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All right, I just want to do a quick check to make sure that we are live before I introduce April Walker. Looks like we are so Hello, folks. I want to There we go. Okay, sometimes I hear myself when I'm in this. We are just coming from a fantastic session on building community. And that was with the folks at turnkey. And it cued up our next session perfectly towards equity and abundance, embracing philanthropy with community at the center with a walker, of philanthropy for the people, right. That's correct. That's correct. So, April, welcome to the main stage of generosity exchange. We're so excited to have you here. The floor is yours.

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Thank you so much, Tim. Love a solid introduction. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining. I'm sorry, I couldn't do with you in the session before this. But I hope you've been energized and engaged throughout generosity exchange, I am grateful to be here with you on day two. I'm going to be leading a conversation as Tim shared about embracing philanthropy with community at the center. And I of course, want to extend a thank you to the neon one team for having me. But enough of that housekeeping, let's go ahead and jump in. All right, so that is a picture of me with much better makeup on a really good day. I'm at a disadvantage because I can't see your beautiful faces, but I can see some of the comments. So I will try and keep up there. I do encourage you to use the chat function to share your thoughts throughout the presentation with me, as well as the pose any questions that you have, we will of course have some time for q&a at the end. But I would love for your engagement throughout more than this box on your computer screen on what's probably your 5000 Zoom or virtual meetings since 2020 is a black woman who proudly hails from Baltimore, Maryland, though I have called the Midwest home for the past decade for Chicago and now Cleveland, Ohio. Just for clarity, my pronouns are she her. And as Tim alluded, I am a racial equity champion, a grantmaker, a fundraiser and a consultant. I am a lover of corgis and a good cup of coffee, especially now that it's cold. I am a radical rest advocate for black women, particularly those of us in the nonprofit and corporate spaces. And a little bit of background is that I got my start in philanthropy actually working at foundations and then doing philanthropic advising before I ever raised any money, which is pretty untraditional. Nonetheless, in this current season of life, I manage a consulting firm that centers racial equity in fundraising and grant making. I have a few of my clients current and former on the screen. I've been really fortunate and blessed to work with a wide range of nonprofits and foundations at different intersections of advocacy, economic justice, and more. So that is a smidge about me. What's ahead here, hopefully building on the conversation in the session, you just had it let's go ahead and jump in. As many of my fellow fundraisers know, donor centric fundraising has largely been the name of the game, you don't have to have your your CFRE. To know that development teams and Fundraising Professionals largely employ what is called a donor centric model. donor centric fundraising has been well researched. It's been how we've learned about fundraising formally. And informally, I have to say that it's been well researched, because it's been how we've done this business for a while on its face that contains the basic fundraising mechanics and elements that all nonprofits should adhere to, right. And those elements are not in and of themselves problematic. But we will talk about the slippery slope that exists. donor centric fundraising largely says you think the people who support you, you ask them to support in a very thoughtful and strategic way you are mindful about communicating impact with said donor, you personalize the experience as much as possible. And then of course, you express an awful lot of gratitude for their generosity. That is pretty standard. That's that's pretty on its face. That's how we fundraise. That's, that's the mystery of this work, yet. And still, there is a another school of thought that says, hey, maybe we're approaching this fundraising thing all the way wrong, or at least somewhat wrong. Maybe we're missing out on opportunities for community engagement. For community outreach, maybe we're missing out on opportunities to remind these wonderful donors that they are actually a part of this ecosystem that they're supporting. So while they may be funding a nonprofit service or solution or community intervention, they exist in community with us and the people that we serve, and we maybe don't need to center them in all of the narratives and all of the communication. Often these are communities that neither they and sometimes even nonprofit teams know very well, you can certainly serve a community provide a program or a service, and not actually have much on the ground knowledge of how that community is experiencing you. So there is some push and pull, I would say a growing tension, and a growing question of how can fundraisers approach their jobs effectively, aka, raise as much money as possible for whatever mission you are supporting, which requires, as I've said, leaning on the tried and true mechanics of some elements of donor centric fundraising, but also challenging and disrupting along the way, where you do have some, some of the more problematic elements rear their head. And doing that in service to inviting and embracing a community narrative, community narrative a bit more, hopefully, a lot more. So let's talk a bit about what that slippery slope looks like. Especially after the racial reckoning of 2020. That wasn't really a racial reckoning. But that's another presentation that maybe neon one can bring me back for fundraising, fundraisers, myself included, have been increasingly aware of the ways that donor centric fundraising might be working in service to maintaining revenue at the expense of building a value alignment. So what do I mean by that? We often talk about building a culture of philanthropy. But even inside of that culture, there are these unspoken elements of how donor centered donor centric philanthropy manifests. And that can be problematic for a number of reasons. It creates a dynamic in which someone's philanthropy or generosity buys them access to decision making power, sometimes advise them direct decision making power, at a minimum that buys them leverage and control over what should be a seemingly independent nonprofit organization that is serving the community for a specific purpose not bending to the whim of a donor who happens to have a lot of resources at their disposal. So what this does is it contributes to a power imbalance, it's often rooted in charity or more so of a charity mindset. So helping those who are less fortunate without acknowledging the systems and all of the systemic issues that create, control and maintain the reality of those fortunes, right. Also, donor centric fundraising focuses very heavily on tax benefits for the donors. It promotes the interests and well being of a few instead of that of a many, I don't know how many of you are philanthropy nerds, like me, or call me nerds, and you sort of look at how many additional billionaires we've gotten in this world since 2020, or even since the pandemic and it's pretty fascinating how we continue just to divide the resources that we have as a nation. So I do have some questions on the screen for folks to consider and take into account when exploring whether or not your donor centric fundraising or your fundraising model is slipping into a bit more of a problematic territory for you, or for your organization. So the first would be to consider how much do you know about your donors values, right? Do they aligned with yours, I could share myriad experiences about being at dinners with major donors or dinners with board members where it was just glaringly evident to me from the questions that they were posing, and asking that they might have an affinity for this specific nonprofit mission. But the entire context of the work that your nonprofit is doing, they're very detached, very unfamiliar, and quite frankly, a little bit uninvested as well. Consider as well, how much the donors know about your values. Again, I have other experiences where donors

