We recently connected with Jenn Chen and have shared our conversation below.
Jenn, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
Generosity is a kind of risk taking, and it was my mother who empowered me to take risks and give generously to things much greater than myself. When I was in my 20s and took the leap to move abroad without a job in hand, my mom said to me on the phone, “Jennifer, remember, you can always come home.” In that moment, I was like, “Huh? Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mom. See you at Christmas!” Not until much later did I realize what an incredible gift she had slipped in my back pocket. She offered me a safety net that effectively freed me to be an even bigger risk taker than I already was.
When you give generously, beyond what is expected or contracted, you sacrifice your own comfort to some extent, and you take the exciting risk of investing in others in a way that might not yield a return in kind. True generosity doesn’t calculate or expect a return. At its origins, my generosity comes from the deep well of love and support my mother provided me, even through tremendous hardship. And my childhood and early adulthood were times of hardship, the kind that usually compels us to turn fiercely inward in self-preservation.
Also, generosity is generative, and for me, because it’s generative, it’s addictive. I discovered this when I was maybe ten years old and starting gifting friends little crafts I had handmade from rocks and sea shells from the beaches of Southern California near where I grew up. Fast forward a few years to high school, and I learned to bake and went around school handing out baggies of Swedish gingerbread cookies to everyone’s delight. “What? Oh wow, thanks! But why?” was sometimes the response. There was no why. Generosity just IS, and that’s what’s so beautiful about it for me. A generous gift inspires a smile and, more often than not, a new outflow of generosity to someone else. It generates the joy of nourishing others and knowing that your generosity has inspired them to give freely in turn, in a gorgeous, exponential ripple effect.
This ripple effect becomes a source of resilience for our communities.
Generosity is uplifting. Because it’s uplifting, it’s infinitely powerful. It can move the immovable.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m the founder and executive director of Brooklyn FAM, which is a community-empowering, community-building arts nonprofit. I founded us in 2021. The community response to our work was so great that we quickly became a 501(c)(3) the next year.
I founded Brooklyn FAM in the midst of a transition to a radical new normal. In 2021, we were navigating a global pandemic, the ongoing Me Too movement, Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and sociopolitical polarization that prompted us to hunker down with what we called our “chosen communities.” For the sake of safety and self-preservation, we were pulling in more tightly than ever with folks who looked like us, thought like us, and talked like us. I think many of us thought (and still think) that this kind of self-segregation would shore up our strength, in part by maintaining our sanity in times of extreme duress.
The irony is that when we estrange ourselves from one another, especially over the long term, we weaken ourselves and our communities. We splinter rather than join together our energies and resources. We deepen divides and are more likely to turn against each other in fear or a scarcity mindset—as in, “You win, I lose. So I don’t want you to win.”
I thought, What will inspire us to come out of our silos to care about each other and invest in our shared humanity and common cause?
My answer was the arts. Art has the transcendent power to bring together people of all ages and backgrounds (including people who sharply disagree) in a single, shared space, face to face and heart to heart. It heals us. It empowers us to tell our own stories and inspires us to listen to each other, come to new understandings, connect, and create together. Art nurtures empathy. And empathy builds bridges.
Brooklyn FAM’s mission is to harness this power of the arts to build community. We design and produce intergenerational, family-friendly participatory public art projects and community arts events in pursuit of this mission. Behind the scenes, we build partnerships and inspire community groups and peer nonprofits to invest in each other’s work and foster collaboration.
The concrete impact goal for everything we do is to spark new conversation—new conversation between people who have known each other their entire lives and new conversation between people who are meeting for the first time through our work.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Let your desired impact drive each design decision. What impact do you want to have? How will you know you’ve achieved it or, put another way, what will evidence of your success look like? Figure this out first. Then design your work. I learned and practiced this backwards design process in my career as an educator.
Be quick to listen. Be curious to discover others’ stories. Learn about their journeys and aspirations. Where are they coming from? What drives them? What do they want to achieve for themselves, their loved ones, and their communities?
Invest in the collaborations that best align with your mission, vision, and values. Invest in people who are authentic, transparent, empathetic, generous, curious about others, and open minded.
Can I offer a fourth? Get rest. I heard this recently from Marlon Williams of Philanthropy New York, and it’s really resonating with me: “We are not sleeping, and when we do not sleep, we do not dream.”
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Right now, we’re most avidly looking for funders. Brooklyn FAM is a 501(c)(3), so all donations are 100% tax deductible. Please reach out if you are interested in supporting our work or can connect us with individuals and foundations who might. Thank you!
Contact Info:
- Website: brooklynfam.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bklyn_fam/
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/bklynFAM
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/company/brooklynfam
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BklynFAM
Image Credits
Gregory Horan
