Tim Sarrantonio  0:04  
Hello, hello, hello everyone. We're going to let people cycle into the presentation today. We had a lot of interest in today's presentation panel. Really excited about this. No slides or anything like that you're seeing what you're going to be seeing except for this is going to be going away very shortly. We'll get started in maybe a minute or two. My name is Tim Sarrantonio, director of corporate brand at NEON one. I'm excited for today's presentation time for change, reimagining funder and nonprofit relationships. This is a panel that we are facilitating, but all the work has been put together by Rachel D'Souza Siebert. Good, yeah, okay, got it. And, and so she's going to do introductions and things like that. But I'm going to handle a few housekeeping items before we get started formally. So today's presentation is being recorded. And there is the live transcript on right now. So it is a panel. So we're going to not guarantee 100% accuracy on that. But it's, it's helping with a little bit of accessibility. This is also a good one that if you want to kind of either sit back and listen, this is all audio, there's no presentation materials. So this is a good almost clubhouse type experience if you've ever used that platform. And so yeah, I think our first audio only friendly presentation this year, which is cool. So from an accessibility standpoint, this we'll have a transcription provided afterwards. But other than that, it is going to be a fantastic presentation. Let's get a little bit of liveliness from our attendees. We're focusing on the St. Louis community here, but I want to hear where you are calling in from and, and, you know, tell us a little bit later like maybe you know where you are from it. We'll keep it very simple. Maybe if your organization if you want to put your organization put that in chat, we got Toronto, we got Hartford and we go I gotta break that out. We got Missoula, Montana. Did my I did my honeymoon and in Darby, Montana, by the way. We got Harvard, Illinois, Milwaukee, Connecticut. We have any St. Louis folks. San Diego, Vancouver. Bay Area, Wide, wide diversity in location. St. Louis Bonnie Mann, there we go. Bonnie represent. Atlanta. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool. Well, we're excited. Thank you, everybody for for popping in here. And so that's that's also a little test on this is one of the ways that you can interact with the panel today. So if you are going to be popping in chat, they can see that information. I'm paying attention to it. My colleague, Alison Smith is also monitoring the chat. But also if you want to make sure that the panelists see a question, because as you can see, the chat can get pretty lively there. So if you want to chat away and comment, go ahead, please do. But if you want to make sure that there's a panel question that gets seen, the best way to do that is to use the Q and A option that Zoom provides, so you can type it in. And that actually pops it up in a very prominent way that we can see it. So other than that, I think we're going to go ahead and get started. So Rachel, thank you so much. We're so proud and excited to be hosting this. It should also be noted that Rachel is a guest contributor in neon ones donor report that just came out donors understanding the future of individual giving, which has had an amazing, amazing amount of interest in it. And I get to have the honor of meeting Rachel in person next week at AFP icon in Vegas. So if you are going to be there you can see me and Rachel but we're so excited to have you Rachel please take it away.

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  4:24  
Thank you so much, Tim. So good morning, afternoon or evening, depending on where you are joining us from. As Tim mentioned, my name is Rachel D'Souza Siebert I use she her pronouns and today I am wearing a black T shirt that says phenomenally brown owned, which refers to one of the hats that I wear, which is the founder and chief purpose officer with gladiator consulting. In addition to my role with that organization, I also serve as the director of justice philanthropy at Fowa  rd through Ferguson. Today we are talking about reimagining a funder and nonprofit relationships. As Tim also mentioned, we are focusing on the St. Louis region, which was originally home to the Osage, Eleni, Kickapoo, and Mississippian, indigenous tribes. One of the things that I want to start with to center us is that there are a lot of words being thrown around in the nonprofit sector these days. We are hearing about community centric fundraising, we're hearing about justice, philanthropy, just funding participatory grantmaking philanthropy, capitalism, impact investing systems change VUCA, the voluntary, uncertain, complex and ambiguous nature of this work. And that's all great and fine, but what does it look like for organizations who care about community and have missions and visions that are invested in change and the future? What does it look like for us to actually meet each other at this moments and be in the work together and so I am thrilled to introduce you today to my colleagues, Faybra Hemphill and Neosha Franklin, we're going to tell you a little bit more about themselves. But excitingly are going to talk about the journey that the St. Louis Community Foundation and Forward through Ferguson have been on together over the course of the last few years. I would also like to note that while we were hoping that our colleague David Dwight, the fourth, who's the executive director at Forward through Ferguson, would be able to join us today we are in our process of self care, and he is taking a much needed sabbatical. So we wanted to let David enjoy his time. And so while I am functioning as the moderator today, I may also jump in and offer some perspective on fund development with the organizati on as as Faybra accused me too. So with that they brought I would love for you to go ahead and tell our audience today a little bit more about yourself, and then we'll kick it over to the Neosha.