8:33  
I were board members rather asked me why wasn't protesting and inside of 2020, or why I personally hadn't taken the stance that they assumed I needed to take, instead of saying their own inaction as equally concerning or concerning at all, because my inaction was of a different grain that we won't get into. Also, is there a conversation you feel you need to have with a donor, maybe something you've been afraid to ask a topic you've been afraid to broach because you're afraid of losing that donation, or because you don't feel supported either by the nonprofit team that you're in the leadership to lose that donation, but it's worth it to you, maybe to want to engage in it. And then additionally, is the organization in a position that you have really the privilege to work to rebalance the scales, there is always risk associated with talking about money, as we know, and some people will indeed push back against your request to shift power or to be in relationship with them in different ways that maybe don't center and accommodate them as much as you have in the past. Another consideration as we move along here for centering donors is that they're giving for pretty distinct reasons as we all are, but it's a smidge more opponent when you talk about those with significant wealth. So I've quoted some research from being why Mellon here that reveal that at a minimum 64% of donors that have at least 5 million in assets, so some had more are giving to maintain their wealth. So they say they're giving as a key component of their wealth strategy versus giving to support a cause or giving because they actually want to solve a social issue. Those are pretty distinct narratives, right? And they should or could lead us to a conversation that we need to have about wealth and LEC, or wealth and inequity having the same source. Similarly, and understanding the limits of donor centered fundraising, we also have to account for the current state, and reality of the nonprofit sector. Right now we have 79% of nonprofit board chairs and executive directors identified as white, we have 16% all white boards governing nonprofits that focus primarily on serving people of color, that was a particular point of contention for me. And then we have 22%, only 22% of women comprising a leadership or the top leadership role at nonprofit organizations with budgets of 50 million or more. So you'll see that representation, equity and inclusion are all problems inside of this sector that I personally know and love. We have seen an uptick in organizations wanting to diversify their boards wanting to diversify their donor base add DEI their strategic plans, especially since 2020. But none of those efforts in and of themselves maintain or create cultures, which is what we actually need. I like to draw the comparison for folks that folks that rarely do we see the opposite, right? If you've seen an All Black Board, governing a country club, setting tee times deciding menus, I will gladly hand over the resources in my savings account, but it just doesn't exist. So we should have a pretty visceral reaction when we see all white leadership teams, even worse than entirely white leadership pipeline inside of an organization that's being governed by an all white board. And that organization is sitting inside of a black community inside of the Latin X community inside of an Asian community, and does not have any type of relationship with those folks that they share space with. So for that reason, and many others, nonprofits end up in what is often called a scarcity mindset, I would flip the notion on its head a smidge, I don't believe nonprofits generally opt in to having a scarcity mindset.

