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What does it take to stay calm when everything is falling apart? In this episode, Jeanne Briggs, an international development professional who thrives on bringing order to chaos, shares lessons from 24 years with USAID that are relevant to our situation today. We explore how to widen your window of opportunity, take a trauma-informed approach to crisis, find clarity in transition, and use peer support as an anchor in turbulent times.
Introduction
When everything feels like it’s falling apart, who do you want by your side?
For many humanitarians and development professionals navigating sudden layoffs, political upheaval, and uncertainty, that person has been Jeanne Briggs. She’s a steady hand in the storm: the one who sees the bigger picture, brings calm to the chaos, and helps people make sense of their options without telling them what to choose.
In today’s episode, Jeanne shares her most recent journey from directing a $94M USAID portfolio in the Democratic Republic of Congo to co-founding with other women leaders the Aid Transition Alliance, supporting people in aid through one of the sector’s biggest crises in decades.
What you’ll learn
- What embodying change looks like in times of personal and political upheaval
- The concept of “windows of opportunity” in transitions, and how to widen them for yourself
- Why peer support groups can be an anchor in chaotic times
- The difference between “order Muppets” and “chaos Muppets”
- Practical steps you can take if you’re feeling overwhelmed, unmotivated, or unsure of what’s next
About our guest
Jeanne Briggs describes herself as an international development professional who thrives on bringing order to chaos. For 24 years, she served with USAID, most recently as Director of Democracy, Rights & Governance in the DRC, where she oversaw a $94M portfolio. Her career spans crisis responses from Ebola containment to Afghan evacuations.
Jeanne is known as a thoughtful listener who gives honest, gentle feedback, a catalyst for change who specializes in helping people understand their options without dictating their choices. Her superpower? Staying up all night to create frameworks that help others find the clarity they need to make well-informed decisions for themselves.
Today, she co-leads the Aid Transition Alliance, providing support, career guidance, and knowledge preservation for a humanitarian and development workforce in flux.
Resources and links mentioned
- Organization: Aid Transition Alliance [LINK]
- Organization: OneAID Community [LINK]
- Book: “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk [LINK]
- Book: “Widen the Window” by Elizabeth Stanley [LINK]
- Organization: Green String Network (trauma-informed peacebuilding) [LINK]
- Resource: EMU/STAR Model for Breaking the Cycles of Violence [LINK]
- Organization: KonTerra Group [LINK]
- Article: Chaos Theory: A Unified Theory of Muppet Types [LINK]
- Resource: Georgetown University’s Pivot With Purpose Program [LINK]
- Episode 59: The power of structured peer support with Carrie Santos [LINK]
- Episode 37: Get in the “growth zone” with Cindy Rocha [LINK]
- Article: “You are not alone: Preventing Suicide in a Time of Crisis” [LINK]
Join the conversation
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Creators and Guests
What is Embodying change: Transforming power, culture and well-being for people in aid?
A podcast for humanitarians who want to work in closer alignment to core values like compassion, accountability, solidarity and equity. Born in 2020 in collaboration with CHS Alliance and Mary Ann Clements, the podcast is now entering its next evolution and is hosted by Melissa Pitotti.
Embodying Change Podcast
26 August 2025
Transcript with Jeanne Briggs
Melissa Pitotti 0:02
So I'd like to welcome to the podcast, Jeanne Briggs, welcome. Thank you. It's exciting to be here with you. It's so exciting to have you. And I think right now you are in Nairobi. Is that right?
Jeanne Briggs
I am just for a couple weeks.
Melissa Pitotti
That's exciting. I love Nairobi.
Melissa Pitotti 0:22
So before we dive into the conversation, I would love to ask you a question that all the guests get asked these days, what does embodying change mean to you?
Jeanne Briggs 0:39
So that is a, I think, a very rich question that brings up a lot for me. When I think about embodiment, to me, it's something about a feeling or a thought or an idea that I'm bringing into my own body. So, you know, in the abstract, people say things like, be the change we want to see in the world, or walking the talk, but I think it's also about actually changing our physical selves as well. And whenever I think about the body and feelings in the body, I always think about the book “The Body Keeps the Score.” Probably talked about on other podcasts, but for those that aren't familiar with it, it is a book about the impact of trauma on people physically and different ways to release that. And so, you know, I feel like in the same way that we have to release trauma physically, sometimes we also have to bring in positive change, physically, like, incorporate that. And the word incorporate includes corpus, Latin for body.
