We talk with Together Bay Area about their experience shifting their coalition from nearly sunsetting to achieving a vibrant renewal.
What does it look like for a collaborative to shift from nearly sunsetting to achieving a vibrant renewal?
We tackle this challenging question in the 100th episode of our podcast, where we dive into the realities of what it means to rebuild collective work from the ground up.
To explore this topic, we talk with Annie Burke, the executive director of Together Bay Area, a regional coalition focused on climate resilience and equity in the Bay Area of California. Annie details the difficulties the coalition faced when experiencing a near collapse in 2018, the reckoning that followed, and what it looked like to rebuild. This included extensive partner and community engagement, improving governance, rebuilding trust, and developing a sustainable business model for the coalition to move forward.
From those challenges, a vibrant collective was reborn, and has since been championing the social and environmental changes needed for healthy lands, people, and communities.
If you have wondered what it can look like to rebuild a collective through challenging times and to come together for a renewed purpose, this is a great conversation to listen to.
Resources and Footnotes
More on Collective Impact
The Intro music, entitled “Running,” was composed by Rafael Krux, and can be found here and is licensed under CC: By 4.0.
The outro music, entitled “Deliberate Thought,” was composed by Kevin Macleod. Licensed under CC: By.
Have a question related to collaborative work that you'd like to have discussed on the podcast? Contact us at: https://www.collectiveimpactforum.org/contact-us/
Welcome to the Collective Impact Forum podcast, here to share resources to support social change makers working on cross-sector collaboration.
The Collective Impact Forum is a nonprofit field-building initiative that is co-hosted in partnership by the nonprofit consulting firm FSG and the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions.
In this episode, we explore what happens when a collaborative faces the brink of collapse and finds a way to come back stronger than ever.
To dig into this challenging topic, we talk with Annie Burke, executive director of Together Bay Area, a regional coalition focused on climate resilience and equity. Annie shares the story of how the coalition nearly folded in 2018, and the courageous work that followed, including listening deeply to partners, repairing relationships, and creating a new, sustainable path forward. What emerged was a revitalized collective, now championing the social and environmental changes needed for healthy lands, people, and communities across the Bay Area.
Serving as interviewer today is the Collective Impact Forum’s Executive Director Jennifer Splansky Juster. Let’s tune in.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today’s podcast. I'm Jennifer Juster, executive director of the Collective Impact Forum, and today I am delighted to be joined by Annie Burke, executive director of Together Bay Area.
Based in the Bay Area of California, Together Bay Area is a large, growing, and diverse coalition with the mission to be a champion of and a regional voice for the resilient lands and watersheds that are integral to a thriving Bay Area and all people who live here. The coalition holds a vision for a just and equitable society where we live in right relations with the lands that sustain us and will sustain future generations.
And I have to say that as a Bay Area resident I am personally very grateful for the work of this coalition. The coalition is currently thriving as you will hear, but this comes after a near sunset several years ago during which the coalition made an intentional choice to move through a reflection on its future and into a process of renewal, and that is what we’ll be exploring today. How can a coalition rebuild after a near collapse, and what can we learn from the experience of Together Bay Area?
So with that, I would love to welcome Annie to the call. And Annie, I’d love to start by asking you to just introduce yourself and tell us what brought you to your current work.
Annie Burke: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you, Jennifer, and everyone who’s a part of this. It’s a real honor. I serve as the executive director of Together Bay Area, and I live in Berkeley with my family. A combination of things brought me to doing this work and leading this organization.
One is my love of this place. I grew up here, I care a lot about it. I love exploring it and I want the trails and beaches and the parks that I grew up going to to be available for my kids and their kids and many, many other kids and future generations. So I really want to put my energy towards taking care of this place that I love.
The second thing that brings me to this position is that I subscribe to the idea of effortless effort and I look for ways that are aligned with who I am and what I uniquely bring to the world. What are my skills? What are my super powers? And I love convening, facilitating, creating conditions for social change, and that’s the kind of stuff that comes easily to me. Not without effort but it’s the kind of stuff that I love doing and I think of it as effortless effort. It’s a total joy to do this kind of work.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: That’s amazing. Effortless effort is an expression I haven't heard before so I'm going to borrow that, and convening, facilitating, and certainly contributing to lasting social change is the coalition work. And so you are in the right place.