12:27  
In it operating in this way where you're coming from a place of lack, you don't think you can challenge donors, you don't think that there are enough resources to go around. I'm going to employ some bad form here and actually, quote an article that I wrote a little over a year ago for community centric fundraising. But basically, it reinforces the refrain that many nonprofits have only ever known scraping by. And again, I don't know how many folks we have represented here the size of your organization, but lack is the reality of many nonprofits, right. In addition to that nonprofits are also rewarded for their struggles. There's still skepticism about general operating support, and nonprofit financials overall. And at the same time, we have nonprofits reporting on their impact, and their services and the problems that they're trying to solve without those actual investments, touching the things that they need to like fair wages, like solid benefits for the organization, like professional development, like a healthy organizational culture, like an actual budget and resources for community engagement and community outreach. So for a lot of organizations, I would venture that scarcity is safe, because it's what's known, and it doesn't really rock the boat, then also people in the mainstream and donors as well are largely I'm surprised when nonprofits are struggling, when they nonprofits have outdated technology when nonprofits don't offer attractive or solid benefits packages. And as a result of that, this is something that many of us probably know very well, there's a heck of a lot of turnover and burnout, particularly in development departments. And we are not the only industry or sector that has turnover. But there is a unique consequence for us being able to attract and retain development professionals that have the skills of fundraising, in roles that require trusting relationships and where you need to cultivate a consistency of communication with folks. It's a challenge. So the recent data, I believe, states that the average length of time for development staff person is about 18 months, and that's probably shrinking a little bit as we move closer to 2023. And we are in again, where I would venture is labor rebellion. But that's another presentation. We get to another time.

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So the question becomes what the heck can we really do about it right? If we want to venture to embrace philanthropy, with community a bit more at the center if we want our fundraising to reflect the communities that we serve, if we want fundraising and philanthropy to align value was to serve as educational moments and not just charity, what can we do? One of the first things I would encourage folks to do is acknowledge that two things can be true, we often make a distinction between donor wealth and donor diversity. And we don't have to do that. So I have two sets up here for everyone's review. And the first is that black households give 25% more of their income annually than white than white households. And nearly two thirds of African American households donate to organizations and causes to the tune of about $11 billion a year, that has nothing to sniff it right. So for all of the organizations looking to identify new potential board members or diversify their donor base, I was with an organization in Madison, Wisconsin earlier this week. And I said, Well, who what's largely demographic of your donor base, and they said, middle aged white couples, fine, but they're fighting food injustice in Madison, Wisconsin. And those folks are not currently hungry or experiencing food injustice in the same ways, their constituents, right. So there is absolutely generosity that can be unlocked. It's a matter of how then the other reality that we have to hold with that truth of the generosity that's there is that black and Hispanic families lag behind on major wealth building measures, like homeownership have less than liquid retirement savings and carry more student loan debt than white families. Unsurprising, certainly, to me, maybe to some of you as well. But these two truths we have to acknowledge at the same time. So at the same time that black families Latinx families are being excluded precluded via policies, or simply the legacy of racism in this country from generating wealth, they are still much more generous than their counterparts who are white and have more resources at their disposal historically. And otherwise, your main takeaway, I would hope from this, as your starting point would be that you should not expect to engage with all communities in the same way. So at every expectation that you'll need to try new things, beyond just adding addresses to receive your annual fund appeal, or your end of year campaign or your Giving Tuesday, email blasts, you have to actually consider what's been our history of engagement with this community. And if there's none, and we're building from scratch, how can you leave with that truth, or if you used to have some level of engagement, and that's been lost, maybe there's some level of atonement that has to be done so that you can get back in community with the people that you would like to be in community with, for the betterment of your mission, of course. The next step, I would say, in terms of embracing equity and abundance inside of this community centric mindset is to define who the heck you're talking about when you say community, right? What specific people what specific leaders, what specific organizations, and doing so by taking money out of the equation, to consider what voices you actually listen to, right? What is your decision making map look like? And if it's all coming from one bucket, the ED and the board chair, then very likely you have a problem. So considering who was currently missing from your community, whether or not you know why, and then thinking about how you can build trust? And then beyond that assessing what spheres of influence do you have for each of these different buckets? I have some examples here that I'll chat about in a second. But what are these different relationships? Like? And are you having the experience with them that you would like and vice versa? Is it a positive experience, being in community with you, and treating each of these buckets with the same type of runway that you would a major donor who has the capacity to give you a five, six or seven figure gift right? If I could see you, I'd ask you to raise your hands all my fundraisers that have cultivated gifts for upwards of 18 months, sometimes two years to get to the level of support that you desire, treating the communities that we're in with that same assumption with that same investment of cultivation, which we often do not. Also, I'm going to draw a distinction for folks between advocates and allies. Hopefully some of you know the difference, but if not, I'm happy to detail it advocates are folks that actively sacrifice something, they support you in some way. They make a plea, they make a solicitation on behalf of a community that they're not a part of. An advocate uses their privilege and their platform to bring attention to an injustice. It is a public active sponsorship of a larger questioning of a larger movement of a larger issue. Allies can be a little problematic, but primarily because they're passive. So I can say that I'm allied with X y&z community, and no one actually has to hold my hand to the fire for anything. Nonetheless, you would probably like a smattering of those certainly more advocates and then allies and allies should have some type of vested interest, but there isn't always an accountability or an action embedded inside of that. And then how do you want to exist in community with these great folks becomes the question.