Melissa Pitotti 2:08
Whoa, that's a good one. Wow.
Jeanne Briggs 2:15
So really, it's like thinking about, you know, in the Body Keeps the Score, they talk about physically discharging trauma. You also have to think about like physically receiving, in taking positive change and and how I think that that sort of translates into the bigger picture of what we're talking about, when we talk about embodying change, is that it's about where and how and why we show up in the places we already are. We can, we can physically change that. We can also think about, you know, the bodies that are in the room, and then also where and how and why we show up in the places that we aren't but need to be. So I really think that why, I said at the beginning, I think that that the concept of embodying change, really kind of it, it operates at both levels, sort of the abstract and the really, sort of like tangible, physical level and and I think also that sometimes we think more about maybe the the negative aspects of embodiment, and we also want to think about the positive aspects of it as well.
Melissa Pitotti 3:48
Could you say more about receiving the positive aspects? Like, is there an example or an idea for someone who's really interested in thinking through what that would look like for them?
Jeanne Briggs 4:03
Yeah. So, I mean, I think maybe it helps to take an example of, like, what is the change we're talking about, right? So for us in our world and our space that we operate in, it's about systems change in how we think about and work on humanitarian and development issues, right? And so I think, personally, a lot about what that means in terms of the dynamics of who's in the room and who isn't, and that that can also be, again, very sort of micro, granular level. It's like, if we are coming into a space where we haven't been before. So you could think about it in terms of gender dynamics, or also in terms of racial or ethnic dynamics that, like, how we physically present is important, right? And so if we are, if our bodies are open, if we're sort of coming with, like an open, you know, and because, like, feeling open isn't just about like a state of mind, it's also about like physically breathing and, you know, like expanding your this, like the space with which you sort of feel in your in your chest, right? So, like, if you're in a space with other people where you're feeling contracted and stressed and and, you know, strained because you're trying really hard to maybe bring about some sort of change. In this case, like specifically for me to not be the white woman in the room who takes up too much oxygen, right? The way I just framed it is sort of more of a negative, right? But if I think of it as more of a positive, it's like, if I expand my, you know, the air in my chest, the space in my body in a positive way, like, not like I'm taking up more space, but like I'm being more open. It makes me feel safer when I'm interacting with challenging issues and and also makes me approach those issues in a more positive way and and I think if we're all doing that, including people who maybe have in the past felt oppression by the system that we work in, then that can just overall have a more positive effect on what we're trying to do together, if that makes sense.
Melissa Pitotti 7:00
Oh yeah, definitely. So it's a lot to think about, because you and I, we bring people together, it's a lot to think about at another level, when we're creating space, just to kind of be thinking about, how do people enter the space, how do they show up in their bodies, and how can we support that to be a good experience,
Jeanne Briggs 7:21
especially because, as you said, like we both have facilitated a lot of, you know, different encounters, and we tend to think about that, how you show up in this space, more about like yourself, your own individual, you know, sort of like, Are you stressed? Do you need to sort of center yourself so that you can be, you know, focused on what we're doing. We don't always think about it in terms of how that embodiment, how that sort of, you know, physical presence of ourselves, also affects other people. And so, you know, I'm thinking now about, like, if we were to do, you know, sort of a welcome exercise at a retreat, like we might do it in a way that's opening up your body, your physical, you know, sort of breath and that affects, then your mindset, but in a way, maybe that also sort of engages others, which I personally am not sure I've ever seen something like that, it would be a fun thing to kind of play with.
Melissa Pitotti 8:34
Wow, that was a really great answer for the first question. So, you Jeanne, have spent 24 years working at USAID, and a lot of that was working to support countries that were experiencing political transitions, that were going through crises, and now we're recording in August 2025, you find yourself supporting people from the development and humanitarian workforce who are themselves in transition. Did I get that right? Okay, so can you share a story from your experience where transition support really made all the difference, or to flip it on the other negative side, where its absence was deeply felt?
