28: Sarah Brune, on Loneliness when Leaving, the Role of White Women, and Leaving Well
Sarah Brune has dedicated her career to advancing progressive causes across the Midwest. She is the co-founder of Heartland Next, a marketing, advocacy, and public affairs firm that works with nonprofits, small businesses, and candidates who are committed to making the Heartland great. Sarah also leads the policy advocacy department at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, where she and her team work to close the racial homeownership gap through policy change at the local, state, and federal level.
“I understand my role in that organization as a white woman, and I think about that every day. I think it’s important for me to understand what value I’m bringing. It’s good to have diversity - whatever that may look like in an effort to advance racial equity. I think white women have to participate and have to lead in some ways, but not too much.”
Loneliness can be part of a transition. -Sarah Brune
To connect with Sarah or learn more about her work:
Take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz.
To learn more about Leaving Well, click here.
My Bookshop.org Leaving Well library has many resources to support your workplace transition journey!
To support and contribute to the production costs of this podcast:
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
Transcript:
I understand my role in that organization as a white woman, and I just. Think about that every day. And so I think it's important for me to understand what value I'm bringing. It's good to have diversity, whatever that may look like in an effort to advance racial equity. I think white women have to participate and have to lead in some ways, but.
Not too much.
This is Leaving Well, where we unearth and explore the realities of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose, and when possible, joy. I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. I will bring you experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace, with nuanced takes from guests on topics such as grief.
Confidence leadership and career development braided throughout will be solo episodes, sharing my best practices and leaving well framework. Expect to be inspired, challenged, and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well as you seek to leave your imprint in this world.
Sarah Brune has dedicated her career to advancing progressive causes across the Midwest. She's the co founder of Heartland Next, a marketing, advocacy, and public affairs firm that works with non profits, small businesses, and candidates who are committed to making the Heartland great. Sarah also leads the Policy Advocacy Department at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, where she and her team work to close the racial home ownership gap through policy change at the local, state, And federal level, Sarah, I'm so glad to have you with me on this podcast episode about change and transition.
And on that note, I would love for you to tell me in your words about your train transition and change story. Thanks, Naomi. Um, well, I. I'm from Nebraska, and I lived in Chicago for many years when I was growing up here in Nebraska. I had that bug. Like, I just have to get out and see the big city, the big city lights.
And, uh, it was a great thing for me to do because I got to experience, um, so many different types of people, places and situations. And I'm so grateful that I gave myself that opportunity. But. so much. During my time in Chicago, I, I always knew I would come back home to Nebraska because I'm very close to my family and the more I saw people in Chicago working to make their own home communities better, their own neighborhoods, even their own block where they grew up, it really made me want to come back to Nebraska and try to.
Lend my skills and talents and insights to advance progressive causes in Nebraska and help Nebraska be more inclusive for all people and a welcoming place for all people. So that was something I knew was going to happen, but I had planned my move for April of 2020 and I have been planning that for years.
I dated and didn't date people based on this moving date. Like I was serious about this moving date and then COVID happened and threw everything up in the air. And obviously that was a really kind of scary and uncertain time, but I actually happened to be here in Nebraska anyway, during that week where everything shut down.
So I was able to kind of wait it out here for a little bit and go back to Chicago on a covert moving mission and get all my things and come here wearing a full. Body suit, basically, it was a planned move, but of course, the transition itself came with many unexpected aspects and something that I'm excited to talk about today.
But because of coven, I was able to continue working at the organization. I had been at for 3 or 4 years already in Chicago neighborhood housing services, and I really had expected to have to leave that work behind and. It is just so meaningful to me. We've actually been able to achieve new heights and new successes since I've moved.
That I just never could have anticipated and I've been able to work to build a team there that I really love working with. And that's been a really unexpected joy of my transition that I really did not anticipate. I didn't know that I deserved that. But now that I'm living it, it's kind of. Part of having the best of both worlds, and I do really enjoy it.
So when you say that you planned the departure and you had that date, April 2020, had you already given notice to NHS to say, I'm done, that's it? And if so, then how did that all happen? I mean, I'm assuming a lot of it was because of COVID and going remote, but what was that conversation like about the. Oh, no, you're leaving.
