SWAHA & Freeflow
Q&A by Julie Goldstein and Chandra Brown
I am honored to share a written Q and A exchange here with Chandra Brown, founder and director of Freeflow Institute.
Chandra and I met in 2020 during Covid, in what we both call a ‘serendipitous moment’. When everyone’s lives seemed to be amidst daily re-arrangements, we ended up on the same river trip. Lucky us! I was struck by Chandra’s noteworthy river guiding experience, and the passions and appreciation we both shared for educating youth and adults about important and sensitive issues in classroom and outdoor settings. A generation apart, our respective work and personal lives intersected in spaces of education, creativity, and protection of the natural world. Those treasured days off the grid on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River allowed us the time and space to connect around a few of our shared interests when the human collective felt rife with confusion and uncertainty.
Freeflow was founded, in part, to “help humans connect to places, to one another and to the truest forms of their work and art”. One of SWAHA Foundation’s top priorities is to help provide meaningful educational experiences to people who are unable to afford and/or have access to them on their own.
Chandra and I recently looked back on our shared missions and visions for our respective organizations with the intention of helping Freeflow secure increased funding for its uniquely important offerings. Swaha sees true value in small organizations working to make change in the cross sections of education and the environment. Please enjoy learning more about Freeflow’s offerings here and consider supporting and attending a Freeflow Course. They are a true source of inspiration and magic.
Q & A
Chandra (FF): We, you and I, met on the river in 2020. Since then, we've stayed in touch, weaving in and out of one another's lives, like braids in the same river. How do you think the metaphor of the river plays into or defines SWAHA's work, as well as the personal relationships you build with your grantees?
Julie (SWAHA): There was indeed serendipity at play on that day we met in 2020 on the banks of the Middle Fork of the Salmon. I love your reference to our lives intertwining like the braids of a river, as some of the most precious moments of my life, and a big part of my personal growth and healing has occurred in or on the braids of various rivers, for which I feel the utmost gratitude.
Rivers shift course all the time--from weather, fire, rockslides, unseen activity below their surface and even from humans intervening into their natural habitats. Likewise, SWAHA is what it is today on account of countless human and natural shifts and flows that have formed its current state.
I never really meant to direct a foundation, but life’s circumstances have me right here amidst the braiding together of so many moments, events, intentions, support and knowing part of my life’s purpose. The most meaningful part of my work at SWAHA is centered around many cherished relationships, like the one I have with you, Chandra. Relationships that go well beyond the transactional types of dynamics between grantors and grantees. Relationships like yours and mine, and others that SWAHA has built over time, are based on shared passions where all those involved in them wholeheartedly know the potential to bring about a positive shift of some kind within a context we all care deeply about.
FF: SWAHA is a Sanskrit term that loosely translates as a heartfelt blessing or honoring of all that just is. How does this notion of honoring things as they are guide your process of determining which initiatives SWAHA will support? To what extent do you participate in - or simply observe - the organization's work before you engage philanthropically?
SWAHA: While our work at SWAHA has solid infrastructure just as a river has banks, it has also navigated many hard rapids and shifting flows. While I am well versed and experienced in the philanthropic sphere, and have been for a long time, I use my intuition, inner wisdom, and general life experience to guide many of SWAHA’s decisions. Freeflow is a perfect example of this. If the leadership of an organization feels genuine and has the passion and desire to make its mission and vision come alive, then we like to offer our support when it feels in alignment with SWAHA’s mission and vision, and is deemed as important work in the world. Much of this is often revealed over time through relationships with people who are or become partners in the work. I like thinking of our grantees and organizations as our partners rather than just receivers of a foundation’s philanthropic dollars.
In the bigger picture, SWAHA is very intent on and committed to supporting smaller, more grassroots movements. Our dollars are not additive in the context of larger organizations that have more high-profile donor relationships.
FF: What was it about your relationship with Freeflow that galvanized your interest in supporting our efforts? Can you identify a specific moment, memory, or realization that solidified your belief in our mission?
SWAHA: When SWAHA began, the ONLY thing I knew was that funding educational initiatives and programs was going to be central to our work. I remember the exact moment when I decided I wanted to be a teacher and why. I was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of so many educational experiences that teachers shaped for me, and I wanted to actively partake in doing the same for others. I firmly believe that education is a basic human right no matter the variety of learning experience, and that educating someone can be a tiny part of positive change for the greater good in ways we may or may not know. SWAHA firmly exists on this notion.
When I learned more about how and why you started Freeflow, Chandra, as I mentioned, it brightened my own light. Why? Because Education and rivers are two of my passions and you were thoughtfully braiding those passions of your own together in a way that would inspire, educate, and bring meaning to others.