Jeanne Briggs 9:36
So I was thinking about this question. And I think in order to sort of explain or to answer the question, I wanted to kind of take a step back and say, Okay, what do we mean by transition, right? Because it's a broad word, it could mean a lot of different things. How I think about it is that transition is the space between one state and another, right? So there's a starting state, there's an end state, and then there's something in between. And most of the time, we tend to focus on where we came from and where we're going, and not where we are, right? But a lot happens actually, where we are is where we are, you know. And a lot happens there. And I spent about half my career at USAID, in the Office of Transition Initiatives, and in our work in OTI, we talk about transition in terms of a window of opportunity. So what we mean by that is that in any change, in any transition, even one that may look very challenging – so for example, the classic ones are coming from, you know, dictatorship to democracy, or moving from conflict to peace – there is a moment. There is a window where you can affect positive change. That window can sometimes be short. So our focus is on doing everything we can in that moment to move things in a positive direction. And when I was thinking about this, I also thought about another place where you hear the term window, which is in trauma-informed theory and practice. People talk about widening the window. There's a very good book about it. And the idea is that when you're in crisis, whatever type, you know, you get tunnel vision, right? Yeah, just getting out of the crisis, right? And people who experience trauma can end up sort of stuck in that state with sort of that narrow aperture. And if you can't widen the aperture, you're going to miss a lot that's going on outside of, sort of the tunnel vision, some of which could be threats, and some of which could be opportunities. So you're sort of looking for ways to widen that window, and where that took me to as I was thinking through, this is an example. Because I was like, okay, I need a concrete example.
Melissa Pitotti 12:44
It helps.
Jeanne Briggs 12:47
And what I thought of was that I had the amazing opportunity to be in Juba on the day of the referendum on January 1 2011, when the South Sudanese voted for independence from Sudan and became a new country. And I was working for USAID, and we were helping, you know, we were working with partners who were implementing the referendum and working on, you know, community engagement in the process. And, you know, it was an amazing moment. It was historic. There was joy and excitement for this new country that was being born, and a new, you know, sort of time for the South Sudanese. And at the same time, there's also a lot of sadness for what people had to go through to get to that point, there was a tremendous amount of pain and loss and violence that people experienced. And so I think one of the lessons we've learned over the years working in transitions like this is that we have to seize this window of opportunity. We have to support positive momentum so that things don't fall back to, you know, what they were before. But we also can't forget that this moment, this opportunity of transition, came from violence and pain and suffering and people being harmed and doing harm to one another. And if we try to just kind of move past that and ignore it or forget about it, it just gets buried. The pain never gets addressed. And the cycle, you know, of violence I mean, you see this in the theory about about cycles of violence, the unaddressed trauma causes it to just…
Melissa Pitotti 14:51
repeat, right? It kind of explodes sometimes if it's suppressed too much.
Jeanne Briggs 14:59
Exactly. And so what we did in the South Sudan program, which was quite innovative at the time, was that we purposefully built into that program a trauma-informed approach to the activities. So, you know, at least in the US context, USAID and other donors have often, in my experience, been a bit shy to engage on the issue of addressing trauma, because it seems like an area where there's a huge potential to do harm right, and we want to avoid doing harm. And so they tend to kind of avoid that, working on those issues, but then actually inadvertently are doing harm by not addressing them, right? So, we said, no, we're going to specifically build this in. We were able to draw on the expertise of two very senior women in the field who had become experts on how to approach these issues, especially in East Africa. And, the result of that was that, I think the activities were more successful, more resilient because we were overtly, explicitly taking into account what you know, the past impact, the starting state, right, as we look toward the future state.
Melissa Pitotti 16:39
Okay, that's great. So you're looking at the past impact to inform how we are acting now, to inform the future state exactly, okay, so if we go back to your earlier point that the window of opportunity, from a trauma sense, can be narrow, and then from a crisis sense, it can be short, for someone listening to this conversation who themselves is going through a transition and is worried that they might have missed the boat, that they might have missed the opportunity, or they might say, I know I want to open my gate, I want to open my perspective, but I am feeling like acute pressure to make money or something, for people who are worried about that, what would you say?