Faybra Hemphill  7:05  
Thanks, Rachel. Hi, everyone. I'm Faybra. My pronouns are she and her and I have the honor and pleasure of serving as the lead racial equity capacity catalyst of Foward through Ferguson. Some of the core functions of my role, in addition to overall organizational leadership is specifically in the areas strategy areas that we call build racial equity capacity, which encompasses all of our educational opportunities that we offer to the community around what systems change is, how it relates to racial equity, or functions within racial equity goals, some teaching and learning around the outcomes of Ferguson commission report, and overall policy and systems change work as we're tracking as a local localized organization that has a local purpose. Also, another core function of my role, is that I'm one of the founding managers of the racial healing injustice fund. And through the launch of that fund, having the honor and privilege of being one of the first I think, fully owned community to participatory processes, post 2014 and the Ferguson uprising within the St. Louis region through a creative partnership with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Missouri foundation for hills, Deaconess Foundation, and also with St. Louis Community Foundation being one of the most critical and early supporters of the launch of this fund. So two biggest things that I do a whole bunch of things go inside of that radio, I don't know at what level you want me to give introduction, but basically, I'm a facilitator. You know, by profession, but I'm a teacher, and a guide as my calling. So my previous life before coming into this role is FTF. Staff is that I was a teacher and educator. I worked in education for many years, and I helped several small education, focused nonprofits startup. And so that's how I got a taste for fundraising and philanthropy as well is teaching and learning around topics of justice, philanthropy and community participatory processes. How'd I do?

Unknown Speaker  9:21  
I was excellent. You have brought your full self into this conversation, I could not be more overjoyed. So I will kick it over to Neosha.

Neosha Franklin  9:29  
Thanks. Hi, everyone. My name is Neosha Franklin, and my pronouns are she and her. I am the Director of Communications at the St. Louis Community Foundation. I have been there for about seven years. And I actually created our first Community Corrections Department where we oversee all branding, marketing, advertising and a lot of community work as well working with all the different departments. I also oversee shameless plug our give STL day which is May 5 Next week. We're really excited about that. And so Also, I serve also on our leadership team and was part of the decision making process to fund the racial healing and justice fund as well. As well as we also participated in different boards and focusing capacity building o pportunities, which has started the journey and really catalyzed a lot of the work that we've been doing. We also also are a funder for forward through Ferguson outside of just their capacity, often their offerings and their racial healing and justice fund. And really what I do at work, and my day to day job really is I am really using communication strategies to really think about how we can challenge the work of the Community Foundation in different ways. We're really thinking about branding and doing things differently. So we can make sure that our Community Foundation is here for the future of St. Louis. And by working with forward through furguson and entities like forward Through Ferguson, we've been able to really have some challenging conversations internally. And I'm really, really excited after completing the racial equity capacity trainings, I was able to establish an internal racial equity oversight committee and develop a racial equity directive, along with the plan. So we actually have some work that's actually taking place currently, which is really, really exciting. So I am here to be transparent and offer some advice and to offer just kind of our journey in this process together. So thank you for having me, Rachel, in Frankfort.

Unknown Speaker  11:18  
Awesome, thank you. So we are gonna set the table a little bit for our audience. So Neosha, you did get a chance to talk a little bit about the relationship between the Community Foundation and forward through Ferguson, but really would love to sort of hear more about the history of the Community Foundation, its philosophy, around philanthropy in the region, and what has worked and hasn't necessarily worked for y'all in in the recent years. And then Faybra we'll ask you to share the same information about FTF'S. Origin and work in the community. Yeah,

Neosha Franklin  11:57  
thank you. So the thing was Community Foundation is 100 year old Community Foundation, we are the second oldest community foundation in the country. We were founded in 1915. So this was a really early on when the Community Foundation model was first being adapted across the country. And when we first started, we really were just we didn't operate as a traditional Community Foundation, we had donors, we had funds, we had donor advised funds. So if you're familiar or not familiar with Community Foundation's, we have different types of charitable giving vehicles donor advised funds being one of them, where donors can put money into a fund and then make grant making out of that. So we work with donors to actually think about how they want to leave a legacy, their charitable planning, we work with family and do generational multigenerational planning with families. And we also do a lot of work with scholarships, as well as private foundation services. And so fast forwarding, currently probably about 2018, we kind of operated in this space where we did not really you know, poach our donors to think about how they're actually giving out in community in different ways. So right, so when I say that, I mean, basically, if our donors were very interested in one particular area and only wanted to fund one school, or one, education, or one type of organization, you know, we kind of went along with that we had this thing where we wanted to our quote was to meet donors where they are. And we struggled with that for a lot a long time. And when we went through a rebrand in 2018, we really started thinking about how can we challenge our donors differently? And so and how and what does that mean for us as a community foundation who wanted to prioritize equity? We were at the center of the uprising in Ferguson for so long. And, you know, at that particular time, I would say, and this isn't the Neosha speaking, I would say that our leadership was a little fearful of what that meant for our region, and how the Community Foundation was going to show up in that space. And what we would be able to do, right, and so what we started to do, or what we did, after we started having more internal conversations is we we did our mission, our mission statement. And so our mission statement is that we inspire purposeful philanthropy that connects community and donors to build and preserve a more equitable region now and forever. And so we put equity into our mission. So one, it held us accountable. And two, so we made sure that that is showing up in our day to day work, but it also changed our philosophy around how we were going to start to bring donors along in this process of how we're going to prioritize equity. We know we can't make them do things, right. I think that's something that we were definitely fearful of. But what we were able to do is just kind of bring them along in the journey and keeping them updated on a lot of the things that we that we do together as a community Foundation's, from supporting systemic change organizations and capacity building and things of that sort. And so we really haven't taken this model of meeting the donors where they are and kind of taking that out of the out of our foresight and really trying to put forth these types of organizations and groups that really focus on community that is has partnerships that are not organizations that are building partnerships with other great organizations that are doing equity work, and we really hope to encourage them. And so we're really changing that now. Not only on the donors hat, but also to on our funding model with how we show up and how we support different types of equity type of work, such as the racial healing and justice fund. So we're really focusing on putting equity at the center at all of our conversations, and making sure that everything we do, it's someone's bringing it up and holding us all accountable. And it's become part of who we are internally. And we're hoping to really push that out into community. So going from just having donors, open funds and taking their money and we do what they asked, we're being more proactive about how we are encouraging our donors to think about their giving strategies differently.

