More Perfect Union

If you believe in making genuine connections with people you might never have met through meaningful conversations — you're in the right place. More Perfect Union ( MPU) is a nonprofit whose mission is to build meaningful connections and close divides throughout the country. We create community engagement through our Brickyards based on our core values of Service, Mercy, Hope, Humility, Virtue, and Courage. Veteran-led, we train local service-minded leaders to build a foundation on leadership development, service, and civic education. We can accomplish more united than divided, and we need to meet our neighbors, serve and break bread together, and talk through the hard discussions to reach common ground for each other, our community, and our country. Join the movement to be a part of our future events and how we're growing at the link here: https://lnkd.in/eyVNMaC5 👈

Words from our Founder, Jake Harriman. Join a chapter: https://www.mpu.us/#join Start a coffee club: https://lnkd.in/enrkRMeW

This is a pivotal moment for our nation. We have a choice to define ourselves by hope and unity rather than fear and division. It's a call to action for leaders at all levels - not just those in high positions, but all of us - to step forward and unite our country. I am excited to share this incredible message with General Stan McChrystal for all Americans on behalf of More Perfect Union. For such a time as this, we need leaders now more than ever. We need you.

We are proud that our firm's leadership continues to stand for the values and principles they believe in. Stan McChrystal has been a vocal advocate in the fight for democracy in America and recently lent his voice to the More Perfect Union movement and the ideals the organization stands for, namely strengthening our communities and healing the country by creating meaningful connections through service and leadership. Thank you to Jake Harriman & Garrett Cathcart for providing the opportunity to speak on these important issues and the impactful work you and your team are doing every day.

We are living in an important moment for America. We have the opportunity right now to define who we want to be moving forward. Will we as a people be defined by hate, fear and violence, or will we rise to the occasion and show the world that the idea of America is still a powerful symbol of hope for what can be? This is a time for leaders to lead. I recently sat down with Stan McChrystal and John Brennan to discuss the role that leaders must play to help unite the country during this extraordinary moment. The conversation was part of our 2024 More Perfect Union Fellowship, and given this weekend's events, their message is an important one to share with you today. It’s a call for leaders at all levels across the country to step forward and unite our people. Please share this widely and add your own powerful voice to the message. This is not a time just for senior leaders to speak. All of us must step forward and speak into this moment to ensure the survival of this powerful idea we all love. Speak to your team, your friends, your family, your community. You are leaders. Use your platform to speak with grace, truth and courage. Let’s remind one another about who we are. We are not, nor have we ever been, perfect, but we are a people defined by our yearning and our striving to be better…our striving to be a more perfect union. We are a free people defined by possibility and courageous hope. Let’s show the world who we are. We are Americans. Let your voice be heard today. https://lnkd.in/erY_b8Q7

💜 A week after our annual Fellowship, Dairyland Brickyard Captain Naiomi L. represented MPU at the 2024 Braver Angels National Conference weekend. ❤️ More than 750 people from all around America ventured to Kenosha, WI, who were of red, blue, and purple parties, to stress the importance of political equality, the urgent need for conversations, and how pluralism is a foundational value in the U.S. Naiomi shares her observations on how blind spots exist on both sides but work best together: "Conservatives value the past. Progressives work for the future. Together create wholeness." 💙 Braver Angels is launching an American Hope Campaign, focusing on doing what's needed regardless of the election result, such as choosing to love your neighbor even if they are political opposites. "Civility is defined as an inner desire to do good to your opponents," she notes. "Bridging is defined as deepening friendships, even if it means engaging every day with those who threaten you and those you love." By embracing this tension, we walk toward a new way of being. "Democrat and Republican, Independents, academic and business, faith and atheist, young and old, different races and ethnic heritages. Authors and artists. Musicians and journalists. Student leaders," Naiomi says. "It was encouraging and hopeful to see all these Americans being and talking together, putting relationship first and politics in the background—while advancing solutions together to national issues." 🧱 Thank you for engaging with Americans from all walks of life and being a conduit for positive change and conversation, Naiomi! Check out the Braver Angels 2024 video, where the photos are from: https://lnkd.in/eMhPNdFQ #BrickbyBrick #MPUBrickyard #Community #Connections #MPUDairyland #DairylandBrickyard #DisagreeBetter

