We are excited to welcome Dr. Heather Bomsta, Ph.D., as our new Vice President of Policy and Programs

January 9, 2025 – Resilience is a topic I’ve been thinking about lately. It’s a word that has many meanings and connotations, but my thinking is focused on the organizational and individual levels. ¹For organizations resilience can be defined as “maintenance of positive adjustment under challenging conditions such that the organization emerges from those conditions strengthened and more resourceful.” For individuals, resilience is the “process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility.”²

As administrations at both the state and national level transition post-election, the potential for change in policies affecting children and families in Michigan looms. It’s hard to know what the changes will be, who they will impact and how fast (or slow) they will happen. Uncertainty, ambiguity and change are all mentally and emotionally challenging for humans. In my new role as Michigan’s Children’s Vice President for Policy and Programs, I’ve been thinking about resilience in the context of advocacy. How can we as an organization, and as a team, sustain ourselves in changing and turbulent times and continue to support our partners and advocates?

I don’t have an answer to this question, but I’ve been thinking about the resilience in the eight Michigan-based human services agencies I studied as a doctoral candidate in community sustainability at Michigan State University. In fall of 2020, I interviewed managers and staff to better understand how they were coping during the COVID-19 pandemic which increased the stresses and dangers their clients were facing, upended the traditional ways they served clients, and caused increased staffing challenges in organizations that had been stretched thin prior to the pandemic.³

The stresses managers and staff faced were enormous, and yet they kept showing up and advocating for their clients. Many of them moved from 100% in-person service to virtual almost overnight. Though there were many factors to their resilience, I’ve been thinking of some factors in particular that are pertinent to the challenges Michigan’s child and family advocates will face over the next few years.

Vogus, T. J., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2007). Organizational Resilience: Towards a theory and research agenda. 2007 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 3418–3422. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSMC.2007.4414160
American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience
Eternal thanks to my co-author (and doctoral advisor) Dr. John Kerr, and to Dr. Soma Chaudhuri who provided invaluable advice and encouragement. For the published article see: Bomsta, H., & Kerr, J. (2023). Organizational Resilience of Intimate Partner Abuse Nonprofits During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 9(2), 197-223. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20899/jpna.9.2.197.223

Focus on internal relationships & team building. The most resilient organizations I studied were those that brought their staff together, eliminated silos and flattened hierarchy – focusing the full power of the organization to find solutions to emerging challenges. Pre-pandemic this sector had focused almost exclusively on client needs and much less on internal staff relations. During the pandemic, their focus shifted to a more balanced approach – ensuring staff needs were also central to decision-making. Staff wellness efforts blossomed, included walking groups, books clubs, virtual lunches, Slack channels praising individuals going over and above expectations – anything to support staff facing the incredible stresses of the pandemic. At Michigan’s Children we’re talking about how we show up for each other and developing a calendar to bring us together more. One idea we’re working on is creating an office garden – to add some greenery and create a space for a quiet moment. Research shows that plants and caring for them are good for humans – and we hope doing it as a team will make the garden a place that pulls us together in stressful times.

Communication. All the agencies I studied increased their communication during the pandemic, but those that seemed to be the most successful increased it more and found creative ways to expand information flows in all directions – up to leadership, across distinct teams, and throughout their organizations. Meetings were more frequent (but in some cases shorter and more efficient), and many introduced new communication tools. At Michigan’s Children we’re going to trial a free communication application to increase our ability to share information across the team and find ways to use it to show up more for each other. If it works for us, we’ll look for ways we might also pull in our partners and advocates.

Adaptation & external relationships. When facing change, organizations typically respond at first using coping techniques. Like individuals under stress, they find short-term ways to deal with change until things ‘return to normal.’ An example of organizational coping would be using financial reserves to cover a temporary shortfall. Coping often works short-term, but at some point these strategies fail if changes go beyond ‘temporary’ (i.e. reserves run out, staff gets burned from over-extending). When coping resources run out, resilient organizations turn to adaptation. Adaptation takes more work – planning, learning, adjusting strategies and exploring new options (including reaching out to new partners or building new collaborations). I saw many instances of adaptation in the organizations I studied during the pandemic, and a critical factor in organizational adaptation was the strength of their external relationships with their communities, peer networks, and national networks. Michigan’s Children has always had a strong network of partner organizations and advocates in Michigan and nationally, and we’ll be both drawing on and investing in our external relationships. Child and family policy advocacy is a team sport and our partners and advocates around the state and nation are a major source of inspiration and adaptation for us!

Changes in relationships between grant makers and grantees. During the pandemic, many funders re-evaluated their processes and how they worked with grantees. Changes were made across the philanthropic sector to streamline applications, decision timelines, and reporting. Many funders moved toward trust-based philanthropy, and worked with their grantees more closely than ever before. Moving funds quickly to where it could do the most good, and removing barriers so organizations had the ability to react quickly to change – without lengthy contract renegotiations – was a key factor for the organizations I studied. As changes in child/family policy at the federal and state level become more clear, I hope the philanthropic sector will once again rise to the challenge, remembering these lessons and working collaboratively to adapt and respond quickly.

Finally, one other thing I learned from studying those agencies during the pandemic – resilience can be planned. None of the agencies in the study had a pandemic plan, but some had invested time in disaster plans and that laid the groundwork for their pandemic response. Resilience is a practice and an investment. It means evaluating the resources we have internally and externally – and strengthening them so we’re ready for whatever challenge arises. We’re starting that work now and having those conversations. Michigan’s Children is committed to advocating for policies and programs that ensure Michigan has strong, healthy kids and families that keep “The Mitten” a vibrant home for us all. We look forward to facing the next challenge (and the one after that, and after that) with our team and as part of the wider network of child and family advocates here in Michigan and around the nation.

Dr. Heather Bomsta, Ph.D., Vice President of Policy & Programs