Farewell (for now): A letter from Executive Director Olivia Harris
April is my last month at Speak About It.... for now.
I KNOW! I will miss you all, too.
The last 5 years have been amazing. And challenging. And heartwarming. I am very lucky that I get to work with a community of thoughtful, honest, curious people who want to help students build supportive, healthy, consensual romantic and platonic relationships. Our team of Actor-Educators is one of the best around because they care so deeply about the students we work with. Our current Back to Basics team and all 65 educators I have gotten to work with in the last 5 years are constantly showing me why it’s vital that we trust and center young people. If for no other reason than so I know the youthful lingo.
I could not have done this job without Shane Diamond, Catherine Buxton, Mackenzie Bartlett, and Oronde Cruger. Catherine, Oronde, and Shane welcomed me to this job and this community with open hearts in 2018, even though they didn’t understand why I love pretzels, theater, and podcasts so much. Shane literally got this whole party started, and we would be nowhere without him. Catherine’s focus on being the most values-driven organization we could be has kept us honest long after she moved on from Speak About It. Mackenzie is a newer addition to our team, and has proved invaluable. They are creative, sharp, and thoughtful, and are taking our Events and Development teams in fun new directions. Oronde is the beating heart of Speak About It, building the connections and programs that are what make our work mean so much to so many. live and die by my work boundaries, and yet am so grateful that these folks have become my dear friends outside of our occupational collaborations.
I have been so honored to serve alongside Board Presidents Kim Pacelli, Krista Williamson, Anna Shapell Fletcher, and James Patefield. Nonprofits are a strange structure, and being the Board President of a well-respected by still somewhat scrappy org. comes with exciting challenges and some out-of-the-blue phone calls from a panicky ED. Each and every one of you taught me how to do my job a little bit better, how to be a little bit kinder and clearer, and how to take care of myself a little better. Thank you. And thank you, too, to the Board and Committee members I’ve gotten to know: Lauren Oullette-Whelan, Genevieve Cox, Gina Colambatto, Jon Morrill, Tess Jacquez, Kate Gardner, Kaylee Wolfe, Donna Ekart, Caitlin Dwyer, Ariel Linet, Danny Chin, Caitlyn Jones, Shay Wilcox, Kerry Gross, Lindsey Bruett, Jim Jackson, Missie Yasko, Conrad Pinnock, Fiona Mason, Renzo Barrios-Hernandez, and Marti McCaleb.
The last 5 years have been incredible and awe-inspiring in every sense of the word. We revamped SAI’s programs to be a menu of options. The menu means that we can help our university and high school partners develop cultures of consent beyond a once-a-year show. We developed a corporate and grant funding strategy and are as successful with those as they ever are! Shout out to anyone in fundraising, which constantly shows the best and the worst we have to offer as a species. We have expanded our reach to the South and the West, including hiring team members from well beyond the Northeast.
We have made some organizational changes, too: Our part-time team went from being Independent Contractors to unionized part-time employees. Our full time team has a 4 day work week, and are recognized as experts in our field. We have a former Actor-Educator on the Board now, y’all, as well as a number of folks who saw our show in college. Not to mention that we survived the pandemic, developed virtual programs to support students, and are learning how students interact with one another, now, in this new hybrid world with all its mental health, physical health, and social challenges.
That all means that I am tired. I am excited to step away for a while because SAI deserves the chance to stretch in new directions under new leadership. I don’t want to ignore that this job can be a lot. It can burn folks out, because the days when we have a challenging show, when Title IX regulations change, and when we see data that shows unchanging rates of violence can feel endless. And the thing is, the challenges our students face aren’t going away either. More youth are experiencing mental health crises, or are queer in states that don’t support them, and the rates of violence for young women, queer folks, and people of color are going up. There is still a ton of need. Our work is still so important.
But I said it’s a Ta Ta For Now!I am headed to Johns Hopkins to get a Masters in Public Health. I want to learn methods to track and measure the generational changes, and especially behavior change because I want to learn to prove that what we do works in new ways. I know that SAI’s approach works, our data tells us it does in the short term, but how do we track the efficacy in the long term? How do you track violence that doesn’t happen? I am not sure, but I have an undergraduate thesis on the sociology and silence and silence breaking that it’s time to dust off. I am so excited to grow in the next year. But I know that Speak About It needs more support than we currently have. We need more evaluative tools, more connections across fields, and always, always, always more funding. I hope that my next step helps in some way. And in just over a year, I will be back at SAI!
But, get excited because Oronde Cruger is taking the reins as our Executive Director!! *insert party emojis*
Oronde has been with us in one form or another since our inception. If you’ve ever met Oronde, I don’t need to tell you he’s smart, empathetic, and diligent. He’s an incredible facilitator and leader who will shepherd in this next phase of Speak About It. Oronde will be focused on accessibility, including editing our programs to be as accessible as possible and developing new programs with our community partners that serve disabled and neurodiverse communities.
I want to set Oronde up for the most success possible. If you have any dollars to help with this transition, please consider donating. General operating funds are harder and harder to come by, and all our expenses just keep rising with inflation. Thanks for thinking about it!
I hope I get to see all of you in my last two weeks in Portland for a bit. I will be back in 2024 with some new letters after my name to support Oronde as he continues to grow our work. For now and for always, Be safe, get consent, and SPEAK ABOUT IT!
-OLIVIA HARRIS