Jeanne Briggs 17:51
So I would say a couple things. One is when we say the window can be short. I mean in a political transition, that can mean a couple of years, right? So I wouldn't want anyone to think that... I mean in the current sort of transition that we're going through, like as USAID and development actors, I think, you know, we're very much only at the beginning of the current state even, let's say yeah. But my advice to someone who's sort of trying to figure out how to approach the situation is actually very much related to this idea of widening the window, which is, take a step back, take a deep breath, try to see the bigger picture. Because, I mean, the other thing about crisis is that it is also chaotic. And what's happening right now is that 1000s, I mean, you know, 10,000 USAID staff, so we're probably talking 100,000 staff overall, when you include all implementing partners, have lost their jobs overnight, right? Yeah. So it's, it's chaotic and, and how do you bring order to chaos? You don't run in and start doing things right? I was thinking about this because it's the same principle as what they teach you when you learn first aid, right? What do they say? They say you see a body in the road, your instinct is, run to help the person. The first thing you're supposed to do is, let's take a look around and make sure it's safe, yeah, before you respond, because if you run in and you get hit by a bus, well, now there's two injured people, right? So it's the same concept. Everything is in chaos. Everyone is panicked. We want to take a step back and try to sort of see what the bigger picture is, not just, you know, overall, but for ourselves, yes, and then that allows, I think it allows me, and it might allow others, to be more strategic about how we approach the situation. And so, you know, very tactically, what that translates into is like, I'm not going to go out and start sending, you know, 100 resumes out to every job that gets advertised. No, you know, no shade on anyone who does that, because that's a perfectly rational response to the situation, but it's gonna be a lot of work with maybe limited yield, and it's going to feel discouraging. And so I think really, it's the same advice you know that that any coach would give you, even in normal times, right, is like, where do you want to be? What's important to you? What are, where are the opportunities that might resonate for you? And then make a strategy for how you find those things. And then, of course, it may be that in the short term, that might mean doing things that you may not have considered doing because you need to make money, and that's okay too, right? But just keeping your bigger picture in sight, and knowing that you know you are maybe working towards something longer term that might just take a while to realize itself.
Melissa Pitotti 21:45
I think when you said, you know, stop and take a step back, I instantly relaxed. That's really good. We need a little pause. Permission to pause, and permission…
Jeanne Briggs 22:04
…to just, yeah, like, be in this moment. And, you know, because it's extremely traumatic. I mean, it's, you know, it's the end of people's careers, people who've done this work for 30 years. It's the end of opportunity that there, you know, I know plenty of people who were just starting out in their careers, and so, you know, it's overwhelming, and it's, yeah, it's hard to function in that environment, especially if you try to just kind of like, you know, run in and fight the fire.
Melissa Pitotti 22:42
A lot of people whose identity was wrapped up in the work, they love the purpose and the meaning behind the work. And then people are still in their jobs. I'm hearing their lack of motivation. Not everyone, of course, but I'm hearing a real lack of motivation and dreading going into work because people left behind might feel some survivor guilt, or have even more work to do or are not clear what it is. So it's like everyone in their situation is different, but there's still some struggle associated.
Jeanne Briggs 23:15
Absolutely.
Melissa Pitotti 23:17
So you and three other senior women leaders launched something called the Aid Transition Alliance earlier this year. What moment made you realize this initiative was urgently needed?
Jeanne Briggs 23:35
So again, it's a crisis of unfathomable proportions, and at the same time, it's a window of opportunity. And what we saw was like I said, just you know, an overwhelming amount of trauma, of sadness, you know, not only for, I mean – the four of us you know, are American Foreign Service officers, we've worked for 30 years with national staff in every country where we've worked. They, you know, they really are the core of everything we do. And they were just, you know, sort of pushed out the door with very little in terms of compensation and themselves, in unstable environments where they will have difficulty, you know, finding new employment, and some of whom they also are dealing with the negative repercussions of what was said about, you know, USAID in our work. And so I think, you know, we had that kind of crisis response, feeling of like, okay, there's an emergency we need to respond, but also to somehow make, to find the positive, to find the window of opportunity to support people so that, so that it doesn't become something so overwhelming people can't function, right? And so the first piece of that was staff care, and the agency, USAID, and many implementing partners provide staff care support to their employees, and that was cut off for many people. And so we worked with KonTerra, which has been a staff care provider for USAID, and they've been doing primarily group but some individual counseling, psychosocial support, webinars, group support for people. And everything that we've heard is that people have just found that so, so helpful, just in terms of feeling like they're not alone, there's, you know, there's resources to help them. And we were thinking about that in terms of, okay, people are going to have to find new work, maybe new livelihoods, new careers. They can't do that if they're really living in a state of just, you know, shock and trauma and depression, right? And so we also have, we have done a little bit of work on career transition, but we're going to be focusing on that more in the future, and we especially want to see how we can support our national staff. We also were very concerned about the loss of knowledge and expertise that comes about by, you know, sort of dispersing 10,000 people who've worked on these issues for many years. And so a component of what we've been doing is on knowledge capture and legacy preservation, not just sort of the physical documents, many of which were online and were sort of, you know, cut off, but also interviewing people, capturing tacit knowledge, and doing that in a way that will enable us to draw on that for the future. So again, it's about the current state, looking back at the past, but also looking forward at, where will we be? Because I think everyone feels strongly that even though this has happened, it's not the end of, you know, for many of us, our engagement on these issues, we don't know what that will look like in the future. If there might be something, you know, again, that looks like a USAID, but we want to have that capacity, that knowledge base, to be able to, you know, to support that in the future.