And oh, but could you just stay? How can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I had notified some of the senior management so that they would have time to replace me. NHS was in its own transition at that point. We had an interim CEO who had been our COO. So I already had a relationship with her and she and I worked well together.
So it was all just thrown into a tailspin, you know, in March, 2020, and everyone's plans just became kind of irrelevant. So. It just became kind of contingent on a rolling basis where we said every month, let's check in. Does this still make sense? And I kept saying, as soon as this doesn't make sense, let's call it a day.
I'm not trying to stay one day longer than my work is really advancing the organization. But at that time, all the city council hearings were remote. Government meetings were remote. And since COVID happened, of course, there's live stream. Function and even virtual participation available on so many more government hearings and meetings and just general workplace meetings that my participation wasn't hindered really at all.
And at this point, it continues, I think, to be very productive. In a way that I didn't expect, but we really took it on a day to day basis, and it just kept working and eventually we were able to transition. So. I became a contractor, I sort of built out my department with local talent that really. Made sense for the mission of NHS, so we're not missing that local piece, which is so central to the organization, which is all about building thriving neighborhoods.
I'm on the South and West sides of Chicago, so that local aspect is quintessential to the organization. So I'm not providing that, but I'm providing other things that I think are helpful. I think there's two powerful things you said in that last piece of what you're sharing. One was that you weren't about to stay one day longer than was good for the organization.
And I think that is something that we don't hear very often is putting our own selves or our own work impact to the side. And instead focusing on the legacy of the organization. And then he also said that your move and your shifts made sense for the mission. So I would love to hear from you a little bit more around.
So that's something you learned about in the work that you've been doing in different organizations. You've been with that part of your character and integrity a little bit of both. I think trying to understand something to its core has always been something I really highly value. I think the word authenticity doesn't really capture it because that word comes with a lot of.
Baggage and connotations that I don't really mean what I mean in this case is trying to really understand the truth of the truth of something and the inherent value of something. And so when I started working in NHS, especially knowing that it's a primarily black and brown organization, its mission is to close the racial homeownership gap through a variety of both.
Very practical day to day services, but also changing the narrative around homeownership, changing access to homeownership on a policy level. I understand my role in that organization as a white woman, and I just. Think about that every day. And, and so I think it's important for me to understand what value I'm bringing.
It's good to have diversity, whatever that may look like in an effort to advance racial equity. I think white women have to participate and have to lead in some ways, but not too much. In a different context, there might be different considerations, but I always felt it was important. To think is this job serving me and am I serving this job and sometimes I see people in jobs where they're so wildly unhappy and their boss is also unhappy because this person's not performing well at their job when in reality, they would probably be happier.
More productive and better served somewhere else, but I think it's so scary to take that leap that sometimes people settle into roles for many years that aren't ultimately serving them and therefore they aren't serving the role in the end. And I want to always avoid that. Yeah, you said white women have a role to play in, for example, the, the work of changing the gap with racial home ownership.
And he said, but not too much. And I also would add, I think, and not for too long, but the caveat to that, I think, is what you've also shared that you're built, you built your team. So you knew that as you transitioned and moved to Omaha, your local kind of on the streets. Connection was going to shift and change.
And so you're building the team. And I think that's something I don't see a lot of leadership. Do is make sure that as they realize that it's maybe their turn to step away. Who can they bring in? Who can they bring up? Who can they hand over to? So I, I'm happy to see, and I'm happy to know you as you do that work.
It's really important. Well, thank you. And I think I don't, I think there's a lot of white people leading in policy work. And this is just my view of my industry. And I think it's really all the regular tenants of white privilege that lead to that. I was able to work an internship for free for 3 years.
That doesn't sound like a privilege, but it is because my parents paid my expenses in college. And so I worked for a city councilman for 3 years, 3 days a week. For no pay, but it was a huge resume builder. It was like graduating with a job already having had a job. And that's how I got my first job in Chicago after graduation.
And I see that and see so many people in my field who were boosted up by those types of things. I hope that I can help work with other black women who are able to advance in the policy advocacy space. I think that's a very underrepresented viewpoint expertise and group that I want to support in any way.
Yeah, and I would also then kind of pivot us in that same. Same connotation around underrepresentation to the policy and the elected candidate side of things. Were you doing candidate work in Chicago, or has that been as you've come back to Omaha? And I would love for you to talk about your experience of coming into what's not new to you, but new in your role and new in your expertise coming back to Omaha and doing that work.
