Listen First, Lead Together: Advocacy and Power Dynamics
Ronda Alexander on strategies to build inclusive health coalitions, manage power dynamics, center marginalized voices, & design sustainable governance. Summary In this episode of Health Hats, host Danny van Leeuwen talks with Ronda Alexander, a community health advocate and skilled facilitator, about the challenges of building and maintaining effective health coalitions. Alexander shares her journey from attending Detroit’s innovative Henry Ford Academy to working with Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies on workforce development, ultimately finding her calling at Vital Village Networks in Boston, where she spent seven years supporting national coalitions focused on health equity and early childhood wellbeing. The conversation explores practical ways to manage power dynamics in cross-sector collaborations, from setting group norms that encourage real participation to designing decision-making processes that balance speed and sustainability. Alexander stresses the critical importance of listening to marginalized communities—those “furthest from opportunity”—and making sure they have real seats at decision-making tables, not just token representation. Key insights include strategies for inclusive facilitation, such as incorporating quiet reflection time, small group discussions, and developing shared talking points that coalition members can take back to their organizations. Alexander advocates for proactive governance planning, comparing effective coalition building to chess strategy, where groups think “seven to eight moves down the board” to prepare for inevitable challenges. The episode wraps up with Alexander’s call to action for health advocates: start by listening to the communities you want to serve, trust what people tell you about their needs, and design systems that place those most affected by health inequities in leadership and decision-making roles. Click here to view the printable newsletter with images. More readable than a transcript, which can also be found below. Contents Please comment and ask questions: at the comment section at the bottom of the show notes on LinkedIn via email YouTube channel DM on Instagram , TikTok to @healthhats Production Team Kayla Nelson: Web and Social Media Coach, Dissemination, Help Desk Leon van Leeuwen: editing and site managementresil Oscar van Leeuwen: video editing Julia Higgins: Digit marketing therapy Steve Heatherington: Help Desk and podcast production counseling Joey van Leeuwen, Drummer, Composer, and Arranger, provided the music for the intro, outro, proem, and reflection, including Moe’s Blues for Proem and Reflection and Bill Evan’s Time Remembered for on-mic clips. Podcast episode on YouTube Inspired by and Grateful to: Jan Oldenburg, Ellen Schultz, Tomas Moran, Susannah Fox, Betsy Neptune, Tania Marien Links and references Ronda Alexander Henry Ford Academy Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies Vital Village Network The Networks of Opportunity for Child Wellbeing Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett B’More for Healthy Babies Marginalization refers to the inequality certain individuals face in society due to power imbalances built into our systems. Episode Proem Learn with People on the Journey toward Best Health. That’s my tagline. Let’s break it down. Learn with People implies endless curiosity with the people I travel with. Makes sense, I’m a networking extrovert who learns best with others. I prefer to travel with selected peeps (my team). Best health means accepting current circumstances and maximizing abilities, function, and spirit. So, we’re headed to a relatively better place, or at least the best possible health given whatever circumstances of the moment. A journey typically involves a destination (goals), tactics, and costs. The only guaranteed person on the team is me, you, or us, depending on whether it’s community health. Otherwise, the team is constantly changing. Who’s on the team, who’s off? Travel implies choices. Rig