This week in New York, King Charles knelt in the soil at a community farm on 134th Street and helped a group of Harlem kids plant lavender. One of the children asked what he'd name his plant. He said, "Steph Curry." (This Golden State Warriors fan 100% approves!) Meanwhile, twelve blocks south, Queen Camilla sat in the Trustees Room of the New York Public Library and read Winnie-the-Pooh aloud to a group of schoolchildren before presenting the library with a handmade Roo doll, completing a collection of original Pooh figures that has been on display since 1987.
Two community organizations. One day. A monarch at each.
The coverage has rightly focused on the organizations themselves, and they deserve it. Harlem Grown, founded by Tony Hillery in 2011, runs 14 urban farms across Harlem and works with kids on food access, sustainability, and education. The New York Public Library is, by almost any measure, one of the great civic institutions of American life, and stands as the example of a thriving, sustaining public institution now in the face of cuts to libraries, public schools, and educational funding nationwide.
Our Edgility Search team had the privilege of partnering with both organizations on senior leadership searches - Executive Director at Harlem Grown and Vice President of Education at New York Public Library.
I'm sharing this not because we made yesterday happen - we obviously didn't. I’m highlighting them because moments like this are a reminder of why our work matters. The royals chose these two organizations because of what they represent: investment in young people, community-rooted impact, the radical idea that food access and access to books and educational services are both forms of opportunity. None of that happens without the people inside the building, namely the leaders, the fundraisers, and the program directors who actually do the work.
Mission-driven organizations don't get great by accident. They get great when someone - a board member, an executive leader, a search partner - pays serious attention to who's at the table and how they got there. That's the work I'm proudest of at Edgility Search. Not the placements themselves, but the through-line: organizations doing meaningful work, supported by leaders who can carry the mission forward.
A few things I keep coming back to as I think about this moment. The visit was about youth, food, books, and green space, i.e. the unglamorous infrastructure of community wellbeing. The kind of work that doesn't trend. Both organizations are led by people who could have taken easier jobs. They didn't. And the whole community is better for it.
Congratulations to the teams at Harlem Grown and NYPL on a day they'll remember for the rest of their careers!