Terri Willingham shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Terri, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What do you think is misunderstood about your business?
The Foundation for Community Driven Innovation (FCDI) specializes in experiential learning opportunities for all ages. How that manifests can seem much larger than the sum of its parts, and people sometimes look at the breadth and scope of what we do and say “That’s a lot.” It is a lot, but it’s also just one thing.
Our four major programs: AMRoC Fab Lab, our physical headquarters and learning lab, Equity in Entrepreneurship, and our two annual events, Gulf Coast MakerCon and ROBOTICON, are all focused on the essential capacity-building theme of agency through hands-on learning.
As more people have learned about our work, and found personal fulfillment and success through their participation, and our programs have grown, we’ve also been applying lessons learned along the way. We’re continually refining our offerings based on client feedback, and our own observations and impact results, and bringing in more of what we love to do, as well. Often times – and often overlooked – the best way to inspire the curiosity, interest and engagement necessary for resiliency and agency is to model it.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Terri Willingham and I’m the Executive Director of the Foundation for Community Driven Innovation, a Tampa-based nonprofit that specializes in experiential capacity building. I didn’t start out to be an ED of a nonprofit, but rather a writer, inspired by the sprawling decentralized village of caring adults who raised me, who were either distant elderly relatives, teachers, parents of friends or other unrelated mentors, filling in for family I didn’t have. They provided a valuable transference of knowledge, wisdom and skills, a balance of perspectives to help me understand there are many ways to live and be – lessons I happily later shared with our own children.
Over time, the seed of an idea grew into developing a diverse community center where a new village of mentors could help youth with limited opportunities and in 2018, my husband Steve and I, with our amazing FCDI Board of Directors, launched AMRoC Fab Lab in a public mall, where we now serve hundreds of youth and adults annually.
Today, in AMRoC, when I see people of every background and ability, with all their different operating systems humming, self-directed, focused, happy, engaged, learning, working together intergenerationally – becoming all they can be in the safe and secure Third Place that is AMRoC Fab Lab, I feel the presence of all the people who cared for me when I was young, and it fills me with joy and hope.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who taught you the most about work?
My Great Aunt Mary was one of the most powerful influences in my life. Aunt Mary was a rural Italian immigrant who took me in when I was 4 years old and she was 75. As a 65-year-old grandmother of two now, I even more fully appreciate the strength and energy that commitment must have taken at that stage of her life. She was the eldest of nine siblings who had no more than a 3rd grade education when she was made to leave school and care for her younger sisters and brothers, and help tend the family farm. But she taught me graduate level lessons in citizenship, work ethic, humanitarianism and humility. She ran a popular local produce market, often in friendly (and sometimes not so friendly!) competition with one of her sisters a mile down the road and taught me early on about competitive pricing, rudimentary marketing and sales, inventory management, good customer service and compassion, readily giving food away even when she couldn’t afford to. She knew how to balance work and life before those things became a compound word.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
Life takes time. Be patient with yourself, and don’t rush skills perfection and knowledge acquisition. Despite the messaging that this faster-than-ever-seeming world might suggest, mastery of anything – social and relational skills, communications, arts, trades, business, craft of any type, science, engineering, designing, whatever you love and want to learn – it all takes time to understand and become good at it, and even more time to become great at it. You are not, will never become, and shouldn’t want to be an expert “in no time at all.” The joy of expertise is the time it takes to become an expert, actually – thoughtful, focused, intentional time to explore an idea or skill, to experiment, try, fail, learn and try again until it becomes the thing you intimately understand and appreciate.
And then, I would also say, it’s okay to change your mind, or to move on to the next thing. Don’t get attached to a single idea of who you are and what you believe. Be willing to adapt to new information and changing circumstances. The more things you build expertise in, the more resilient and resistant you can be to changing social and political conditions, and the more easily you can reinvent yourself as needed. Once you decide you’ve “arrived”, you have stopped becoming, which is an essential and joyful part of being.
That’s the whole point of our AMRoC Fab Lab facility and of all our related programs: to give people an accessible, welcoming, inclusive space where they can safely take the time they need to become who they want to be at any stage in their lives.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. How do you differentiate between fads and real foundational shifts?
I think the word “innovation” is overused. Not that I don’t appreciate or value interesting ideas, but I think many things touted as innovative “foundational shifts” today are simply refurbished old ideas or mid-to-late 20th century concepts clothed in the early 21st century parlance of so-called influencers.
I think a good way to differentiate between fads and ideas of real value is by knowing who to listen to and learn from. I’m less interested in hearing from self-proclaimed groundbreakers, influencers and startup funders touting the next big thing, than I am in listening to those who may fly under the radar or take a little more time to articulate their thoughts, but whose ideas have more conceptual and actionable meat on their bones.
The real super nova of ideation erupts not in the harried rush to market but from brewing slowly in the social forum of thought and conversation with fresh minds and voices. That’s where the magic happens, where the real, enduring solutions to life’s challenges are born. At this point in history, we don’t need more widgets, or the next great household product, or another app, or AI solution to problems that don’t exist, or that exacerbate problems that do. We need real solutions to societal challenges like climate change, efficient transportation, strong infrastructure, improved communications tools, resources for scientific endeavors and serious healthcare challenges like COVID and other resurging illnesses.
We’ll recognize and benefit from true foundation solutions when they intentionally and meaningfully address the serious problems that plague us.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you tap dancing to work? Have you been that level of excited at any point in your career? If so, please tell us about those days.
I love going to work! When I walk into AMRoC Fab Lab in the mornings, and snap on the lights, my heart soars with pride and appreciation. I’m proud of what we’ve created for our beloved Tampa community, and appreciative of all of the people and organizations who help make it possible for us to do our Good Work.
I especially love the days at AMRoC Fab Lab when people of all ages are immersed in their moments, lost in the flow of what they’re working on – the Sewing group in quiet conversation as they work on individual projects, the youth robotics program students passing tools back and forth and discussing build or competition needs and strategies, their bursts of laughter, a class going on in the training room, tool and machinery sounds from the shop.
To have created such a safe, happy and productive 3rd Place in our community is a responsibility as well as a gift of an achievement. I’m so grateful to be able to do this in partnership with so many compassionate and caring people and organizations, and I hope we can help bring the concept of inclusive, collaborative, capacity building spaces like AMRoC Fab Lab to more communities.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ffcdi.org and https://amroctampabay.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amrocfablab/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmwillingham/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AMRoCFabLab/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@amrocfablab
