Ben Goodwin

Interviewee: Ben Goodwin (Arkansas & New College 2001) [hereafter ‘BG’] 

Moderator:  Jamie Byron Geller [hereafter ‘JBG’]  

Date of interview: 10 October 2024 

[file begins 00:06] 

JBG: This is Jamie Byron Geller on behalf of the Rhodes Trust, and I am here with Ben Goodwin (Arkansas & New College 2001) to record Ben’s Rhodes Scholar oral history interview, which will help us to launch the first ever comprehensive Rhodes Scholar oral history project. Today’s date is 10 October 2024, and we are so grateful to you, Ben, for joining us in this project. Before we dive in, would you mind saying your full name for the recording, please? 

BG: Sure. I’m Ben Goodwin. 

JBG: And do I have your permission to record audio and video for this interview? 

BG: Yes. 

JBG: Thank you. So, Ben, we’re having this conversation on Zoom, but where are you joining from? 

BG: I am in my office on the campus of Our House here in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

JBG: And is Little Rock home? 

BG: Yes, I’ve lived in Little Rock for 15 years now.  

JBG: Wonderful. And as we move through our conversation, we’d love to know more about your work at Our House, but first, going all the way back to the beginning, would you mind sharing when and where you were born?  

BG: Sure. I was born in Arkansas and raised in Central Arkansas, a town called Conway that’s not too far from Little Rock, but it is a different town, and it’s also where I went to college, Hendrix College in Arkansas. Yes, so, I’m an Arkansan, born and raised, all my family is from Arkansas, going back several generations. 

JBG: And what was your childhood like in Conway? What stands out when you reflect on that time in your life? 

BG: I had a great childhood, a great family, very supportive, great community. Just, you know, I was very invested in by my parents and by my community and looking back, it was very idyllic. I was very fortunate and privileged to have such a nice childhood. 

JBG: Do you have siblings? 

BG: I do. I have one sister, and we’re still a big part of each other’s lives. She actually lives in the neighbourhood with me, and yes, I think she would probably agree that we had a great childhood, very supportive, very smalltown environment where everyone, kind of, knew each other and supported each other, in mostly healthy and positive ways. 

JBG: And I’d love to know a little bit about your earliest educational experiences, those elementary and then high school experiences, what that looked like. 

BG: Sure. Both of my parents were the first in their generation to go to college and for both of them, education was really important. My mother was actually an elementary school teacher at the school where I went and my father, he was actually a computer programmer, kind of, the first generation of people who had that job. But, you know, he’s very interested and curious about the world and also believed in the power of education to open up new horizons and opportunities for people and so, I soaked up that, you know, from my parents from a young age and it still sticks with me today, roughly.  

JBG: And were there particular subjects that you gravitated towards in elementary or high school? 

BG: I don’t know, I mean, I always had maybe an above average, sort of, aptitude in math, and so, that, you know, came relatively easy to me, and I’ve always also thought it was really interesting. Science: my father and I connected on that. We both were just interested in the natural world and then exploration of, you know, the cosmos and the seas and our environment here on earth, a better understanding of reality. And then, I was also an avid reader, probably picked that up from my mom and my dad, and just, you know, read a lot of novels, read a lot of nonfiction, and learned a lot about the world that way before the internet. That’s how you learned about things was, you read books about them. 

JBG: Great. And then, what inspired you to go to Hendrix? What drew you to Hendrix? 

BG: I think it had a little bit of that smalltown feel. You know, this is, sort of, in hindsight. I’m not sure I was conscious of this at the time. But, you know, it’s a very small, liberal arts school, it felt like a small community. It wasn’t far from my home, you know, and so, I had maybe not fully realised all my adventurous streak at that point, but it felt, you know, comfortable. It felt like a good fit for me, and it turned out to be a very, very great experience for me. And, you know, the ability to learn lots of different things, that, sort of, liberal arts mindset, that was a huge appeal. All the schools I applied to were liberal arts schools. I never really knew what I wanted to do or, you know, never thought I wanted to be exactly a doctor or exactly a lawyer or anything, just, kind of, wanted to find my way, so, liberal arts seemed aligned with that. And then also, the community aspect of it was really, you know, key and really important to my, sort of, positive experience in college and, you know, I met all kinds of lifelong friends there, met my wife there, and definitely found, you know, kindred spirits of all kinds in that environment where we, kind of, learned together and grew together and figured out how our adulthood would get started together. 

JBG: Lovely. And what was your major? 