🎇 If there was ever a day to host a BBQ block party, the Fourth of July is a top contender! Last week, South Bend Brickyard Captain Sara Hunold brought the grill to her neighborhood's annual fireworks show celebration! She said it was the perfect opportunity not just to be a friendly face but to actually get to know the people living by her and her family. 🍖 Over 50 people came together to light up the sky, eat and chat, and hear each other's stories and how they had decided to settle down where they were. Sara said this was one of the first times she got to really know many of them, and it was meaningful to even just meet the parents of the kids their kids play with. She learned that some of her neighbors were also veterans and that one family immigrated to America as refugees in the 90s from Bosnia and has since grown strong roots in the Bosnian community in South Bend. 🏘️ "People often say the quality of America can be seen in the quality of our neighborhoods and that good neighbors make a huge difference in the quality of life," she says. "Neighborly leadership asks us to connect with the people who are physically closest to us and build bonds with the people who truly impact the quality of life and America." #BrickbyBrick #MPUBrickyard #Community #Connections #MPUSouthBend #SouthBendBrickyard #FourthofJuly #DisagreeBetter

🕵️ Where have our Veteran leaders been in the first half of this year? All over the country! 🚵 Executive Director Garrett Cathcart flew to the University of Montana to speak at its Democracy Summit's "Answering the Call: How Veterans are Leading in their Communities to Build Relationships and Trust" event. The ROTC program, and representatives of the Max S. Baucus Institute and The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana attended. 🎸 Director of Rural Initiatives Brian J. Von Herbulis ventured to Houston, TX, for VESTFEST 2024, hosted by Combined Arms. It was a celebration of veterans and community in style: 20 Veteran organizations, Veteran-owned food trucks, live music performances, and endless fun for veterans and their families. 🛫 Director of Programs Mary L. Tobin jetted around! She attended the Institute of Politics at University of Chicago "Bridging the Divide" conference, moderated the "Breaking Barriers" Fireside Chat for The Mission Continues' Women Veterans Leadership Program (where nearly 70 newly trained women Veteran leaders who are ready to lead and serve their communities with confidence, commitment, and excellence), and took the stage at the We the Veterans and Military Families Flag Day Convening! "I've met a former Governor, a few Senators, award-winning journalists, scholars, nonprofit leaders, policy analysts, and students, ALL trying to learn how to work together to make our country less divided, stronger, and closer to our democratic ideals," she says about the conference. #BrickbyBrick #MPUBrickyard #Community #DisagreeBetter

🕊️ It's easy to become cynical. It takes courage to remain hopeful. This core value underpins the very foundation of our organization and everything we do. We operate through our volunteer and service projects, leadership enrichment, voter empowerment, civic education, and the simple yet powerful act of sitting down to talk and leading with action afterward at our social gatherings. Every member and leader in More Perfect Union inherently carries the hope that we can and will be better. And this is precisely why we hold an annual fellowship every year: to reignite the spark—the hope—that we all move forward together.

🏔️ Every year, it builds up to this. This is the moment that revitalizes the spirit of hope within our communities and across our nation. Of the numerous applicants who applied for our 2024 Fellowship, 15 have made it through a transformative weekend and will now lead a Brickyard Chapter in their area. 🌠 Once again, please give the warmest welcome to our 2024 cohort! Thank you all for such a riveting weekend of hard-hitting questions, charismatic speakers (Rukaiyah Adams, Whitley Yates, Jen Easterly, Dale King), and active listening. You've all shown a necessary and intentional vulnerability that will propel us to keep fighting for collective change that will empower our communities. We wouldn't have wanted to do such leadership training with anyone else amid one of the best views of the Montana mountains. We're beyond honored to say it's because of all the outstanding people who champion our mission to bring people together through service events, civics (i.e., knowing your rights as a voter), and social gatherings. Stay tuned for our rollout of these newly minted Brickyard Leaders and their chapters! Roxanne Shepherd Rebecca Kern 🟡🟢 Rebecca Connell Nick Horton Melissa Sims, Ph.D. Lyndsey Meyer Lawrence Tuider Jr. Josh Wheeldon Janett I. Cordovés, Ed.D. Jaquennette Harris Gabrielle Newell, M.Sc. Paul Tiede Matthew Taylor Christopher Legier Dee clancy #BrickbyBrick #MPUBrickyard #Community #2024MPUFellowship #MPUFellowship #Fellowship