Unknown Speaker  15:35  
No big deal. Just a few small things that you're Oh, my goodness, okay, Faybra, what about you tell us a little bit about forward through Ferguson?

Unknown Speaker  15:47  
Yes, about forward through Ferguson. But before I forget, I just want to acknowledge what Neosha has said about, you know, the Community Foundation. Even though there was uncertainty fears, questions, I can still say that, you know, St. Louis Community Foundation was one of the early adaptors, at least in the philanthropy sector of our vision for hashtag SEL 2039, which is a state of St. Louis, where everybody can thrive systems have been revived in that there's reconciliation in our community. They stepped up and helped cultivate a creative partnership between several anchor institutions that were interested in bringing more conversations, more trainings, investing more resources into anti racism practitioners and system change practitioners, even though there were fears and uncertainties, St. Louis Community Foundation's still did it anyway. And I highly respect and look up to the Community Foundation for that, because there are still plenty of anchor institutions in our region who are not yet quite ready to step up publicly and speak publicly about what their values are in their leadership and as an organization. So sometimes questions that I get about, well, what does it look like when, you know, once organizations have gone through these trainings, and they've done the action planning, and they do the strategy? What does it look like? What are some of the things that change, one of the things that has changed about St. Louis Community Foundation, in addition to all the things that Neosha has shared, is that there have been moments, you know, in our region, things that have happened since COVID, statements that have been made by people in power, and I would even say some demands that have been attempted by people in power in the St. Louis Community Foundation has still stood firm in their values, that equity is a must and that the resources that we steward will prioritize that and speak to that, and so they haven't been swayed or bullied or coerced by people with agendas that are not in favor of equity. And I think that is a wonderful example. And I highly commend you all for that.

Neosha Franklin  18:06  
Thank you Faybra that's so sweet.

Unknown Speaker  18:08  
Thank you. So what do I do? How did I help them? How do we help each other so just a little bit more about FTF. So forward through Ferguson actually originated as the Ferguson Commission, which was called in 2014, when the St. Louis area was in a state of emergency because of the Ferguson uprising. In 2014, Mike Brown Jr. was killed by an unarmed police I'm in he was unarmed. The police officer was armed and a whole riot protests. Everything ensued in the whole St. Louis metro area, because there was also another murder that happened around the same time one day at Meijer so as Michael Brown's unrest was happening, Vonderrit Myers unrest was also happening on the south side, St. Louis was in the state of emergency the governor calls, you know, a commission, hey, somebody needs to come together to figure out what happened. However, the joke was kind of on him because the people that came to this table, were real practitioners and thought leaders in overall what needed to change in the St. Louis region, it wasn't just a commission that was called to study what happened, the commission that was brought together, ultimately led a process that brought 3000 community members together to really share ultimately what we thought needed to change about the St. Louis region so that 2014 never had to happen again. And out of that process, 189 calls to action, policy, infrastructure calls to action came out of that. So by the year 2016 40, Ferguson was established as its own freestanding 501 C three, and what we do is we exist to catalyze to work as a catalyst and connect challenging of stakeholders that can implement these 189 calls to action. We also focus on building capacity of organizations, as well as individuals to help folks be empowered to dismantle systemic racism. We're particularly accountable to people of color, and to process principles. Because we think that process is product. And through a process of listening, collaboration, and also deep attention to accountability and detail through a system change approach is ultimately what will implement and sustain change over time.

Unknown Speaker  20:44  
We recognize that the 200 page report that came out of the Ferguson commission is a little bit vast for the average person for the average reader. And so through the past several years, we've established and published many bite sized pieces and smaller versions that focus on particular areas of change that we think should be tracked, as well as worked on in that regard that came out of the report. So one of the things that came out of that was the built racial equity capacity strategy. And I mentioned before, for us that is largely educational opportunities, but also collaboration opportunities, where folks at the table, like the racial equity roundtable, come together to learn from each others. So yes, there was some readings, yes, there was some group discussion, and a little bit of teaching. But the the biggest thing that I think makes the bill of racial equity capacity strategy, and the programs that come within that successful is that the folks, you know, unlikely players and unlikely people get to meet each other, they get to see that there are many, many more ways that we are alike and similar than we are different. And that if we continue to be honest about our goals, be honest about our shortcomings, and to take some time to plan systems, as well as infrastructure and process that we can do it. And so given the folks at the table, that feeling that they can do it has been critical for us. So that's one thing. The other thing that I think that, you know, pertains to this conversation is the launch of the racial healing and justice fund. So actually, in the Ferguson commission report, one of the big calls to action was a 25 year managed fund, where there will be several million dollars that will be invested reinvested back into the St. Louis community that would ensure that equity could be achieved if the St. Louis region had the human and financial capital to do so. So as I said earlier, do some creative partnerships, a couple philanthropic organizations have raised their hands to kind of give us a little taste of what that could look like. And so, you know, through partnership with St. Louis, when the foundation, Missouri foundation for health and Deaconess foundation two years ago, we launched the pilot version of the racial healing and justice Fund, which is about a one and a half million dollar fund that so far, we have awarded $500,000 of that, back to 34, much deserving highly impactful people of color led organizations.

