Erica Atwood has two decades of experience in communications, project management, community outreach, policy making, and advocacy. She is an experienced public speaker, mediator, and facilitator. As the senior director of policy and strategic initiatives in the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Criminal Justice and Public Safety, Erica works to help stem the tide of violence in Philadelphia neighborhoods, strengthen community connections, clear the path to a better life for family members returning from incarceration, and continue to make sustainable reforms to the criminal justice system.

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Erica Atwood:

There is nothing better than Black joy. Knowing that joy is like water, like air, and then finding the things, the people, the experiences, that you need to seek that joy. And sometimes that joy comes from just laying down and taking a nap.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

Welcome to The Measure. I am your host and moderator, Leon Andrews, president and CEO of Equal Measure. Equal Measure partners with foundations, nonprofits, and government organizations to apply new ways of thinking and learning to advance social change. On The Measure, we’ll have conversations about centering racial equity and how to design, implement, evaluate, and communicate efforts to disrupt inequitable systems. We are so pleased to welcome Erica Atwood to the podcast today. Erica leads the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Criminal Justice and Public Safety, and has a long career as a leader in communications, community engagement, policy and advocacy, and she’s also a good friend. Welcome, Erica.

Erica Atwood:

Thanks, Leon. Good to be here today.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

It’s great to have you. I’d like to start with more of a personal question.

Erica Atwood:

Sure.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

Equal Measure is a racial equity organization with a focus on place-based work, investments that seek to transform inequitable systems for health, education, and economic mobility that disproportionately impact our Black, our Brown, our Indigenous, and other peoples of color. We think a lot about places, their culture and context. I think it is important to personalize this work, so we better understand and appreciate the impact we are trying to have in communities. How do you think about place, culture, and context?

Erica Atwood:

I think about place in terms of where I come from, who I am, the exceptionalism that I have, the position and role that I do, coming from where I come from and how your place shouldn’t matter. I should not be an exception. I should be the norm. Born and raised in Camden, New Jersey, my personal story is very similar to many. Mom worked really hard when she had her own traumas, and that still impacts us as a family today. I think about what I saw as a kid. I am one that doesn’t respond with panic or fear in heightened moments. It’s the observe, figure it out, solve for the problem, and suffer later. But I think that’s kind of what early childhood trauma has done through seeing domestic violence, seeing violence in the neighborhood, the poverty of violence or the violence of poverty. I think it all has an impact on how I do what I do and why I do what I do now.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

I think it’s so important that we don’t forget that we bring ourselves to this work wherever we sit, and many times when people see us, they don’t have all of that context. You and I also worked together several years ago along with several others to create Cities United, which focused on mayors’ commitment to reducing violence and violent deaths among Black men and boys. Philadelphia, like many American cities, is grappling with a terrible plague of gun violence, with these tragedies disproportionately impacting Black and Brown boys and men. Can you talk about what you see as the root cause of this violence, specifically in the context of Philadelphia, but also across the country since you’ve been doing a lot of national work as well?

Erica Atwood:

Philadelphia is beautiful in its texture. It is beautiful in its people. But you’re very segregated as a city, and what that segregation looks like is patches and blocks and neighborhoods that are woven next to each other. I think we have to stop talking about violence being something we have to solve for and realize it is a symptom of a greater thing. Violence is, of any form in communities, if we think about domestic violence, if we think about systemic and structural violence, we think about gun violence, they’re all symptoms of larger divestments from communities. If you go and you look at indicators for any neighborhood, be it Philadelphia, be it Chicago, be it New Orleans, they all have the same indicators. If you look at what does poverty look like, if you look at what does education look like, what does access to education, what does access to physical and behavioral health, what is the collective efficacy in those neighborhoods? How are they neighboring with each other?

And when you see the degradation of those things, you then beget violence. And so I think that we have to play the long and the short game, and a lot of the work that I do is I jokingly say I’m a dung beetle. My job is just to push the crap up the hill. So, what is the triage that I can do in this work around violence reduction that will stabilize a community so we can then get to the larger issues, so we don’t repeat the cycle over and over again? And what I’ve noticed on a national level is you have folks that say, “Well, it’s not me if I run Parks and Recreation,” or, “It’s not me if I run Behavioral Health department. It’s not me if I run the Streets department.” But it is. And until folks that are leading other departments, other initiatives, and other priorities that get to the systemic issues that are the catalyst for violence, then we’re never going to cure this.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

So, you sit in a place where you gain a lot of insight on how people are trying to navigate through this kind of coordination and not operating in silos.

Erica Atwood:

When I think about what works in government, how are we breaking down those silos? That’s a big thing that I do in my office. I have five offices that work under my leadership, and for years my successors, while really focused on the issue, had not focused as much on the people. Then when I shift the narrative and focus on the people and really strengthen the team, they’re able to run harder, faster, further. I often say I’m going to write a book about Black women and government and call it Indentured Servants because that is often how we’re treated. So, I think that the great work has been done, but the focus and the shift on people is really where we need to go in public service. If we’re truly going to be public servants, then that service has to be done with care, internally and externally. And that’s what I see works nationally, is when you invest in the people and you invest in their development because then they can give more.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

Equal Measure is partnering with you along with other partners on learning and an evaluation for the city’s Community Expansion Grant program. Can you talk about your vision for this partnership? As you talk about the partnership, what does success look like? What are some lessons you think philanthropy can take from it?

