The Foreverfamily founder on burnout, collective justice, and why people are the answer
Sandra Barnhill has been asking the kind of questions most people avoid for more than 35 years. As an activist, attorney, and nonprofit leader, she founded Foreverfamily, a national nonprofit that has supported more than 40,000 children and families affected by incarceration. She is also the author of Tough Mind, Tender Heart and the creator of the Collective Wisdom, Collective Justice™ framework.
What has kept you going after 35 years in this work?
Three things have kept me going. The first is my faith. I believe that we all come to this life with a purpose, and this has been mine. Living out my calling is the first. The second has been the joy of the journey. I’ve had a good time. There have been hard times, but I have learned to love, to laugh, just to live. The third thing is wanting to make sure that I leave a legacy. My legacy is not going to be a building with my name on it, but I hope it will be that I have used my gifts and talents to help other people.
What brought you to founding Foreverfamily?
I went to law school and was practicing law and realized that the law was not the answer. We’re the answer. The law has a role, but we, the people, really are the answer. It was a time in my life when I was trying to figure out what my contribution would be. I had sued a women’s prison along with several other attorneys at the nonprofit that I worked at, and what we saw is the women didn’t care about their sentence, they didn’t care about their treatment. They were asking, where are my kids? What’s happening to my children? And those two things kind of came together.
Why is it so important for leaders to hold clarity and care at the same time?
Because our world demands it. We live in a mean-spirited time, we live in a grind culture, and if you are not careful, even with justice work, you can lose your humanity. And so the clarity and the care, I talk about in my book, Tough Mind, Tender Heart. We need a tough mind, we need to challenge injustice. But we need a tender heart. We need compassion for ourselves, for other people, and we need to extend grace to ourselves and to others. And I think if you can balance that, then I think that you can stay on the journey.
What have you learned about building relationships that can sustain justice work under pressure?
The biggest thing is it must be relational. We live in a transactional world, and if you approach your work transactionally, you can have every strategy in the world, but it’s not gonna work. People respond to people. So, caring about people and working towards transformation, that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned.
What steps can help leaders dealing with fatigue and burnout?
I really think it’s two things. The first is not to take yourself so seriously. This work is serious and important, yes. But when we think that we are the savior, or when we move into the martyr syndrome, we lose ourselves. Life has to have a balance. Recognize that it’s okay to have a life. The second thing is to find your village. Find the people who love you and care about you enough to say, go sit down, you need a break.
Who should read Tough Mind, Tender Heart and what is the book trying to teach us?
I think the book is for everyone. I try to write it the way I am, pretty much plain spoken. All of us have something we are passionate about, and the world needs that passion. You don’t have to be a career activist like me. There may be an issue at someone’s child’s school. They get busy, they address that. When they’ve done that, they don’t do any more activism for a while.
Each of us needs to find something that we care about, something that we can do to make this world better. That’s the main thing. And then the second thing is recognizing that on a justice or advocacy journey, you are going to have setbacks. But a setback does not have to be a defeat.
What is the Collective Wisdom, Collective Justice framework?
It’s both a framework and it’s a practice. I deeply believe in the wisdom that people have. The way the framework is set up is, first, be reflective. Reflect on your own practice so that you bring your best self to the work. When you show up in the work, show up honestly with integrity, but also extend grace to people.
And then it is making room for other people who have a different opinion, different ideas than you, to come to the same table with you. That requires some tolerance, but it also requires a willingness to be open. Sometimes we’re not open, whether you’re on the activist side or the other side. So it’s an invitation to let that go, to be a part of the bigger community, and engage with other people.
What gives you hope for the future of social justice leadership?
So many things give me hope. I just came back from a 10-day residency at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. The young leaders there gave me hope. The community people I met with gave me hope. And what gives me hope really started, believe it or not, with COVID. Our society, for the first time in a long time, said it’s okay to exhale, it’s okay to breathe, it’s okay to pause. When we pause, when we slow down so that we can think, ask questions, and engage with one another, I think that is the hope for me.
Where can people find your book and how can they support you and Foreverfamily?
For the book, if you live in the Atlanta area, you can buy it at 44th & 3rd Bookseller, a small Black independent bookstore. It’s also at a lot of independent bookstores. If you love Barnes & Noble, you can get it there. If you are an Amazon user, you can order it in hardcover, paperback, or as an ebook. It’s on Audible too.
You can find me on Instagram, @sandrabarnhillspeaks, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and at sandrabarnhill.com. Foreverfamily needs two things, money and volunteers, and it needs them both equally. We want more folks in our family volunteering, donating money, being a part of it.
