Stepping Down as NESAWG's ED | NESAWG

When I took the job as Executive Director of NESAWG in 2017, I will admit that I didn’t quite know what I was signing up for. I knew I believed deeply in the need to create a farm and food system that centers the human right to produce food and feed ourselves in ways that honor our bodies, communities, cultures, livelihoods, and the planet. I also knew that I loved that my job allowed me to connect with people working across the food system and learn from them not only how vast this work can be and how many parts of our society it touches, but also that there are a multitude of strategies we can employ to make our food system more sustainable, equitable, and just. 

Now, five years later, what I’ve also realized is how important the role of networks and network facilitators are for movement work, even small organizations like NESAWG who play that role. Networks connect people, foster dialogue and collaboration, and, when they function well, can curate a diversity of viewpoints that hopefully lead to new and different understandings of chronic and seemingly intractable issues. But network facilitators play a role in movement building, and movements must evolve and grow if they are going to achieve their goals. Part of that growth is interrogating the values that undergird the movement, and being clear that they align with the vision the movement is working towards. It can be tricky to navigate the role of convening a big tent while also being uncompromising about the values we stand for. I don’t know if that’s even possible. I did know that when I took this job, I wanted to be clear about our values first and foremost, even if that meant sacrificing the size of the tent we convened. 

For NESAWG, equity and racial justice are chief among the values that we (not just me, but our staff and board) want to center. One thing I learned early on in that effort is that saying you center equity and racial justice and actually centering them are two very different things, especially as an historically white-led organization that has historically served a largely white network. Actually doing that centering is messy and imperfect life’s work that requires a ton of humility. I know we didn’t get it right all of the time and probably not even a lot of the time. But I hope that, in the corner of the food system we operate in, we helped move the needle in the right direction.

For me, a big part of equity work is sharing leadership and understanding the importance of stepping aside to make space for new leaders. New leaders bring in new ideas, relationships, and energy. For networks like ours, all of those things are the currency of our work. That is why I decided to bring my time as ED to a close at the end of this year and make space for the next phase of NESAWG’s leadership.

My favorite part of this job is still all of you, the folks who are part of NESAWG. I hope you will help us find an amazing new ED. I am so excited to see who will step into this role and continue to take this network of dedicated, hard working farm and food systems folks to new levels. 

With tremendous respect for you and your work,

Tracy

Find the job announcement, description, and application for our Executive Director opening here, and please help us spread the word!

Photo Credit: Birch Kinsey