Brittany Winkfield x Ryan Ross, Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado

[00:00:00] Expanding The Narrative is a monthly collaboration bringing stories from Denver Urban Spectrum Magazine to KG and use Metro every second Monday 3-330pm. Denver Urban Spectrum has been spreading the names about people of color since 1987.

[00:00:15] Stories from the current print issue are highlighted with special guest commentary and opinion. Join me, your host Brittany Winkfield, for expanding the narrative every second Monday at 3pm on KG and use Metro. Leadership is the ability to inspire and motivate others.

[00:00:35] In February of this year, I embarked on the Transformation Journey at the Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado. And for 10 months, my cohort of 26 visionaries focused on developing our interpersonal leadership skills with a greater sense of civic responsibility and understanding the nuances of politics.

[00:00:53] Not only did we get the professional development, we received personal development with lessons in self-care and mental wellness. I even had the esteemed privilege to visit the motherland of Africa in the countries of Ghana and Egypt on an international experience.

[00:01:08] I'm here with Dr. Ryan Ross, President and CEO of the Urban Leadership Foundation to talk about the future of Black Leadership in Colorado. Thank you, Doc, for joining us today. We would like to talk about a leadership.

[00:01:22] I don't know if we talk about it enough, but I just want to jump into it and find out what your leadership experience has been when you think about the last 10 years, 15 years. And how that journey has brought you to where you are today.

[00:01:37] And the decisions that you're making today can you tell us what your leadership journey has been. Yeah, well first and foremost, thank you for having me excited to see how with you love all the things that you guys are doing.

[00:01:52] And being a beacon of voice to the community. Yeah, you didn't waste any time. You jumped right in and I think a pretty loaded question. The leadership journey, I think when I think about my leadership journey, it really starts from a place of not having access.

[00:02:10] And growing up in a situation where you really didn't know how things were going to manifest. How things were going to come together. You know what tomorrow was going to look like.

[00:02:22] And that experience mixed with this collision of people from the community who were servants and provided opportunities provided access helped me find scenarios where I could really tap into my light and figure out how to make it shine in a way that would make me thrive.

[00:02:46] Those experiences are the catalyst for my leadership experience. And so for me, leadership has always been about service and I'll give them back understanding that when you put something out, you know, be quite as simply put something out, something comes back.

[00:03:00] And so that's kind of what I've been doing right? And that has led me to really really amazing experiences in community. My profession by trading, I guess, is you could call me an educator or actualization coach.

[00:03:17] And what I like to do is help people find their why find their purpose and then help them go get it through that. And that tremendous experience is working in higher education and federal trio programs, working in academic advising students affairs in the community.

[00:03:37] A lot of community programs, programs that sit around youth, like capile and what I am, you know, what I am most passionate about is the urban leadership foundation and that focuses on, you know,

[00:03:50] emerging in arriving leaders of color. And what's interesting is when people think about that work or the action about how to work, they always assume it's what you think, you know, youth need development.

[00:04:00] But the reality is, as adults need tons of development, tons of support and a pathway to agency. Since 2008, that's where I've been doing from a community inside this stand. And it's really helping leaders find themselves and it's been a tremendous journey.

[00:04:18] Yes, I love how you say adults need that learning and training as well. I'm one of those adults and have probably completed the her leadership foundation of 2023 shout out to the ghost class of 2023.

[00:04:35] It was an amazing journey. Like when you really cannot feel until you're in it, you've heard so much about it and really, would you say can help people find their why that was my biggest takeaway.

[00:04:50] And it was actually in the international experience to Ghana and Egypt that being able to see where our ancestors came from, where they took a journey to this strange land.

[00:05:06] So that we both can be in position to do the work that we're doing today. That really just brought me to my knees. It was really that push that I needed to realize like you are here for purpose.

[00:05:19] This is the assignment and kind of go. And I feel like you gave me that, so I'm thankful and grateful that was like a calling that I've been wanting to get to the motherland.

[00:05:32] It was more than I expected. So thank you. Can you talk a little bit about your vision for how to win having this local impact on the dance of that national scope or the international scope back to Africa?

[00:05:47] Yeah, so it's really too bold right. So what we all know is thatism exists. We all know that when you look at every major success indicator, people of color, especially black folks.

