We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Merald Holloway a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Merald, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?

“Knowing is half the battle”. For older other Gen X and older Millennial folks, they will remember that line that served as part of a public service announcement
embedded into a GI Joe cartoon episode, telling kids about some type of hazard they should avoid with some nuggets of wisdom that theorized that now that they know, they will never make the same mistake again. Sadly, that isn’t always the case. Having 50%
of something doesn’t guarantee success or sound decision-making, but it helps.

Having knowledge is helpful and is half the battle- but trusting that knowledge and making informed choices was more of the lesson I learned in other work
situations during nearly 30 years of being in the workforce and business community.

What I’ve learned, what I’ve done, the skills I acquired, and the skills I enhanced in my career give me tremendous power. That power comes from understanding
that if I was able to succeed in mastering a concept or producing a result others found helpful or useful in one scenario, I can do that anywhere. If the people entrusted with my development and care at one organization didn’t appreciate that skill or contribution,
that wasn’t enough to eliminate the fact that I have provided value in the past and could replicate that somewhere else.

Our leaders are the ones we choose to lead us and guide us. I was making a choice to follow directions or give credence to what someone I respected as a leader
said about me. It didn’t make their words and thoughts necessarily true but gave me other thoughts and perspectives to consider when looking at myself and giving worth to the work I did.

Creating agency for myself was the most important lesson learned over years and years of working in spaces that were sometimes very healthy and supportive,
but also conversely spaces that were toxic and filled with alignment to disparity and discrimination. I have the power of knowledge and choice in either situation.

Merald, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Today more than ever, everything that feeds us literally and spiritually is deeply connected—safeguarding the multiple environments our team wants to have an impact on cannot be divorced from ensuring justice for the marginalized and finding answers to the structural problems of our trusted systems.

My work at NC 100- (a not-for-profit organization based in rural Rockingham County, NC) is connected to and working directly with local and statewide leaders that believe in the power of community organizing and extending networks as an avenue for supporting education, workforce development, and community service. In partnership with Triangle and Triad-based funders and mainstream power brokers, we support civic engagement, sponsor capacity building, and help folks achieve varying levels of financial independence, creating more opportunities to see positive health and educational outcomes, enhancing the quality of life for folks in Rockingham County and beyond.

The hopes, dreams, and passion for this movement come from a genuine love of community by a network of folks who grew up in rural NC, moved away for school or a career, and want to give back. The supporters and founders had more options for gainful employment with or without a college degree and thrived. The 1980s and 1990s rural experience afforded a larger set of people many options for financing post-secondary education that didn’t create mountains of debt. We can’t say the same things today.

If we operate in the critical roles of witness, convener, coach, facilitator, connector, documenter, and consensus-builder, we will help co-create a community that has access to all the resources available that support and protect both wealth and health for everyone that we work with and for.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I would probably say trust and persistence have been the most helpful.

Our boilerplate language is filled with references to the importance of developing authentic relationships- but it’s harder to detail that in words. Over time, NC 100 and our connected work have created a methodology about what authentic engagement looks like:

1. We don’t “target” people or groups- the work is to engage and use inclusive, belonging, and non-violent language. We respect all perspectives, looking to gain info about the interests that create an individual position.
2. Being responsive to community needs as described by the community.
3. Staying away from binary thinking, looking to help develop more spectrum and both/and solutions and approaches.
4. Modeling equitable and inclusive practices for mainstream organization partners and supporting inclusive processes that account for power imbalances (age, gender, language, etc.).
5. We are not allowing the mainstream organizations we work with to use NC 100 as a proxy for vulnerable populations. Even to our financial detriment, there is no excuse in our minds to ever allow solutions for scores of people to be decided by people who do not center marginalized voices.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Just because I mean well doesn’t excuse me from criticism and correction.

I consider myself to have a very strong understanding of social and workforce equity, non-profit management, and rural development- probably several other spaces where I can speak at great length based on my expertise and experience.

But I get things wrong. I understand that I have blind spots when it comes to issues pertaining to organized religion, partisan politics, reproductive rights, youth development, unauthorized residents’ life experiences, gender and sexuality issues and perspectives, and a host of other items.

Because I am a descendant of an enslaved person from the continent of Africa in this particular country, I thought I had unlocked some type of immunity to things like aligning to sexism or prejudice of some kind, and I was foolish to think so.

My lived experience shapes my opinions and interests, as well as the folks in my inner circles. I cannot take that experience and bias and let it harm anyone, but I can have as much access to those things that I struggle with understanding into account when making decisions or getting feedback about something I’ve said or done that was harmful or hurtful.

I listen more and talk less these days.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nc-100.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearenc100/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nc100.org
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merald-h-6315583/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreNC100
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWwPmnkonCI–RXYFKPJNaA/videos

Image Credits
NC 100