BG: I was a math major in college, at Hendrix. 

JBG: And did you have a sense of what you aspired for with regards to your career after college, what you hoped to do with your degree? 

BG: I didn’t. Just, you know, that same, sort of, trying to be open to possibilities and also not being sure of what my path was going to be continued into college, and as I started thinking about what I would do after college, I honestly didn’t spend enough time thinking about it. It stressed my parents out. You know, compared to my father, just a very different mindset, because he grew up basically in poverty and was the first in his family to go to college and he knew that he needed to find a career that would, you know, help support a middle-class lifestyle for himself, so he could live a more prosperous life than he had grown up in. And I just, kind of, had the privilege, I guess, of not having that specific motivation, or at least it not being at the forefront of my mind and really wanting to find a life of meaning and fulfilment, I think would be a better way to put it. That was, kind of, my objective: ‘How do I find a life that feels meaningful, feels fulfilling, feels like what I’m doing makes a difference, and also feels like it’s the right fit for me?’ So, a little bit more picky, I guess. 

JBG: And at what point when you were at Hendrix did you start thinking about the Rhodes Scholarship? What inspired that? 

BG: Well, I definitely never would have given it one thought if I hadn’t been introduced to the idea by John Churchill (Arkansas & New College 1971), who was our dean of students, who was a Rhodes Scholar himself. And I knew that about him, but I honestly never gave one thought that maybe it was something I could qualify for until he reached out to me and a few other folks, I believe it was when I was a senior. I mean, I knew him for several years, but in senior year – maybe it was the tail end of junior year. I can’t quite recall – he reached out to me and several other folks, students who he thought might be, you know, potentially a candidate for the Rhodes or the Marshall or, you know, some of the other prestigious scholarship programmes, and wanted to, kind of, help us think through whether to apply for those, what that might look like, and if we were going to apply to, kind of, you know, get prepared or at least thinking about it, oriented towards it. And so, he had, like, a breakfast group [10:00] for us and we met several times over several months, and I actually think it did go from junior year into senior year, because it went on for a while.  

And, you know, the whole time, it honestly never crossed my mind that, ‘Hey, I might actually get one of these scholarships!’ That just seemed like a cool thing in itself, to go to breakfast with John and these other, you know, bright students at Hendrix, and talk about interesting topics and think about-, really, in hindsight, I was, kind of, thinking about leadership. You know, it was, like, ‘If you get asked, what’s your opinion on this topic?’ or, ‘What do you think should be done about X or Y?’ You know, it’s very tempting to just, kind of, respond and say what your, sort of, gut reaction is or sometimes, forgive the language, but it’s tempting to just, kind of, BS your way through it and, you know, pretend you know something that you may not fully understand, but to get challenged on that and to get challenged in the specific way of, like, ‘Well, you know, if you’re saying we should do X, what about Y? What about this other perspective you hadn’t thought of, and would you be able to explain to someone the difference there?’  

And I guess, you know, the drift of those conversations helped me immensely in hindsight, because it was really a leadership question. Like, these things aren’t easy. You know, like, any of the big topics of our day, there are not easy answers for them, and you’re deluding yourself if you think there are. The mark of a good leader is somebody who realises they’re not easy but nevertheless doesn’t back down from engaging and trying to figure it out. And so, that was, sort of, in hindsight, the way I think those conversations really helped me and would have helped me even if I hadn’t gone on to get the Rhodes, to be part of this programme, but just helped me, kind of, orient towards that, you know, like, ‘Hey, the way I think about important issues, maybe it might actually matter to somebody, and therefore, I need to not, you know, take it lightly. I need to be thoughtful about it and recognise that it affects different people in different ways, and that I need to be ready to talk about things at a, you know, higher level of enlightened leadership. 

JBG: That’s a really, really lovely reflection. And so, it sounds like this was all in these working breakfast with John Churchill. And I’m curious if, as you were going through the Rhodes process, you recall the moment of learning that you were selected for the Scholarship. 

BG: Oh, yes, very, very distinctly, and it was, on the 48th floor of a high-rise in Atlanta and just a really nice law firm where we had spent the day, you know, interviewing and, I guess, the night before as well. You know, we’d come in the night before, we’d had the cocktail party, met all the candidates and all the interviewers, And, you know, I just felt like, however many people were in that process, we were all-, like, very single one of them was Rhodes material, or better. And as I met them and interacted with them, I became more and more sure that it was definitely not going to be me, and honestly, I think that helped me, because I just had no, sort of, like, stress about it.  

