Greater Clark Foundation: Building Trust and Belonging

Two weeks ago, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hon­or my ances­tors with a vis­it to Cincinnati’s Holocaust and Humanity Center to mark the anniver­sary of the lib­er­a­tion of Auschwitz-Birkenau, among the most noto­ri­ous con­cen­tra­tion camps of WWII.  International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a time to remem­ber the six mil­lion Jewish vic­tims of the Holocaust and the mil­lions of oth­er vic­tims of Nazi per­se­cu­tion. The Holocaust and Humanity Center edu­cates about the Holocaust through the sto­ries of sur­vivors who found refuge in Cincinnati.  It was found­ed by local Holocaust sur­vivors and is ground­ed in a belief that edu­ca­tion inspires action. The muse­um has a focus on inspir­ing “upstanders.”  Upstanders are peo­ple who stand up for them­selves and oth­ers. They har­ness their char­ac­ter strengths to meet their moment and pur­sue jus­tice, both great and small, while inspir­ing oth­ers to do the same.  This expe­ri­ence was my first vis­it to the Center, and its con­gru­ence with the core beliefs of the Greater Clark Foundation is striking.

GCF’s goal is to help peo­ple be active par­tic­i­pants in build­ing and strength­en­ing their com­mu­ni­ties. Trust is the crit­i­cal ingre­di­ent in this work. Trust is a mea­sure of the qual­i­ty of a soci­ety, whether the peo­ple and insti­tu­tions in it are trust­wor­thy, and whether they keep their promis­es and work for the com­mon good. Research from More in Common recounts a steep decline in trust, includ­ing a remark­able fig­ure: few­er than two in five Americans feel “most peo­ple can be trust­ed.”  How does a demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety func­tion as designed when there is no reser­voir of trust to build from?

Trust, or specif­i­cal­ly dis­trust, has two impor­tant dimen­sions: ide­o­log­i­cal and social.  Ideological dis­trust is the “us ver­sus them” dis­trust we see dai­ly in head­lines relat­ed to things like pol­i­tics or social media. It is the emo­tion­al­ly reac­tive dis­trust that gets a rise out of many.  Social dis­trust is con­nect­ed more with expe­ri­ences of belong­ing, dig­ni­ty, and equal­i­ty.  Social dis­trust is talked about less fre­quent­ly by the media, but is impor­tant because it is root­ed in our day-to-day inter­ac­tions and rela­tion­ships with peo­ple where we live, work, and play. Organic, unplanned con­nec­tions arise from sim­ple tasks like walk­ing in our neigh­bor­hoods, shop­ping for gro­ceries, and chat­ting with col­leagues at work about last night’s bas­ket­ball game or the lat­est movie. The absence of these seem­ing­ly insignif­i­cant actions erodes social dis­trust with lit­tle fan­fare and grave consequences. 

Last week, the Greater Clark Foundation announced the inau­gur­al cohort of grantees for a new Building Trust and Belonging pro­gram. This rela­tion­ship-focused ini­tia­tive is a call-to-action for com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and cit­i­zens who are pas­sion­ate about improv­ing the qual­i­ty of our com­mu­nal life.  This fund­ing has a unique ask: do less, with more.  We asked grantees to focus on ways rela­tion­ships cre­ate small rip­ples toward sus­tain­able and mean­ing­ful change, rather than think­ing about trans­ac­tion­al projects that are lim­it­ed in scope.  The Building Trust and Belonging ini­tia­tive is designed to cul­ti­vate a mutu­al­ly rein­forc­ing cycle in which efforts to reduce ide­o­log­i­cal and social dis­trust strength­en and accel­er­ate one anoth­er.  As trust lev­els grow in our com­mu­ni­ties, it becomes eas­i­er to take action to address big chal­lenges.  Each of the nine grantees will be part of a learn­ing cohort that will focus on what it takes to build trust­ed rela­tion­ships and explore the ways unlike­ly part­ner­ships can bring peo­ple togeth­er across dif­fer­ences, envi­sion­ing a new future for their com­mu­ni­ties.  The urgency and impor­tance of this work can­not be overstated. 

During my vis­it to the Holocaust and Humanity Center, I reflect­ed heav­i­ly on our grant recip­i­ents and the com­mit­ments they have made to cre­at­ing rela­tion­ships that lead to more dig­ni­ty, inclu­sion and belong­ing.  One of the sur­vivors whose sto­ry is elo­quent­ly told in the Center is Dr. Al Miller.  Dr. Miller was among the small num­ber of Jews able to escape Nazi Germany, find­ing refuge in Cincinnati.  Once he found his foot­ing, he imme­di­ate­ly vol­un­teered to serve in the U.S. Army – to go back to Europe to fight Nazism and Hitler.  More than most, he knew the urgency and impor­tance of the fight.  He went on to become part of the now famous Ritchie Boys, a spe­cial col­lec­tion of sol­diers, many of whom were German Jews who fled Nazi per­se­cu­tion, who were trained in inter­ro­ga­tion and coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence.  Many of these sol­diers served as pros­e­cu­tors and trans­la­tors in the Nuremberg tri­als. He returned home to Cincinnati after the war and has many descen­dants to car­ry on his legacy.

Dr. Miller has a quote on the wall of the Center that we should all take to heart. “The Holocaust did not begin with bul­lets. It began with words.”  In ways big and small, words mat­ter.  Words have the pow­er to alien­ate, belit­tle, and deny our com­mon human­i­ty, as was the case with the Holocaust.  On the oth­er hand, words also have the pow­er to con­nect, inspire, and rebuild com­mu­ni­ties.  Words, when used well, can cre­ate shared expe­ri­ences that lead to shared actions and, ulti­mate­ly, stronger trust and a greater sense of belong­ing.  As the nine Building Trust and Belonging grantees begin their jour­ney togeth­er, I hope the rest of us will mir­ror them with the curios­i­ty and courage to reach out to build new, unex­pect­ed rela­tion­ships and per­haps even become upstanders our­selves.  May it be so.