January 13, 2017 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Access means everything to people working in the White House, and Michael Smith vividly remembers how President Barack Obama demonstrated the depth of his commitment to My Brother’s Keeper.
The president tapped Mr. Smith in 2014 to lead the new program, an effort to improve the lives of boys and young men of color. He says his team’s monthly meetings with Mr. Obama were conducted with as much rigor and seriousness as anything else going on in the Oval Office.
“There have been so many times we’ve gone in to meet with him and the national-security team is outside,” says Mr. Smith. The implication was unmistakable: “Wow, look at the importance this holds for the president.”
Mr. Obama also had a deep grasp of the facts and issues surrounding the effort, says Mr. Smith — a level of interest and involvement he believes guarantees the soon-to-be ex-president plans a lifetime commitment to My Brother’s Keeper.
“It’s 100 percent clear that this is going to be a key priority for him,” says Mr. Smith. “This is something the president is personally passionate about. It’s not lip service.”
At the same time, Mr. Obama and the staff of My Brother’s Keeper are holding out hope that the initiative will survive in some fashion in Donald Trump’s administration.
‘National Conversation’
Earlier this week, Mr. Smith sat in an office in the Executive Office Building adjacent to White House for an interview with The Chronicle. Chairs and moving boxes lined the halls; frames on the walls had been stripped of their portraits.
Mr. Smith declined to reveal his own plans after leaving his administration post, but he had plenty to say about what’s next for his boss.
“The president sparked a national conversation. He made it OK to talk about these issues,” he says. “We met with so many young men across the country who were shocked they made it to 21, who were shocked they made it to 30.”
He added, “Young men of color need to know that their country cares about them and is willing to invest in them.”
Mr. Smith contends the president created so much momentum for the initiative that it inevitably will move forward, both inside and outside of government.
On the inside, he says, the My Brother’s Keeper task force is composed of people from 22 federal agencies and White House offices, including dozens of career civil servants who will remain with the government under the new president.
The effort’s name might not survive the transition, Mr. Smith says; more consequentially, some supporters worry that funding may be cut for the programs it supports. He says both he and Mr. Obama will make themselves available to Mr. Trump and his team to help keep the work going.
“We’ve seen Republicans support this kind of work 100 percent,” Mr. Smith says. “They know second chances matter. We know that if you give someone a college education while they’re incarcerated, they’re 50 percent less likely to recidivate.”
He added, “Bill O’Reilly was at the launch of My Brother’s Keeper.”
Building Momentum
Outside of government, Mr. Smith says, there are myriad reasons to expect My Brother’s Keeper to keep growing.
The program is active in 250 communities in all 50 states, he says, and it has attracted private support in the form of about $1 billion in below-market-rate loans to participating nonprofits and businesses.
“Everything we did here, we realized Washington didn’t have all the answers, so we worked directly with state and local government,” says Mr. Smith. “And the private sector has stepped up in remarkable ways because they see this as a bottom-line issue for their businesses.”
At President Obama’s urging, a separate nonprofit, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, was created in 2015. Within months it had attracted commitments of about $80 million from corporate donors.
Mr. Obama is widely expected to be involved with the alliance after he leaves office. He would lend a powerful presence to a fundraising effort that has already seen enormous success.
“Originally 11 foundations committed to invest $200 million over the next three to five years aligned with My Brother’s Keeper,” says Mr. Smith. “They’ve seen $375 million in investments already and we’re not even at three years. Philanthropy has stepped up.”
Power of the White House
Mr. Smith came to the White House from the Case Foundation, where he enjoyed “a flexible, quick, nimble atmosphere” where initiatives were launched quickly. The federal government was a sharp contrast.
“Instead of walking down the hallway to get approval, all of the sudden I had to get 30 people to sign off on things,” he says. “But once it happens, the change you can make is massive. If we would have launched a program like this at the Case Foundation we might have had 20 communities. All of the sudden it’s national headlines, it’s a movement that is sparked because you’re sitting next to the leader of the free world.”
Mr. Smith says the president’s interest in My Brother’s Keeper has only intensified in recent weeks, and his legendary command of the details remains undiminished.
At an event in North Carolina in October, Mr. Obama did an interview with ESPN where he reeled off facts and statistics related to My Brother’s Keeper. The next day, Mr. Smith had a few minutes to chat with his boss at a White House social event.
“I said to him, ‘Mr. President, you were so amazing yesterday, you were recalling facts about My Brother’s Keeper that I didn’t even know you knew.’ ”
The president replied with characteristic dry wit: “Michael, I didn’t end up here by accident.”