It was, like, ‘Oh, what a great experience for its own sake, and I will just enjoy this, meet people, make some connections,’ and the burden of, like, trying to actually get the Scholarship felt lifted. And so, then, at that moment, we’re all literally standing together and they read my name – I think I was the last of the four – like, it just felt completely unreal. And, you know, I honestly had this feeling, like, ‘That can’t be right,’ and I remember thinking the people around me, maybe they were thinking that too, like, ‘Not him. Truly.’ And anyway, but it was very, you know, humbling. It just felt like a dream, really, being in the lofty heights of that building with all these amazing people and hearing my name called, and just that sense of disbelief, I think, was something I’ll never forget. 

JBG: That’s lovely. Thank you for sharing that. And so, then you set off for Oxford in the fall of 2001. 

BG: Yes.  

JBG: Yes. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that experience? 

BG: It was very interesting times. You know, personally, it was already feeling like it was going to be a great adventure into the unknown and it was exciting to think about, you know, going to another country and studying in just a world-renowned institution as a part of the Rhodes programme, with all these amazing people. It still felt pretty surreal in many ways, but also really exciting. And then, I think we were scheduled to have our Bon Voyage weekend and then fly out from Washington, like, the week of 11 September, so, a few days after that. And so, that’s what made it, you know, extra-surreal. You know, the timing was remarkable, because we were just about to go to England. We were thinking about, you know, maybe not clearly in these terms but, sort of, in a programme that is meant to develop leaders, that’s meant to, you know, help boost the opportunities of people to step into positions of influence in different fields, and then, the moment we’re about to do that, the world just gets, kind of, thrown a huge curveball, a huge challenge, our country was, you know, still on this huge challenge we all had to come to grips with.  

Then, you know, our Bon Voyage weekend got rescheduled by a couple of days, but it was still, like, September. I can’t remember the date. 20 September or something is when we actually went to Washington and so, you know, still a new world, it felt like we were tin, and were in Washington, DC where it felt like, sort of, the epicentre of digesting and processing what this new world would be and how it would affect all our lives. And being part of the Bon Voyage weekend at that time was really another amazing, incredible experience, you know, all the different events where we were able to network with former Scholars, and Washington, DC. You know, it was, like, bringing all these amazing perspectives from people in positions of power and influence and leadership from different parts of our government and other sectors of our society and how they were processing this and how they were responding.  

And so, you know, the conversations, I don’t know what they would have been like otherwise, but in this specific situation, they were just very poignant, very interesting, enlightening, insightful, and sobering too, you know, because it’s like, ‘Wow, these people who have been through something that we’ve been through before now have having clearly-,’ and I could see, sort of, first-hand how they were having to deal with real challenges in the world, how they were having to stay flexible, stay nimble, how they were having to think outside the box, how they were having to, you know, just deal with the unexpected, work together with other people and let their voice be heard when there’s disagreement, that kind of things. So, you know, it was seeing leadership in action and then knowing that we were, sort of, being groomed, in some ways, to be potentially in positions of leadership like that at some point in the future was really-, you know, I don’t want to use a positive adjective for that, but it was a remarkable experience. 

JBG: Wow. And so, then you arrive in Oxford in late September 2001, and did you live in New College that first year? [20:00] 

BG: Yes, I lived in. I was at New College. I lived in student housing the whole time. It was brand new, beautiful student housing that was on the sports grounds of New College and it was, like, another thing I was very fortunate about. It was a very nice place to live. 

JBG: And what did you read at Oxford? 

BG: Well, I had gone there with the intent, and I enrolled in, a DPhil mathematics programme, and that’s what I started. But a few weeks in, I made a big life decision that that was not the right path for me, and so, I changed my degree programme, and I was very grateful that the Rhodes programme, sort of, allowed me to come to that kind of decision and still left me with some options. And so, I guess, you know, in hindsight-, I talked earlier about wanting to keep my options open as much as possible so I could, sort of, find the right fit for myself that would help me be most fulfilled in my career, and I really think the decision to start a PhD programme in math was just premature, basically. It was narrowing my options too much and to too significant a degree. Like, I just couldn’t see any connections between that to anything else. It felt like, you know, ‘I’m going to become a mathematician now, and that’s the decision that I’ve now made,’ and I felt like I hadn’t made that decision in the right way and it wasn’t the right one for me, at least at that time. And so, I needed to keep my options broader in this moment of, like, uncertainty in the world, in this moment of uncertainty in my own life. I needed to not just pigeonhole myself.  

The, sort of, feeling that I described, like, to my family and friends was, like, the walls closing in, you know? And I just felt like, ‘The walls are closing in, and I’ll be studying something that will only make sense to a handful of people in the world and might not really make much difference to anyone.’ And the other mantra was, ‘I need to be involved in the real world,’ and, you know, it, sort of, became clear to me that that was the way I wanted to have meaning and fulfilment in my life and career, is something that has a positive impact on the real world. And again, in that moment when sometimes it felt like the world was falling apart, you know, right after 11 September and our country was going to war and there were all kinds of, sort of, dark clouds, and the experience of interacting with the other Rhodes Scholars from around the world, really, once I got to Oxford, just helped me see that, ‘Hey, there are challenges out there in the world that I need to not, sort of, ignore. I still don’t know the right place for me to engage but I need to find my path to making an impact in the real world.’  

And so, that’s very long-winded, but the specific programme that felt like the right fit for me at the time and I was thankful I was able to transfer into was a second BA in philosophy, politics and economics, and that helped me. It felt like a great place to learn about, you know, politics and economics at least, in particular, which are very related to the real world, very relevant to what was going on in the world at that time, and to learn about them in England, at Oxford, just felt like a tremendous opportunity. And so, in hindsight, I’m really glad I did that, and it just helped me, you know, broaden my horizons a little bit more but also hone in on some of the specific ways that I thought that, you know, I could make an impact. [discussion of technical issues 24:38-24:53] 

JBG: I have a couple more questions about your time in Oxford, but I really am inspired by what you said about needing to be involved in the real world, and I’m curious if, when you were at Oxford, you had a vision for what you expected that might look like for your career or if, as you said before, you were thinking about a degree that would really help to keep your options open to several different opportunities or paths.  

BG: It’s more the latter. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, and it took a few more, sort of, twists and turns in my life to find the right fit, which I do feel like I’ve found now. But during my time at Oxford, you know, my studies helped me learn more about the world and myself, but also, my interactions with other people there obviously were really key to that. My travels: that was one of the greatest things about the time in Oxford, the ability to, you know, travel around Europe, travel around – I got to North Africa a few times – and just see more of the world. I hadn’t seen much of the world at that point. And so, yes, I think my time at Oxford really was time really well spent learning a lot about the world and a lot more about myself, that when the time was right for the opportunities that would really be the right fit for me to show up, I was more prepared to jump on them. 

JBG: And so, you completed your studies in PPE in 2003, is that right? 

BG: Yes. 

JBG: And did you move back to Arkansas at that time?  

BG: Yes, I did. I think I spent the following summer still travelling, in France, and we weren’t married at that point, but my now wife Elizabeth was with me and we worked on a farm in France. So, that was very much getting involved in the real world, you know, in a very tangible way, and also, it was a great way to travel, because we weren’t just tourists. We were engaging with real people doing real things, and so, that was great. But yes, then, after that summer, we moved back to Central Arkansas, and I’ve basically been here ever since.  

JBG: And what did those earliest years of your career look like, those first few years? 

BG: Well, honestly, still just trying to find my way. I tried different things. I worked as a researcher in the local teaching hospital and I was able to use some of my quantitative skills there to, you know, help conduct some research and start some spin-off small businesses in the healthcare sector. And so, I, kind of, knew that wasn’t, like, my life’s passion, but it was also working with really interesting people that were doing cool things and I learned a lot about how to make things happen, would be one way to put it, from being around people who knew how to make things happen and who had energy for that. But then, the other thing is that my wife and I really had this vision of starting our own farm, and we did, and so, that was another thing that, you know, really was activating for us and exciting for us and we were pretty successful at for about a year.  

And then we had a personal challenge when our daughter was born really early and she just needed to be-, we just couldn’t juggle having a farm that needed, like, 12 hours of work a day way down a country road and having a child in the NICU in the big city for six months. And so, long story short, fate intervened and we were not able to-, the way I put it, in a positive light, which is really how I think of it, is that fate intervened or God intervened, however you look at it, and showed us that we had a different destiny and showed us at the perfect time before our farm was, you know, able to be unsuccessful. So, we experienced nothing but success [30:00] and so, all our memories of it are, you know, really positive, but that’s not really the way it always is for farmers, as you know, as most people know. But we got a taste of it, we scratched that itch. And then we also were, you know, so grateful and so fortunate that our daughter Ruby was able to come through some really significant health challenges and was able to, you know, not just get out of the hospital but really just thrive, and now she’s turned 15 and she’s learning how to drive and she’s in high school and she’s doing all kinds of amazing stuff.  