Melissa Pitotti 28:29
I love that capacity, capacity, that's a good word. And shout out to KonTerra, Lynne Cripe, Allison Giffen, and so many of their colleagues, wonderful colleagues, doing wonderful work.
Jeanne Briggs 28:41
Yes, they have been fantastic and really able to very quickly mobilize. We wanted to give people, give people some hope, some feeling that they're not alone. There are people who care, who are, you know, still working for them, and and, and also hopefully lay the groundwork for how we can, you know, rebuild some of this in the future.
Melissa Pitotti 31:07
Mm hmm, nice. You've thought it through. So we talked about staff care, career transition support, including for national staff, and looking at knowledge and expertise being captured and legacy preservation. Is there anything else you want to say about what the Alliance does now and for whom?
Jeanne Briggs 31:35
So the fourth pillar of what we've been working on is communication, there have been some fantastic efforts by different groups during this crisis to coordinate efforts to share information. And one of those was led, is still led by a group of USAID and partner staff to support the whole community. So we have been focused in Aid Transition Alliance primarily on USAID staff, but we have a whole partner community that is extremely important, right? So, they formed a group called OneAID, and they have been working a lot on, on just, you know, sharing information, collating resources. Because, you know, back in January, February, in the crisis, there was so much information flying around, but, you know, difficult to sort through it all right? And so they've really set up an excellent structure with a website, they have regular meetings. And so we've provided them with some funding, just, you know, really also trying to communicate the importance of US aid, US assistance, and what has been lost, and the impact of that. And so I think that that has been, that piece has been more focused on sort of the crisis, you know, communications around the crisis, but also around support for staff resources that are available.
Melissa Pitotti 33:28
A lot of our listeners are navigating uncertainty in their own careers right now. They might be directly affected through what happened with USAID, or they might be, there's so many people who are funded by other entities, who have faced closures and post reductions, and you are known as someone who can bring order to chaos. I think you taught me this Muppet analogy. Maybe you want to explain the Muppet analogy.
Jeanne Briggs 34:05
Yes, it's not my own. You can Google it. But there is a concept that you know, we're all either two types of Muppets, order Muppets, or chaos Muppets. So when you think about Kermit – order Muppet. Fozzie Bear, chaos Muppet, it’s easy to identify with one or the other. So yeah, I think you know, we are living through some pretty unprecedented things in the US right now and in the world, and so all of that looks and feels and is extremely chaotic. And I think there are people who thrive in chaos, and there's, you know, that's a good thing, and then there are people for whom that is exhausting. And I was thinking about, you know, one of the impetuses for actually how, how I got connected to you is that, through connections like Lynne, who you mentioned earlier, this idea of setting up peer support groups, right? And particularly for women, because I don't think it's a coincidence that when you look around at who is responding to this crisis, it's predominantly women. We are women leaders of the Aid Transition Alliance. It's women who are leading OneAID. It's women who are leading, you know, a lot of the response to the political situation in the US. And I was thinking about one obvious explanation for that, is that women are caregivers. We, you know, we're the ones who want to make sure everyone's okay, but it's also, I think, because we are connectors, and we are systems thinkers, and we are the ones who are seeing the big picture, and looking for ways, in the context of, how do we address the crisis, support people, help them feel better, we're also looking at, how do we change what's happening, and at the same time, all of that on top of everything else that we as women do in our lives is exhausting, right? And so we also have to recognize the toll that that takes. And so I mentioned peer support groups because I think, inspired by your model, we set up some women peer support groups in the DC area. I have been leading one myself, and I find that people really women feel so restored just by being together, sharing what's happening, not being not feeling as alone, and having a chance to kind of, you know, just take a breath and reflect on what we've experienced and how we can move past it into something more positive,
Melissa Pitotti 38:01
Absolutely, such a contrast to be kind of observing the world in chaos, and then come into this safe well, come into this space where people are supportive and connection is kind of the whole purpose in a disconnected world that you come in and connect. It feels like such a contrast. And I think that really helps people who are looking for anchors to keep them from going adrift or going into the storm.