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To do so the primary way, especially from a community centric fundraising standpoint, is to be prepared to share power and power is best defined as the ability to influence and ultimately change the rules, right decision making it nonprofits or any an entity that hierarchy based, is hoarded at the top. So identifying where those power imbalances are is going to be pretty crucial. That also means you have to have a leader of the organization and a board that's willing to say, hey, maybe we are making decisions that we haven't accounted for. Maybe distributing one survey to constituents at the end of the year is not sufficient. How can we begin to entrust a broader community with our decision making and invite them into what's working, and then setting that broader community up for success, aka resources, so don't invite folks into something that is a waste of their time, that's not going to be funded that you don't have some type of compensation prepared for their investment, moving forward. Additionally, inviting feedback and preparing yourself for what I would say it's an imperfect journey. A lot of what happens folks up from any type of di related work, or any type of community centric work is thinking that one day you're supposed to be donor centric. And the next day, you're supposed to be community centric, my friends, it does not work that way. These are journeys that we have to be on. These are different small ways and big ways that we can challenge and disrupt the status quo. But trying to get to this outcome that doesn't yet exist an entirely fully fledged committed a centric fundraising department, or an entirely equitable organization is not going to motivate you, it's a matter of looking at the incremental changes that you can make and holding yourself accountable to that. And then being willing to evolve adjust when you learn when you fail when you figure out what type of shifts you have to make in order to have the desired impact.

