{"id":26,"date":"2022-04-01T02:20:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T02:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oer.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/promotinginnovationsineducation\/chapter\/roderick-jones-case-developing-learning-based-organizations-to-serve-high-need-communities\/"},"modified":"2025-02-10T19:12:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T19:12:39","slug":"roderick-jones-case-developing-learning-based-organizations-to-serve-high-need-communities","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/oer.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/promotinginnovationsineducation\/chapter\/roderick-jones-case-developing-learning-based-organizations-to-serve-high-need-communities\/","title":{"raw":"4. Roderick Jones' case: Developing learning-based organizations to serve high-need communities","rendered":"4. Roderick Jones’ case: Developing learning-based organizations to serve high-need communities"},"content":{"raw":"

CHAPTER 4.<\/font><\/p> \r\n

Roderick Jones\u2019 case: Developing learning-based organizations to serve high-need communities<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\r\n

Frederick Jefferson & Joyce Duckles<\/em><\/p>\r\n

(with contributions from Linda Francis)<\/em><\/p>\r\n \r\n

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Rod\u2019s Profile<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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Rod Jones became CEO of the Community Place of Greater Rochester soon after this organization was created as the merger of three separate Settlement Houses; as essentially the founding CEO, he did much to develop its mission, culture and structure, in addition to starting several new partnerships and initiatives.\u00a0 Prior to joining the Community Place, Rod had also been a co-founder of a small non-profit organization to encourage and support under-privileged youth to go to college, the Rochester Step-Off Program. Across all his enterprises, Rod brought an educational model of serving the community aiming at empowering individuals from underprivileged background to \u201chelp themselves\u201d so as to eventually become self-sufficient, with education as a key means to achieve this goal.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

4.1. Rod\u2019s story<\/strong><\/h1>\r\n

\u00a0 4.1.1. Introduction to Rod\u2019s case<\/strong><\/h1>\r\nRoderick Jones joined The Community Place of Greater Rochester (abbreviated as Community Place hereafter) in 2001, right after this organization had been created from a merger of three Settlement Houses, and then became its CEO from 2003 to 2008. As such, he was instrumental in shaping the new organization\u2019s vision, mission, culture and organizational structure. This was not a new experience for Rod, who a decade earlier had started with a few friends a new not-for-profit organization \u2014 the Rochester Step-Off Education Foundation. As starting new organizations is considered by many to be the hallmark of social entrepreneurship (e.g., Bornstein, 2004; Dees, 2001), Rod can be considered a good example of a social entrepreneur. Furthermore, he explicitly viewed himself as an entrepreneur in his work toward sustainable social change and his commitment to continuing innovation:\r\n

\u201cThose of us in the helping profession ... we have a responsibility to be innovative at every turn, to be creative, to be what we call best in class... [but] we\u2019re no longer the entrepreneurs ... we\u2019re not innovating, we\u2019re so trapped into feeding machines and keeping people employed.\u201d (Rod)<\/em><\/p>\r\nRod\u2019s entrepreneurial spirit and his strong vision for the members of his community led to the creation and implementation of several initiatives\u2014as documented in his story.\r\n\r\nA strong vision and philosophy guided Rod as a leader within the Community Place and his community.\u00a0 The Settlement mission informed this vision, as stated by one of Rod\u2019s close collaborators:\r\n

\u201cthe Settlement House philosophy...is that every member of society deserves the best of society\u2026[Rod\u2019s] belief was that people shouldn\u2019t keep coming back for help, that we should help them get to a better place in their life.\u201d (Rod\u2019s collaborator)<\/em><\/p>\r\nCentral to Rod\u2019s vision was a rejection of the deficit views that permeate many models of \u201cserving\u201d the community.\u00a0 Rather than trying to \u201cfix people,\u201d Rod focused on \u201coffering opportunities for the community to invest in their success.\u201d\u00a0 Rod viewed the community members as experts he needed to listen to and learn from.\u00a0 By understanding the \u201clived experience\u201d of those we serve, Rod believed that we can work on their challenges from within rather than from outside.\r\n\r\nThese two aspects of his vision\u2014the need to understand the lived experience of those we serve and the settlement vision of engaging people in their own movement toward change\u2014are central to Rod\u2019s story.\r\n\r\nIn order to empower people to change their own lives, Rod also believed that we need to change the learning culture of helping organizations as well as the learning culture of the community and society at large.\u00a0 By creating new participation structures for youth and families in his community, Rod provided the means for them to see new possible futures while providing access to the resources for making these new futures possible and sustainable.\u00a0 Rod viewed education as a key resource because it leads to people being able to sustain themselves as human beings in a viable way. This is why we consider Rod not only a social entrepreneur, but also an \u201ceducator,\u201d consistent with our broad decision of education as supporting development and learning across the lifespan and in a variety of settings. <\/em>\r\n\r\nThe Community Place, the organization Rod was leading at the time of our study, was formed in 2001 with the merger of Genesee Settlement House and Eastside Community Center, with the later addition of Lewis Street Center in 2002.\u00a0 The purpose of the merger was to keep the strong settlement house movement<\/em> in Rochester alive as community centers adapt to the \u201cchanging needs and environment of the city.\u201d\u00a0 The settlement house movement<\/em> originally formed nearly a century ago to help immigrants of many nationalities and ethnicities integrate into American society. Since then, it has adapted to deal with the changing needs and environments to continue to work with struggling community members to achieve economic and social prosperity for themselves and their community.\r\n\r\nRod and several of his collaborators spoke often of the settlement house history in Rochester and the settlement mission\u2019s central role in the Community Place.\u00a0 In Rod\u2019s words, \u201cWe continue the mission of helping people help themselves to move to another place.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe Community Place serves young children, teenagers, adults, families, the aging and individuals with disabilities primarily living in the Northeast sector of the city of Rochester, (the poorer sector of this urban area), though many programs branch out into the greater Rochester area.\u00a0 At the time of our study, in its 2005-2006 Annual Report, the Community Place reported that a total of 7,606 individuals were served that year in a variety of programs, most offered in partnership with local organizations (see Figure 3.1 for more information).\r\n\r\nFigure 3.1.<\/strong> The Community Place Profile at the time of our study<\/em> (2006)<\/em>\r\n

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Historical notes:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n