Jeanne Briggs 38:37
Yeah, I think anchoring is a really good term for it, because that's what it feels like. It feels like you're at sea and something to bring you, you know, to feel a little bit more, yeah, less adrift.
Melissa Pitotti 39:01
Absolutely. So if people are feeling overwhelmed right now, is there a first step they can take to get closer to clarity in a chaotic environment?
Jeanne Briggs 39:19
Well, in this particular context that we're talking about, I think a really great place for people to start is that we have our own website for the Aid Transition Alliance. It's aidtransitionalliance.org, and then for the broader community, the aid community, the OneAID folks have a website as well.So both of these sites really have been sort of curated to give people, you know, a place to come and find resources for mental and emotional support, for career transition support, and also, in the case of OneAID, they also have organized folks at the state level, so really finding more sort of local community support. So I really encourage people to check out those websites. There's also ways to get in touch with us, you know, if there's something that you feel like is a need that isn't addressed. I think, again, it's this idea of, you know, everything is flying at you, 1000 miles a minute, and people are, you know, sharing job boards with 1000s of jobs on them, you know, just, and it's overwhelming. And so, you know, if, if you can take a step back, think about, you know, what's important, think about what's always been important to us and and I think that helps actually kind of figure out the next step, because you get that sort of bigger picture, that maybe also makes it feel a little less chaotic.
Melissa Pitotti 42:21
That's wonderful. I'm thinking about the peer support work that you're involved with, and I've got a peer support group in Geneva, where I live. And I think there could be, I wish for everyone who cares about international cooperation and solidarity and collective well being, I wish for everyone in the broader workforce that they had access to this kind of peer support. And right now, it's women-led. But it doesn't have to be women only who enjoy these kinds of peer support spaces. There's another podcast with Carrie Santos where we talk about how you can create your own peer support group. So I would love to see a future, if we were positioning our capacity for the future, I would love to see a future where anyone who wanted to create their own or be part of one could. How does that sound to you?
Jeanne Briggs 43:29
Well, that is exactly what I did, building on the session that you and Carrie did, I put out a little call and said, you know, if I have, if there's people in my network who are interested, let me know. And we have been meeting about monthly, and we use several of the techniques that I learned, like the mastermind approach, and we're going to start inviting some special guest speakers to come in and, oh yes, folks are interested in things like, you know, new areas for us, especially those of us who have spent so long in in government and and nonprofit, things like, maybe I want to start a business. What is that like, right? And like to work with a headhunter and, you know? And so I think the beauty, or the magic of these peer support groups is that they really can be sort of designed and organized to whatever the group needs exactly, and so with good facilitation to sort of make sure that you know everyone is feeling heard and and has equal participation, that you know it will lead us in a direction and that maybe is more tailored than if you just go to a webinar or something like, yeah, and then the other thing that I think is important is that it's a reminder, and it's one of them, when Carrie and Lynne and I and Cindy Rojas organized, we did a session to help people learn how to set up peer support groups, and we did an exercise which probably came from you. I hadn't seen it before, but it was about resources, resource mapping. And what I think that does is remind us that we have a tremendous amount of resources in ourselves and among each other, and that, you know, again, in this, in this sort of chaos, we forget that we do have those resources to draw on, and they may not be the obvious ones. And so to think about that in new and creative ways is another, I think, really powerful aspect of the peer support group.
Melissa Pitotti 46:07
Absolutely, I think it's so important for us, in an era of feeling scarcity or lack, to remember our strengths and what can resource us. And a lot of that has kind of been sitting on a shelf. We could pull on that and then, and then, when you have a group, and you map out, for example, one of my groups, we just did it. It was when Jamboard was still around. We had these little post it notes online, and we put all the places that each of us had worked before. And the whole Jamboard was full, and I'm like, wow, we have connections to so many places that people want to work at one day. And it was, it's amazing when you start research internally and interpersonally, it's amazing to see what is there.