Annie Burke: I feel lucky to be that way, yeah.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Yeah. I gave a super brief overview of Together Bay Area but I’d love to understand more about the work that you lead today.
Annie Burke: Sure. So Together Bay Area is a regional coalition of organizations collaborating for climate resilience and equity. Our vision is a Bay Area that’s home to healthy lands, people, and communities. We work together through collaboration to deal with the impacts of the climate and biodiversity crises. And we have about 80 member organizations across 10 counties in the Bay Area, and our members are nonprofits, public agencies, tribes, and Native-led organizations as well as mission-aligned businesses. All of them are on-the-ground implementers so they're doers and they have a range of different kinds of projects from forest restoration to outdoor education programming, all really connected back to that healthy lands, people, and communities. And behind this coalition is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) called Together Bay Area. We have a budget of around a million dollars and currently about four staff. That’s, I guess, what we call the backbone organization to the coalition.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: You read my mind. The Together Bay Area nonprofit itself is the backbone to the Together Bay Area coalition more broadly.
Annie Burke: Exactly.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: And tell us a little bit about some of the recent wins or accomplishments that you're proud to highlight.
Annie Burke: I’d love to. There’s so much cool stuff that we’ve been doing over the past five years and before that too, which we’ll talk a little bit about. I’ll share three just for time’s sake. One is that we convene an annual conference and we just held our conference two weeks ago, the TOGETHER Conference, and it sold out two months in advance which was shocking to me, just really speaking, I think, to the need to come together and work together and find inspiration and connection.
So we had about 460 people gathered in person in San Francisco and we focused the theme on possibilities ahead and how we can work together. Some of our members hosted field trips so people went out, about 250 of those attendees went out on field trips all around the region. It was a huge success and just a lot of joy and connection and positivity, which I think is well needed. A second highlight is that we were part of a large group of organizations from around the state that helped create and pass Proposition 4 last year, which passed, the voters passed in November 2024, which is a ten-billion-dollar climate bond. That’s funding for sea level rise response, wildfire preparedness, healthy forests, wetlands restoration, so much important work and the need for that kind of funding and that size, that scale of funding, is so critical. And it was critical before the federal administration changed and it’s even more critical right now. So that was really a highlight that we’ve been a part of.
And the third I’ll highlight right now is that we’re leading a pretty innovative program called Right Relations which is changing how our members are thinking about and taking action to partner with tribes and Native-led organizations. It’s a partnership between us and Redbud Resource Group which is a women-led, Native-women-led nonprofit, and it’s really transforming the participants’ world views about land and land stewardship. That’s like systems change happening kind of right in front of us. It’s really exciting and super meaningful work. That’s another highlight.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Annie, that is amazing, and I was sitting here taking notes because what I was hearing, you mentioned systems change right at the end, and what I was hearing was how all of this work is so focused on shifting systems. So you talked about the conference which is, amongst other things, an amazing opportunity to strengthen relationships across the folks that are engaging in this work, and I imagine also a lot of learning and sharing as well and improving practices.
And you talked about passing Proposition 4 which is shifting resources through a policy change, which is often what we talk about as part of the structural dimensions of systems change. And then you talked about your Right Relations program which is not only building new relationships but as you said really shifting world views and mental models about land and land stewardship. And for those of you who haven't seen it I'm sort of picturing a triangle in my head from a resource that we have called The Water of Systems Change that talks about structural systems change as shifting power and policy, excuse me, structural systems change as shifting policy and resources and practices and then relational systems change around shifting power and relationships, and then transformative systems change of shifting mental models and world views. And what you just talked about with Together Bay Area touches all three of those levels so beautifully.
So I just want to uplift that range of systems change strategies that you all have been pursuing and seeing progress. So that’s super neat. Thank you for those three examples.