Yeah, in Chicago, I was always politically adjacent because policy and politics are, to me, I've always seen them as very interwoven. And when I have interns and employees, I always talk to them about the various roles that are available to you in the policy advocacy space. You can take a very academic view, you can work on data, you can work in kind of an institutional space where you're a convener, or you can get a little bit down in the mud and really pass laws.
Work the political angle of it all, even if you are working for a nonprofit organization and are not politically involved at all. So that was my understanding of politics was seeing how it really affects how we can pass laws and change laws. So I've always understood it in a very practical way, but I hadn't been involved on the campaign side in a really official capacity until a few years ago.
And I've really started to enjoy it because. I don't think enough local candidates, especially progressive candidates, candidates of color, female candidates, all those different groups that we want to see more of in office, they don't have access to quality talent. And I just don't think there's a lot of resources for political talent to come up and learn the ropes.
It's a very do it yourself bootstrap kind of industry. And. That can be very challenging, especially when you need a paycheck as a staffer, you need consistency, you need to pay your rent, but political races only happen at certain times in the year, or not even every year. So, I've enjoyed kind of learning more of the ropes in politics, and Helping those candidates that really hold my same values and I think would make a really big difference if they were elected in the types of laws they would pass and who they're beholden to.
So it's interesting to me when you're talking about that work and the work that you were doing in Chicago, because there's a very through line and a red thread of the of the ways that they both. Compliment each other and I'm curious what advice you would give someone who's listening who might have a similar situation on their hands where they are in one place and they need to transition to another geographic location, or they need to kind of switch up their careers was that intentional on your part where you kind of worked through that so that it happened, or was it just happenstance and it happens because of your values and your belief systems that it fell into place like that.
I always have been able to find a lot of value in my career in working towards things that matter to me. I don't know what it's like to wake up and go to work and Not work on something that I think is going to make the world better, you know, for a very cheesy way to put it. But I think that in itself can be a privilege.
I was talking to a University of Chicago freshman and just doing kind of a network, a regular networking call. And she was talking to me about my industry. She wants to be an advocate. She wants to help people, but she has not only her bills to pay after she graduates, but she needs to support her family.
You know, she'll have to pay off all her student loans. And send money to her parents and other family members. And so she was saying, should I go try to work at Deloitte or work at a nonprofit? And I'm said, there's no shame in going to try to work at a big company, making the money you need to make and supporting your family.
So I think I've been able to work in a career that pursues my values, but I also don't have a lot of other responsibilities besides my, myself. That has been a big privilege in this career transition in that I've been able to prioritize what I want. I would hate to. Give a blanket advice to people to just follow your dreams only pursue a career that you love There are so many other considerations that people have to take into account that I think that's just kind of tone deaf But I do think that usually Taking a risk pays off if you know in your gut that you have to make a change And I think that was the case for me.
I knew I needed to move home and be near my family. And so I did, and whatever the consequences were going to be, I was just going to have to figure that out. And that did work out for me. And I think those kinds of big risks will work out if you're fully committed to them. But I haven't fully committed to one location, so I'm, I don't think I represent a normal move in that.
If I were to just have moved from Chicago to here. I would say get involved in all the local nonprofits, get on a board, you know, and these are all things I'm, I'm pursuing, but I still have one foot in both places, which can be really fun and exciting sometimes, but also is like, totally chaotic. It does sound chaotic for people that don't know what that life is like, but there's also something really powerful and beautifully designed around being able to kind of split time between both.
Is there a process or a learning that. You went through making that decision to split time that you look back and you wish you would have done differently. I think I wish I had the ability to always prioritize my health, whether that's mental health or physical health. When I do a lot of traveling, I have a hard time really staying consistent on those habits that I know are going to make me feel good and serve me because I now have.
Kind of a boss and then a lot of different clients. I now have many many bosses and lots of people want many things from me And they're paying me for them. So I can't really complain but yeah I have a tendency to kind of go towards all those things that people want versus waking up and doing the thing I know I need to do for myself.
I wish I would have prioritized my my actual health more and then I think When I was actually making that transition during COVID, it took me a year, I think, to transition from employee to contractor, because that was kind of new for the organization, new for me. I cared so much about the outcome that I was scared to ask for what I wanted, and I still get very nervous talking to people about money because Money means different things to different people and I hate the idea of like offending somebody, but if you're gonna go after what you want, you have to fearlessly or I should say, you have to have those conversations even if you have the fear.
