The Present & Future | Rippel Foundation

Commited to Building a Thriving and Equitable Future for Everyone

Client: Rippel Foundation
Industry: Non-Profit
Video Type: Healthcare
Messaging Type: Interview-Based

About This Video Project

The Ripple Foundation hired us to create a series of videos for their ReThink Health Initiative. The Next Chapter: The Path to an Equitable Thriving Future is a look into the present and lays out their vision for the future. Mixing client submitted photos with our professionally produced interviews this video highlights their commitment to building a thriving and equitable future for everyone.

Transcription

The Ripple Foundation is a really unique organization. The kinds of problems we’re trying to solve are not solved in a budget cycle or an election cycle. They really do take enduring investments and commitments among leaders and community members. We really think about supporting conditions for system change. It really is about building capacity within organizations and leaders, whom we call stewards, to do the work of system change better, more equitably, and more effectively over time. The way in which we move forward is not to go back to the way things were, because the way things were were not good for so many people in our community. What does a healthy, vibrant ecosystem look like for our community, especially our most vulnerable, and try to reimagine or reconstruct what a new path forward is going to look like is the work, the urgent work, that we all need to be focusing on today. We have to design for those who were experiencing the greatest harm and the greatest pain, because when we start there, I think we can begin to build more equitable and just communities. That means working with people and organizations and partnerships to expand their aspirations, to think even more ambitiously about their goals. We have the privilege of working really closely with stewards on the ground in communities. That means people who are leading organizations, that can be community organizations, philanthropy, government, healthcare systems, as well as residents, and really helping them come together, facilitating conversations around where investments are happening across their communities and where they might shift in order to better improve equitable health and well-being in their community. We’re always thinking about the future, and we can thrive together. The question is how hard are we willing to work for that, and who’s the we? We need to be constantly looking for the stewards in our midst and celebrating their accomplishments. People are thirsty to have their work be more meaningful. If that work were connected to the project of thriving together, to establish vital conditions that have never been established for everybody, that is work of immensely rewarding purpose. We’ll never do it as volunteers or voters alone. It has to be through our work as stewards, every day and in every way. It can be pursued in every industry, in every walk of life. You don’t have to be an elected official. People can play this role everywhere, and so we have to be able to get that civic muscle working in what people do every day through their jobs and through the associations and through the spaces that they create. I am filled with optimism, but I’m also serious about this is going to take a lot of hard work for the people who believe their lives depend on it. Personally, I didn’t grow up in a thriving household, and so I love personally this work about helping people move forward in a society that has really been laden with a lot of issues that prevent them from moving forward. I feel fortunate to have been able to break through, but not everybody else can, and I think that that’s the work that’s exciting. I am African-American transplant, but I’m also privileged. So I have in my quiver arrows that not everybody has, and I have to recognize that, and I have a responsibility as a consequence to support those around me who that’s not the same start that they had. The kinds of concepts in the change-making and the stewardship mindsets and principles and the work has to be done at the very hyper-local level, because that has the greatest, most direct impact on people’s everyday lives, but it also has to be embedded in the work of Congress at the federal level, because every person has a role in creating conditions for equitable health and well-being, and we all have to realize what our role is and play within our own sphere of influence. So that’s my area of excitement for the impact that Ripple can have. And it’s all about the tables, being at different tables and different networks, and then building those networks. That’s also what Ripple has been on the forefront of and will continue to do, and I look forward to watching and being part of some of that work in the future. I’m hopeful that potential partners see what I see when I sit down around this boardroom, which is a lot of excitement, a lot of passion, inclusive thinking, and we really have a great team. Everyone has different backgrounds. People have come from the public sector, private sector. There’s a lot of diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of approach. In a respectful way, we mix all that together and come out with some pretty neat ideas. And so I’m excited to see the team grow and continue down this path. I’m absolutely hopeful that participating with Ripple in a lot of different ways can help us move forward our work in Delaware. And it’s more than just our state. It’s all of us together working for all people and places thriving. So that’s one of the other exciting things, I think, in terms of participating with Ripple is that they help us to make those connections with others that are doing the hard work that we’re trying to do too. We get to learn lessons from one another and really feel like you’re part of a movement. You know, we’re moving forward together. It’s going to take many, many years, but we’re starting that journey and we have others who are working with us. When we can invest in those neighborhoods who are living furthest away from opportunity, we can actually create greater opportunity for the greater community. And what the Ripple Foundation has given us are the tools to think about how we can work and bring all of those communities of interest together to work in concert to begin to make incremental change over time. Rethink Health, they brought context. They really helped us to figure out how do we align everything that we’re working on and we’re doing and helped us to establish that every person in our community can be a steward. And it’s creating new ideas, new ways of doing this work, really how to listen to and involve the community in their own health and sometimes even stepping out of the way so the community can do it for themselves. We all have an important responsibility to contribute to change that can improve the lives of generations to come. And that’s really fundamental to Ripple’s work is what can we do to shift systems now to impact future generations, that change can come from anywhere and anyone at any time. I think the future is bright because we’re building upon what we’ve done in the past. My hope is that we can influence and be part of some substantial changes in our health care systems. And so it’s not just about providing health care. It’s also about making sure the financial models work, that there are incentives for all the various players to do better than we’re doing today. I’m convinced we can do that, but it’s going to take a lot of work. It’s really trying to create this bigger agenda for what we can do together because we can’t get there by ourselves. It has to be done with other people across different political spectrum, across different cultural beliefs, different academic backgrounds, different professional backgrounds. That’s how we’re going to create the kind of belonging that I believe we really envision as a nation. My hope for the future is we continue to grow and stabilize as a place that is welcoming and cultivating a host of different perspectives. And that we really do come to a place where the health system is transformed and communities are unleashed to take care of themselves. It’s about having a thriving, equitable society where everyone has the ability to reach their full potential. I don’t think you can talk to any politician, any professional, any community member, anyone along the streets who doesn’t want that vision for our country.

To learn more: https://rippel.org