Annie Burke: I feel like it’s the validation. Like you see me. You're seeing the work that we’re doing.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Yeah.
Annie Burke: And when you're doing the work it’s hard sometimes to zoom out and have the perspective that you just shared, so thank you for reflecting that back to me.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Absolutely. For those of you listening, I actually didn’t know what examples Annie was going to share and so it’s really neat to see how they align with so many different systems change strategies.
So you’ve clearly demonstrated the vibrance of today’s Together Bay Area coalition, but I also know it’s been quite an evolution over the past few years. And I’d love to dig into exploring how after near sunset, Together Bay Area has gone through that evolution. We were just talking about systems change. In some of the systems thinking trainings that we do we talk about an ecocycle, which is if you picture an infinity loop or a figure eight on its side, we talk about moving through development into program maturity but also recognizing that sometimes things have to go through a process of creative destruction before they can enter some period of renewal. And as I've heard the story of Together Bay Area that you’ll share a little bit more about with us, you really went through that creative destruction and back into a new vibrant initiative.
So let’s hear a little bit about what happened that led you or led the coalition several years ago into that time of creative destruction.
Annie Burke: I’d be happy to and recognize that it’s not a fun story and when we look back at it it’s a little easier to stomach, but at the time it was pretty challenging and painful. And we are really for sure living through the ecocycle that you just described. That really resonates. Together Bay Area is the second iteration of this organization. It was originally founded as the Bay Area Open Space Council in 1990, and people like Larry Orman and John Woodbury and many others saw the need to work together for land conservation as a, work together as a region for land conservation and open space preservation. And Open Space Council did a lot of amazing things in the nineties, in the early 2000s. I won’t go into all of that but there are a lot of people who really put a lot of effort into building this community and the culture of collaboration across that region. I want to honor that and then talk about the destruction phase. It wasn’t straight from creation to destruction. There was a lot of good that happened. We’ll go there because that’s what we want to talk about. The organization really collapsed in 2018 and one way of painting that collapse is that at the beginning of 2018 there were six staff and by October there was one, and just a lot of people left one by one for all the reasons they do, but also that there was I think a real kind of crisis of identity. And there were a few things that I think were wrapped up in that. One is that the organization, and I'm going to use organization and coalition kind of interchangeably here but was trying to be everything to everyone and it was trying to do a lot of different things. There were some people, lots of people who saw it as convening a conference. It was a convening organization and others who really thought it was advocacy for funding. Others thought it was really about science and regional goalsetting for conservation. So it really wasn’t clear who the organization was for or what it was doing. Another was that there was really unclear governance structure and not aligned roles and responsibilities and that the business model didn’t work. We tried to diversify our funding because that’s the mantra of nonprofits is to have diverse revenue. But that actually took away our work from our core constituents. We started chasing money and that, as most folks know, is not a good idea. It was really painful when things fell apart. There was a lot of confusion, a lot of anger, a lot blame. It was really a challenging time.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Yeah. I can only imagine and thank you for talking through that, and what we do see though is the group decided not to simply shut down but to work through a process to rebuild so tell us a little bit about that process, the decision to rebuild and how you approached that.
Annie Burke: Yeah. I think it’s a really critical piece to the story. The decision to not close was a conscious one. I mean we opted to continue instead of just assuming that we would and I think that’s a really critical part of where we are today, it’s that decision. So first it took us a while to figure out what was going on so I was a consultant at the time and I came back to the—I had worked for the Open Space Council and I came back in October 2018, and it took us about a month to figure out kind of where things were and what was going on and to kind of diagnose at the governance level, finance, operations, program levels like what was going on, and then at the end of November of 2018 we held a meeting with key stakeholders so the board of directors, our advisory council, and a few key other leaders in the community, and I laid out the state of the governance, kind of the state of things, state of finance, operations, programs as factually and as straightforward as I could. I kind of felt maybe like it was telling the patient as a diagnosis in plain English, not in doctor speak but in real clear English so that we’re all on the same page about what we were dealing with, and then I laid out options for what we do next. One option was to close down and I thought, you know, I said out loud we could do this well. We could close well. I could throw a really good kind of end-of-life party for this organization or we could rebuild as it is. We could just kind of like try to put it back together as it was or that we could rebuild into whatever is needed next. We could take this opportunity to see what’s possible and what the organizations needed for the next 25 years instead of trying to rebuild it back to what it was in 1990 for example. The group discussed it for a while and then a critical, an essential leader in the region, Andrea Mackenzie, said she couldn’t imagine doing the work that she does at the local scale without this regional coalition, and that really changed the conversation. She said it with such conviction and passion and the whole conversation changed for them, and by the end of the meeting we had five organizations who had committed funding for the rebuilding and two new board members. People joined to be a part of that rebuilding so it was a pretty special meeting to go from real hard to possibilities of what’s next.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Yeah, but you helped folks see with very clear eyes what choices existed and then saw champions step up to say the sum is greater than the individual parts and we need that so that led, it sounds like, to the process of reimagining and rebuilding what Together Bay Area has come today so what were some of the key elements of that rebuilding process that others might learn from?
Annie Burke: Yeah, it was a really fun process once we got to that part. We involved over 200 people over six months in 2019 to reimagine what this regional coalition could be for the next 25 to 30 years. We did focus groups and surveys, and we communicated a lot, trying to be as transparent and open about what we’re working on and what the current thinking was and what questions we’re asking because it was really essential that we build trust through the process. There was some lack of, you know, some trust got eroded when the organization fell apart, trust in the board or trust in staff or trust in kind of the system and so we designed a process to get to an answer but also to build trust and community along the way.
By October 2019 we had a plan with a new mission and vision, new values and guiding principles, a business model and a strategic plan. There are three things that I think were really key about that process that I want to highlight. One is who’s at the table changes the conversation, and if we had just put the same people in the process to have a new conversation, probably we would not get—we wouldn’t move the dial so much. We would have maybe just recreated what was, and by having different people on the planning committee that some of whom had been involved with the organization a long time, some who hadn’t been, there were a majority of women and also a majority of people of color, and so they were just brilliant in designing what the organization needed to be. They really kind of saw what the organization needed to be and perfectly positioned us for what 2020 was about to bring us which we didn’t know at the time.
Another thing that I think is really key in that year is to tap into that energy. I kind of feel like it’s like reading a river if you’re river rafting. There’s a lot of water going downhill but there’s also eddies and rocks and holes and trying to tap into where the flow is and ride it. I feel like sometimes in coalitions and networks, leaders try to create the energy and they kind of try to force what they want to happen onto groups of people. Sometimes that works but I think it’s really interesting to see where people are, where the energy is, and go there and tap into that, and that means listening deeply to what they’re saying or what they're not saying or who’s showing up or how they’re showing up so paying attention to the room.
Then the third thing I wanted to talk about about that year was we did a lot of work to align our mission and vision, values and business model. In the nonprofit world I think we’re not very skilled in thinking about where, how, what kind of money is coming in and what are we going to spend that money on, and there are lots of options so we wanted to make sure that there was a lot of alignment between what our mission is, who we’re serving, and where our money comes from. It’s definitely made my job a lot easier, and I think it’s contributed to our success.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: I want to hear more about that but I also just want to underscore a couple things that you said that I think are really important. One was in that rebuilding you were super focused on building trust, and that was done with I’m sure many different ways but being really transparent and frequent in your communications with folks sounds like it was a big part of it. I also really appreciated how you balanced having some of the old legacy perspectives with a lot of new perspectives to think about what that future should look like and following the energy. I love the river rafting analogy, especially for the Together Bay Area folks, and it makes sense because it’s, you know, when you're working in complexity, it’s very hard to force the network in a certain direction and so it’s a skill though to recognize where there is energy and to try to follow and harness that so I like really how you lifted that up. But let’s also talk more about the business model because funding for coalition work and in particular for the backbone team and staff can be really challenging for a lot of collective impact and coalition-type projects so tell us more about the business model.
Annie Burke: It is hard but, yes, to that, really challenging to raise money for this kind of work. I’ve built individual donor programs and chased foundation grants and done all kinds of things but as an intermediary organization, we’re not the direct service. We’re not the ones on the ground doing the land conservation or the outdoor education work. I just hear over and over again that funders want to support that work so if you care deeply about getting kids outside, go fund the organization that takes kids outside. So it’s challenging.
So we recognized this and went back in 2019 and built a business model that, as I said, tries to align our mission and programs and governance and where our money comes from. I want to give a shout-out to Meredith Hendricks and Noelle Chambers who we spent hours and hours and hours thinking about this and I’m super grateful, if not a daily basis, like a weekly basis, for their smarts. They played a big role.
So our business model has two components. One is what I call core 80/20, and that’s that 80 percent of our revenue comes from membership dues and the annual conference net revenues. That’s one piece, and then 20 percent comes from foundation and public grants, and when I talk about core operations, I mean like two staff and the essential functions of a 501(c)(3) so it’s pretty bare-boned. We don’t have an office. We don’t—there’s no lavish anything in here. It’s a pretty streamlined operation but about 80 percent is funded by unrestricted, and then 20 percent is some combination of restricted and unrestricted grants. And that projects are funded by foundations so when we need something like Right Relations program, we secure grant funding for that and that benefits the organization in a few ways. One is that we are able to put together programs but it also increases the value of membership because those programs are for members, and so how can we bring in different kinds of funding to also bolster the organization overall. And projects aren’t meant to be forever so these projects are really discrete and they come and they go over time depending on the river flow and what’s needed.
I've got to say this is a constant evolution like I by no means want to convey that we’ve figured this out and we’re done and it’s all good. It’s a constant challenge to figure out how to fund, also how to staff. When you have two staff or three staff, there’s not a lot of wiggle room. You know those people really need to know their jobs and have real clarity around that so there’s been a lot of figuring out, and we’ve invested a lot over the past few years to make sure there’s a there there which our bet is that when there’s more of a there, it’s easier to fundraise for, you know, it's really a challenge.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Yeah, so I know many folks listening are wanting to hear more about the membership dues. It’s actually relatively unusual in my experience that the coalition participants or the collective impact partners are the ones that are paying in to support the role of the backbone. I’m curious if you could say a little bit more about what that structure looks like.
Annie Burke: Absolutely. The membership dues is on a sliding scale based on the organization’s operating budget. It ranges from $250 to $20,000. They’re paid annually, and we are fortunate in the Bay Area and this community of organizations that there’s organizations willing and able to pay that. I think that’s a privilege we have in the Bay Area and a privilege we have with this group, and it works. I’m not sure if it would work everywhere but I’d be happy to talk to anybody about it. I’ve learned a ton over the past bunch of years about how to structure it, and I’d be happy to dive deep more into it.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Thank you. Even understanding that range and the sliding scale makes a lot of sense. So if there are other leaders listening who might see themselves in a similar situation where maybe they're going through a tough patch and trying to determine what the future of the coalition looks like, what recommendations might you have as they consider how to lead through this type of scenario?
Annie Burke: I love this question and my first response is just that it so depends, you know. So I’ll share some things I’ve learned and I think it really depends on so many variables that it’s hard to speak to generally but one thing I think is important is moving towards the hard, like move towards the challenging pieces because I think there’s such potential there. I think if you’re given the opportunity to sit at the bedside of a dying organization, I urge you to take that seat. When things fall apart, there’s a lot of opportunity. I feel somewhat grateful for the Bay Area Open Space Council’s collapse because it allowed us to create freely. We didn’t have to work in as many constraints as you do when you’re trying to change an organization as it’s functioning. It’s some of the more interesting, challenging, rewarding work that I’ve done. It was hard. It was messy so I’d say move towards those hard things and see what’s possible. I think the other thing I’d say is to grow in the soil where you are. You know what works in the Bay Area for Together Bay Area is probably not what’s going to work somewhere else, and if coalitions and networks will reflect where they’re growing and who’s involved and the climate they’re in and what figurative water they’re receiving, and there are so many factors, and I think understanding the context and the climate and the environment is really critical to understand what’s possible in where you are.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: I’m curious, Annie, during those tough times, what did you do to sustain yourself and your energy?