That's a really good topic that probably could be its own episode around making the transition from employee to contractor, especially when it is a social impact or highly hugely mission minded. Nonprofit or organization, because there is so much of your heart and your desire to see the work being done tied up in the thing that then when you also have that separate issue of as employee, how do you make sure you're taking care of?
How do you make sure that they have what they need? So maybe we'll have to have that as another topic episode later. What are you walking towards or hoping for as you are a couple of years into this transition in this navigating of two cities? We have, and I haven't talked much about this yet, but my partner and I have a marketing in public relations firm called Heartland Next.
And we have now had the chance to work with candidates in candidates, nonprofits and small businesses and governments now in Nebraska, Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa. And I hope that we continue to expand across the Midwest. I think that is our goal to really provide quality. Services to small organizations and small, um, upstart candidates across the Midwest.
And I think we're in a, an exciting time right now, because we are earlier in our existence and we're able to compete with some of those big longstanding marketing firms who a nonprofit might go to and say, can we work with you? And the firm has like a. 30, 000 minimum or something, you know, and the nonprofits never, ever going to be able to come up with that kind of money, nor do they have the interest in doing that.
So how can we help a nonprofit that has a few thousand dollars and wants to reach new people, find impacted individuals, advertise an upcoming event, like we can really help them get results. And those are the things as I'm advocating for various policies and helping to organize people. Those are the things I really want.
And don't find a lot of firms offering those services to me. So I'm excited, I guess, to add more locations to the list because so much can be done virtually and I'm so comfortable working that way now. I really enjoy it. I was in a two hour in person meeting last week and I'm just like, how did I used to do this?
Whatever type of attention deficit disorder I have is not working well with this situation. And. I really enjoy remote work and I think it's just going to allow us to expand and work with more people across the Midwest. I agree with you. I have an upcoming episode to talk about return to work and the fallacy of it being a forced decision because there are so many people for whether it's for disability reasons or other accessibility needs or just preference.
It is, in my opinion. The way to go, uh, and the only way to be remote and virtual and to your point too, around expanding the mission and reaching more people around the advocacy and the community organizing and on the ground work that needs to happen. You all in your marketing work and your expertise can bring so much to nonprofits, new candidates, et cetera.
So I'm so excited about your, your launch of Heartland Next. Thank you. And I've never had so much success as when I stopped going to an office every day. And I don't think being in an office is necessarily bad and every person needs different environments. But I know for me, seeing people once a month or quarterly or whatever is great to reconnect.
And for really, really busy times where you need to talk. Multiple times throughout a day, I think it's helpful to be in the office, so I'll go to Chicago for those events. But overall, for me to wake up every morning and say, what do I need to do today to advance X, Y, Z thing? I know I need to be working on that's been really transformational and has led me to a huge amount of results that I wasn't achieving before.
And I think also, probably some of that comes with age and experience. I always tell my employees and interns and especially women I work with. When I turned 30, everyone suddenly treated me better. And I can't stress enough. It was the day after my 30th birthday. I don't know what it was. I don't know if people could just tell, I don't make a big deal about my birthday.
It's not like people knew, but it's just that respect I had been searching for all in my, in my twenties, it just suddenly appeared. And I just want more women to know about that because. At some point, there's nothing you can do, but just continue to exist and do a good job and kind of that respect that you're looking for will come.
But it's not fair. It's not right that it should require us to age to gain that respect. Well, and I would add to that that. Mid forties approaching 50 is also a magical time because you not only now have the respect. You also don't really give a shit about the people that aren't giving you the respect because of menopause.
So you have another thing to look forward to. I love that. I mean, I think we should talk more about that as women in the workplace because. I just, yeah, all throughout my twenties, it was just a battle every day. I thought, what am I wearing? How am I appearing? What purse am I carrying? What notebook do I have?
I would obsess down to the most minor detail thinking that if I appeared the wrong way, people would. Not treat me as an intelligent person. Now I carry like a pink backpack around. Cause I don't care because I have the results to stand on, but also people just treat me differently. And I'm glad that it's just going to keep getting better on that front.