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So next up, as we head into a new year, I want to offer that I think we're going to continue to venture further and further away from all of the conversations we were hearing about racial justice and equity and all the things closer to 2020. So whereas there was an effort, albeit short lived, to center black voices to center those who are marginalized or otherwise identified as disadvantage, and to build authentic partnership, it didn't really last. That said, any fundraising that operates devoid of some type of racial analysis, I would venture is a reckless disregard for this, how those solutions affect the community. So some framing and language I want to offer you, as you work to integrate community into your fundraising practices is performative philanthropy. Back when I was a chief development officer, I had many moments where I simply felt like I was battling with a Viola Davis to become an actress. Because there was something that was just deeply performative and and authentic about how I had been taught, and how I was continuing to perpetuate perpetuate relationships with funders. So currently performing a philanthropy I would offer the definitions when funders quarter public image is progressive trust based anti racism responsive to community needs, without doing the work required to earn those accolades. So funders don't have to perform very much, but nonprofits have to perform in actual time, right? We have to perform excellence, we have to perform solutions, we have to perform community engagement even if it doesn't exist. But that often makes puts us in a position where we're not telling the full story about what's the reality here. What are what's what's the wage discrepancy here are people said here, right? Is the culture of toxic and unhealthy here is our donor is our employee retention in the toilet here. Also, a lot of funders are asking questions of nonprofits now that they themselves have not answered. So winning nonprofit organizations to account for their, the demographics of their board, or their staff of the people being served, when they themselves have an entirely homogenous decision making body that will say yes or no, you can get a grant. So to the extent that you yourself, and Tim can end, the team that you're a part of if you're not a team of one can consider where you feel like you're showing up authentically, or where you feel like you're showing up inside of a dynamic that the funder is creating. I would offer this language and encourage you to embrace it and use it so that folks can get familiar with why it's problematic that we're putting on performances and not just showing up specific to what's actually needed and what the community would like. Also, I want to offer philanthropic fragility as a new framing. I will not get into white fragility here. I don't have a ton to say about Robin D'Angelo. Nonetheless, it does parallel white fragility. We're in a group with privilege and power refuses to reflect on how history and social dynamics can perpetuate the inequality from which they comfortably benefit, right. So there are many a donor many funder who were not really ready for conversations about wealth and equity that we talked about previously, or reparations. And nonetheless, those things matter a ton. So if you are inside of a more progressive nonprofit, if you are willing and prepared to have conversations linking the source of someone's wealth, or even the source of a Foundation's investments and how they tie to the community that you're serving, I would embolden you to at least begin to have that conversation with the program officer or with your leadership team for your own sanity, quite frankly. Alright, talking fast wanna make sure we have some time for questions. So moving forward, we're moving towards equity also requires knowing how to operationalize it. I think I mentioned already the the DEI field. God bless my colleagues, it's really overwhelming, overrun with a lot of jargon, a lot of doublespeak. In my work, I lead with equity because equity is actionable, even if we often define it. Otherwise, I do an exercise where ask people to define equity and power and almost always the answer for equity comes up as the definition of having it be having access or being fair or being justice, it gives me a whole bunch of other terms. And then you have some folks who will define it in terms of what we want to achieve via equity. So it's a condition when you can't predict advantage or disadvantage based off of you know, race, sexuality, etc. Well, a that condition doesn't exist anywhere yet. And equity thinking about it in those terms, and not being clear what we're talking about, doesn't really hold us accountable to any action. So for me, I prefer to focus on this equity and action definition where it's the sharing of resources and decision making power in a way that fundamentally supports the self determination of all people, but especially people of color. That being said,

26:25  
as we embrace equity, or maybe you're part of a JEDI, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, the main takeaway that I would love for you to have as an equity is a choice, which is why I lead there. And it's a choice that hopefully will result in inclusion, which is an action, but I can't get you to act. If I can't make you change your mind. If I can't make you want to choose to share what you have, I can't invite you to share the decision making power you have and share the resources at your disposal. And often nonprofits whether it's a scarcity mindset or something else, think about themselves in a deficit way, right? We're talking about what we don't have, because we're talking about what we need, when quite frankly, we do exist in communities that are rich and full of assets, we just have to reframe our thinking as such. So leave this session, knowing that diversity is the fact you cannot change the numbers, the demographics, equity is a choice, you have to make inclusion as the action that would follow you actively making that choice, and then belonging and justice, all that other stuff, access or outcomes that we would love to see. All right, before we get into some questions, and I'm gonna take a sip of water, I want to offer what Moving Towards Abundance looks like for you personally, but also for the teams that you're working inside of. The main thing is to start with what you don't know, I want to give you all permission to not have the answers both you and the organizations that you're serving. You don't have to have the solution. But you can certainly be a vehicle for communities to find the solutions that they already have for themselves, there is nothing new under the sun. And by and large communities know what they need and how they need it and how often they would like to receive it. So if we can get ourselves out of the way and consider ourselves conduits or vehicles or facilitators for whatever that change is, then we all be a lot more effective. I'm gonna give you a bit of like a spoiler here, what people need is still largely the same and unchanged. Philanthropy does a lot of work to avoid giving money to people, which is what they actually need cash in their pockets. The same with shelter, food and safety. So however you can be a vehicle in service to those things that is, is starting with what you don't know in terms of how that community wants to prioritize, I would encourage you to lead with that level of curiosity. And then of course, we're turning to our definition of equity and making sure that you share the resources and space that you do have and then knowing when to speak up and the answer to that is always speak up if your silence harms someone else. I'm so at the at the end here I have, you know, be unapologetic about centering those on the margin. You're you fight for freedom by practicing freedom. And that to me is my best sort of charge to you that you you should not enter your workplace tomorrow at the end of this generosity exchange conference feeling empowered, and feeling like you have to fix it all in the next 90 days. You don't. These are journeys, where you have to practice and learn and adjust and I would hope that you can get sort of obsessed and really passionate about learning and being curious and being really imperfect because that's how we all get better not by staying comfortable but by staying uncomfortable and then freeing up others to do the same. So while I sip some water, we do have a smidge of time I believe for questions. So I would love any of those and comments in the chat as well. If Tim you could help me I would appreciate it I see you Tim I'm not sure if you're speaking you might be muted.