Erica Atwood:

When I set out, they were like, “Here’s millions of dollars. Get in the community. Get it in the community quick.” In 2021, I was essentially charged with standing up a $20 million grant program in about four months. And so I got a lot of feelings about the grants, and I will say the upside to the program that we have, the Community Expansion Grant, is that we are able to give money to a diverse set of individuals who are doing good work in community, that have been doing work in community for a long period of time. Our grant program was set up to give $100,000 up to a million dollars to the community-based organizations who had been in those communities for at least three years, but have had budgets of less than $15 million.

What that looks like is predominantly our grantees are Black and Brown organizations who are historically overlooked in the philanthropic sector, are struggling with infrastructure to be viable in being able to say that they have an evidence-based program. I will say that oftentimes when we say evidence-based, what we don’t realize is we’re saying white, and what we have to do is unpack that a little bit. We have to invest in them in a way that allows for them to produce the evidence in which they need to show that they are making an impact in their communities. And we often pretend that we don’t have the patience for that and that it’s somehow on those community organizations to figure it out when they don’t get no money no how.

My vision for this was really in line with decolonization of grant making of funding, being able to put money where and with organizations I know really, truly love their communities. If we can as a city figure it out, then there’s no reason why philanthropic organizations cannot. I hope that we’re able to continue to make these investments in communities and so we can then amplify the voices in the work and change the paradigm on what is evidence-based, what is evaluated in how we collect data, not just from a quantitative sense, but a qualitative sense. Not just from a deficit mindset, but also an asset frame.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

What do you think other cities or other localities should be measuring in order to be accountable for advancing racial equity? How do we hold folks accountable that are trying to do the work?

Erica Atwood:

One of the anecdotes that comes to mind is, there’s nothing that’ll stop a bullet like a job. You hear that a lot of times. You hear that all over the country. I will say that it’s not the job, it’s the purpose. And I think that as we look in government, what works in government is when we work on purpose with purpose. And one of the successful things that I’ve seen is when we allow the young people who are at a high risk of violence to get jobs that are rooted in purpose and oftentimes to see the inner workings of government. I think about the first time that I had these two young men sitting in an office in the Office of Violence Prevention here answering phones and learning how to send faxes.

Why can’t Joseph and Raheem be receptionists? Why can’t they learn these things? And so I think that when we as government model things first, we then can change the narrative. When we think about transitional work, thinking about them in a way that is not only life- and family-sustaining, but purpose-driven. I’ve seen where government can get it right when we think about young people who are at a high risk as people who deserve purpose, who deserve opportunity and not just try and get a couple dollars in their pocket. It’s more than that.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

You said something that I know we’re not going to have time to fully unpack, but I don’t want it to get lost. That as you talk about it as a Black woman and Black women in government, that term indentured servitude is something that you really dropped that’s important to really name. How do you carry that as you still feel the responsibility to serve and where you sit and have an impact? And I want you, as we’re ending, I want to reflect on that a little bit as you reflect on, how do you care for yourself and for your team in doing this work? What keeps you going? What gives you hope?

Erica Atwood:

I’ll address this in three parts. First part is, how do you maintain in this work? What are the things that you need to do to pivot? And so that’s again, literally, I’m going to just shift the angle from 90 degrees to 84, and then that just changes your perspective, and you might be able to wiggle in something a little bit more. Sometimes you need to shift. That might mean a whole step aside. That might mean a whole backup. That might mean a whole move forward. But what does it mean to shift? And then sometimes, sometimes, it’s just time to roll. It is time to let it go. That might be an organization that you founded. That might be the work that you have led for decades. It might be that you need to step out and be courageous and take a risk and do something completely different. Or you just might need to walk away and get your head straight.

So, that’s one part of this. I think another part of this in how I care for myself is my community. I have a community of people around me that I could not do this. I’m an only child, so I don’t have siblings, and so I got to rely on my chosen family. I will say that there are moments where I just pick up the phone and I’m like, “Look, it’s one of them days.” And you get talked off the ledge or you have these moments of joy. And then I just have a community that checks on and checks for me. I had a rough week last week and two of my work buddies, my work family, had a whole conversation about how to support me in a place where I was feeling difficult and was experiencing violence. And that meant a lot to me, particularly because they were Black and Latino men.

And so the way that not just other women show up for me, but the way men show up for me, in a way that is healthy, that is loving, that is caring, that is thoughtful. There is nothing better than Black joy. Joy is like water, like air, and then finding the things, the people, the experiences that you need to seek that joy. And sometimes that joy comes from just laying down and taking a nap. Particularly, I want to say this to women, I want to say this particularly to women of color: It is okay to lay down and take a nap. And it is okay to then get back up and pick up something that you started a while ago and keep going, or leave it there and move on to something else. But find moments of rest. Find moments of joy. Remember, sometimes you got to shift, you got to pivot, and sometimes you just got to leave. You got to exit.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

There’s a term, phrase, and you probably have heard this too, “Rest to resist.”

Erica Atwood:

Yes.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

And I love that you remind me of that phrase, how important it is to rest so you can do the work.

Erica Atwood:

Rest is a whole act of resistance.

Leon T. Andrews, Jr.:

I love that. Thank you for naming that. Thank you, Erica, for your participation on this call today, for joining us.

I’d like to leave you with a quote inspired by my conversation with Erica. It comes from Mei-Ling Malone, who is an African American Studies professor at Cal State Fullerton. “Black joy is about affirming one’s beautiful life. Black joy rejects the pathology of racism. Black joy is being fully human. Black joy is pride. Black joy is self-love. Black joy is shining bright.”

Thanks to our audience, and please join us the next time on The Measure. You can learn more about Equal Measure’s work by visiting us at equalmeasure.org.