Humans of Public Service, an organization that tells the stories of public servants on social media platforms, is celebrating its one-year anniversary, an important milestone for the organization that strives to promote diversity and celebrate public servants at all levels of government.
People who are featured on its website, Instagram, and LinkedIn page passionately describe their government jobs and explain why they love what they do. In every post, the pride of being a public servant shines through. Their interesting work makes the reader go “Does the government do that?”
Indeed, our government’s jobs run the gamut from helping local artists become entrepreneurs to modernizing digital platforms for NASA. Humans of Public Service features people doing cool jobs like that.
But who started this amazing project?
Brian Whittaker is the founder of Humans of Public Service.
It’s not exactly a surprise as he himself is a government worker and currently serves as the chief innovation officer at Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Prior to that he worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and then General Services Administration (GSA) helping the agency stand up a new office called Centers of Excellence that would help other federal agencies modernize IT.
Asked why he decided to profile public servants, Whittaker said the murder of George Floyd in 2020 inspired him to do something to support marginalized communities.
“What I asked myself before George Floyd was why does this keep happening, when is there gonna be change. After George Floyd, I was at a point where I asked myself what is it I can do, what's my circle of influence, and how can I try to make things better for people from marginalized communities at this time when the murder was right in the middle of the pandemic and everything had been shut down,” he explained.
Using his network of government workers, Whittaker considered starting out by supporting marginalized people in government over Zoom. But he quickly realized he needed a brand to expand his network and source stories. That was when he took some inspiration from Humans of New York, a photoblog and interviews of people living in New York City.
“I don’t have a great camera. I don't really enjoy writing that much, but I could use my technical background to stand up a website with the form that allows the general public to nominate different public servants. And then I send those public servants another form that asks them questions like who are you, what do you do, what's been the highlight of your career, and what inspired you to join government,” he added.
His wife, who is also a government worker, then helps turn the answers into a short narrative that he can post online along with their photos. Humans of Public Service was born.
It’s been a year, and the feedback has been great. People appreciate these stories. Whittaker said one of the reasons is that they get to see government employees who work behind the scenes doing work that they don’t even know exist, which also opens their eyes to a potential new career path. They also see how diverse our government workforce is.
Whittaker said he’s in the process of launching a new nomination process to tell the stories of people who used to work in government and those aspiring to be in public service like students.
Asked what his thoughts are on the one-year anniversary of Humans of Public Service, he said he was excited by the amount of support and what he has learned over the last year: people join the government to serve, but they really stay because of their coworkers and their colleagues whom they can rely on to be a sounding board, make positive change, and achieve the mission.
He has also identified three reasons why people join public service: they respond to a tragedy or injustice; they know someone who has served that impressed them; it’s just random happenstance like going to a career fair and deciding to join.
Whittaker himself comes from a family of public servants. His father served in the Air Force. His mother used to teach, so did his youngest sister. His oldest sister is a nurse. His other sister is a police officer.
“Growing up it was just a matter of time before I went into the family business,” he said.
Want to nominate a public servant?
Click here.
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