idealist.org

After her near-suicide, former cop Renae Griggs realized that police and their families were suffocating from the job's pressures. She decided to do something about it.

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When I left policing, I had to figure out how this had happened to me. So at 33 I decided to take the big leap and get my bachelors degree. I spent my undergraduate degree studying the police officer's mental health and how it deteriorates during a career. I applied everything I was learning to my own experience and tried to extrapolate, thinking all along, "How can I prevent this from happening to other people?"

As I was about ready to graduate, two incidents broadened my focus. One was that in September 1999 there was a murder-suicide here in Ft. Lauderdale. A police officer killed his 23-year-old wife (they had just gotten married) and then he killed himself. I met that young lady's family and found out there were red flags all over the place with this officer, but nobody addressed them.

While I was trying to figure out how this happened, I watched a movie on Lifetime television that changed my life. It was about a woman whose husband was a police officer that beat the bejesus out of her for years. He was suspected of killing his first wife but never suffered any consequences from that. She had him killed out of fear that he was going to kill her, and was serving a 40-year sentence for it.

"I watched a movie on Lifetime television that changed my life."

As I watched the movie, I realized this was another manifestation of what can happen from police work. In my graduate degree, I began to focus on the broader picture—a systemic lack of any kind of mental support in policing. It's taboo to even talk about it. As I read more case studies on domestic homicide-suicides in policing, I saw the same pattern—huge indications that something was going to happen and a complete disregard by the police department to take action. It became obvious to me: We have to identify what the red flags are and then teach police on the front lines how to recognize them and what to do about them. Then we need to make sure there are resources available for them to do what they need to do.

But no one was addressing the issue holistically. Nobody was saying the culture has to change; nobody was talking about the problem's roots. People were addressing the symptoms, but not what I believed was the real problem. That's when I decided to find a way to make this happen. I stumbled across Echoing Green and said, "Ah ha! That's what I'll do."

I was able to go to John Jay College of Criminal Justice for my masters in forensic psychology and a focus on police psychology because I received a Truman scholarship to pay for it. One of my mentors there, a professor, told me my passion was so contagious that I could sell what I was doing because of it. But I needed to couple that with factual support that would buttress my passion. So she took this raw passion that I had, and she helped me refine it in a way that would better serve me in many situations. You can get away with just riding on your passion and instinct for a time, but at some point—particularly in a position like I'm in now—you have to get a little more strategic. People like that have given me these golden nuggets that were just what I needed to take on the next step. Without these people taking the time to advise me, I'm sure I would've fallen on my face by now.

When you're so focused and you have this vision that you're going to make happen no matter what, you can easily disregard people who you don't feel get it. It's really important to step back sometimes and realize that there are people who may not share your passion and may not even agree with everything you believe, but if they admire and respect what you're trying to do they can give you such valuable advice.

Find out if somebody's already doing it. You get these nonprofits popping up all over the place because someone got this great idea and started this organization addressing a certain problem when there's somebody else next door doing the same thing and competing for the same money. If they would just join efforts it would save everyone a lot of trouble. Talk to as many people as possible who are well-respected in any field that is close to the one you are pursuing, and find out what their thoughts and perspectives are, and what they're doing to address the problem. Yours is probably not the only brilliant mind in the world: Access others' as well.

"Yours is probably not the only brilliant mind in the world: Access others' as well."

Lead by example, particularly in establishing balance in your life. When you're dealing with social entrepreneurs and people who have founded nonprofit organizations there is a danger for imbalance to occur. If we don't really focus on this from the beginning, we will burn out and teach other people bad habits. So many nonprofits hit the skids because of this. We are so driven and we feel such a sense of urgency and then we pass this on to our staff, who may not share our particular sense of urgency—they may want to have a life and they deserve that. If I make a significant change in policing but I've left all these casualties behind in my personal life, it wouldn't be worth it. I think we—the people who lead organizations—are in real danger of leaving people behind.

It was outstanding. There can be a lot of pessimism among police officers, but the hunger with which these officers responded to what we were saying, the enthusiasm and support we got from them was absolutely amazing. Even I was surprised at the level of enthusiasm we encountered. If I had a dime for every time someone said, "It's about time" I could support my organization for the next five years. Of course, there were some administrative snafus, but the actual constituents gave an overwhelmingly positive response.

Without the Echoing Green and Ashoka support, this would have been absolutely impossible. Echoing Green is an incubation program that gave me a fellowship before I even had an organization. It looks at you, sees the potential and says, "You're somebody that we believe can make it happen and we're going to take a risk on you." That does so much for your confidence level. Echoing Green gives you this wonderful and nurturing community that teaches you so much about what it means to be an entrepreneur and how to run the business and all these other fundamentals.

Now I'm with Ashoka, which picks up from there and takes you into the teenage and adult years of your organization. It's been a real privilege and made my life manageable. It's not just about the money. It's about having a community of like-minded people and being able to call someone up that's two years ahead of you in their organization's development and say, "I'm having this problem, have you ever had it and if so what did you do?" The value of that is limitless. And because my administrative costs are covered by these fellowships, I've been able to focus my fundraising efforts exclusively on programs and services.

When I was in my undergraduate program, I was scared because I was 33 and I was going to school with a bunch of 20-somethings. I had been in policing since I was 21, and I didn't know if I could relate to normal people. It was very scary, but I was so embraced by the university's faculty and students. It was an extraordinary experience and definitely one of the key parts of my healing.

To top it all off, I was the valedictorian! In my commencement speech, I really let people see me for the first time in my adult life. I talked about my police experience and what it was like for me to come there. It was very powerfully received—there was a standing ovation and there wasn't a dry eye in the place, and my family was there. For the rest of my life I will cherish that moment because it was so gratifying—for the journey I had been on to culminate in that moment of acceptance, it was just incredible.

"I was in a hotel room somewhere in Tennessee, and he said, 'It's time for me to confess.'"

That would have been enough, but little did I know When we were doing our pilot project, there was this sergeant in the police department who was so enthusiastic and supportive of me, and I really appreciated him. We were exchanging emails about some work and I thanked him for his support. He emailed me back—I'll never forget this, I was in a hotel room somewhere in Tennessee—and he said, "It's time for me to confess."

I read on and he said, "I graduated from business school the same day you graduated. I heard your commencement speech. I was inspired that day to push for change in policing, and I have tried and tried in this department and every time the door has been slammed in my face. When I heard you were coming, I knew things were going to change. You have not disappointed me. All those things that I have worked for these last four years are now beginning to take place."

He also talked about how that speech was the first time he had ever heard anybody talk with such candor and emotion. He decided, that day, he would be part of the change. I had never heard from the guy until this point—I had been sitting across the table from him in meetings and didn't know he had been there that day. That email happened at a time when his administration was really making things difficult and I was beginning to wonder if I'd made the wrong choice for the pilot department. And then I got his email, and I sat on the bed in the hotel and just started crying. I thought, "Oh my God, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."

That was the moment I'm most proud of, because it started with the courage I needed to give that speech: He could help me measure me against myself. I made promises in that commencement speech, but was that just empty rhetoric? For that guy to say what he did, I knew it wasn't. You don't reach out to somebody and give them hope and then not follow through. That's the worst thing you can possibly do for someone who is hopeless. So that experience was magical.

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