[00:06:01] Right, and that's my focus is our people, black folks are experiencing extreme gaps when we are compared to our white counterparts. And we all know that that comes from slavery, it comes from redlining it comes from just a lot of injustice. Right. So we know that.

[00:06:21] However, despite that we come from every rich and a community full of innovation and ingenuity. And we make things happen. We make things work. And so really focusing on that side of it is how do we leverage who we are leverage what we have.

[00:06:39] Combining that with access, education and opportunity. So we can level up. Right. And so from a localized perspective it's really about how do we both get our personal professional eyes.

[00:06:53] When I look at this, it's done through a couple of ways. So the first is understanding your authorizing environment. What does that look like? You know, in whatever situation you're in, who's in charge who makes the decision.

[00:07:05] And understanding that and then also figuring out how you become the authorizer in the situations in the environment that you're in. Once we know who's making decisions, we can influence impact. Right. So authorizing environments.

[00:07:20] The second piece is understanding politics. A lot of people shy away from politics and I'm not saying everybody needs to run for office. But we need to understand what it means to be political as a citizen as a community. What's our civic responsibility, how does civic work?

[00:07:41] We need to understand that politicians aren't rock stars. Right. And then we have access to them and they work for us. And then finally most importantly, in the local peace, it's ourselves. Right. We have a lot of healing that we have to do internally.

[00:07:56] In order to really embrace who we are. I talked so many people who are just brilliant, who are just the most magnificent people who I've ever had conversations with and it's sad because they don't know.

[00:08:09] Right. And so we spend a lot of time just tapping into that. So people walk away like, yeah, I am dope and I can't do this. And I am capable and on the international side of things.

[00:08:20] I mean it is really simple. It's boiling down to everything about us has been stripped and taken away.

[00:08:26] And we need to go reclaim it. And the only way to reclaim it is to go when I went to Africa for the first time and I grounded myself. I took my shoes and my socks off and I stepped on that solenoid, I felt something.

[00:08:38] And we walked around and we've seen everybody who looked like us from every aspect of life from rural villages, all the way up to leadership and everything in between those us. Right.

[00:08:51] And you know, and then you got to see colonisers work in play because what we see in the States is, hey, they're these third world countries. There's all this poverty.

[00:09:01] There's all this stuff when you get over there, just like anywhere else, sure there was a poverty. But I mean it was beautiful. It was rich. It was royal. And that's what we need people to see and we need to reclaim our identity.

[00:09:13] So that's what that's all about. And then at the same time we go in leadership and understanding that international development and business and entrepreneurial opportunities as well because that's another part of it.

[00:09:24] Africa's rich and resources. We need to be tapping into that because those are our resources. Those are our cousins, our family. You made one us back. We need to be there.

[00:09:33] Yes, when you talk about more than a professional journey, more than a personal journey, it's really spiritual for me. When you get there and you have your feet on that soil, I would like to ask kind of, you know, where are you going?

[00:09:51] When you think about the next five to ten years, what visions or goals do you have for your work? Yeah. So that's a great question. I spend a lot of time helping people have to realize. And the reality is I've done that for the last 15, 16 years.

[00:10:10] And everything that I do, but really as a relationship with our leadership foundation, I've done that part of the past eight nights and weekends. But when I have time. And in that limited time, we've been able to do some tremendous things, right?

[00:10:22] Produce over 450 alumni, produce CEOs, politicians, you know, people who are creating programs that are impacting multiple generations. I think about that. I think about the higher edge or any, I just decided that it was time to give all of my effort to this experience.

[00:10:41] And so over the next five years, we want to grow this work out of the borders of Colorado. We want to really create these just intentional collisions of networking, of nepotism, right?

[00:10:55] I really want us to put each other on and really find the answer to a very simple question with a complex answer. What does it take for one to thrive?

[00:11:06] Right? I want to help everybody find that answers different for everybody, but the pathway to get there, I think is the same. Yes, that's the most incredible thing you can do is take that leap of faith, right? Like you're leaving it.

[00:11:19] It's a guide you're allowing yourself to go all in. And from a world that is very familiar, you know, and stable.

[00:11:28] I am always a cheerleader for the entrepreneurial spirit and just, you know, you take an risk on yourself and say, you know, you've not done this work in vain and that you know there's more to do it.

