[Music]
I want to take a moment and talk about
this idea of moving from charity to
change and the power that culture plays
in community revitalization my dad quit
his job as a chemical engineer and moved
our family from the suburbs of Omaha to
the inner city of the community when I
was two years old he’s a white guy from
Iowa there’s a theme of white guys from
Iowa moving their families to live on
purpose and he wanted he wanted to give
his life to something greater
my mom is african-american from
Washington DC and we moved into the
community we were confronted with the
reality of the crime and violence and
chaos this map is a map of our city the
red dots on this map represent the
amount of murders in our city over the
last twenty nine years over eight
hundred murders in our city over 600 of
those murders have taken place in the
northeast part of our city the blue dot
represents the community that our family
moved into my dad being from rural Iowa
population 300 when when he moved into
North Omaha he was shocked by the crime
and violence but he did what he only
knew to do which was start nonprofits to
try to address the challenges that he
saw in the community when you come into
a place of high crime and violence there
are a lot of challenges and so for every
challenge of gangs he would start a gang
prevention program and when he saw a
challenge of mothers who were having
children with no support he would help
start a program we could list challenge
after challenge after challenge after 20
years he had actually started 20
nonprofits in the community those
nonprofits after 20 years while they did
good and while they helped a lot of
people we saw an incredible gap between
the work those nonprofits were doing and
the reality of the culture and the
community that we were living in
after working for many years and seeing
this gap my dad started to wonder if we
needed to do something different you’re
probably familiar with Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs we see this process to
development we see that there’s a
hierarchy and for every individual if
you’re going to reach your full
god-given potential it starts with your
basic life needs being met when your
basic needs are met you can move up to
safety and belonging and love and esteem
this provides a culture and in an
environment where motivation and
validation and support allow you to take
advantage of the opportunities that are
out there you can take advantage of
education you can take advantage of
employment you can take advantage of of
housing but many times we come into a
community and we offer services and
programs but they’re disconnected from
the culture of that community here’s a
picture of my family I’m one of 14 kids
my parents favorite bible verses be
fruitful and multiply I think they’ve
done a good job of that they’re right
there in the middle you can imagine what
holidays look like very loud a lot of
fun they started our nonprofit 29 years
ago if the culture of a family matters
and is one of validation and support I
felt incredibly supported in love even
being one of 14 kids my parents spent
time before school taking us to sporting
events and activities after school they
drove us around I don’t know that they
ever missed an event that I was a part
of when I was growing up they gave me
the support my dad would look at me and
he would say Josh you’re a leader Josh
God has a plan for your life
Josh one day you’re gonna do something
that’s gonna impact the world around you
you hear that long enough and you start
to believe it I thought I could do
anything I wanted went to high school
graduated got a scholarship to come to
Creighton University graduated with
honors been married now for ten years to
my incredible wife we have four children
the support that I received the
foundation that my parents gave me
allowed me to take advantage of the
opportunities that were presented before
me the culture of our community matters
my neighbor across the street he didn’t
have the same opportunities that I had
if I felt supported if I felt like I had
the love and the nurture to be come and
do anything I wanted to do he grew up in
an environment where his father was
nowhere to be found his mother while she
loved him was busy working multiple jobs
trying to provide for the family his
sisters were in and out of his life at a
young age he got involved in drugs and
gangs and at the age 16 he was gunned
down on the corner of our block I’ll
never forget getting the call when I was
here at Creighton University
Josh dooney’s day same community
different culture very different outcome
if you’ve ever been on a sports team or
a part of an organization
you recognize that culture matters
winning programs winning organizations
winning schools have healthy cultures
organizations and teams that don’t do so
well have toxic cultures every community
has a culture and the culture is a
picture of the leaders that are present
leaders are the ones who build culture
and so when you move into a community
like North Omaha one of the things that
you recognize is that the leadership of
the community has left success in life
means to move out of the community
there’s actually a saying in communities
like North Omaha work hard get an
education and you too can get out of the
ghetto and can I tell you that was the
same for my life I thought Creighton
University would allow me to get a great
education and go on to get a good job or
I would have a successful basketball
career and go over and play
professionally someday I failed at both
and now I’m here no I started to desire
to be a part of the solution in the
community I came from when leaders leave
a community they leave a vacuum that
leads to chaos our family my parents
found themselves living in the center of
this chaos in 2007 the police redlined
our neighborhood as the one of the most
violent neighborhoods in the city crime
violence the statistics were consistent
with everything we had experienced our
neighbors were murdered our house was
shot at our things had been stolen I
remember my dad getting so full of
passion he said we’ve got to do
something different see what happens is
when those challenges and problems
