Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina

Everyone Has a Story: A Reflection on 2012 Listening Sessions

Sometimes we meet people whose expressions and face momentarily stop us in our tracks, but we ignore the quiet invitation in their eyes to empathetically listen to their story. In the nonprofit and philanthropic world, this can too often be the case. Our tireless push to meet endless need, pressing deadlines and other urgent tasks which enable us to serve can pull our attention away from giving the person in front of us our undivided attention. Unfortunately, many people who experience poverty every day face marginalization within the various systems they encounter. Not only can this make them feel “invisible” when their voices are missing or intentionally overlooked, the organization loses out on important insights that can strengthen the effectiveness of their work. A recent Stanford Social Innovation Review Spring 2013 article Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries states, “The views and experiences of the people who benefit from social programs are often overlooked and underappreciated, even though they are an invaluable source of insight into a program’s effectiveness” (p. 41).

Since 2010, the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina has listened directly to the voices of individuals and families through Listening Sessions. Our Listening Sessions engage families experiencing poverty by listening directly to their stories in the supportive presence of community stakeholders that walk alongside them each day. Structured differently than a grantee site visit, Listening Sessions create a collective space to engage individuals served with the primary focus on their perspectives. In 2012, three Listening Sessions were strategically designed to uplift the stories of individuals served by current Foundation grantees. The first Listening Session held in April 2012 in partnership with Helping and Lending Outreach Support (HALOS) in Charleston provided an opportunity to listen to the stories of kinship caregivers who live each day as the Unsung Heroes in the lives of children they care for. The second Listening Session in collaboration with the Puentes Project/PASOS in Columbia gave us the opportunity to hear from the Puentes Community Ambassadors who are compassionately leading as Bridges of Light in their communities. The third Listening Session held jointly with GRACE Ministries in Georgetown brought us face-to-face with home-bound and chronically ill senior citizens whose lives are Touched by Grace by the volunteers that serve them.

We listened deeply and empathetically to these statewide issues at a local level through the perspectives of individuals served, applying Grantmakers for Effective Organization’s (GEO) Widespread Empathy definition of empathy to our work. GEO defines empathy as “the ability to reach outside ourselves and connect in a deeper way with other people – to understand their experiences, to get where they are coming from, to feel what they feel” (p. 4). What we heard surprised us; and at times even moved us to tears as we listened to their struggles, hopes, and fears. We walked away reminded that everyone has a story. When we stop to listen empathetically to the experiences of those we serve, their stories can illuminate and inform the ways grantmakers and nonprofit organizations strategically respond to the remaining unmet need.

Read the 2012 Listening Session Summary, Everyone Has a Story.

Written By: Stephanie Cooper-Lewter, Ph.D., Senior Research Director