10 Years, 10 Questions with Andy Bryant
Andy is the guy tasked with overseeing the wondrous vision and ambition of our board and staff while keeping them tethered to earth. Fortunately, he often fails! In honor of his 10th anniversary as executive director of Segal Family Foundation, he sat down and answered 10 questions about the past decade.
What is a typical day for you like?
I get to wear many hats. One of them is fire marshal, putting out the occasional fire and putting safety measures in place to prevent flare-ups down the road.
I also serve as a doorman of sorts, opening doors to cool people and places — conferences, important discussions, groups of funders — so our exemplary partners can access, inform, and influence these conversations.
And what I do most often is act as cheerleader. I just try to keep stoking people’s passion for the work, especially in a year like 2020 when so much has worked against our team staying close, morale staying high, and work being productive.
Where do you get your daily dose of inspiration?
That’s easy, from our team. I think that the work of our partners is monumental and powerful and absolutely awe-inspiring. But I think that the work of our team is a microcosm of that, so I don’t have to look too far afield to be constantly dazzled and inspired.
What’s the best meal you have had in East Africa whilst traveling for SFF?
It’s just got to be kitimoto, which means “hot seat” in Swahili. It’s the traditional barbecue pork they have in Tanzania and Kenya.
Tell us about a memorable site visit you’ve been on.
In 2013, my former colleague Ash Rogers and I visited Last Mile Health’s work in eastern Liberia. We’d heard tales of this incredible journey of a site visit where you travel by plane, then by car, then by bus, then by canoe, then by motorbike, then by foot. That explanation did not do it justice. It was 15 hours on the road, crossing a couple rivers, some more time on motorbikes, some time spent on foot, a few breakdowns, and a leaky gas tank that made us want to pass out and walk the rest of the way. It was an arduous trip.
What we found at the end of the journey was a really well-informed, well intentioned, well-prepared community health worker who was making miracles in terms of providing health care at the very end of the line for families, for kids, for moms who had never been able to access that before. It made it all worthwhile.
You have organized 10 Annual Meetings at SFF. What are some of your favorite memories?
Every year, that first day when we start seeing people get off the bus — some familiar faces and some people we’ve only read about or seen on a scratchy Skype line before — that makes me happy.
There are so many! The fashion show on the boat in 2017 when my kids got to model some of the fashions from our partners to the sweet sounds of Angélique Kidjo’s music. Handing Bill Clinton a half-page of talking points and, an hour later, listening to him come to the end of his extemporaneous speaking magic. The first SFF World Cup in Tanzania in 2014 when everyone was on the soccer pitch, competing for top prize. The African Women Monologues in Uganda in 2016. That was the first time we realized we could do things a little bit differently. We could utilize art to talk about really challenging issues. We could utilize humor to talk about issues that normally bring sadness. We could be provocative but also culturally appropriate. It was just really cool, a curve ball for us.
And every award winner’s speech. You can tell how passionate they are about their work and, frankly, how thrilled they are to be recognized. That’s a good example of the whole point of the Annual Meeting — to stop, take time to reflect on all the hard and important work we’re doing, and celebrate one another.
What is a lesson you wished you learned earlier in your philanthropic career?
Less is more. Less reporting, fewer restrictions on funding, fewer requests of partners, fewer complex and complicated key performance indicators, fewer pages in our strategic plan.
Who has inspired you in philanthropy?
I have to be honest, when I first joined SFF back in 2010, I found [Segal Family Foundation founder] Barry Segal confusing. Two twin notions — the notion that he seemingly cared so deeply, so passionately, about people he’d never met and had no connection to, halfway around the world and the notion that he also had the temerity, the chutzpah, the courage, and the naïveté to think he could tackle these big thorny problems like Sub-Saharan African development — really perplexed me. I spent a lot of years reconciling the idea that even if we were able to tackle some big fundamental challenge, that there would just be another one that would spring up in its wake — new and different and probably thornier — but that there is real importance and impact just in that journey. Barry has found fulfillment in constantly going after an elusive endgame of social good, toward a better world.
What challenges you in philanthropy?
It’s an ongoing and agonizing struggle for me, which is challenging the assumption that I can be an authentic voice and leader in this field, despite coming from a place of immense privilege as a white male executive in philanthropy. I aspire to lead a team that’s representative of the change we want to see in the world, from the people included to the type of power wielded.
2020 has been a very difficult year all around. What key lesson from this year will you be taking into 2021?
I constantly think about and reference this iceberg analogy: that we get to see so little of each other, just that little bit that is above the water line and visible. Often we have no concept of everything that exists below that water line…the totality of our experiences, our traumas, the shit going on in our personal lives, all that we carry around. In a way, the silver lining of 2020 is that it’s an incredible opportunity for empathy because while our icebergs might have grown, they also became more visible.
Because of this shared trauma, we all can offer each other a little more grace or room to breathe and to exist as flawed individuals. I found myself wanting to extend grace and understanding to my colleagues and our partners more so than ever before because I acutely feel how challenging this year was myself.
If you could step into a time machine and fast forward another 10 years, what do you hope Segal Family Foundation will have achieved by 2030?
We’re starting to develop a shared vision as a Segal community and casting our lot a decade down the road in which we see a pan-African community that’s comprised of social entrepreneurs, changemakers, funders, government, technical experts, academics, artists — anyone who can and should have a voice in the development agenda of a particular place. Fundamentally, it’s a vision for self-determination; we want to push agency and choice closer to the communities that those choices affect through our support of African visionary leaders and their organizations, so their voices are at the forefront of development agendas in different countries and regions. That would be enough. If we helped to create that space for self-determination.
