I’m planning to step down from Greater Greater Washington

One of GGWash’s cardinal style rules, as stated by longtime writer and board member Dan Malouff, is “get to the point.” The headline does just that. Within six to twelve months, once we can set up a new leadership structure to succeed me, I’ve decided to step down from Greater Greater Washington.

I started this site and this organization over twelve years ago as I was myself learning about what makes the various parts of the Washington region tick. I wrote then about the value of walkable urban places and making them inclusive for all people who want to be part of them, and I still think that’s critical. Our vision statement continues to embody those ideas. We’ve achieved so much and there’s also so much left to do.

I’m particularly proud of the way GGWash has grown and evolved. We’ve gone from one person writing a blog, to a large volunteer effort, to now a nonprofit organization with eight (six, for now) staff and hundreds of volunteers. We’ve broken important stories, educated many people about urbanism, spurred change, added some explicit advocacy, endorsed in elections all across the region, and even inspired some people to change careers to work directly on housing, transportation, and land use.

One of the biggest shifts for GGWash in the past year has been to center equity and sustainability as two core “lenses” for our work. The need for this has never been more clear than this year, and I’m especially proud of the articles we published on racial equity and urbanism in the last month. The planning and transportation fields generally need to reckon with their role in perpetuating systemic racism, whether historically or currently, and we can help to push for it. GGWash itself has walked a path of becoming more conscious of this, a journey I’m very proud we (and I) have undertaken, and which has more steps yet ahead.

While there are many reasons I’ve decided it’s time for me to move on, I’ve been thinking a lot about power recently, and I do see my departure as an opportunity for GGWash to truly internalize our values of equity and sustainability. While I have loved leading this organization, it has always been my vision to structure the organization so that it’s not dependent on me or any one person; we’ve sometimes succeeded more than other times, but I know it’s good for organizations to be more than just an embodiment of one founder’s own ideas. Plus, I’d like to have time to pursue fun projects that the responsibilities of leading an organization don’t allow for.

The work of GGWash is not going to stop. We have an amazing staff in George Jordan, our editor who’s responsible for the site every day; Caitlin Rogger, Alex Baca, and Ron Thompson who advocate on transportation and housing policy with a focus on equity; and Kate Jentoft-Herr who organizes our volunteers and manages many essential functions behind the scenes.

We also have a terrific board of directors and volunteer committees that are working with staff to guide much of GGWash’s work. When I leave, there will be a lot of amazing people to keep the work going.

What now?

GGWash will now start the process of figuring out its future structure and then hiring for the right role(s), with a plan of me being able to transition out in six to twelve months (i.e. end of 2020 or start of summer 2021 at the latest).

I’m very hopeful that the next phase of GGWash can realize much of what our community members said they hope we can do in the future. That particularly includes being explicitly anti-racist and pushing for greater representation in planning and transportation. Along the way we’ll continue to report upon our region, educate people about important issues, push for more housing and better transportation choices, help elect good candidates to office, and much more.

There may be some challenges, to be sure. Any leadership transition can have some bumps, but this is an amazing community, and with everyone’s continued support and patience, I think those can be minimized.

One thing I need to be frank about: we need your financial support now more than ever. GGWash has a reasonable cash reserve at the moment and some runway because we had two open positions just before the coronavirus hit, which we chose not to fill (but that cuts down on what we can do). However, looking ahead, some of our funding sources from 2019 and the start of 2020 are not continuing or have cut back because of the health and economic crisis, and so we will need to work with our supporters on a sustainable plan for 2021.

We don’t yet have the funding we will need for 2021, especially if we want to get back toward our 2019 staff size of eight people, which will help us cover more stories and reduce the burden on our current staff. I hope everyone will help us in our goal to make the publication self-sufficient and the organization sustainable. If you can, will you take a moment to support GGWash’s future today?

What’s next for me? I don’t know yet, but I hope to take some time to really think about what I can be most impactful (and enjoy) doing next.

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of work to do to identify a future leadership structure. We recognize that there won’t be one person who’s a drop-in replacement for me, and the first step is for a transition committee to think about what we need in leadership and how to best set the organization up for it. That committee includes our board chair, Adam Weers; board members Tracy Hadden Loh and Stan Wall; Caitlin Rogger and George Jordan from our staff; long-time volunteer Payton Chung; and myself. It will be engaging in various ways with the staff, board, volunteers, readers, and more.

Ultimately we will have some kind of job description for the role(s) we want to hire to fill, but in the meantime, feel free to get in touch with the transition committee at transition@ggwash.org or me personally at alpert@ggwash.org if you have suggestions or thoughts, or just want to talk about the organization’s direction. (Please note that I’m slow to reply to emails sometimes because of having to juggle work, kids, and more, and the committee members also may not be able to get back to you right away, so please be patient with us.)

It’s been a real pleasure being a part of this organization, and I look forward to an even greater next era in its history. (Meanwhile, it’s not goodbye quite yet.) Thank you!