Rico X has worked with young people throughout his career and recently was named the chief mission delivery officer of the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee.
From 2013 to 2023, he worked at the YMCA of Middle Tennessee, where he managed all of the before- and after-school and school-based programming in the region.
“I worked in the youth development space in some capacity for nearly 25 years,” X said. “So being with the Girl Scouts is familiar territory for me.”
X returned to his roots of youth development work after a brief stunt in re-entry work, which got him closer connected to the homelessness and housing sectors. A couple of years ago, he joined the Homelessness Planning Council (HPC), a community board that oversees the collaborative work of community stakeholders that come together to address homelessness in Davidson County. And this summer, his peers elected him to serve as the HPC chair.
What does a Chief Mission Delivery Officer do?
It’s a fancy title for being a running point on the programming of the Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee. There are three primary areas where I have oversight:
First is what we call the girl experience. It’s our year-round programming; it’s our camps; we have a teen leadership council, etc. So, it’s all programmatic elements of the Girl Scouts.
Another huge component is our recruitment effort, the work that we do with our schools, as well as the work that we do to recruit volunteer and troop leaders. [This includes] the level of support that we give them in the day-to-day work that they do. Without our volunteers, we really couldn’t do what we do. So, that’s a huge component.
And the third major bucket of what I manage is the product programs. Essentially the product program is our Fall Product and of course our Cookie Program.
We operate in 39 counties, and we serve nearly 11,000 girls. I’m a little over two months into it now, and it’s been an incredible ride thus far. Obviously, I’m still getting myself up to speed, but it’s very meaningful work. The ways in which we are creating meaningful experiences for our young ladies and giving them a chance to learn and grow and explore, it’s been a really good fit for me.
On your LinkedIn profile you describe yourself as an “Organizational Leader, Collaborator, Disruptor.” What does it mean to you to be a disruptor?
Interestingly enough, a lot of times when someone sees the moniker “disruptor,” a lot of people look at that as a negative thing. But in essence, a disruptor is someone that can go into a situation and provide some out-of-the-box thinking. Sometimes structures and systems need to be disrupted in a positive way.
For me, the disruptor [manifests] in spaces that I go into and ask, “How can I be a part of shifting thinking or shifting systems that creates a stronger outcome?” Sometimes I’m successful with that. Sometimes I’m not. But that’s the role of being a disruptor. It is to figure out how you, as an individual and through work with others, can be a force that positively changes or alters a system or a structure or a program for the better.
With DEI programs being shut down everywhere. What is your advice to organizations who fight inequity?
It’s challenging and during uncertain times — for leaders in particular — it is okay to lead with vulnerability. That’s a quality that a lot of people think is a weakness, but in essence, I think that people feel more compelled and drawn to [leaders that show vulnerability].
On a broader level, this period is really going to force people to think about how they can move forward in more collaborative ways. Every organization has their own superpower or their thing. And [when] we can find additional ways in which we complement one another programmatically or organizationally, that’s important.
Specifically to the question of DEI, a lot of the conversations that I’ve had with people in this space, there is definitely a resolve that, “ Hey, you know, for the purposes of securing my funding, I may have to change the nomenclature or change the wording of how we do certain things, but I’m still going to figure out how to do the work.” Some people may view that as a cop out, but at the end of the day, if it’s changing some language but still doing the work, I think a lot of people are opting that direction because the work is still so very important. We just have to be creative.
So when you think about [it], even in our school system, they’re still doing a lot of great things. They’ve just changed the name of the program so that it doesn’t necessarily implicate DEI, but ultimately the spirit of the work is still being done in creative ways.
With funding cuts looming for nonprofits — whether through the sunset of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars or through federal and state policy changes — what is your advice for nonprofit leaders who are facing loss of funding?
Every organization, my hope is that they are having proactive conversations. Now is definitely the time to be proactive and to really make some determinations on what sustainability looks like. Unfortunately there are a lot of organizations that have to make tough decisions.
My advice from a leadership perspective is that in making those tough decisions, just giving yourself grace. If that means that you have to cut some positions, but you still have to figure out how to keep the mission moving forward, then that’s just what we have to do. I mean the reality is that you can’t have a mission without a budget.
Organizations [will need to] think creatively and proactively in terms of sustainability, contingency planning, that sort of thing. I saw something a few months ago where I think nonprofits in Nashville are set to lose about $1.5 billion. When you think about the implications of the federal cuts that are happening, I mean, that’s a huge gap, and it’s inevitably forcing people to think internally about what sustainability looks like. But then also, what are some ways in which we can partner and work together better? Ultimately, the latter in terms of different partnerships that’s going to be the only way in which we are able to weather this particular storm. [It is about] finding ways in which we can pull our resources together.
You have been selected as the new chair of the Homelessness Planning Council (HPC). In the current climate where federal funding is unclear, what is your vision in this leadership position? What would you like to achieve here at the local level?
I want to do a broader convening that is specific to the funding landscape. I want to bring together organizational leaders that either directly or indirectly touch some element of the issue of homelessness. And really just have a broader facilitated conversation about A) the ways in which we can collaborate better, and B) really thinking about or doing some foundational work on what some contingency plans look like.
There’s a proposal to cut HUD funding [significantly]. So what does that look like? I want to have a broader convening, or even a series of convenings, that allow us to have those broader conversations. I do think that it’s going to be very important as part of those conversations to lean in a little bit more with the business community, to lean in a little bit more intentionally with the philanthropic community, to lean in a little bit more with our faith-based community and make those intentional connections. There are so many churches, for instance, that do work on their own but may not necessarily be fully plugged into the ecosystem of this work or looking at it in the broader context.
So, one of the things that I’m keyed in on right now is leveraging the HPC as a convener of broader organizations that are doing this work and making sure that we’re having the very intentional conversations on what sustainability looks like and really pushing the business community and the philanthropic community to walk alongside of us in meaningful ways.
There is definitely room for improvement when it comes to the ways in which we do the work with the government funded aspect, whether it be with the federal [funding] that flows through Metro, but quite frankly, there’s been too much emphasis and too much ire that’s been placed on the work that is being funded from a governmental aspect. It’s an important component, but it’s not the only component.
For me, we’re really going to have to lean in harder with these other entities that are part of our community. The business community is very much a part of this equation. When you think about workforce development and job opportunities, that’s a component of homelessness. How can we close some of those gaps? And certainly when we talk about the philanthropic community, they’re being hit from all different angles because it’s not just homelessness funding that is being cut. It’s across the board.
All that to say that a key element of what I want to do is to make sure that we’re having very open, transparent, and intentional conversations on what sustainability looks like. I mean we are 10 months into this administration and we’re seeing all these cuts. So, we can either continue business as usual, or we’ve got to drill down and be very intentional about contingency plans because I think that it is very clear that the issue of homelessness is something that is becoming increasingly criminalized. It is something that is definitely very much on the chopping block when it comes to funding priorities. So we’ve got to move accordingly and find alternative ways in which we can still get the work done, even if it means that there is reduced funding. So that’s very heavy on my mind these days.