From Competition to Collaboration with Katie Campbell

And one thing I've seen about Red Rover is really how it is so community driven.

And I think that every nonprofit starts with a desire to solve a problem.

There's a community problem, there needs to be a solution or a work towards that solution.

But not every program that I've experienced Katie has been built with community in mind.

Red Rover, though, I have seen that like integrated community into its mission.

And I'm curious if you can share with us what are the first steps that organizations should take to ensure that they're creating a program, not just out of passion, but a program that the community truly needs rather than the one that they want to offer? Yeah.

Yeah.

I love this question.

And I'm also super proud of our community work, you know, and for us, it's a little different because we are a national organization.

And so we're working with communities across the country.

And a lot of that community work or that community work really is across our programs.

So from our humane education to our disaster work, to our wellness work and to our work to help keep people with their pets experiencing domestic violence and homelessness.

You know, honestly, I think one of the first steps that any organization can take when doing this community work is be humble, ask questions and start conversations.

And when you ask those questions, you really got to listen.

Right.

And and I think, you know, sort of foundational to all of that is we never go into a community or we never approach an organization with this idea of hey we know what it is that you should do now go and do it it is more like hey this is the expertise we have the knowledge that we have these are the tools that we have how can we support you what does your community want what are your community's goals um And I think honestly, that's one of the most important pieces that we bring to it is really just that curiosity and humility and that listening.