Unknown Speaker  23:33  
Oh, thank you. You just took me right into sort of the next question that I had for y'all, which is let's talk about money. Right? I, you there are two outstanding organizations on this call. But the St. Louis community actually has a very traditional practice when it comes to institutional grant making and the organizations that are able to maintain relationships to secure those dollars. There's an annual basis, there's process that's included, there's grant reporting, you know, I mean, it is for all of the considerations we look at still very traditional, when we think about what relationships look like and and who you know, and what access you have. And so, Faybra, I appreciate you introducing the concept of the racial justice and healing fund because Forward through Ferguson doesn't actually benefit financially. They are not receiving a grant from those dollars, but they are a nonprofit, working alongside other funders to organize regional dollars in a way that gets to some of these grassroots people of color LED organizations, which is a very non traditional space for a funder and for a nonprofit to sort of be in together where ultimately, these organizations have provided funding but have ceded the power in decision making two to forward through Ferguson and to other organizations in the community. So I want to sort of hold that up when we think about What it looks like to reimagine relationships that that is one example I think of many that makes this particular relationship unique. Neosha, I do sort of want to invite you to talk a little bit more about, you know, the foundation's COVID response and how you included nonprofits in that. What your grant making strategy has looked like and your support of the St. Louis's racial equity Summit, which I think also speaks very clearly to a non traditional way of being in relationship with nonprofits. It's

Neosha Franklin  25:37  
interesting things happen with that one. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So a lot of the the, a lot of the equity work really did to kick off when we started our racial equity capacity building sessions with forward through Ferguson. And we started that shortly after George Floyd, I think our staff was really, I don't know, I think we were really in tune and really feeling something during that time. I know I personally was. And so we have, I have another colleague who was actually on the board at forward through Ferguson. And we were having some some deeper conversation about the importance of like, what this means for our community, because we had been there before we've seen it with Mike Brown, we've seen We've seen how this could affect community. And so when we started thinking about, you know, what that look like, from a financial perspective, in terms of like, how are we going to show up, like, what resources do we really have, because the community foundation that we've been around for 100 years, our endowment is not very, very large, we have donors who have endowed funds, but we have not a lot of discretionary dollars. And those discretionary dollars are very, they're very, they're up for grabs. But it's very hard to determine sometimes like, what the priorities are, those are what's going to be the priority for that year. And so we were able to do that by getting doing the actual capacity trainings to but with the COVID Response Fund, the way that that started was, we essentially put out a call, we opened up a fund right when the COVID happened, we didn't know what we were doing. But we put out a call and said we were raising money specifically to help support much needed organizations who were doing the work. And we knew that there were going to be nonprofits that were closing, they were going to be losing donors and financial resources, because they couldn't do the work. And we know at the Community Foundation, we don't do programs. But what we want to do is be able to support the nonprofits that are actually doing the work boots on the ground and understanding what that looks like. And so we were able to raise over a million dollars for that fund from corporations, businesses, private donors, other local funders that because we were able to catalyze and convene a group of people together to be able to raise those dollars. And what we determined at that particular time, we were really focused on this community trust fundraising type of model to in terms of how we were going to distribute those funds. Because we knew we weren't the ones on the ground doing the work. We knew that we needed representation at the table, from all fronts from different various sources of funders from nonprofits, we actually invited forward through Ferguson to sit at that table, when we established our advisory committee to make those grant decisions. And then we actually created a really robust process of how those dollars will be distributed, starting with the most pressing need first. And that was really quick, we got that out. That grant process went out pretty quickly. But it had it was lots of conversation. It was lots of organizations and really trying to focus on the equitable piece of what does this look like for our region? How can we be as responsive as possible without sending nonprofits through all these loops to apply? I mean, I think we maybe only had like three question application, just say, like, how much do you need, what are you going to do it and how many people you think you're going to serve. And so that's how we were able to get money out quickly. And then we kind of went back to and did a homebound initiative for senior citizens, we did more responsive grantmaking for needs in the community. We also were able to fund some early childhood education services we recognized kids were out of school, you know, they were they were on so we were able to grant all of that money away. And our COVID response was very, very huge. But we were really focused on who was at that table to help us make those decisions, because we knew we couldn't do it by ourselves. We knew we couldn't all look the same. We need a diversity of thought, that diversity of perspective, and diversity of you know, where in our community are we seeing the most need at that particular time. So we were really excited about that particular fund, because we've never seen anything like that happen in our region before. And we're hoping that we can replicate that you know, and create more sustainable funding over time for our next big crisis, which is something that the community foundation is working on currently, within 3d In our next three to five year plan of how can we be more sustainable so we can receive?

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  29:41  
Oops, you popped on mute.