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I did mute myself, Tim you're on mute. Awesome yet. Putting up on the screen. Tammy's kind of you know restating again That's very powerful statement.

30:03  
Thanks Tammy.

30:04  
we also want to make sure you see this one from Katrina.

30:11  
Yes, Katrina, I have a great example of that, in a conversation with the Bank of America Foundation. They're contingent here in the Midwest, in Ohio, or northeast Ohio. And they asked directly, you know, what have you all done? How diverse is the board and nothing was very diverse. When that was a black serving organization, I was the only drop of color in the bucket. Nonetheless, I balked at the question because I know and anyone that has Google can know how Bank of America amassed its resources, and it was like, like accounting for enslaved persons as collateral. So with your currently like leadership team of your very large financial institution that voted against having a racial equity audit, it's really fascinating that you're asking a nonprofit organization on the ground about what we're doing. Just Just A Thought Katrina, maybe you want to say like that, but just

31:03  
awesome. We got we got a question coming in on Oh, already. You're gonna love this. Okay. Ariel, "I work with the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund. An organization that is actively working to challenge the current norm in philanthropy. I also learned about the Empower Omaha. org, which is doing similar work. Are there any, any organizations you believe, may also push in the best directions for a stronger philanthropic field?"

31:37  
Ooh, so nonprofit organizations, specifically, or foundations, I guess, would appreciate some clarification there.

31:45  
And Ariel, if you want to put the clarification in the chat. So April might see that then we can definitely dive into your question a little bit further.

31:57  
The foundation perspective if that's okay. Quickly, there are foundations that are taking some bold steps. But But don't fret because there are lots of foundations that are making things more complicated. But I do believe the San Francisco foundation, it's a California based organization, if I'm not mighty, that one, they've eliminated proposals for the most part, at least for renewal grantees. So they in so what happens because I used to be a grant maker still am, what happens is nonprofits write grants, right? The development person or the grant writer has to ask the program staff what the heck they're doing. And then they translate all of that inside of a grant application that a program officer reviews, program officer asks you some follow up questions via a site visit. And then we then rewrite all of that to present it to a board that can say yes or no, we're gonna fund it, that also really don't always read what our recommendations are. We have a quick chat about the organization, and then they say yes or no. So there's a lot of wasted time inside of that. And so that particular foundation, I hope I'm correct, that I have the right one, they've gotten rid of proposals in general, they have a conversation with a member of the development team and whatever member of the program team you've identified, and if they have other questions, they'll call you or email

33:07  
you. And it was foundation. So so we're on the right track there. I'm also going to put in the chat folks a previous conversation that we had with the the community St. Louis Community Foundation that was facilitated by Rachel D'Souza Siebert of gladiator consulting, who was on our coaching session yesterday on so called difficult conversations with major donors. And I think it helped address some of these items, too. They've been doing some really, really awesome work. Rachel's great, awesome, awesome. Yeah. And we got Edgar Villanova coming up later. So we're just steeped in it. And what's really interesting is that there are kind of different nuances and different perspectives that we have, because the the talk that we just had previously talked about kind of the psychology of the kind of talking to donors in the YOU and stuff like that. And, and kind of what I stated is, it's a little bit more in the donor primacy side, in many ways that we have to concern and you immediately address that.

34:13  
Yeah, that can I add that little nugget to it, I should have come to that session. Sorry. But

34:19  
I've never recorded everything.

