Bethany Henderson

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2009

City Hall Fellows, Inc.

Pasadena, California , United States

Public Service

The Bold Idea:

The Bold Idea: Incentivize and empower diverse, top college graduates to tackle social ills from within existing government institutions, thus ensuring our cities have leaders capable of confronting cities’ myriad challenges.

With over 80 percent of Americans living in metropolitan regions, city governments are at the frontlines of every major social issue. They need educated talent to meet this challenge. A leadership vacuum threatens cities’ ability to support and serve their growing populations. Well over 50 percent of local government managers are at or approaching retirement age; few are under forty. A recent survey found that 80 percent of college juniors and seniors express little interest in local government.
City Hall Fellows serve as special assistants to senior city managers working on substantive projects. During their Fellowship, Fellows engage in an extensive curriculum to explore how their city works, why it works that way and the people, organizations and issue that impact local policy making.

City Hall Fellows received over 400 applications for its inaugural cohort of twenty-one Fellows. Bethany has plans to expand to multiple cities in the US and to increase the Fellowship class size to between 250 and 500 Fellows per year.

Bethany Henderson pitching at Echoing Green Selection Weekend (May 2, 2009)

Biography:

Bethany Rubin Henderson experienced firsthand how critical a capable local government is to effecting social change while working for New York City. She also saw how much unmet opportunity there was in local government for talented young people to drive that change. A former litigator with multiple articles in national journals, Bethany earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an MA and B.A. (summa cum laude / ΦΒΚ) in Political Science from University of Pennsylvania.

Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
I have always fascinated by systemic change and how to drive it. As a twenty-one-year-old, right out of college, I spent nine months working for the City of New York through a city-funded fellowship program. That experience changed my life. I saw firsthand the power of local government to impact people's daily lives. (And I worked in the city's technology department!). Being part of a group of like-minded peers working in other city agencies was energizing. And I thought, "I should be doing this in my hometown. The way to ensure that our local government system works as well as possible would be for every city to have a group of energetic, idealistic, highly-motivated young people—change agents—coming in the door every year and populating the city workforce. And wouldn't it be great if there was a comprehensive service-learning-style training program to go along with it to help participants make sense of and maximize the experience." For several years after, while I attended law school and launched a legal career, the idea of developing a robust city government service corps on a national scale nagged at me until I couldn't ignore it any more.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched social and difficult problems? (Such as experiences, skills, events, etc.)
The only way I can answer is this is that I don't know any other way to live. I come from a family that doesn't take no for an answer. Growing up, I observed my parents and grandparents regularly taking active leadership roles tackling social problems in both their professional and personal lives, sometimes at great professional and personal risk. They taught me by example never to leave things the way I found them, but instead to use whatever skills and talents I possessed to make them better. And they gave me the confidence to believe that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.

New and Untested: What's innovative about your new idea for social change?
City government is where policy becomes projects. It is the level of government from which people obtain the benefits (or suffer the consequences) of social policy ideas. City Hall Fellows incentivizes our country's biggest asset—its best and brightest educated young people—to tackle the full range of social policy challenges our cities face by applying the recognizable national service corps model to local government work. City Hall Fellows empowers these young people to drive social change by combining hands-on work experience in a professional environment with intensive, proprietary training in how cities work. Furthermore, because City Hall Fellows is an independent, non-partisan organization, it can readily adapt to the idiosyncrasies of any local government and to the evolving demands of our country’s newest professionals.

Seeing Possibilities: What are the most important qualities to be a successful social entrepreneur?

An unwavering passion for your work.
A clear vision for what you want to achieve.
Flexibility and ability to adapt without undermining your core vision (because nothing ever goes quite how you pictured it)
Enough of an over-inflated ego/self-confidence to have no doubt that you can change the world.
Enough humility/self-awareness to know that you don't know everything and to actively seek out and learn from those more experienced than you.
Great organization and planning skills.

Which musical artists/albums get you going and keep you inspired?
I am first and foremost an NPR junkie. However, bluegrass music and classic Broadway show tunes are what I put on to keep me going when I'm working late at night. And I find George Winston's piano solos particularly calming for winding down before bed.

What books do you recommend (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
For work I primarily read magazines and journals (e.g. Governing, Politics, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Next American City) and regularly comb through dozens of e-newsletters from social venture / government / philanthropy / think tank / civic engagement organizations. for pleasure / personal life, I recommend: The Harry Potter series; Baby 411 (great reference book for your child's 1st year); Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam; A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier; A People's History of the Supreme Court.

Which websites do you visit often (work and/or personal)?

I also regularly use tons of wonderful free (or incredibly inexpensive) web tools, including:

And I spend lots of time scouring cities', universities', think tanks' and foundations' websites, too.

What advice or quote do you keep close to your heart as a social change leader?
When faced with difficult decisions (big or small), I ask myself "in 20 years, which will I most regret not having done / most remember having done?" The answer guides my decisions. I also find the following advice from General Dwight D. Eisenhower particularly appropriate to working as a social entrepreneur: "In preparing for battle, I have found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable." Finally, the quote I used in my senior year high school yearbook still motivates me: "The horizon is not the finish, it's just another line to be crossed."

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Bethany Henderson