Annie Burke: That’s a great question. I’d like to say I did a lot and that’s probably not true. One of the things is I had quite a few people that were real partners and confidants who I could go to and say, oh, my gosh, here’s the challenge or how do we structure this meeting to get to this outcome or whatever it was. That was a very—I don’t know how many times I can say it but a very together time and there was quite a bit of collaboration and partnership so I think being with other people who cared about the organization and could think with me was definitely one thing that helped me get through that time.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: I thought you were going to say you enjoyed the great outdoors of the Bay Area and the hikes and the rivers and all of the things that—I’m sure you did that too but I really appreciate the emphasis on thought partnership and mentorship which is really essential.
Annie Burke: Well, Jennifer, that’s just obvious that I went outside but of course I did. That’s like, you know, the natural world is obviously a place to reset, get clarity so yeah, for sure.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Yes, living the mission for sure.
Annie Burke: That’s right.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Annie, it’s been so fun and helpful talking with you and as we wrap up, I just wanted to ask if there’s anything we haven’t talked about that you’d like to share with our listeners.
Annie Burke: Well, building on what we’ve just talked about is to find your people. There are a lot of people out there who convene networks and think about systems change. I have regular meetings every other month, quarterly, with people who are doing very similar work than I am, and I find those conversations recharging, and I see it because I want to copy what they’re doing or I want to do the opposite of what they’re doing. Whatever it is I guess I find talking to people who think, who are wrestling with the same issues that I’m wrestling with just so helpful. So there are a lot of them out there, and I’d say find your people. I’m just really grateful to FSG and the Collective Impact Forum for the education you do because you’re bringing to light this work of coalitions and collective impact, and all of the education that you do is really helpful. So thank you so much for your role in that and connecting all of us.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Oh, thank you. We have the great privilege of lifting up the amazing work that folks are doing in communities so thank you, Annie. I know everyone’s going to want to follow the work of Together Bay Area now so please tell us how they can do that.
Annie Burke: Join us over at our website at togetherbayarea.org. You can also follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Together Bay Area and reach out to me. I love talking about this stuff. I love this work. I find a lot of joy in it. I’m also constantly learning so I’d love to share what we’ve been doing and also learn from others so please feel free to reach out to me. My contact information is on the website.
Jennifer Splanksy Juster: Well, thank you, Annie. Thanks for chatting today and for the work that you are leading across the Bay Area. Your passion and leadership for this work shines through even in the podcast format so we know that folks will really take a lot away from the conversation so thank you so much.
Annie Burke:Thank you.
(Outro) And this closes out this episode of the Collective Impact Forum podcast. If you are interested in learning more about what was discussed, you can find links to resources in the footnotes for this episode. And if you’re enjoying all that we share at the Collective Impact Forum podcast, we encourage you to rate us on your preferred podcast platform, and share your favorite episodes with colleagues.
We would like to acknowledge that this episode was produced and edited on the unceded, traditional lands of the Coast Salish people, including the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stillaguamish, and Muckleshoot tribes. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the past, present, and futures of these tribes.
The Intro music for this episode was composed by Rafael Krux and our outro music is composed by Kevin Macleod.
In Forum news, we’re excited to share that registration is open for our online two-day workshop, Facilitating Collaborative Meetings, which will be held this November 18 and 19. This is one of our most popular workshops and is a great session if you are new to facilitating collaborative spaces and meetings. Please visit our events section at collectiveimpactforum.org if you would like to learn more. We hope you can join us.
This is Tracy Timmons-Gray, Associate Director here at the Collective Impact Forum, and your podcast producer. I want to say thank you so much for listening, and we look forward to connecting with you more in our next episode. Until next time, let’s keep working towards collective impact.