34:22  
We know that putting you inside of letters. And as many times as possible, all of that stuff works. And it's great. But I want to just hold space for the fact that community centric fundraising and really trying to disrupt this is new, right? This is because we have a new generation of leaders for the first time in the workforce. We have Boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z ears, right. So this is a combination of another couple of things coming together at the same time, where we're getting quite a bit louder. And so my my personal business coach was also a fundraiser. She and I don't agree you're relying on community centric fundraising, and that's okay, because when she was an ED of an organization, she employed all of these owners thinks with models. And she sat through really uncomfortable conversations with major donors. And she raised a heck of a lot of money. And my perspective is, I will raise the money, but I'm not going to sacrifice my values to do that. And I'm not going to sacrifice the integrity of the community that I'm serving in order to do that. And that we can exist in that reality. But also, you have to hold space for the fact you can't really research something that is still burgeoning, and is a movement, which is going to take more time and more of us to attempt these things along the way.

35:26  
And I would say that that for because there was some questions about data and stuff like that in the last session, which is typically brought up and the work that Nyan one has been doing and trying to highlight is around that type of of information from the individual giving side where, you know, looking at what donors are doing, the types of organizations they're giving to, and having a deeper understanding of the nuances, especially as it impacts into the economic and the socio political elements. So more to come in general. And it's a really generosities a pretty big tent. That's the beauty of it. I do have a question that I want to highlight here from Lauren, that actually touches on that. So I'll put it up on the page. Our organization's doing a lot of listening sessions as part of our reworking, do you have any other key steps that must not be missed in this process?

36:22  
Ooh, I love this question. And kudos to you know, just diving in and listening to folks, I would, I would love to know and be curious if you have the set a timeline when you we'll circle back with them what your accountability plan looks like, also, if there was an opportunity for compensation to be involved in that process at some at some level, right? Again, it's a privilege to be able to do any of these things. And it's even more of a privilege to be able to fund it. But making sure that we are compensating and thanking people when they show up and when they exist honestly in community with us are transparently I would say. So for me, accountability is the is the the key, the key driver here. When are you going to circle back with them? And to what end? And how much information can you share transparently about why or why not some of those requests will will manifest so that people are not just left in the dust. I've seen this happen with inside of organizations where we continually acts our program staff, what would you do if you had $2 million? What would you do if you had additional resources, and then we don't end up funding those things, right? We're just speaking to a vision that we don't ultimately manifest that can be a little demoralizing over time. So we want to make sure that we're really clear on some of the structures that we're operating within. I think I see your comment that yay for compensation. But the timeline is evolving. So just keeping a pulse on that I think is key.

37:43  
Got another question from Colleen here. I'll put it up on the main stage here.

37:47  
What advice do you have for an African American family setting up a family foundation yay, to help families separated by enslavement? Do genealogy research mental health counseling on their approach to funders? First of all, Colleen handclap. Everybody can clap for Colleen. Incredible. Um, what advice. That's a big one. And I guess advice on the approach to funders. So the approach to funders would be in considering whether or not an organization has a stated or a demonstrated DEI value, there is a huge difference. So you will see some organizations recently, a couple years back, put statements out slightly adjusted their plans, there has been no demonstration of that impact. So if you take a look at their 990, from 2019, from 2020, from 2021, you will see an uptick in resources slightly in 2021, in the form of some COVID response grants, but the balance of their grant making has resumed in the same way. That might not be the ideal partner. And or that could be how you want to enter the conversation, Hey, I see these values. And here's how we could help you live those out. But you would have the knowing that they haven't really done a ton versus organizations that have made statements, they've stated that they're going to shift something. And then there's actual evidence that you can find if they don't publish their own grantee list. And it's still public information. Because I see that you're actively investing in this and you you connected with all these new organizations in recent years. And here's how we aligned with it. There was also such I could get emotional, so maybe calling call me after about the nature of that work. And so you do have folks that are on a journey to say identify, hey, this is the source of our wealth, especially where you have multiple generations inside of some of these family foundations. Right. So one of my clients, the the Gen Zers were like, Let's just give all the money to the Black and Brown nonprofits. And the grandparents who got the money. We're kind of like we hear the noise. We don't need to change too much. And I actually encourage them to give the money away because my thought was well then what accountability Does your family have? What will your family then do besides continue to be weathy right. So call me Colleen. I think that's the advice.

