Possibilities: Strengthening the Foundations of Oklahoma City's Future

In the pursuit of a brighter future for Oklahoma City, a collective of forward-thinking individuals came together to envision a thriving community. Their mission was to transform OKC into a place that would attract residents and visitors alike, despite facing challenges such as deteriorating neighborhoods and inadequate schools. Through discussions of these challenges came the fruition of the non-profit Possibilities. 

Byron Jackson, executive director of Possibilities, passionately shares the organization's mission of “strengthening the ability of people to work together for community change.” This dynamic organization goes beyond conventional services, offering facilitation programs like "Inside Out" community leadership, a podcast platform, individual coaching, community project support, and engaging board and staff workshops. These initiatives are meticulously designed to empower individuals and communities, fostering growth, collaboration and transformative change. 

Putting their mission into action, "Inside Out” community training incorporates values-based training, practical experience, coaching and project support, equipping citizens to collectively address community issues. Trained leaders from various communities come together to tackle challenges ranging from youth obesity and senior citizen support to beautification efforts and safety events. 

Their latest accomplishment, a podcast platform, emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic with more than 19,000 streams collectively. The objective was to turn constrained interaction into a lively community storytelling hub, providing community members with a space to utilize their in-house community studio and engineers to share their stories. By embracing this podcasting endeavor, Possibilities further emphasizes their mission. 

Amidst their noble mission and many initiatives, Jackson acknowledges, "the most challenging thing is getting people to realize that by investing in one another, change is possible." Foremost among these challenges is the need for funding, coupled with the difficulty of convincing people about the crucial distinction between investing in preventative measures versus addressing a crisis. 

Possibilities strives to be preventative, to intervene before crises occur. Jackson employs an analogy, likening their approach to prevent individuals from falling off a cliff instead of addressing issues and measures after the fall. He credits the profound impact such an effort had on his life, when an individual recognized his potential and invested the time to nurture it. Jackson said that experience led to a significant shift in the direction of his future.  

“It changed my life and now I am able to impact other lives simply because somebody saw something and took the time to think I could be more productive in society,” said Jackson. 

To actively engage with Possibilities and become part of the mission to invest in Oklahoma City, explore the Possibilities website to discover their ongoing facilitation initiatives, upcoming events, volunteer opportunities and ways to contribute to the organization's community investment. 

Possibilities is also a proud United Way of Central Oklahoma partner agency, committed to improving the health, safety, education and economic well-being of individuals and families in need in central Oklahoma by connecting community resources with responsive and accountable health and human services agencies.