JBG: Oh, my goodness.  

BG: So, those are some of the things that I tried. Another thing I tried is – and I’m getting them a little out of order – I worked for Southern Bancorp, which was a CDFI community investment bank, that is a really neat thing that has a Rhodes connection. Bill Clinton (Arkansas & University 1968) was one of its founding board members. He was inspired by the Grameen Bank from India and its, sort of, lending circles concept, and in the 1980s, as governor of Arkansas, he helped to get it started and it grew in all kinds of ways beyond that initial concept. And so, I worked there for three years, including the time we were at the farm. I was, kind of, a pioneer in the whole, like, remote work-from-home thing.  

So, I’d work on the farm and then at night, I’d work for them, and that taught me a lot about, you know, vision casting, like, we were working with small communities, like, ‘What’s your vision? What are your big dreams? And then, what are your intermediate dreams? And then, what are your short-term steps we can take to get there?’ And then actually going off and doing that and raising the money to do it, overcoming the obstacles, doing that, kind of, at scale, in some many different communities in many different areas of, you know, like, economic investment, building community facilities, building cultural amenities, supporting educational initiatives, all these different areas that are important to small towns in Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta region. We helped them, you know, figure out a plan and then diligently work a plan to achieve those objectives. And so, that was a great experience. It was another thing that, kind of, prepared me for success when I got the opportunity to work here at Our House. 

JBG: That’s really lovely. And so, you joined the team at Our House, you said, 15 years ago. And what inspired you to do that initially? 

BG: Well, actually, it was at the time when Ruby, our daughter, was in the hospital. And so, we basically had to pull up stakes and move back to the city of Little Rock from a very small town right a ways from Little Rock where our farm was, in order to be there to help Ruby, you know, survive, basically. Very touch-and-go. She had all kinds of health challenges. She, you know, just needed really intensive care, and we honestly didn’t know how it was going to turn out. Like, it was a really scary time. For the first three months, I’d say, it just took all our focus. I wasn’t able to keep writing grants for Southern Bancorp, wasn’t able to drive an hour and a half to the farm, and, you know, our life was wrecked by this, but that was okay, because we were focused on her. But a few months in, when she started to stabilise but still wasn’t able to leave the hospital, we, kind of, started taking stock of our situation and realised that, you know, ‘Hey, even best-case scenario, we don’t need to go back to the farm and be working 12 hours a day. Ruby’s going to need our help.’ And also, you know, more specifically, not just our help but, like, the community’s help. We got a lot of help from the community during that time. people we knew, people we knew only second-hand and even people we didn’t know at all, who helped us in all kinds of ways, gave us places to stay, you know, helped us with food, helped us go check on the farm, helped us, you know, pray for our daughter, all kinds of things that really meant a lot to us. And so, we just needed to be part of a community and so, we were.  

We also needed money because running a start-up farm, you know, was not-, we had put all our money into that, basically, and we needed to, sort of, like, find some stability in a storm. And so, I got a call from the director of Our House, who I’d known before and who I’d actually worked with as a volunteer before. So, I’d helped Our House as a volunteer. I wrote a couple of grants for them. So, I knew what Our House did, and she’d already been supportive and helpful. We’d already connected, but she reached out this time and said, ‘Hey, would you want to come and work at Our House part-time? I know you’ve got a lot going on, but maybe you’re ready to take on a part-time job, and we could use your help.’ And so, it was one of those great opportunities that came just at the right time. I didn’t know how great it was at the time. At the time, I was just thinking, ‘Wow, this will help us, sort of, make ends meet and help be a bridge to, you know, figure out what our next step is.’  

But it was in that time, working at Our House just as a part-time employee for the first year or so, during the time Ruby was in the hospital and after she came home, that it all, kind of, clicked for me that, you know, it was the right place for me. And it was, you know, this experience my family had gone through, Elizabeth and I and Ruby. It was a very challenging experience, and, you know, it could have gone so much worse and it would have gone so much worse if we had not had support from other people. And it’s not that we had the same experience as the families that come through Our House’s programmes, but there are echoes there. There are similarities, you know, so, I connected with the mission in that all people at Our House, the way they supported me and treated me, you know, like they understood what I was going through. That meant a lot. The flexibility that I needed, you know, I found there.  