40:05  
And all speaker profiles have direct contact information. If you go to the reception click speakers, you'll be able to find April's information and more, we got a fire question. Coming up from David, "what rhetorical strategies do you have for making a community centric appeal for gifts, especially in written appeals, I'd love to stop making the donor the hero but still get that money." Because a lot of the folks are in the individual giving side of things with you know, kind of not necessarily the foundation side. So any any advice here?

40:39  
Yeah. And can you repeat it one more time? Just let me kind of have it.

40:42  
What rhetorical strategies do you have for making a community centric appeal for gifts? Especially in written appeals? I'd love to stop making the donor the hero but still get that money?

40:55  
Yeah, I love it. I love the question. And I love you pushing against the donor has to be the hero of this. I mean, did they do anything? Um, I don't know. I think there's there are two responses that I have, I think we've we've obviously done as much as we can do with you made this possible, your impact has been so great. Thank you so much, Sally, and John, for how generous you are. Because without you, we'd be nothing. This community that you're serving, like I said, has assets, this community is on a trajectory, in part because of what you've done, but also because of their fortitude, to change with their with their accesses to change the pathways that they have. Thank you for investing directly, we would love for you to learn more about that community. I was at a school potentially to do a capital campaign for the Catholic school. And they shared that they essentially bus their their kids to a poor community in Cleveland to hand out food. And I was like, did you ever consider that maybe that community also has something to offer the students that you're taking over there? And so they if you have a sense of what the assets are of the community, and how they're actually investing in uplifting in those things? I would I would see if you can do some framing around that. Because the heroes of any story doesn't have to be this external person. Right? The fact that some of these communities still exist when they've been absolutely exploited and plummet by policies and by brutality and by a stripping of resources is incredible. And so what is their vision for themselves versus Bob, Sally, John, whoever the heck, you've made all of this possible, because you give us $25,000 every year.

42:51  
Okay, I'm gonna put Katrina's comment on the main stage, I've also moved my big head to the bottom here. So it's not these don't cover the interpreter. So now who cares about my face? There you go. I'm hearing acid framing and this centering the strengths of the community and bringing the donors presence into company with that, but not centering the deficits that the org is working to fill.

43:16  
Yeah, so Katrina must know me, I am a social worker, by academic training. And so yes, I do lead with assets, and encourage us all to write. Because nothing grinds my gears more than seeing. Some of the appeal letters we write are essentially the videos that we've seen at different galas of blighted communities, and everyone is so sad and destitute. And there's graffiti, and then it leads to and look at the wonderful intervention the nonprofit has held. And now do your pedal race to give us money. So some of our written words take that exact same tone, versus people are still thriving inside of a community that has actively been blighted and existing, and we owe it to them, those individuals and to the structure itself to acknowledge it, I have a slide that I think speaks to this, and maybe I jumped over. It's a difference in saying I want to help the needy. And I want to dismantle the system that makes them in need. Right? So taking some of this individualism that Americans love out of the equation, no, we're talking systems change here, we're talking structures here that people did not create. Then while I'm on that, I can maybe end with this, that you were always practicing something. So either you're practicing upholding the world as it is, or you're practicing shifting the world to what you want it to be. And so to all of the questions that folks I appreciate you essentially asking, How can I just change a little bit? How can I start with my letter? How can I start with this conversation? How can I start with thinking about who do I want to talk to and how should I open up a dialogue with them? Because if we don't do anything, then our inaction our silence is speaking in support of what currently exists which we could probably agree could use some updating.

44:56  
Love it. Love it, April. This was All Powerful. So, so very needed. And we're so thankful for you coming to our community and sharing this.

45:08  
Happy to be here. Thanks, Tim. We love you because so thank you for getting everything together.

45:13  
Awesome. Okay, folks, we're gonna be going into a 15 minute break, visit our sponsors, check out some speed networking. I'm gonna try to test it out myself for at least a moment. And then we'll see in about 15 minutes for kind of the start of our afternoon and do not miss our keynote with Edgar Villanueva and Denise Barreto because all of these are just building up to that you're going to be blown away. Thank you folks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai