How can congregations cultivate fruitful partnerships with nonprofits that promote human flourishing and abundance? Mahogany Thomas, chief program officer of Bread for the City, shares how to build partnerships to meet the needs in your community.
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Jessica Anschutz: Mahogany, share a little bit about Bread for the City and your role as chief program officer.
Mahogany Thomas: I work at Bread for the City, where we try our best to serve people in the District of Columbia. We focus on a full service, radical hospitality sort of orientation to this work. We provide food, clothing, advocacy, social services, a legal clinic, and a medical clinic to all of those who are living in poverty in the District of Columbia. Our mission and vision are rooted in the idea that we can meet the basic needs for survival of folks living in the District; so, they do not have to worry about that and can think about, and be present to, all of the ways that they can galvanize their own power and agency to determine their own future.
My work as the chief program officer here at Bread for the City is a new role and it’s exciting because I focus on all the external, client-facing initiatives and programmatic work that we do. So, I spend time in the food pantry and work with clients and staff to discuss “how can we make it better?” We recently expanded our hours. We used to be closed during the lunch hour and yet people needed services during the lunch hour, especially the food pantry. We worked hard to minimize the line and now we’re open Monday through Thursday from nine to three in the pantry so folks can come and shop as they need. I work on things like that every day across all programs—food, clothing, medical, legal, social services, advocacy. Those are all the things I do every day. Bread for the City has three buildings, but we run out of two facilities: one in Southeast D.C. off Marion Berry Avenue, and then we have another location off 7th Street, in Northwest D.C. in the Shaw neighborhood.
Jessica Anschutz: I am inspired by all the work that you’re doing to meet the needs of the people and the ways in which you’re working to meet those needs in the best way possible. What a great example of expanding the food pantry hours. As we’re looking at community partnerships, how can community partnerships support your work? How can other ministries do this work to make sure no one is left behind?
Mahogany Thomas: Community partnerships are essential to the work. Our origin story is one of my favorites. We started 50 years ago, and we started as two distinct organizations that eventually became the Bread for the City that you know today. Our first iteration was the Zacchaeus Free Medical Clinic, a group of doctors here in D.C. who realized that people were uninsured, didn’t have healthcare, and weren’t able to have access to doctors. The doctors came together to meet the need, be present, and build a partnership forming the Zacchaeus Free Medical Clinic. Then two years later, a group of churches came together in the District, and said we need to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and they started Bread for the City. Eventually, these two merged into the Bread for the City that you see today, but it started because of partnership work. It started because faith-based communities came together and said, “there are people right here, our neighbors, who need something. And we can be present to that.” It started because there were doctors who said, “I have skills and there are people who need us, and I can be present in that way.” To this day, we are not a faith-based organization, but those faith stories really are our origin stories. They are the beginnings of who we became, and partnerships are the reason why we do this work and how we do this work.
Our food pantry partners with a lot of organizations like the Capital Area Food Bank, Black and Brown farmers, and Dreaming Out Loud. Those are some of the many, many, partnerships that we have on the food side. As a Federally Qualified Health Care Center (FQHC), we partner with other FQHCs (other medical centers), to make sure that we can provide the support that’s needed. Our partnerships happen both intentionally and organically. We have other partners like congregations, foundations, and corporate folks that partner with us because that’s how we do this work. Our work runs off of volunteers who so graciously give their time and their gifts to be present.
When you think about what it means to be a community partner in this world, I think about wanting to show up in a way that is present to my community that speaks to my vocation. When I’m in the lobby and folks come in, one of my favorite things to do is ask “how can we help?” I might not have the answer, but I love to say, “Hi, welcome to Bread for the City. Thanks for coming in. How can I help today?” If I can’t answer their inquiry, I will find someone who can. Leading from that is a ministry gift. It is something we see in Jesus, in the divine, led by the Spirit. All of us can partake in a posture that stands present in our communities (and wherever we find ourselves) and says, “how can I help and be fully present here so that you can both teach and lead me. I, too, can teach and we can help to make this world a little better together.”
Jessica Anschutz: You mentioned that community partnerships have happened organically and very intentionally. For those who are thinking about initiating a community partnership, what might that look like? And since you are on the community-based organization side, what do you appreciate when potential partners come to you?