Neosha Franklin  29:43  
Sorry. Okay. So that was one particular instance. And then secondly, we've done a couple other things, too. That's been very systemic over time. Part of the COVID response. We also supported the regional response team, the COVID-19 regional response team, which is also a PSA One of our systemic partners housed at the Foundation, where they were actually one of the recipients of the COVID regional response fund money as well to help deploy those, the masks and the hand sanitizer, educational opportunities and community. So we funded that so that we could get more support out into the community. And then most recently, we did support the St. Louis racial healing and justice summit equity Summit. And this is where we, you know, we actually had to pretty much make a statement of what we were going to do, we were, we were not only a funder of the sponsor, or funder of the actual summit, but we did work with the committee to plan the summit. But what we found, as we were talking to our donors about the summit, we found that some of them weren't in agreeance. With our participation in that opposition. Yeah. We're right now, you know, and, and so it was a lot of internal conversation about how we were in support. I mean, we were a sponsor. And so what I did was in the communication way, I just sent the email out to our entire email database. Now, mind you, I normally don't do things like that, like, I wouldn't just send it to, like 80,000 people. And I say, we have 80,000 donors, this was just more of our entire email database list. And I was like, you know, we are a supporter of this, we are going to be transparent about our sponsorship, we had a couple of donors, when I got that email, who were irate. They were not happy, I got so many interesting emails from our community. And I was like, wow, this is very interesting. And so after kind of going through all of that, we had one donor, who decided that he was going to move his Fund, which was millions. And since we had went through the right forward through Ferguson, racial equity capacity trainings, and they're the education component, which went on for, and we were continually doing this work, we were able to bring along our senior level staff who probably wouldn't have totally not been okay with it, that this donor was leaving, no one was happy. But the response that she was able to deliver to this donor about the importance of the work in our community, how we support racial equity and systems changes in our community, and that the work of the Community Foundation is to be able to support this type of work is so important. And if he doesn't agree with it, you know, that is his choice. And we want him to feel comfortable, you know, being being having his charitable dollars with us, because we're not the right fit for everyone. And we and we now recognize that. And so I was just, I was so floored, but I felt so good, because I would never thought that I would have saw that come from our, our leadership in that capacity of presidency, you know, and, you know, just kind of walk them through the process of all of that has also been, it's just been changed. It's just feels good, because the way I see change happening in ways that I've never seen it before. And so no, we don't want to lose donors. We're not trying to lose millions of dollars, because we've got to continue to do the good work, but we recognize when it's not a good fit, and that's okay. And I think that it took us a long time to get there. Because we were always just so worried about the numbers, how much money are we getting? How much money are we getting? How much you know, what donor do we have? And how do we how do we attract those donors? Because historically, most of our donors have been historically privileged white, come from generational wealth. But now we're really thinking about how do we change that model? How do we make philanthropy accessible for everyone? And how do we think about wealth differently than we have in years past?

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  33:31  
I really appreciate you providing that overview. And I think that this is what a lot of institutions are grappling with right now. What are our boundaries? How do our values show up in our work? And what happens when we find ourselves in a circumstance where we may lose resources for our cause? And the thing that I feel that becomes apparent in some of these conversations is that if we're willing to just be a little bit uncomfortable, if we are willing to try something different, it winds up yielding a richer outcome than what we could have previously imagined. You know, it took the Community Foundation saying this is actually not the place for you, sir. On one hand, and then looking at the 1100 people that showed up from around the world to this conference, and that conversation that happened there. And the reality that we're through Ferguson and a coalition of partners couldn't have put that od without the support of the foundation. I mean, sometimes we say no and no is a complete sentence, but it opens doors to things that we wouldn't have previously been able to say yes to. So on this notes, I think that one of the trends that has has sort of been front and center in the in the sector at the moment it are the ideas of community centric fundraising, which aren't new, right? I think they actually sort of represent a decolonization of philanthropy as we know it, and, you know, sort of modern United States evolution of the ideas of charitable giving, and philanthropy and money. And so in, in the community centric fundraising movement, there are a set of 10 and guiding guiding principles. And one of them. Number six says, we treat donors as partners. And this means that we are transparent, and we occasionally have difficult conversations. So I'm curious if the and this is for both of you to sort of volley back and forth. But what has bringing transparency to this partnership meant for the organizations? Where has it been useful? Where has it been sticky or difficult? And how have you as a funder and grant receiving organizations sort of held space for for what transparency

Faybra Hemphill  36:00  
could look like? Yes, I think it is played out in in many ways. You know, I mentioned before that the St. Louis Community Foundation was one of the early interests and sign honors of really wanting to work towards the demands of the Ferguson commission. There was also plenty of moments of hiccups, you know, before they have the infrastructure to fully participate before we had the infrastructure as an organization to provide a table and a structure for them to fully show up, all of these things happen. And all these things are true. And yet, they still continue to show up and to listen and to also continue to make investments in our organization. Over time, there is

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  36:59  
a blast, I just want to jump into real quick, which that is rare. Like let's just name the fact that when you are building relationships with institutional funders, they don't want tries, they don't care. We're not looking for a logic model that says maybe this is the outcome, right? Like we want to fund ideas that work. We want to fund ideas that are tested. We don't want to fund your moonshot. We are nervous about moonshots. Right? Like, we don't want to invest in that. What if you have nothing to say on your grant report in nine to 12 months, right? I mean, that is a real reality of this work. And there are, Faybra, institutions in the region who were like, Yeah, you are still learning and iterating. Like we're not, we will come back in a couple of years when you're ready to provide something that like, looks pretty and feels nice. And I think to have a funder, willing to sit in uncertainty, willing to sit in a culture of trying and learning is is sort of huge. So sorry, I just wanted to point that out. But please, yes,

