Five lessons Also Known As taught me about community leadership [NYC part 2]

There are very few adoptee community organisations in the world that have reached the age of 30. Fewer still can gather hundreds of people to celebrate what they've built together. Also Known As, the New York City-based community organisation that welcomes adoptees from all countries, is one of them.

I came to New York for Also Known As's 30th Anniversary as a (non-academic) researcher, an attendee and a fellow community event organiser. What I found over that long weekend wasn't just an impressive organisation. It was a living, breathing case study of how an adoptee community can grow, adapt and if the conditions are intentional, thrive.

This update focuses on a few select leadership insights after spending time with the current and first ever Chinese-born President of Also Known As, Lindsay Geier, and current advisory board member Mike Mullen (president ~2018-2022). Both were incredibly generous hosts, welcoming me to their neighbourhoods. I initially tried to incorporate additional learnings from numerous other Also Known As current and past board members, but I've decided to save that for my final report. Here's my initial 5 insights I'd like to share from my time with Also Known As:

1. Second impressions also count

Mike met Holly McGinnis, As Known As founder, in the founding year of 1996. He turned up to a 10 minute meeting about a mentorship programme, noticed there were more potential mentors than mentees, decided he wasn’t required, then proceeded to leave. For a long time.

20 years later Mike found his way back. After actually forgetting about the organisation's existence, he started doing some self exploration around this time wanting to understand his Korean side better and it happened to be the year of Also Known As’s 20th anniversary. He attended, experienced an indescribable euphoria during the event being amongst the adoptee community, then a depressing low after it realising that weekend was somewhat temporary (I’ll talk about this phenomenon in my full report). In wanting to be part of this more regularly, he applied to join the board as soon as the next opportunity arose.

Lindsay grew up with access to adoptee community but it wasn’t central to her life at that point. In her adult life, she became aware of Also Known As but thought it was a Korean adoptee organisation. Regardless, knowing that Korean adoptees had been paving the way for adoptee community development, she wanted to see what it was about and went to the Also Known As 25th anniversary picnic with a friend. To her surprise, there were other Chinese adoptees there who were keen to connect, as well as well as many other Also Known As board members and regulars who welcomed her warmly. It was an overwhelming level of feeling seen, feeling invited and feeling a real community. But overwhelming!

Lindsay didn’t come back for any other event programming that weekend and despite new contacts following up with her, didn’t come back to another event for quite some time. However, she eventually accepted an invitation to be featured in the Also Known As member spotlight which seemingly went very well, and soon after was invited to apply for the board.

I’ve spoken with many of Also Known As’s current and past leaders, and there’s a consistent theme of how they were strongly encouraged or perhaps “volun-told” to apply for the board. It’s a very intentional approach their organisation takes… proactive identification of their next leaders and board members. Always on the lookout.

Prospective board members often feel like they’re not experienced enough, don’t know enough, or don’t feel ready. However I agree with Also Known As that leadership and organiser roles are a great way explore your own thoughts and feelings regarding your own adoptee experience, helping others at the same time and being supported by your peer board members.

2. Consistency matters more than scale

A common mistake I've observed in adoptee community organisations, including the one I am responsible for, is treating events as one-off productions rather than a consisent or cyclical series. It's hard to build a community when people don't know when to expect the next event.

Also Known As runs two to three events every month throughout its program year. It has been this way since the COVID pandemic, following a necessary pivot to online events however this was a temporary measure.

For the monthly events, one is typically social... a dinner, a bar hang, a picnic. One is more substantive in relation to a topic... a writing workshop, a research discussion, a panel on birth search or identity etc. Over time this cadence becomes something members can rely on which builds momentum and a growing number of regulars. It becomes part of the fabric of their year.

Also Known As commits to regular events October through June, plus their annual picnic in June and their holiday party in December. June through August is an intentional off-season for a break, board planning and their board retreat.

The key insight isn't "run exactly two events a month”, it's that predictability of events will help attract new members and help people form more meaningful, ongoing connections. When someone who has been circling your community from the outside finally feels ready to come in, they need to know there will be something to come into next month, and the month after. Or even if it's one annual event that you focus on, like KAAN or BIPOC Adoptees, people can expect and look out for its occurrence.

For smaller communities, this principle scales down fine. A quarterly in-person event anchored to the same weekend each time (i.e. 3rd Saturday of the month) gives members something to anchor.mThe goal is to become a reliable community presence in someone's calendar, not a pleasant surprise they happened to hear about.