Mahogany Thomas: The first thing is curiosity. Get curious. Get curious about your neighborhood. Get curious about the place in which your office building resides. Get curious about your community. Get curious about those you encounter. That curiosity will then lend itself in a way that says, “Are there opportunities for me to volunteer? Are there opportunities for me to learn? Are there opportunities for me to be present, to ask good questions?” That’s your entry point. At Bread for the City, most of our partnerships begin through volunteers. Groups, ministries, organizations, and corporate groups will come in and volunteer with us. They will get to know us and our clients. They will work with us and collaborate for a day or a couple of hours. That often begins a longer relationship where people feel open and called to build deeper partnerships within our space. I often say, “I know that we have a lot of different programs, but my work here is to ensure that we don’t run them in silos. My work here is to ensure that we can be integrated into one another.” Oppression doesn’t happen in silos, so our liberation can’t happen in silos. The same thing happens with partners, we want to feel rejuvenated in this work and find good people to do it alongside.
Not that we feel threatened. Not that we feel ownership of it. Not that we feel that asking for help is bad. We want to be clear: partnerships are a good thing. So, ask good questions, get curious, and find a volunteer opportunity. Ask to learn more. It goes both ways. A couple of years ago our food pantry did a short sabbatical and closed our pantry for a month. We had folks who were grieving, and we had been through a lot as a pantry. So, we took a month off for the team to rest and nourish themselves. That rest could not happen without other food distribution sites and centers in the city and us leaning in and saying, “We need help. Can we do this together? We’re going to send our clients to you for a season. How can we be present? How can you be present? Can we do this work together?” Sometimes partnerships can be risky. They take work. All relationships take work. I tell people that you have to be open, and people of faith must be open for the Spirit to commune in you, through you, with you, and beyond you. That curiosity will then lend itself into something deeper.
Jessica Anschutz: Thank you for naming the risk that comes in these partnerships in a way that it is not a deterrent to engage in them, but to seek the opportunity. What are some of the misconceptions that community partners have in developing these partnerships?
Mahogany Thomas: Some of the misconceptions are around ownership. That it’s my work, not yours. We can’t lead from that. We must lead from a place that is vulnerable, collective, deeply integral, and intricate.
Another misconception is that we operate from a scarcity mentality. This idea that if I form a partnership with you am I going to lose clients or are my folks only going to start going to you? Are they not going to also come to me? It’s the idea that if we begin to form partnerships in this work that someone loses something. Sometimes that scarcity mindset is our biggest misconception. Instead, I want to challenge folks to see the beauty of abundance that comes when we come together. There is more than enough when we share. We make each other stronger when we share. We learn from each other.
Another misconception of partnerships is that one person must be this, or one partner must be the strongest one or the guiding light. I believe we can be lights together in this work. We can be teachers with each other in this work. We can be good stewards together in this work. The reality is we need each other. If we want to move beyond survival and into thriving, we need each other to do the work. If we buy into the myth that we can do it all on our own, we will always fall short. Bread for the City tries our best to be a full service, one stop shop, but it doesn’t mean that we do it independently. If I think that my independence is my greatest asset, that is a misconception. Because it’s not actually my independence as an organization that is making me strong. It is my collective leadership model. It is my communal care ethic. It is my ability to say, “I need you and I want to be in relationship with you—from clients to staff to community members to organizers. I want and I need to be in community with you.” That is the posture that we must have. I think we get nervous, and we get scarce. It’s easy to buy into that narrative of capitalism or survival of the fittest. I want us to lean against that. We’re all in it. We need each other and together we have what we need to thrive.
Jessica Anschutz: What would you say to a congregation that has lapsed community partnerships about how to re-engage or re-invigorate those relationships?
Mahogany Thomas: I would encourage them to be vulnerable and to try again. I would also encourage them to ask good questions of themselves and those they hope to be in relationship with. If my relationships have lapsed, I need to ask some questions of myself about how I showed up. Where did I fall short? Knowing that I can learn from it and try again. What could I have done differently? What is it that went well? Where was my joy in the work, but also where was my neighbor’s joy in the work? Knowing that our joys might be different, and two truths can be beautiful and possible, but we have to make room for both of them to shine.
I would encourage congregations in that space to not get discouraged. Relationships and partnerships are hard. There are seasons where we gel and we’re going to be great, and we go together like peanut butter and jelly. Then there are seasons where someone says, “this isn’t quite working for me.” It’s okay to pause. It’s okay to admit “I don’t have it. I’m not getting it right in this season and I need some help to make the next best step.” So, I encourage people to build their resilience in that. And that too comes from an openness.
