The Pathway to Organizational Change
August 22, 2019
Anyone who thinks [they are] too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito
― Jeannette Walls
There’s a social media campaign called “Not in Philly” that encourages citizens to clean up trash in their neighborhoods. This person-to-person approach is important for a city that doesn’t offer a comprehensive street sweeping program. When I see the posts, I feel inspired to take part. Yet, when I’m walking down a block littered with receipts and empty water bottles, I feel helpless once again. Will picking up one item at a time make Philadelphia any cleaner?
Each spring, something amazing happens: neighborhood associations across the city ask volunteers to come together to clean up the city, block by block. Over one day, the city transforms. For me, spring cleanup day is an inspiring demonstration of the power of collective action.
In student affairs, one of our many jobs is to inspire students to see how their actions can and will change the world. The institution itself - its climate, policies, and programs - can be a way to show students how individual actions can spur community-wide change.
Culture of Respect Collective offers student affairs professionals an opportunity to prove this to students. Joining the Collective means that participating schools work towards the lofty goal of improving their institution’s efforts to address sexual violence by engaging in a long chain of simple but powerful steps: completing the application, responding to survey questions, reaching out to colleagues one-by-one, reserving meeting space, buying binders, printing reports, and so much more. The projects and collaborations add up to something bigger: targeted organizational change, advancing their institution’s strategy to address sexual violence.
For the Culture of Respect staff, it’s magic to witness this journey. But if you don’t look, it can be easy to miss the magic. That’s why we put together our latest publication, Culture of Respect Collective: Cohort 2 At a Glance. This four-page brief outlines the steps schools in our second cohort have taken towards targeted organizational change. While the brief doesn’t capture every minutia of making change happen at these institutions, it does show how small parts become something greater than their whole.