3. Don’t measure success by headcount

This is perhaps the hardest metric for community organisers to let go of, because attendance numbers feel like the most legible measure of whether something worked... Especially for the lead organiser or host.

Through the guidance of Mike in particular, he said he tried to instil the principle of not judging events by attendance… you might reach that one person who wanted that particular writing workshop or deep dive on a specific topic. Smaller groups also offer greater opportunity to get to know most attendees in more depth, which can be quite challenging at larger social events.

The most important assessment criteria after any event isn't "why didn't more people come?" but "did the people who came get something they needed?" Organisations that consistently deliver on that quieter question will experience growth, or at the very least, validation they're continuing to make a positive impact in someone's week.

At the Korean Adoptees in Australia Network (KAIAN), we've also held the belief that an event that helps even just one person, especially if they were not previously connected to our community, is a great outcome and helps energise us to keep volunteering. Over time these small validations have organially grown into larger ones.

4. The Annual Retreat: Structural, not optional

If I had to point to the single organisational practice that seems to be most attributed to AKA's success and cohesion in the time I’ve been aware of them, it would be the annual board retreat.

Held before the program year begins, the in-person retreat runs over weekend. The format is split between two distinct purposes: interpersonal understanding and operational planning for the year. The first half is about learning more about your peers, their backgrounds, their working styles, the ways they're likely to complement or differ with each other over the year ahead. Ideally a dedicated facilitator guides this work so all board members can focus on being participants on this occasion. Personality frameworks, open conversation and being a little vulnerable are all part of it. The second half of the weekend maps out the operational things - who's owning what (each board member must own at least one event/activity), what the ideas are and who else might be approached to lead/partner on particular sessions.

Mike went as far as suggesting he wouldn’t run an in-person organisation without a version of the board retreat.

A board will typically turnover people every 1-2 years as people rotate in and out. The relationships that make a successful in-person events possible aren’t formed via email or online meetings. They form in sustained, in-person time where people can share and receive a greater understanding of each other and themselves.

For communities earlier in their development, the form can be much simpler. Two or three core organisers spending a full day together, somewhere outside of a stale meeting space... to align on organisational values, share what's happening in each person's life and sketch out the year ahead. It’s a key building block of sustainable leadership and trust between leaders.

5. The Advisory Board: Use it

During the 2024 Adoptee Leadership Exchange hosted by Also Known As and IKAA in New York City, we learnt about the Also Known As advisory board structure.

It is a place where past board members can transition to, to be available to offer guidance to the active board members when needed and remain involved in community leadership, without operational commitments. Its origins were actually to help with fundraising... advisory board members are required to make a donation to Also Known As!

They also, very intentionally, have an annual meeting between the active board and advisory board. It involves a presentation of what the previous year achieved and what is coming next. There are dual purposes for this. Advisors who feel genuinely connected to an organisation remain proud of it, advocate for it, and make introductions on its behalf. Active board members, especially newer ones, feel additionally supported when they understand that experienced people are accessible and not just a contact list of names they've never met.

Through Also Known As's evolution, they discovered that an advisory board can serve a far more powerful function than fundraising... if you deliberately cultivate a real relationship between past and current leadership. Founders and long-serving past leaders deserve a particular place in this structure. They carry the organisational memory. In moments of uncertainty about direction or identity, they are often the people best equipped to ask, "is this who we said we aspired be?" Keeping the connections active isn't for nostalgic purposes. It's ensuring institutional intelligence is retained.

The people who founded or once led your community are an asset, not a relic. If they've drifted away, make sure they never become a forgotten memory.

Where I'll leave this for now...

Also Known As didn't become what it is by accident. Across 30 years and many different hands, people kept making intentional choices... showing up consistently, investing as much in their people as their programming, and retaining historical learnings.

None of that required a city of NYC's population or a 10/20/30 year head start. It required enough people who cared about the same thing, and enough structure to be resilient when volunteer engagement levels fluctuate.

For those of us building adoptee communities in smaller cities or from scratch, every organisation you admire was once a few people people in a room who weren't sure if anyone else would show up. I'm foreshadowing some future insights from other organisations but what separates the ones that endured is rarely resources. It's almost always intention and clarity of the organisational mission and purpose.