FF: Are there moments from your experience on rivers, or in wild places, that were formative? Moments where you saw, perhaps, the connection between creative thought or expression and the freedom we feel within wild spaces?
SWAHA: What lies at the core of all my formative experiences in natural surroundings, is that I was gifted great privilege to be able to have so much of my learning—about myself and others and the world— come about through the myriad of educational opportunities I was offered. Thus, it has been evident in me since I was very young, that a large part of my life’s purpose is to pay that forward in service to others being able to find, discover and integrate for themselves the magic that comes from being in wild, natural spaces. To me, education is a precious resource, just as rivers are.
I believe our meeting on that random trip during a global pandemic was ‘meant to be’ in that moment of time. Among other things, the strands or braids of our friendship have a lot to do with our similar passions and commitments and with seeing you, a generation younger than me, carrying forth work that we at SWAHA feel strongly about supporting. A byproduct of all of this is, excitingly, is also how mentorship to and for my child, Ash, in various forms has evolved. And I know that mentorship is a very important part of the work we both do.
SWAHA: One of several things SWAHA Foundation prioritizes is providing rich educational experiences to people who do not have means to afford them on their own. In recent years we have paid particular attention to a variety of educational programs and their direct connections to climate change, and the stewardship and protection of the natural world. From our perspective, this important intersectionality is at the core of Freeflow’s program offerings. How does the Freeflow experience for scholarship participants translate (directly or indirectly) into an element of a positive shift or change towards the betterment of someone's life and/or the natural world?
FF: I love that you and SWAHA recognize and appreciate the value of high-quality education. Most experiential or outdoor education opportunities are unavoidably expensive (and, often, prohibitively so for people without abundant economic resources). The overhead costs associated with building a rich outdoor education experience are, in most cases, significant. At Freeflow we would never want to compromise fair wages to our instructors, facilitators, support staff, guides, or other collaborators, and so we rely on the generosity of others to make our programs more accessible to people from lower-income communities. This mode of community scholarship fundraising sometimes feels taxing to our small network of alumni and supporters. Larger gifts, like the support that SWAHA gives us, take some of the pressure off of this process.
By providing scholarships to people who wouldn't normally have the means to participate in our programs, we are able to slowly chip away at some of the existing barriers to participation in outdoor and creative programming. A lot of Freeflow's scholarship recipients are already active within the realms of storytelling, leadership, or river stewardship. Others are new to these spaces but express a commitment to learning and leading. We aim to support people from all backgrounds, with varying interests and priorities. And in response to the second part of your question, there are numerous stories that come to mind. Some of the most meaningful shifts among our Scholars include the following:
Graduate students who are trapped, creatively, by the limitations and structures of school, and who then find freedom and ignition while on-course
People from demographics who are not fairly represented in outdoor spaces who, on their Freeflow course, find their voices or a new sense of belonging
Individuals who come together to form cohorts, communities inspired by their time together in the field, that go on to catalyze changes, together, within the world at large
SWAHA: The meaningful work that takes place in the field between writers, creatives, colleagues, and mentorship support is not often visible or understood by those not as familiar with these types of educational programs. Might you be able to give a few examples of how the deep personal work of writers and creatives is carried forth into the world after a participant's experience a FF course?
FF: The work of writing and creating is so often lonely. It involves hours or days spent in actual or relative isolation, conjuring something from nothing - making art or stringing words together of concepts from your inner universe. Doing this work in community, if only for a few days or a week, can be a balm to that isolation. It allows people to see that they are not alone in their mission to make meaning, or simply to make. There's a sense of togetherness, interconnectedness, and shared purpose that arises from the Freeflow experience. People make connections to one another, as well as to place, which fosters an awareness of potential and expansiveness. Returning to the world refreshed and supported is a powerful recalibration. We do better when we understand our work has significance, and when we know that we are not alone.
SWAHA: What would you love other funders to know about the less obvious impacts and benefits of your work?
FF: Our goal is to get people outside, together with revered leaders and teachers, to deepen understanding of craft, place, and interconnected social and natural systems. Our priorities right now include building a substantive scholarship program wherein we can provide holistic support to our scholars - people from lower-income communities and from communities who lack access to wild spaces. The extra supports we are developing include a mentorship program, a travel and childcare fund, and a gear lending library - in addition to our existing scholarship offerings. By helping people from all backgrounds get out on Freeflow courses, regardless of economic means or prior experience, we are democratizing outdoor education and access to the arts.
