Empowering Leaders - How Lizzie Pollock Builds Community
guest post by Sam Gilman
Just eight years ago when Alan Harlam took a job at Brown, the Social Innovation Initiative, which he had been asked to help launch, featured just seven members. Last year, SII had over 400 students and 100 alums actively participate in the community. It inducted an amazing new class of fellows tackling systemic injustices in the community, across the country, and around the world. It won recognition for the powerful Swearer Sparks series curated by Alex Braunstein. And, it launched the Embark Fellowship, which not only shows Brown students that we can turn our ventures into careers, but also demonstrates that SII will continue to support its members beyond graduation.
This growth is a testament to every part of the ecosystem. The program continues to grow because of Alan, Lizzie, and Alex’s vision and leadership, energy and idealism from student leaders, unwavering alumni commitment, and sustained parental support. Surprisingly, as SII has grown larger, I have found that our community has drawn closer. Of course, every member of the community deserves credit for this. One person in particular, however, who I have never seen seek credit for anything deserves special praise: Lizzie Pollock.
As Lizzie goes on maternity leave, it is worth stopping to recognize just how much Lizzie has mothered many of us, our ventures, and the SII community as a whole.
She often plays the roles of advisor, coach, shrink, consultant, and friend for me and other SII fellows.
Ok, ok, I might be a little biased…I have worked with Lizzie almost every week since October of my sophomore year. Three years ago, when we first came up with the idea for Common Sense Action (the first bipartisan advocacy group and think tank of Millennials), it took us six weeks to find out that the Swearer Center supported social entrepreneurs (and that what we were doing could classify as social entrepreneurship). Finally, we found Alan, and he invited Lizzie, who had just joined SII a week prior and has a background in community and political organizing, to join us for our meeting. Three years later, there's no way it would take six weeks to find SII at Brown in part because of the programming that she runs and the community that she nurtures.
Lizzie’s especially good at helping young entrepreneurs confront failures and roadblocks. Failure in a social entrepreneurship setting can sometime be even more painful because it often suggests a failure to serve a community you care deeply about. Lizzie is at her best in these situations. Sometimes, she's there with sympathy when the failure is out of our control. Other times, she's there to tell us to pull it together. We did fail, we should take responsibility, and this is how to make it better (though she always says it more tactfully). Other times still, she's there with righteous indignation on our behalf when we have been wronged. And of course, she recognizes that we sometimes just need a sympathetic pair of ears.
Last fall, I found myself in one such situation. Progress with Common Sense Action had stalled, and we needed to make a large strategic change. I also was going through a tough time personally after losing my aunt and grandfather. Lizzie responded by opening her home, inviting me to a Shabbat dinner when she knew I needed to be in a family setting. Simultaneously, we worked especially hard to develop a strategy for CSA to orient itself towards greater advocacy and electoral impact. I am sure many of the SII fellows who have spent significant time with her have similar stories.
These acts of everyday and sometimes extraordinary friendship and grace are a part of Lizzie's character. They engender so much loyalty that when Lizzie asks for the inevitable "small favor" people do it almost on command – even if they don't have time. That said, these favors are often not really favors. They are usually opportunities to give more back to SII.
Early in my time at CSA, Lizzie told me something I will never forget. "People say leaders have followers," she said. "But that's not it. Leaders empower others to be leaders." I have never met anyone who upholds that mantra more than Lizzie.