become personal you start to get filled
with passion and passion leads to action
and living in the community my dad said
we’ve got to we’ve got to do something
different and so he started to ask a
question what does a revitalized
neighborhood look like what does it look
like to shift the culture of our
community one of the things that came
out as he’s talking to other leaders is
a revitalized community looks like a
cleaner community and I said we started
to mow lawns and pick up trash and paint
houses we bought a couple of old
abandoned houses and fixed them up and
put families into those homes the police
will tell you that a cleaner
neighborhood is a safer neighborhood we
said a revitalized neighborhood looks
like connection looks like people
getting to know each other relationships
being formed when you move into
Unity’s of high crime and violence one
of the things that you recognize is
because of fear people live in isolation
and so we started to throw some
community events block parties and we
had a food and and fun and in big
letters free and people showed up and
people started to have fun and smiles
started to happen and hope started to
fill our community relationships started
to form people started to care about one
another our community started to get
cleaner and connections and
relationships were built and then we
started to connect resources from
outside the community to people inside
the community and we started to see some
lasting change happen two years after
the police redlined our neighborhood as
one of the most violent they came back
and knocked on our door we put our hands
up and said we didn’t do it they said
this neighborhood that was once one of
the worst is now one of the best we want
to know what you did and as we sat there
and had conversation with them and as we
took a step back we recognized that the
culture I had grown up in the culture of
our family the culture of our house
started to become the culture of the
community we were living in it started
to create an environment where safety
and connection and life could happen our
desire is to revitalize the inner city
one neighborhood at a time by adopting
the 700 most challenging neighborhoods
and getting leaders from all over our
city to move into the community and be a
part of change and to raise up a
generation of leaders where success
doesn’t mean that you move out and
transfer out of the community but it
means that you stay and you’re a part of
the transformation process in the
community we envision a new inner city
see charity can happen from a distance
charity is well-intentioned desire to
see chain
happen but it doesn’t necessarily engage
the culture or the community we want to
see the great hearts of charity connect
with the root of change which is culture
we believe that together as we engage in
our city’s greatest challenges as we
connect culture with hearts of charity
and people who want to be a part of
seeing change one day in Omaha Nebraska
there will be a new vision for what our
inner city is thank you [Applause]
I want to take a moment and talk about
this idea of moving from charity to
change and the power that culture plays
in community revitalization my dad quit
his job as a chemical engineer and moved
our family from the suburbs of Omaha to
the inner city of the community when I
was two years old he’s a white guy from
Iowa there’s a theme of white guys from
Iowa moving their families to live on
purpose and he wanted he wanted to give
his life to something greater
my mom is african-american from
Washington DC and we moved into the
community we were confronted with the
reality of the crime and violence and
chaos this map is a map of our city the
red dots on this map represent the
amount of murders in our city over the
last twenty nine years over eight
hundred murders in our city over 600 of
those murders have taken place in the
northeast part of our city the blue dot
represents the community that our family
moved into my dad being from rural Iowa
population 300 when when he moved into
North Omaha he was shocked by the crime
and violence but he did what he only
knew to do which was start nonprofits to
try to address the challenges that he
saw in the community when you come into
a place of high crime and violence there
are a lot of challenges and so for every
challenge of gangs he would start a gang
prevention program and when he saw a
challenge of mothers who were having
children with no support he would help
start a program we could list challenge
after challenge after challenge after 20
years he had actually started 20
nonprofits in the community those
nonprofits after 20 years while they did
good and while they helped a lot of
people we saw an incredible gap between
the work those nonprofits were doing and
the reality of the culture and the
community that we were living in
after working for many years and seeing
this gap my dad started to wonder if we
needed to do something different you’re
probably familiar with Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs in Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs we see this process to
development we see that there’s a
hierarchy and for every individual if
you’re going to reach your full
god-given potential it starts with your
basic life needs being met when your
basic needs are met you can move up to
safety and belonging and love and esteem
this provides a culture and in an
environment where motivation and
validation and support allow you to take
advantage of the opportunities that are
out there you can take advantage of
education you can take advantage of
employment you can take advantage of of
housing but many times we come into a
community and we offer services and
programs but they’re disconnected from
the culture of that community here’s a
picture of my family I’m one of 14 kids
my parents favorite bible verses be
fruitful and multiply I think they’ve
done a good job of that they’re right
there in the middle you can imagine what
holidays look like very loud a lot of
fun they started our nonprofit 29 years
ago if the culture of a family matters
and is one of validation and support I
felt incredibly supported in love even
being one of 14 kids my parents spent