And then, last but not least, the thing that really sealed it-, Georgia Mjartan was her name, the one who hired me. She was a real visionary. And, you know, at the time, Our House was actually a real small homeless shelter that, four years prior, Georgia had taken over when she was 25 years old and basically pulled it out of the fire. It was really struggling. And she didn’t do that just to keep it, you know, going. She did it because she wanted to make it into something special. And so, I connected with that because that’s, again, sort of, my calling.  

You know, the fulfilment I want is, how can I make a real impact that’s going to, you know, have an impact in the real world, in people’s lives? There are all kinds of challenges. At Our House, you can see them so close and so clear every day here, because you see how they affect people’s lives, but you are also empowered because there’s something you can do about it. And our approach, even 15 years ago, was successful, but Georgia and I both knew it could be more successful and it could be brought to more people. You know, we needed to get bigger to really meet the need. And so, she was inspired to do that. I was inspired, you know, first by her and then in my own right, to do that, and we formed a great team, figuring out ways to do that for the first eight years I was here. And then, when she moved on to another cool opportunity out of state, in 2017, she passed the torch to me and I became the executive director. 

JBG: Wonderful. I’m just reminded of what you said earlier around how part of being a good leader is knowing that the problems that you’re solving are not easy, but not backing away from trying to figure them out. [40:00] I just think that it sounds like the work you and your team do at Our House just models that so beautifully. As you mentioned, I had the opportunity to visit Our House, which was wonderful, and even learn a little bit about your programming and some of the ways that Our House has really grown and expanded the work that it does in recent years, and I was wondering if you would mind sharing a little bit about that. 

BG: Sure. So, the vision here at Our House is how we can help families with children, and individuals, really, anybody who shows up and who’s experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of it, how we can help them transform their lives in a lasting and positive way, so that they can put homelessness permanently in their rearview mirror and can move forward towards their own goals and hopes and dreams and, you know, a fulfilling life for themselves and their children. And so, it’s a big, lofty goal. I think that doing that is one of the most challenging things anybody can do, and it probably exceeds any of the challenges I’ve experienced in my life. So, again, I have the, you know, perspective that it’s actually hard to do that, but it can be done.  

And so, our challenge at Our House is how we can create a context where people have their best chance of doing that, where they have the right resources, the right support, the right encouragement, the right connections, so that they can have their absolute best chance of success. And so, you know, over the years, we’ve added-, we’ve tried to make that context even more suited for that challenge, and so, we have an idea that, as much as possible, we want to bring opportunities to our clients all in, kind of, one spot, so, cut down on the friction or the dead weight loss or the churn, or whatever you want to call it, of trying to make appointments all over town and do different things.  

So, we think one way can do it is just to be as holistic as we can. We know that the families, the challenges that led them to become homeless are not simple, there’s not a quick fix, and so, it takes, you know, a diverse toolkit, if you will, to meet those needs, and then, those tools need to be ready to hand. And so, those tools include housing, so, you know, 165 to 175 people stay here each night. They include childcare. We have a high-quality early childhood education centre for all the kids who live here and many who formerly lived, or many more who have never lived here but we nevertheless are providing childcare and other supports to help them get out of homelessness. We have a workforce training programme, we have mental health services, we have on-site physical health services for adults and children.  

We have case managers who really build a relationship with each family and, I’d say, kind of, ride along with them in the passenger seat while they’re on their journey, helping navigate, helping them share, you know, things that they’ve learned and other similar experiences, helping to encourage and motivate and support, sometimes, literally, often literally in the passenger seat, like going to an important appointment or, you know, going to help overcome some challenge in life. Our case managers go along that journey for up to two years with our families. And so, even after they move our out, or even if they never move in in the first place, that case manager is, kind of, a constant connection point for each family. And there are a lot of other pieces to that puzzle, and we try to stay nimble and flexible.  

The needs of our families change. We’re always, you know, seeing new lives and seeing new needs that need to be met. But at the end of the day, that’s the vision. We’ve grown to be able to serve more than 500 people each day. More than 125 families are engaged in our programme each day, and we’re still growing. We have another growth step carved out over the next two years. We’re going to build some more family housing and, you know, increase that number even further, so that there will be more than 200 people staying here each night. And also, we are, you know, really focused on, what’s the measurable impact of this work? Like, are we actually being successful or not? That’s really important to me from my, sort of, math background, my economics background, you know, from Oxford. And just, again, the fulfilment that I want to have is not just going through the motions, it’s actually having an impact, and so, we’re very focused on measuring the impact of our work and making changes if we need to. The numbers consistently show us we’re on to something here. Last year, 78% of our families were stably housed after 12 months.  

