative of what's happening around our country.
And when people see something positive to people come together over their differences over coffee to talk about shared values and American Dream.
It's not all, you know, partisan warfare. It's not all the country is doomed. It's not all, you know, there's dysfunction around here we're never going to be able to get along, we've never seen you know worst time in our in our in our lives in our country,
(34:35):
which just isn't true. The more we can start to change that narrative and get people to identify with that more than what they see on you know headlines for most of the national news that that is a real game changer so we're going to run this through, probably
through the election, it's really important to get the word out there so if any listeners want to be part of this this is the coffee encourage challenge more perfect union is npu.us that's our website there's a couple different more perfect unions out there.
(35:00):
So go to the right website, find out the coffee encourage challenge. Have a coffee with somebody share share your story, but also tell the story to the world because that's what we really need right now.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate having you on this podcast. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Civity is an outstanding organization so the more I can learn and more I can share that around and view I think we'll all be better off.
(35:24):
Thank you to my guest, Ben Bain, volunteer brickyard leader for the organization more perfect union to check out mpu and to take the coffee and courage challenge.
Go to mpu.us.
Civity is a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different, moving people from us versus them to we all belong to learn more, go to civity.org.
(35:53):
Right.
Black or white.
All the same.
Wake up people.
It's time to build a brand new day.
We're gonna stand together on common ground.
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