time before school taking us to sporting
events and activities after school they
drove us around I don’t know that they
ever missed an event that I was a part
of when I was growing up they gave me
the support my dad would look at me and
he would say Josh you’re a leader Josh
God has a plan for your life
Josh one day you’re gonna do something
that’s gonna impact the world around you
you hear that long enough and you start
to believe it I thought I could do
anything I wanted went to high school
graduated got a scholarship to come to
Creighton University graduated with
honors been married now for ten years to
my incredible wife we have four children
the support that I received the
foundation that my parents gave me
allowed me to take advantage of the
opportunities that were presented before
me the culture of our community matters
my neighbor across the street he didn’t
have the same opportunities that I had
if I felt supported if I felt like I had
the love and the nurture to be come and
do anything I wanted to do he grew up in
an environment where his father was
nowhere to be found his mother while she
loved him was busy working multiple jobs
trying to provide for the family his
sisters were in and out of his life at a
young age he got involved in drugs and
gangs and at the age 16 he was gunned
down on the corner of our block I’ll
never forget getting the call when I was
here at Creighton University
Josh dooney’s day same community
different culture very different outcome
if you’ve ever been on a sports team or
a part of an organization
you recognize that culture matters
winning programs winning organizations
winning schools have healthy cultures
organizations and teams that don’t do so
well have toxic cultures every community
has a culture and the culture is a
picture of the leaders that are present
leaders are the ones who build culture
and so when you move into a community
like North Omaha one of the things that
you recognize is that the leadership of
the community has left success in life
means to move out of the community
there’s actually a saying in communities
like North Omaha work hard get an
education and you too can get out of the
ghetto and can I tell you that was the
same for my life I thought Creighton
University would allow me to get a great
education and go on to get a good job or
I would have a successful basketball
career and go over and play
professionally someday I failed at both
and now I’m here no I started to desire
to be a part of the solution in the
community I came from when leaders leave
a community they leave a vacuum that
leads to chaos our family my parents
found themselves living in the center of
this chaos in 2007 the police redlined
our neighborhood as the one of the most
violent neighborhoods in the city crime
violence the statistics were consistent
with everything we had experienced our
neighbors were murdered our house was
shot at our things had been stolen I
remember my dad getting so full of
passion he said we’ve got to do
something different see what happens is
when those challenges and problems
become personal you start to get filled
with passion and passion leads to action
and living in the community my dad said
we’ve got to we’ve got to do something
different and so he started to ask a
question what does a revitalized
neighborhood look like what does it look
like to shift the culture of our
community one of the things that came
out as he’s talking to other leaders is
a revitalized community looks like a
cleaner community and I said we started
to mow lawns and pick up trash and paint
houses we bought a couple of old
abandoned houses and fixed them up and
put families into those homes the police
will tell you that a cleaner
neighborhood is a safer neighborhood we
said a revitalized neighborhood looks
like connection looks like people
getting to know each other relationships
being formed when you move into
Unity’s of high crime and violence one
of the things that you recognize is
because of fear people live in isolation
and so we started to throw some
community events block parties and we
had a food and and fun and in big
letters free and people showed up and
people started to have fun and smiles
started to happen and hope started to
fill our community relationships started
to form people started to care about one
another our community started to get
cleaner and connections and
relationships were built and then we
started to connect resources from
outside the community to people inside
the community and we started to see some
lasting change happen two years after
the police redlined our neighborhood as
one of the most violent they came back
and knocked on our door we put our hands
up and said we didn’t do it they said
this neighborhood that was once one of
the worst is now one of the best we want
to know what you did and as we sat there
and had conversation with them and as we
took a step back we recognized that the
culture I had grown up in the culture of
our family the culture of our house
started to become the culture of the
community we were living in it started
to create an environment where safety
and connection and life could happen our
desire is to revitalize the inner city
one neighborhood at a time by adopting
the 700 most challenging neighborhoods
and getting leaders from all over our
city to move into the community and be a
part of change and to raise up a
generation of leaders where success
doesn’t mean that you move out and
transfer out of the community but it
means that you stay and you’re a part of
the transformation process in the
community we envision a new inner city
see charity can happen from a distance
charity is well-intentioned desire to
see chain
happen but it doesn’t necessarily engage
the culture or the community we want to
see the great hearts of charity connect
with the root of change which is culture
we believe that together as we engage in
our city’s greatest challenges as we
connect culture with hearts of charity
and people who want to be a part of
seeing change one day in Omaha Nebraska
there will be a new vision for what our
inner city is thank you [Applause]
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