Faybra Hemphill  38:03  
I was yes. But eventually, you know, through their investment and investment of many others, we were able to build more staff capacity, as well as strategy to continue to codify the bill, racial equity capacity work, they came back, came back to the table participated again, and now through a set of engagement, have started to implement meaningful change. So I think an example of this, like you said, they don't want just ideas, they don't just want moonshots will something to transparency, I think, helped us do, as we were planning is that, you know, in 2018, we said this version of the racial equity roundtable is a pilot. And it may be something that we continue to do in the future, or it may be something that just happens for this one year. But we believe in this very much. And here are though, the ways in which we believe that this will be impactful to you. Here's the deliverables that we can do our best to guarantee this is sure will show up will participate. The pilot version was great. It was great for what it was. And so when we were ready to do the full version, in 2020, they signed on again and had a new and a different experience with the roundtable. So yeah, I think that transparency, listening and trust, you know, trust thing, organizations that have really specific place based visions, to do their work and to just give them give them that time, give them that push to try it. One of the things one of the values of the Ferguson commission is this idea of the culture of trying and that is now in the language of the St. Louis region, this kind of spreading around that like the culture of trying is a process point and It's better for people to say, hey, actually we're trying. And we're figuring it out than to say, we guarantee that this is going to happen through this partnership. I think it helps cultivate more meaningful relationships and more meaningful. Just experiences overall, over time.

Neosha Franklin  40:19  
You say like, two, it was not something that I would say like our senior leadership team at the time, was like, yeah, like, they came with the idea what it happened. We were like, internally organizing as a staff, we were like, we have to do this work. And we know that forward through Ferguson has created the blueprint for racial equity for our region, like, why else would we do like, who else makes sense to do this? Right? Because we knew we seen the work that they were doing, we've been watching it happen in the region, we've seen how they have evolved over time. And you know, this, this idea of, we didn't know what we didn't know, you know. And so it was like, we were taking a chance as a staff, because again, this was something we had never done before, I can tell you that all the years that we've been there, there had not been any racial equity, combat, like any type of thing, like we weren't looking at our policies, we weren't looking at our leadership team. You know, there were no people of color and leadership team until I was promoted as director, and what my other colleague was promoted as director who had been there at the organization for 25 years. And it wasn't until, you know, it wasn't until we started going through this, and we started putting things are in place to say, you know, this isn't right. You know, at the end of the day, we're being transparent. But let's also recognize that we're, we're humans, and we're having transparent conversations of what does this look like. And being able to be in a space, not only were we able to do the forward through Ferguson, trainings, but what it gave us, it gave us the confidence to basically what we did, we brought that back to our entire team. And we basically started having, we would debrief the fourth to Ferguson capacity trainings with our entire team and do the same exercises. And it was it was impactful, because we weren't, even though three of us were in there. And we were trying to take 20 individuals with us along the journey. And so being able to say like calling things out and actually being in this space where we could have those vulnerable conversations, like I didn't feel like I had a voice really, until we started doing that. And it was it was it was phenomenal. It was like now I just feel like I feel so more open. I feel like I am listened to like, I can go to my boss and say, Hey, this is actually not right. Like this is not this is not equitable, like how can we make this more equitable, we need to rethink different things. So don't think that like, all this happened overnight, a lot of it happened with building trust within our staff, our internal staff, too, because we had to all trust each other. And that was difficult. I mean, people been at the organization for 30 plus years, and they're resistant to change, or, you know, they are all about equity, but in a different way. Because they've been serving these donors who are only we're we're meeting them where they are. But we have to embody that. And so now that we embody it, and we believe it, it just comes out, like full for full fold in our work in our day to day work. And the work we're trying to do and what we want to be able to do for the Community Foundation and for the region. And that makes me excited to work there. And I know like we don't, a lot of the times, Community Foundation definitely has gotten a lot of, you know, you know, hip, like hypocritical responses is usually frowned upon things of that work, that of that nature, because of the generational and historical wealth in the history it was founded upon. But no, like, there are things happening, we might not be able to see them. But we are trying. So thank you very rare for that. And we are really trying to really not just talk the talk, but actually walk the walk. And so it's it's it's a process, and it has taken us years, and we're still on this journey together. And we like it's just if we ever need anything we know we can call forward through Ferguson to help us, you know, figure some things out, you know, where to help us walk us through certain things. So it's been a great partnership in that in that way.

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  44:01  
I mean, I think what I hear from both of you is this idea of bringing transparency into a funder and nonprofit relationship has contagious benefits, both because an organization can try and actually figure out what the best approach is when they are learning and implementing and growing in their own work. And it sounds like being able to be open and honest with a funder has allowed you all to reflect on your practices, not only in relationship to the organizations you're integrating relationship with, but also your team and the culture of your organization and how you are hoping to grow and impact the community. It very much seems like when we let go or attempt to dismantle the structures of power and influence and control right in these spaces when we start to create the opportunity to take colonize them. It actually has benefits not only to individuals and not only to the institutions, but to those who hold some sort of stake in the success of both of your institutions meeting their their visions. So I want to, I know that we are coming close to our time together. So I want to both address one of the questions in the q&a, which actually tags along. So one of the things I was going to ask is, how do you feel like this sort of non traditional relationship can contribute to change across the community? And we have a question from Jennifer in the q&a that says, based on your discussion of losing a large donor after sponsoring the racial equity Summit, do you feel that donors sometimes expect a service or representation in exchange for their donation? And aside from explaining your position and holding firm, have you developed a strategy to help mitigate this? So I actually do want to have a bra start with this question, because we definitely have this tension of what donors or supporters may expect and where we have to be really clear about what partnership looks like. So Faybra, maybe you can kick us off in that regard. And then Neosha would love for you to chime in. If there's anything else you want to add?