I look forward to it does keep getting better. And it's so interesting because my opposite of that is that I don't carry a bag or a purse. Everything that I need from a card perspective is in my phone. And I cannot tell you the amount of times that someone most often a man, a man. Would say, is that all you brought?
Yes, it's all I brought. I don't, yes, I'm good. So, sorry. Imagine reading the comments on that. That's probably a whole other episode too. Yeah. Uh, we've talked about a couple of things just recently that might feel like surprise or shock value, but is there anything else that you would add and have to say about change and transition that folks might be surprised to hear or feel shocked about?
I think something that surprised me was the loneliness that can be part of a transition. And since I moved to Chicago from here, when I was younger, I knew that when you move to a new place, you have to make all new friends and it takes a long time and you know, a year or two years to really make friends that you actually like and like you and you enjoy spending time around and are fulfilling on both sides of the relationship.
But. I thought doing it again in my 30s would be easier because I've done it before, but it was actually kind of harder because I didn't want to have to do it again. And I felt exhausted by the whole idea of doing it again. And it took me a long time to find. A group of friends that felt more stable and I really did mourn leaving behind all of the friends that I had in Chicago and they'll invite me to their baby showers and their bridal showers and their birthday parties.
And like, I can't go to all of them or else I would just be there every weekend and then I would just live there. So I think that's been hard. It probably shouldn't be surprising. It did surprise me in a practical sense. Yeah, and I think sometimes once we've made decisions and especially decisions about transitions or work or moving, we get surprised at then what bubbles up.
So that's probably pretty normal. Is there anything we haven't covered that you would like to share before we wrap up? Just on the general topic of leaving something, well And transition, I have always been really surprised in my career, how often you end up working with people that you thought you would never see again, former coworkers, employees, bosses, interns, it really is a small world, especially if you stick to a particular field, even nationally.
These people turn up again and again, and I think it just stresses the importance of not burning bridges unnecessarily that obviously sometimes not burning bridges can lead people to not speak up when someone is treating them poorly. I don't think. That's not what I'm trying to say here, but I think it's more, I've always stressed for myself trying to get along with many types of people and understanding where people are coming from and why they may be acting a certain way and how I may be triggering to someone or how they may be triggering to me, like, trying to understand the core of why they're acting a certain way instead of.
You know, vilifying them or just being annoyed by them. But it's like, regardless of whether you get along with people, they will come back in your career and you will come back to them. And if you can find a way to work with a lot of different types of people, I think. That makes that a lot easier. I agree with you 100%.
And I think there's also for those listening that are in an HR or a manager leadership position. That same advice is still true that you can control and help how well a person leaves when they're leaving, because that reputation also needs to follow with them as they leave the reputation of your organization and the reputation and the work of the mission of the organization.
So, leaving well, really does impact everyone across. Next. All of it. Yeah. And treat your employees well, you know, because if you've picked them correctly and worked with them correctly, they will, they will out succeed you and they will, they might become your boss. They might become the chair of the committee that you need to put a bill through.
Like you really don't know where people are going to go. So you don't want to be that boss that they look back on. Like I do with some of mine and say, I'll never be okay with that person. Because of what they've done and choices they've made. I don't want to be, I don't want to be that for anyone that's worked for me.
I want to be a positive memory. I want to be someone they turn to for advice, um, when they become the president and I'm asking them for something, right? We've covered this a little bit, but I would love to hear as we close. What does leaving well mean to you? I think it's leaving in a place. Where you could return if you needed to because you just never know life is long and For me.
Yeah, it would be about Leaving the organization or the role in a state that I could pick it back up. If I, if I showed back up tomorrow or next year, I wouldn't be embarrassed by my behavior or I would be proud of what I did. You know, I have a coworker at my organization, NHS, that just came back to NHS after being gone for five years or more.
And he's kind of back in even a similar role. And he's like, Oh, here's this where I left it. And that where I left it, you know, it's really real. It happens, so I would always want to leave in a state of. General tranquility and pride of what, what I've done. Thank you, Sarah, for being here and sharing your story of transition and change.
Thank you. To join the Living Well newsletter, visit naomihattaway.com/say-hi. To learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace, visit NaomiHattaway.com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system.
We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide, to shift culture, and to create transformation. Until next time, I'm your host. Naomi Hattaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.