—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Stephen A. Broyles is an Adjunct Lecturer at Howard University's School of Social Work.
He has 30 years of experience working with faith and community-based organizations and is a national expert in nonprofit capacity building and coalition building. He currently serves as the president of The Magi Group, a technical assistance and capacity building consulting firm that specializes in improving community and faith-based nonprofits that provide health and human services. He has conducted technical assistance efforts for
and has generated over $35.4 million in grant and unrestricted funding for nonprofits through various nonprofit and private sector partnerships.
At the age of 26, he became one of the youngest directors in the NAACP and led three divisions within the 55,000 member Detroit Branch NAACP, the largest branch in the national organization. He developed and coordinated programs for the Detroit Urban League, the International Center for Injury Prevention, and Ford Motor Company
He directed numerous initiatives addressing health disparities in minority populations and has served as a national trainer for CSAT focusing on issues of HIV/AIDS, infectious disease, and the co-occurrences of substance abuse and mental health. He has led efforts that successfully built the capacity of HIV/AIDS organizations in the District of Columbia and assisted in the pilot of the national Access to Recovery (ATR) substance use treatment program.
He coordinated the technical assistance for over 30 SAMHSA faith and community-based collaborations nationwide to reduce substance use and improve mental health services. He assisted the White House Office of Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships to increase the enrollment of participants in the Affordable Care Act. He partnered with the DC Office of Partnerships and Grant Services (OPGS) to create and secure funding for the Strengthening Community Fund project which created economic development opportunities for the unemployed/underemployed in the District. He partnered with OPGS to create a grant writing series that has increased nonprofit funding in DC by $4.3 in 3 years and developed and secured funding for ExportDC, the first program in the District to increase the number of small businesses that export.
He works in partnership with the Sanford Institute and the Howard School of Business to develop the 2019 Fundraising Academy Accelerated Training to provide fundraising education and outreach to build the capacity of nonprofit organizations Metro DC area. He assisted in the creation of the Michigan Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence and piloted America's Promise Child Seat Safety Program for General Motors. He also managed Peer Techincal Assistance to States, tribes, localities, and other TANF stakeholders seeking to improve overall quality and effectiveness of services to TANF recipients.
He received a Bachelors in Psychology and a Bachelors in Sociology in 1994, as well as a Masters of Public Health and a Masters of Social Work in 1996 from the University of Michigan.
About fifteen minutes into this conversation, it hit me how powerfully Stephen's commitment affected him. (Sorry I took so long to catch on, Stephen!) All he had to do was volunteer around a body of water. His experience shows the impact of intrinsic motivation. Maybe observing and spending time by the water means as much to you as to Stephen. Maybe it doesn't mean that much to you. It means a lot to him. Things mean as much to you that may not mean as much to others, but acting on them becomes meaningful. That resonance what happened with Stephen, because he picked his commitment based on his connection to nature. Wouldn't you love to be able to help others bring things they care about to their lives as Stephen does? You can, by learning the Spodek Method.
Regular listeners and readers of my blog will know my sustainability leadership workshops and one of the participants of the first, Evelyn (she's in the video on that link). After being the teaching assistant for a couple cohorts, she is leading this winter's session. Often when I talked to her about leadership, she would comment, "We do that in social work too, but we call it" . . . and she'd mention a practice she was learning while getting her Masters in Social Work at Howard University. I'd heard of social work, but didn't know what people in the field did. She put me in touch with one of her professors, Stephen. We had a great conversation talking about the overlap between leadership and social work, which led me to invite him on the podcast. Here he speaks about Social work The overlap of personal action and change with systemic change Influencing without authority, The need to live the values you want to evoke in others The need for experience where you want to influence and more. Doing the Spodek Method, he picked up on it and took great interest, as I read, seeing its practicality in and applicability in social work.