JBG: Wow. 

BG: So, you know, at least in terms of that very important measure, housing, I’m having that life-changing impact. But we also look at report card grades for kids, we look at income and savings for adults. You know, we want to go beyond just housing. Homelessness isn’t just a housing thing, and getting out of it and being successful and overcoming homelessness is not just achieving housing. So, we want to aim as high as we can on that. The last thing I’ll say is that we want to always take an empowering approach in our work and recognise that we can’t do any of this for someone. Our clients are the ones who really, you know, change their lives for the better, and we’re just along for the ride and there to encourage and celebrate their successes. But also, we know that, you know, their experience in our programme matters, and how they see it matters just as much if not more than how we see it, and so, we always want to stay connected and grounded in the experience of our clients.  

And Our House has been recognised nationally for different things. I think we’re maybe one of the most comprehensive programmes for homeless families in the country, but the thing we’ve been recognised the most for nationally is our customer feedback loop, our customer feedback commitment, would be a way to put it. We survey our clients every six months. We collect hundreds of surveys every year. We give all the survey results to a panel of our own clients, and every single comment, every single score, and, you know, let them come up with specific recommendations that they write down and give to us and that we respond to in writing.  

We want to empower them to really, sort of, take ownership and be leaders in shaping what this looks like, because we think that’s the key to our success at the end of the day, wanting our services to be responsive to their needs, and also, we want to, sort of, model the empowerment that we think people can and should have in the world. Their voices should matter, their perspectives should matter. They’ve got things to contribute, as leaders in our society and as, you know, active participants in their communities. And so, you know, we want to start that right her while they’re with us and value their voices while they’re with us and use that valuable feedback to get better at what we do. 

JBG: That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that. What excites you most about your work at Our House, or, perhaps, what do you find most fulfilling about your work at Our House? 

BG: The most fulfilling is-, you know, I can get a certain amount of fulfilment in the way I just described it from, sort of, the numbers and the scope and the scale and the measurable impact, but I think the thing that really keeps me going is the individual stories of people that I get to either hear, or, as much as possible, actually see first-hand. You know, you’ve been here, so, you know that we’re all just, kind of, right here together, our staff and our clients. We’re on one seven-acre campus. There’s a lot of, you know, formal interaction in terms of classes and workshops and things, but there’s a lot more informal interaction, just, kind of, sitting down at lunch together with clients or stopping to chat to someone walking down one of the sidewalks. [50:00]  

So, it’s, sort of, connecting with people who’ve gone through this journey or are at some stage of going through it, and getting excited about their incremental steps towards a better future, getting excited about the big accomplishments, you know, commiserating through the setbacks which inevitably come, connecting, and just, sort of, normal life things. You know, like, so many of the conversations around here are not about getting out of homelessness. They’re just about life. They’re about, you know, a problem you had at work today or what your kids did at school today or just the, sort of, normal bread and butter of American life. You realise there are a lot more similarities than differences.  

We all have a lot in common. We’re all people with similar challenges and we all need help sometimes too. You know, I’m someone who’s benefited from the help of others in all kinds of ways and so, to be in a position where I can help others is a great feeling. And then, to see and, like, hear directly from people that they’re, you know, achieving things in life that are really meaningful to them and they’re making progress towards lifelong goals, they’re turning things around, they’re solving problems that have nagged them for a long time, that’s really motivating for me. And then, you know, when I come back to the office and I’m thinking about the numbers and the big picture, those feed in to motivating me to make that opportunity available to even more people and make us even more successful. You know, the people that aren’t able to be successful are motivating too: you know, what could we have done differently? How could we have provided better support? You know, how could we, again, get a step closer to that vision of providing just the right context where people can be successful and changing their lives? 

JBG: Lovely. Thank you for sharing that. You shared a little bit, Ben, about Elizabeth and Ruby, but I was wondering if you’d like to share any more about your own family.  