I would ask congregations, “Why is it that we want to be in partnership with others? What is our leading posture?” Because we might need to do some work around it. If it’s because I want to save somebody, I’m not sure that’s the posture that’s needed right now. But if it’s because I want to be in mutually healthy, fulfilling, holistic, and beautiful relationships, there’s space there. It’s okay to be nervous. It’s okay to have a little bit of fear. It’s okay to say, “we don’t know everything.” Those are good places to start relationships and we have to be willing to lean into that.
Jessica Anschutz: My hope for these relationships is that they can not only thrive as a relationship but lead to other people’s thriving. I’m grateful that you shared some of Bread for the City’s origin story about how it started because it wasn’t initially providing comprehensive care and support. It has grown to do that. Sometimes churches have grand visions, and they try to take on too much too soon and it leads to failure and disappointment. So how might you advise congregations to start out doing this work? How can those who are already engaged in community partnerships evaluate and reflect so that they can seek to provide more comprehensive care and support?
Mahogany Thomas: I heard a phenomenal pastor, the Reverend Doctor Rashad Moore, encourage us to do the slow work. And this is slower. So, we are going to take our time. We might have to do one thing at a time that we do well. I tell folks all the time, contrary to Paul, “I might not be able to be all things to all people,” and that’s okay. I’m going to do my best to show up in the ways that I can, and you’re going to do your best to show up in the ways that you can, and our neighbor’s going to do their best to show up in the ways that they can, and together maybe we can get to being all the things. I would ask congregations, what are we passionate about? What is it that we feel that we do well? Where are the places that we could potentially grow? I would start there and ask, “well, which one of those do we want to try first?” Because it can be really overwhelming if we’re doing a lot of things.
I would also take inventory of the people, places, congregations around you. If everyone has a food pantry, maybe a food pantry isn’t the next thing that I need to open. Maybe I need to figure out how to be a safe place, a place of refuge. Maybe we need to figure out what it means to partner with a shelter. Maybe we need to focus on other ways so that we can be more comprehensive collectively, not just individually. I think that sometimes we want to do what our neighbor does, because that’s the one thing that we do well. And that’s great, it can work sometimes. Sometimes we need to lean into the curiosity of: where are the gaps? How can we help? What is the one best next step that I can take that will help my neighbor? If it is food, that’s great, and let’s see what’s missing. Do we need to think of some protein options? Does someone need to focus on vegetarian and vegan options? Does someone need to focus on things that are great for children or softer textures? Sometimes we don’t think about those things. We just think about cans, and canned goods are great. We can broaden our horizon. Some folks need tofu. So those are good questions that we can ask. But it is risky and being honest about that and being vulnerable with yourselves, and being thoughtful, intentional, and asking good questions in community will really be transformative to begin the work.
If you’re one of those places that’s already doing five things and you’re doing them well and you’re thriving, you have lots of people, that’s great too. Think about how your services are integrated together because often we will find that our ministries work well separately. We don’t always work well together, even the ones in-house. And so, a good question to ask is, “How can I partner with Christian education? How can I partner with the women’s group? How can I partner with the mission society? How can I partner with all these things so that we can then do something stronger? Not just what I know to do well.”
Jessica Anschutz: Mahogany, I’m so grateful for all that you are sharing, but I must draw our conversation to a close. I do that with gratitude for the work that you are doing with Bread for the City. What is your hope for congregations as they seek to partner with community-based organizations?
Mahogany Thomas: Thank you for having me and for taking the time to be curious about this work with me. My hope for congregations is that we will find more spaces and places of joy. That we will hold on to them, share them, and recreate moments of joy, so that together we can [move towards a place of]thriving. The work is hard enough. The world is hard enough. The struggle is hard enough. We don’t spend enough time basking in delight with the divine. I would love to see us get to a place that, wherever you are, whoever you are, wherever we find ourselves on this life’s journey, [we are]finding and cherishing and sharing those places of delight that then can orient us towards a world that thrives together.
Jessica Anschutz: Thank you so much, Mahogany. Blessings on your ministry and your work.
Mahogany Thomas: Thank you.
Related Resources
- Listening to Your Community by Paul Nixon
- 10 Tips for Building Genuine Connections with Your Neighbors by Kay Kotan
- 9 Strategies for Meeting People and Learning Their Needs by Elizabeth Mae Magill
Photo by Prixel Creative on Lightstock