[00:11:42] And I don't even look at it as a risk. It's just another opportunity to start, right? And I just believe that you focus your intentions in the right way things just take care of themselves and so we're creating scholarship funds for folks in college.

[00:11:59] We're helping small businesses or building leaders. We're not rolling out in programs. So I'm just excited for the ride and I'm excited for just a few more lanes to serve in and really just watch people and manifest their dreams and actualize it to others.

[00:12:15] When you think about what it's going to take, we're kind of resources support would be most beneficial to you and the air leadership foundation.

[00:12:26] I'm like the other standards right now, right? We need resources if you think about the other big teams will recruit, may God money in the bank. The same thing, right? When you're talking about actualizing your dreams, it comes in a variety of ways.

[00:12:40] People need access to training and need access to capital, need access to experiences. And so we want to, you know, we really need the resources to make that happen in a way where we can scale it out. It's not just support 30, 40, 50 people a year.

[00:12:54] You know, we want to be looking at 300, 350 people a year across the Midwest and then to scale that out every two years to be adding states both to the East and West. So we want to be a national organization that I was in the next few years.

[00:13:10] Yeah, that's incredible. And I know it'll take the community to come together and back this up. And I am just always in awe of the network of what the Air Veletorship Foundation has built over the years. So I really hope that that can be a resource as well.

[00:13:27] I'm thinking of a human capital, like what is it going to take hands on the ground? We're also on the ground. Being able to serve. It's going to continue to take really great people. I think our founders are four members. They're extraordinary people.

[00:13:41] We talked about the first black man here, and we're willing to wear it. Richard Lewis, one of the fastest growing entrepreneurs, former Senator Angela Williams. People like Tom Clark from Economic Development. The VC occurred. We're going to continue to meet people like that.

[00:13:57] And those are kind of the season, the alum, the OGs if you will. But as we look at our own alumni ranks, it's the James Coleman's of the world. The mecha McPhes of the world. It's the Brittany Winkfields of the world.

[00:14:12] Right people who are focused on providing a platform, somebody built them. One side to the other. Those are people we got to partner with. Those are people who we have to support and make sure that you guys keep your cups filled.

[00:14:24] Because it's the work and it's not easy. And it's often thankless. But the outcome is tremendous. Yes. So well said, can you tell us just where do we go? Where do we go to find out what is happening at the Air-Vemilated Ship Foundation?

[00:14:39] And can you tell us what we can be looking out for in the next month and beyond? Yeah, yeah. So you know where on the social media platforms at Duel of Colorado, our website is www.duelofaurado.org. So you can connect with us there.

[00:14:57] I'm on all the social media platforms at Doc Rai Ross. You can find me at Doc Ross. I'm not hard to find at all. And then what I'm excited for over the first the next 30 days is just we've got some really cool things happening. Right?

[00:15:11] No, that 20th we're going to be supporting the 100 families. So we're going to be providing toys, food. The families would get cash-type and right? Because one of the things that I remember at the kid in me was you built somewhere and somebody gave you a toy.

[00:15:24] It would be a appreciative of it. But what we really needed was, you know, the light bill. Right? We went through a lot of different things. We were going to be able to do our homework with lights and not candlelight.

[00:15:33] So sometimes you just got to give people the resources and trust them to do the right thing with them. And so we want to be a blessing of families now. So our goal was to give out about $30,000 across 100 families on December 20th. So super excited about that.

[00:15:48] And the next year, you know, just a lot of really great programming. So we're going to be rolling out a program called Bosing Your Rounds, which will be dropping workshops for professionals to come in and just touch up on things that they're interested in, things that they need.

[00:16:05] That could be anything from tax law and accounting to out of your supervisor and communication under fire.

[00:16:11] So they're doing this quick 90 minutes or three hour development opportunities that people can apply to their life to their work and their time and deal with things that they may be facing.

[00:16:24] But learn the information and have the tools to engage in those scenarios in a safe way with the renters. Yeah, there's nothing more powerful than meeting community where they're at, right?

[00:16:37] And then also providing tactical, you know, how to design, you know, just how to go to the next level, how to be better. I think leadership is all about how you live. And so you are embodying that.

[00:16:51] You are doing a great job and I am proud of you. I'm going to be a plodding, like doing whatever we can to support. But it's so important to come together and think about how we're leading legacy and how we build that together.