REACH Cohort Member: Change Elemental
Client Partner: Women’s Democracy Lab
The Women’s Democracy Lab (WDL) convenes cohorts of elected officials who are women with intersectional identities to “radically reimagine political leadership” that focuses on sharing power and “decolonizing the political process and our own mindset about it.” Within WDL, Johana Bencomo is the program manager for the Future Presidents Project, which is “a national, cohort-based fellowship designed to provide a supportive and transformative space that allows women to find solidarity amongst themselves, build a national network of support, and strengthen the leadership skills they need for continued service and advancement to higher office.”
Bencomo explains its origins: “Future Presidents Project was really born out of Sayu Bhojwani’s incredible imagination and support for women of color in elected office. She thought of it when she was at New American Leaders, which is a candidate training program for people with immigrant experiences. She always says that we haven’t had a woman president, not for lack of aspiration, but for lack of affirmation. And so she wanted to bring that sort of spirit into a program that supported women once they were already elected.”
Credit: Change Elemental
Bencomo is more than the WDL’s project manager. As a city council member in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Bencomo was a participant in its first cohort in 2020. Elissa Sloan Perry from Change Element was the designer and facilitator for that cohort. Even though the pandemic had made everything virtual, Bencomo says, “It was the most incredible facilitation I had experienced in a long time. It wasn’t a set curriculum training. It was really emergent and emotional.”
Now in its second iteration, the fellowship consists of two in-person gatherings among the cohort of 16 women that bookend their time together, with several virtual sessions in between. Bencomo explains, “Women’s Democracy Lab pays for everything: flights, room and board, and meals so that the women feel taken care of and they feel supported, especially since a lot of us are in underpaid positions.” Bencomo and Sloan Perry share facilitation responsibilities, with Bencomo bringing in the perspectives of a peer legislator for the women in the cohort.
The emergent approach and the focus on rest and replenishment always catch many participants, who expect a more traditional approach to leadership development, by surprise. Many of these women, including Bencomo herself, have gone through traditional candidate training programs, with “a very set curriculum, like you practice storytelling on this day, you practice fundraising on this day.” While Bencomo thinks these programs can be effective and necessary, she says, “What we were really trying to do is focus less on those skills because frankly, these women are doing it already. They’re winning, they’re governing, but they’re governing alone. They’re governing while experiencing harassment.”
The emergent nature means that the curriculum has to be adapted to each cohort, and Bencomo and Sloan Perry are ready to deviate even from this short-term planning if something unexpected takes center stage at these sessions. Bencomo says, “We’re trying to tailor the curriculum to the women and not the other way around. We have set modules. For instance, we talk about power, like power within and building shared power, and disrupting white supremacist culture outside and inside of us. But it just looks different for every single cohort. I think that’s what makes us effective. We’re trying to provide a space where we’re learning together.”
Bencomo describes a ritual that Sloan Perry uses at the beginning of each cohort to set the tone and prepare the participants for the open space: “The first time we’re all together we invite everyone to bring an item with them that represents their ancestry, their lineage. And we sit in a circle and everybody shares, honestly, as long as you want. We’re not gonna give you a time limit. We give this four hours in our agenda because it is the first time they’re meeting and we are creating this safe, intentional, thoughtful place for people to go deep and start building bonds together so that we can go digging deep the rest of the year. And I feel like you only do that if you allow people to lay down their shields, their masks for a little bit. As politicians, we are so well practiced in showing up, you share a little bit of yourself and, and then it’s all work. We’re good at it, right? And in this space, can you just lay that down a little bit and come as your whole self? I’ve done this practice three times already and every single time there’s something new even for my own story that comes through. I just feel like it sets the tone for what kind of fellowship this is so that people are prepared to come with their whole selves.”
Rituals like this, Sloan Perry says, “really is about storytelling and giving people lots of ways that can lower the level of risk, but still get at truth-telling about the subject at hand.”
Participants are encouraged to provide peer coaching to each other. On their own, participants even have created their own communications channel to check on each other, offer support and encouragement, stand in “loving accountability,” and share ideas and resources. Bencomo describes an elected official in a Southern state who received so much backlash for cussing on the legislature’s floor because of her anger at an issue, and her colleagues in this community of practice were able to support her in filtering the negative feedback and not feeling guilty about the incident.
Credit: Women’s Democracy Lab
Bencomo also knows first-hand what this community means to participants. She explains, “I’m in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in a pretty blue county, but also pretty rural and somewhat conservative and moderate, and I’m really progressive. And sometimes I feel crazy, like, oh my God, is this radical? Is my idea actually crazy? Are they right? And then I come into these [cohort] spaces and I’m like, wait a minute, no, I’m not. There’s just like this thread that gets built amongst us and it just feels less lonely.”
She continues, “In 2017 we saw this huge surge of women running for office. Huge. And it was a reaction to this really awful thing [Trump’s presidency], right? Recently, I’ve been wondering how many of those women are still in office. I have seen many women leave office because it’s so lonely, because it’s hard, because there’s harassment, because it’s not paid. So it’s really difficult. For me, these spaces just helped me feel like a disruption. And it’s a good thing. That’s how we’re trying to give people strength.”
From a formal evaluation of the Future Presidents Project, constant feedback from participants was: “If I had known what it was, maybe I wouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t know how badly I needed it.” Sloan Perry remembers one participant sharing with her—“point blank”—“I’ve been to six or seven training sessions for political leadership in my life. I’ve served in different roles and different offices. I’ve never been to a training like this. I think I learned more about how to lead for equity in the last two or three days by developing myself and healing my own stuff than I ever have.”
The project is now contemplating starting an alumni network to build a broader community of practice beyond the yearly cohorts. Bencomo says, “We need more spaces like this where people stop feeling crazy for having these progressive, leftist ideas, which to me are a return to literal basic human rights. People feel bold when they feel like there are people behind them like they’re not gonna be left alone. They can be a champion without feeling ostracized. That’s what we’re building, a network of these freely brave people who have each other’s backs.”
Another outgrowth of this community of practice is a consideration for a collective safety program for these women. Bencomo explains, “One of our participants has experienced so much violence she’s traveling with a security detail. Another woman from my home state had her house literally shot at. It’s everything from vile, racist emails to literal physical violence. It’s all part of the same sickness. I think for us, the important part is how do we build a place for people to talk about it, to build connections with each other for that kind of community support? The big question is then, structurally, what does safety and security look like?”
In their partnership, Bencomo says Sloan Perry’s coaching has made her a better facilitator. She says, “The type of leadership that Change Elemental believes in is just critical to the work that we’re trying to do at Women’s Democracy Lab.” To Bencomo, whatever the next iteration looks like, Change Elemental is not a short-term contractor, but a long-term movement partner. She considers them to be “parts of the DNA of Women’s Democracy Lab.”