Jeanne Briggs 47:01
So another piece of that to kind of take it to the next step is something I learned recently through Georgetown University's Pivot With Purpose program, something called reciprocity rings, where you actually sort of in a structured way, say, like, this is what I'm looking for. And people offer, you know, what they can to support that. Because, yeah, we all have a tremendous amount to offer each other, and we just need to find the right sort of, you know, ways to do that that gets beyond the you know, maybe comments on LinkedIn posts or things that maybe feel less connected.
Melissa Pitotti 47:54
Yeah, I learned something that might be similar to that. It's called give, ask, ask, give, where it forces you to be specific about what you want, which is already helpful, like, what do I need? Oh, I didn't even think about it. And then be clear, and then put it out there. And you'll be interested to see who can provide support. And I love this reciprocity, because that's planting seeds for strong relationships, relationships built on mutual aid, mutual respect, give and take. When people practice being vulnerable and being generous on a regular basis, magic happens.
Jeanne Briggs 48:38
And I think in a time where we all feel stressed, depleted, desperate, it's a moment to also say, Oh, I do have something to offer other people, right? Like I'm not only the asker, I'm also the giver, and also, for the people who are chronic givers…
Melissa Pitotti 49:05
I wonder who, not us, definitely not us. We do not fit that category, right?
Jeanne Briggs 49:13
They make us ask for help too.
Melissa Pitotti 49:15
So yeah, that's really hard for some of us to ask. I mean, I do special screening for my groups. I want people who can be generous, but I also want people who can receive, you know, I want, and it's hard sometimes to do both, so we need to work on that. So that's really great to have that space to practice.
Jeanne Briggs 49:41
It's really hard because, I'm fortunate that I have people say to me, you're doing so much. What can I do to help you? How can I support you? It's a beautiful thing. Oh no. What to say?
Melissa Pitotti 49:57
I know like, oh god. Check back with me after I'm done doing all the things.
Jeanne Briggs 50:07
Yeah, keep your mind. We also have to think about asking for ourselves as well.
Melissa Pitotti 50:14
And some people really take a lot of pleasure out of helping us? Yeah, asking for help is almost like giving a gift. Especially now I'm hearing in our community, people are just hungry for purpose, hungry for contribution, hungry for feeling like they're making an impact. And if you don't invite them to take some of the load, it's almost like depriving them of their feel good dopamine. I don't know. It's not that I want anyone to be exploited, but I try to tell myself, when people offer to help, I'm like, that is actually good for them and me, is good? Is a win-win? Yeah, absolutely. So for listeners who are inspired by this conversation and who want to support your work, what are some ways that they can, maybe I shouldn't put you on the spot. Maybe I should give you more time, but what are some ways they can support your work?
Jeanne Briggs 51:28
Well, we would never say no to donations.
Melissa Pitotti 51:33
Okay, good.
Jeanne Briggs 51:35
We, on our website, have a place to receive those. We are all out actively fundraising for, f to support the activities that we’re engaged in. I think also a great way to get involved is, I mentioned the OneAID community has these state groups, that's an excellent way to get involved in terms of advocacy around the future of foreign assistance, political engagement at the state level, also just finding the people who have come back to your area, or you might have just come to a new place, and you want to find community and connection. So, yeah, I think that's a great way to get involved. Also the knowledge capture component of the work that we're supporting. You know, if someone would like to be interviewed about their experience. The focus is on not just what we did and how we did it, but also what we learned from it that we want to distill and, you know, and preserve for the future, and I think actually having the chance to reflect on that and then also talk about it and have it documented, is a really powerful, positive experience.
Melissa Pitotti 53:11
Awesome to share. I love… they used to talk about capacity building. I love capacity sharing. So we've gone through some experience. Let's share what we've learned. It's like a knowledge transfer for the future. Wow, I'm so energized from this conversation. Jeanne, is there any final word you want to share before we wrap?
Jeanne Briggs 53:40
I do want to say that, as we've talked about, this is an extremely difficult time. People are going through a lot. They've lost, you know, a lot. And so I also just want to very explicitly say that if you are feeling overwhelmed by all of this. You're not alone. We are here to support you. There are a lot of people doing a lot of work to try to provide support to people, and so on both of our websites, Aid Transition Alliance and OneAID Community, there are resources for anyone who feels like they need that help. You know, please do reach out.
Melissa Pitotti 54:29
All right with that. Thank you so much, Jeanne, for the work you do and the way you do it. We need examples of how to be in times like this and really appreciate what you're bringing. Thank you.
Jeanne Briggs 54:46
Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai