While I have had the amazing opportunity to attend several Leadership Exchange (LEX) trips, I knew LEX: Dallas would be special. Not only would this be the Leadership Foundation’s 30th LEX trip, during which I would have the honor of serving as the Leadership Foundation’s Board Chair, but Dallas was a community with which I was unfamiliar.
From the first session, we heard about the segregation and disparity that has divided North and South Dallas for generations. The growth of Dallas has historically only been seen in North Dallas, while South Dallas has remained a food, education and job desert. The inequity and the desire of many community members to address and resolve this was a thread of the entire trip, and while much of the narrative was around what had been done previously that resulted in significant levels of discrimination and divide, this new commitment in all sectors – public, private and nonprofit – to lead the change, was a great example of how communities can own their pasts, painful as they may be, and come together as a collective to make a difference and start to bridge long standing, devastating gaps.
We learned of the work of the Child Poverty Action Lab (CPAL), beginning with a staggering statistic: one in three children in Dallas live in poverty. The goal of CPAL, its Executive Director Alan Cohen shared, is to cut childhood poverty in half within a single generation, recognizing that this lofty goal can only be achieved by working collectively and strategically across the community. The way in which CPAL collects and synthesizes data to determine leading indicators, target outcomes and the metrics needed to reach their goal is already leading to meaningful change.
A panel on the second day, “Collaboration Driving Education Outcomes: Pre-K to College,” also demonstrated the strength of different sectors coming together to bring about change. Many of us took notice – so much so that we invited one of the panelists, Commit Partnership Chairman Todd Williams, to come to Denver and speak about their work in Dallas. For so many of us in the education space, thinking about how we build upon current partnerships and reflect all perspectives to bring about policy change that best serves our students, families and economic vitality, the Commit concept is particularly intriguing, and ties to much of the great work already underway in Denver.
I could go on and on – the content, speakers, and curation of experiences as a whole, in my opinion were unmatched – best LEX trip ever. And yet, the greatest gifts of the trip, were the delegates themselves. These trips remind us that in every community we can and must do better, and with the group of incredible leaders I had the chance to meet on LEX, I know we will.
Finally, a token of gratitude to the amazing team at the Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation for dedicating so much attention, passion and commitment to the LEX Dallas trip. Thank you.
Lorii Rabinowitz is the CEO of the Denver Scholarship Foundation and the Chair of the Leadership Foundation’s Board of Directors.