BG: Sure. Yes. So, Ruby is 15 now, as I mentioned, and she has a brother, Matthew, who’s nine, and they’re both great kids. And Elizabeth is a great life partner for me. We’ve been married 17 years now and we’re together even longer than that and have just been through all kinds of things together and love each other very much and work together as a team really well. Our kids are great. They have different personalities and they both have amazing gifts, and they’re a joy to be around, helping them, and especially Ruby who is, you know, now in high school, figure out what her life is going to be like. You know, we’re starting to have conversations that feel more like that, although she’s got a long time to figure all that out. But she’s taking steps that matter, you know, like, how you do in high school helps you open up opportunities for college, and just building that, kind of, longer term outlook, is some interesting conversations we’ve been having. We were able to, kind of, recapture a little bit of that other alternate path that we were on in the past year. Last year, we bought a, sort of, weekend getaway cabin near the Buffalo River in Arkansas in this beautiful, natural place that’s really nice, and we’ve been, you know, fixing it up and trying to get there as many weekends as we can and just, you know, spend some time, kind of, reconnecting with the slower pace of life outside of the city. And so, that’s been really good, good for our family and for me too.  

JBG: That’s really great. As we reach the final chapter of our conversation, I would love to ask you a few questions about the Rhodes Scholarship. The first being, what impact would you say that the Rhodes Scholarship had on your life?  

BG: It had a huge impact on my life, so much so, it’s hard to imagine what it would be like otherwise. You know, I described it a little bit earlier, but it just, kind of, opened up whole new horizons for me, seeing the world, meeting amazing people, getting a great education. It was a very challenging education for me, but I learned a lot and I, you know, came out stronger for the challenge. And so, all those opportunities, you know, equipped me with, sort of, skills and strengths that I didn’t have before and that I wound up really needing in order to succeed since I’ve come back from Oxford. 

JBG: Great. And we’ve just celebrated the 120th anniversary of the Scholarship, so, a really great opportunity to reflect on the history and legacy of the Scholarship, which is one of our hopes for the oral history project, but also a really natural opportunity to look ahead to the next chapter of the Rhodes Scholarship, and I would be curious to know what your hopes for the future of the Rhodes Scholarship would be.  

BG: There are, again, many challenges in the world, and a group of bright, gifted young people from around the world that have leadership qualities and that are being brought together in one place for a few years continue to have amazing potential for helping us address some of those challenges. And so, I think the Rhodes already does that to a great degree, you know, realises some of that potential, or a lot of that potential, but I think there is even more to tap into there.  

You know, some of the, sort of, dark clouds on the horizon in our world today involve, sort of, the closing off of different parts of the world. You know, there are places where we’re not trading or not communicating or not engaging in business together and, you know, getting more distant, and a scholarship that brings people together from all over the world could be a countervailing force, you know, to, kind of, help push back against that trend. I think there’s a trend against that that’s-, you know, unfortunately, there’s a trend against, like, liberal democracy and liberal ideas in the world, you know, sort of, the ideas in the Enlightenment of some inalienable truths and rights and dignities of man, and things like that. You know, the people who go through the Rhodes process, I think, tend to be people who are already champions of those ideals, but who could be a great cadre and, you know, unifying force around things that really would be hard to replace if we lost and that are really important to building a strong international community and creating opportunities for people.  

And then, the last thing is – they’re all related of course – and we talked about this when you were here, but, you know, I have a perspective that our country, our world, my community here in Little Rock-, there’s, sort of, a crisis of leadership in our world right now. There are institutions that are really important that are not being well led at, kind of, every level of society right now, and I think there’s even, sort of, a lack of awareness of what it takes to be a good leader, and what a good leader even looks like. And the Rhodes programme has an amazing track record of helping to prepare leaders in all different sectors, all different countries, all different, you know, important areas. And so, you know, I would love to see the Rhodes programme, kind of, double down on that, take responsibility, ownership of that power it has to prepare those leaders and think about how to even magnify that impact, because the world really needs it. [1:00:00] And, you know, the impact is already great, but it could be great and hopefully will be greater if the Rhodes programme, kind of, takes that on as a challenge. 

JBG: And I would be curious to know if you have any advice or words of wisdom that you would share with either today’s Rhodes Scholars or, perhaps, the Rhodes Scholars of tomorrow.  

BG: I don’t know. That’s a group of wise people. I don’t know if they can learn from me. But you know, just, we still have only one life, and I guess, in some ways, there’s a short game and a long game when it comes to leadership, and I think, just, my word of wisdom would be to, kind of, stay focused on the long game. You know, if you’re doing something in the short term that makes good use of your abilities and it’s not that you have a good, sort of, comparative advantage-, like, if you weren’t doing it, it might not be getting done as well, and it’s making the world a little better, it’s helping people in a certain way, then you’re being successful. And I think you know, that’s being a good leader, and in the long run, things like that like that maybe could have the potential to have an even bigger impact than things that maybe get more attention in the short run but, you know, aren’t as long-lasting or don’t go as deep.