Faybra Hemphill  46:29  
You know, I have many thoughts about this. And even before this question was asked, there was one more point that I wanted to make about what we were just speaking about. So in addition to, you know, the culture and practice in our, you know, communication and how we interact around transparency, as well as you know, mutual trust and interest, there's another point about evaluating and measuring impact, according to our values, and also the critical pieces and functioning of our work. I think that one of the things that these sorts of partnerships call on us to do is to be creative, and I think radically imaginative around what measuring impact looks like. And then continuing to cultivate practice of getting, doing things that work towards that, instead of doing things that just work towards the status quo, or maybe what the field expects us to do. So to not speak in circles, I think to this question. It is very clear for us as 40 Ferguson, what our mission, purpose, key programs, key functioning, and, you know, capacity points in needs are and so everything that we seek to do, as an organization, every product, every outcome that comes out of what we do is, is and should have a foundation in those things. And so, in a creative partnership with St. Louis Community Foundation, when we go to report on our, you know, outcomes from what they invested in, they may say, hey, we know that for you. Ferguson has a creative and a unique identity as an institution. So they may ask questions in a way that gives us a little flexibility to be able to describe how we're measuring the ways in which we've been successful in our work, because our identity is unique. And I think those are some of the practices that are critical in developing more meaningful and sustainable and liberatory relationships between funders and organizations. So when you have events, like the racial equity Summit, where it is it could be interpreted is highly politicized. For us, those type of events are crucial to our work, they're crucial to our success as an institution that is supporting as well as holding the St. Louis Community accountable. So in the St. Louis Community Foundation's work, they get to say, hey, this organization, we made an investment and because their vision for equity and our vision for equity and resource in the St. Louis community are aligned, it's our bottom line. So if you don't like it, that's okay. But this is the impact that we want to have. These are the things that we're trying to measure. So basically get in where you fit in like you find out if funders are aligned with what you're doing when you speak back to them about what you exist to do. So yes, transparency, but also being able to pull up the real evaluative pieces like this is how we're evaluating our success. This is what we exist to do. This is how We speak back to the community, as well as to our funders about what we're accomplishing over time. And people get to say yes to that and participate in it or they get to walk away, but being really public, very transparent about it, and allowing the community to see this to notice it, to give you feedback and to interact with it. You attract more like minded institutions and individuals to continue to invest reinvest in partner.

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  50:28  
Thank you so much. Go ahead, Neosha. Yeah, I

Neosha Franklin  50:30  
was there. From the Community Foundation perspective, we one reason why sometimes donors do work with us is because they do want that anonymity. So they don't really want representation from us, the representation for the donor is really the Community Foundation brand, which I get you know, that they that's a personal choice. However, let's not, let's not be like I don't want to be mistaken. We don't want to lose donors, right? We need to be able to have donors to do our work is exactly what they were said. Like, we have to be able to continue to be here for nonprofits. And we want to fund nonprofits like We don't ever want to take away funding from nonprofits. So anything that we can give to forward through Ferguson, or another nonprofit comes from our discretionary dollars, that's not tied to a donor fund, like a donor advised fund. We are we are in control of that. Now we have some limitations on some of the donors, like if we do private foundation management, where we are actually working with families, foundations, to think about giving differently, this is where our expertise comes in to educate them on different types of practices and grant making practices that focuses on equity, or if it's health equity, or if it's education and equity. How can we position that in front of those funders? And so, so I just want to be clear, we don't we, we want to fund nonprofits, we want to be able to do that. And we don't want to lose donors, this particular donor without being given too much information, he we had a relationship with him over time. And we kind of knew him in terms of like his over the years of like, what types of based off of the types of organizations he funded. We kind of knew like he if anyone said anything, we were like it would be him, right. And so what we did was we the strategy is really based, it's a one on one type of thing, there is no fine line of like, this is what we're going to do every single time. Because we have to understand the relationship, we have to understand the donor, the donors intent of why they are working with us, and why are we a good fit? And how do we partner? So the conversation was a series of emails, and then it was one on one conversation with our president, CEO and our relationship managers, and understanding what their philanthropic journey and philosophy and legacy is for them. And so it's not, it's not like a one on one case scenario that fits every situation. Because if we had, you know, there were donors who didn't respond, so they were fine with me, right? So it just really depends on I would say the donor, and what we're going to do going forward in terms of how are we going to make sure that we are informing our donors, so they're not surprised when we decide we're excited? We're going to support the racial equity segment when it comes around again, how do we prep them? How do we continue to bring them along? So they know that this is these are the types of things that we want to support? So sorry, I hope that answers your question. But I would say there's really no one particular strategy. It's a lot of conversations. It's understanding it's relationship building, it's building trust, and how do we do it? And if we can't get them to go away, or we can't get them come to common ground, that donor ultimately made the decision to go to a conservative donor advised fund holder? I didn't even know that existed, but that let us know, you know. So you know, we we work through those things. And we try to have those conversations, and we talk with our board about what that looks like. So we had to make sure that they were on board as well, with this work, like what does that mean? And they were like, No, we're losing money, you know, but it's all about supporting the conversation supporting the work. And what does that mean for us? And if and I say this every time we just have strategic planning last week, I said, if we're not going to prioritize equity, we need to take it out of our mission. And we need to figure out exactly what are we going to do with it? Like we can't, we can't do that. So if we're not going to prioritize the equity, let's not put it in our mission, because I can't be affiliated with an organization that says that is that is what we're going to support. And when we say we're about one, we're not walking the walk. So

Faybra Hemphill  54:19  
yeah. Yeah, I think I had favor. Yeah, in addition to that, so there's that internal work with donors that currently exists, just really continue to work on them and with them and stay in the practice of, you know, the tough work like when the rubber meets the road. But I think there's also a point about really being out in the community, community and messaging and sharing broadly about the values that foundations have because that attracts and retains like minded donors over time. So yes, there may be moments Just like this one, where you lose a donor, but if you live in a philanthropic place, or a philanthropic city where they're, you know, philanthropy institutions, but also individuals they really want to give when they know that equity and justice is a value, people will continue to sustain the work that you're trying to do. So, yes, some donors just don't want to hear it. But those donors are outliers. It's not everybody. You know, philanthropy means the love of humankind. And so if people really know that what you're doing is for everyone, and it is really for the benefit of everyone in society. People will continue to get to that as long as you're really honest about what it looks like and how you want to use those resources. Awesome. Thank

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  55:44  
you. So one last question for you both. And again, if folks do have other questions or comments, they want to drop in the chat, please do that. So this last question is, you know, what advice would you give to nonprofits and funders, who are navigating these tensions or trying to figure out how to build more transformational relationships. And the other thing that I will say, is that I am gonna go ahead and drop my best contact information in the chat. So if folks want to continue their conversation, I'll have a couple of ways you can get a hold of me Faybra and Neosha, if you are open to that, I would invite you to drop your preferred contact, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, tick tock dances, whatever makes sense to you find Faybra on clubhouse? You know, or maybe don't, I don't know, the super secret pass. But we'll drop those in the chat while we while we address this last question. So what advice would you give to our audience today around you know, those who are considering these transformational relationships and Faybra? I'll start with you.

Faybra Hemphill  56:53  
Yeah, I dropped a link in the chat a moment ago, which I think is a really helpful resource about this. It's called the spectrum of community engagement to ownership. And I think this model is really helpful, particularly if you know, you're interested in community participatory grantmaking different aspects of justice, philanthropy, bringing a group of volunteers together to make a decision about resources, I really think it's helpful because it gives you a reframe, and I think it gives you a refresh about how to interact with the community, but to also give the community power, I think there's a lot of well, meaning individuals, leaders and organizations that engage the community, but don't fully always have a perspective about how to give the community power, to also be able to help them be successful in their work. So that power, meaning decision making, but also meaning the infrastructure and systems to set them up for success. You know, we say in justice, philanthropy, as well, as you know, other aspects of justice work that, you know, intent doesn't always equal impact. And the same thing is true. On the specter spectrum of partnerships and community engagement, I think sometimes we have the intention to really include the community, but sometimes what the impact is, is tokenizing. And so we should think about that spectrum and that path, and what are some of the actions that we're doing as we're interacting with the community? And is that really getting us towards this this point of full systemic, as well as, you know, ownership of the interactions and the vision? So I would say think is a lot to think about, but I really like that resource. There's also a toolkit that we have called advancing positive change that has some process principles that I can share with you all as well.

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  59:04  
Awesome. Thank you Faybra, Neosha closing thoughts from you?

Neosha Franklin  59:08  
Yeah, I would just say, you know, if you are on this call, and you are a funder, I would say, you know, think about equity, not as just a buzzword. I felt like for a long time, that's just what it was. And people are like, Oh, we got this equity thing, because everybody's talking about it that. But really, it takes time. And don't be afraid to challenge the status quo, around what you really feel is important and what you should value as an organization. And really think about as a funder to what types of organizations in your community can you actually partner with in different ways that will actually create transformation for your organization internally and externally. And I really feel like that happened when we partnered with forward through Ferguson. And also check out there capacity building options. I mean, it's it's a great source. It was a great resource for us and it really helped catalyze a lot of the work that we were able to do, because we actually had to do work like this was not like show up and sit there But we actually engaged in meaningful conversation, we actually did projects, we did real work that we actually walked away with something that we could put into practice. And that is what has helped us really start to move the needle with us internally. And that's what we recognize we had to start internally first, so that we could believe it, we could own it, we could, you know, breathe it every day and do the work. And now we're really trying to figure out how do we bring our donors along in our communities along with that in the process, and, you know, most people don't know that we're doing this work. And so it's not something we're like, we're doing this equity work. And, you know, we don't want that we want to show it through our action, our funding our model, and what we're doing and how we show up in community. So if you would like some support, or if you just want to talk through anything like that, I did put my information in the chat. Thank you.

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  1:00:46  
Thank you Neosha and Faybra, for sharing your brilliance and wisdom and lived experience with us today, I am gonna go ahead and pass it over to Tim to close us out.

Tim Sarrantonio  1:01:01  
Awesome, that was amazing. Thank you so much. And we I were grabbing all the resources, but Rachel maybe helped me make sure we get all the resources to and we're going to put this up on the website. That should go up later today. Everyone's going to get an email with the recording by tomorrow as well. So don't worry, we got you covered. And obviously, this is a conversation we want to continue to have. We will continue to support these types of things to Rachel and I let's let's figure it out. So but yeah, this is awesome. Always check out the neon one website. If you want other great resources like this and other great webinars, the next May webinar that relates to the donor report will be with Farra Trompeter of big duck. And that will be focusing on where are our donors, so finding people where you and they sync up from a communication standpoint, so Oh, favorite, you're gonna be there too. Awesome. We'll talk Okay, so very cool. Very cool. Everyone, have a lovely day. I'm going to let everyone go turn this off, and we're going to get things all collected and put up onto the website. Otherwise, have a lovely rest of the week.

Rachel D'Souza Siebert  1:02:25  
Thank you. Bye, everyone.

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