creativity in crisis

Jean Lee is clear and compelling in how she speaks about MCCA’s work and how they’re being creative and responsive during the crisis. She also talks about the importance of thinking outside-the-box, appreciating the diversity of the nonprofit ecosystem, and reflecting on the reason why your organization exists in order to better serve the communities you work with.

During this conversation, Jean asks the question, “How can we improve our communities to show humanity, to show kindness?” Such a powerful question. It forces us to think about how we can continue to support organizations that will allow us not to go back to a time that was unacceptable to those of us who are committed to social justice.

This conversation encourages us to use the moment we’re in to not only focus on surviving, but to use our leadership to improve our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to build thriving communities.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Resources:

• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA)

About Jean Lee

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Read the podcast transcription below:

-Upbeat Intro Music-

Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast and I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity, and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies, and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.

Nicole Campbell: Hi everyone, this week on the Nonprofit Build Up, we’re talking with Jean Lee, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, or MCCA; a national organization committed to advancing the hiring, promoting, and retaining of diverse attorneys in law departments and law firms by providing cutting edge research, best practices, professional development, and training, and through pipeline initiatives. Prior to joining MCCA, Jean served as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at JP Morgan Chase, where she worked on consumer litigation and regulatory matters. Before joining JP Morgan Chase, she worked on litigation matters at a boutique litigation firm in New York City and started her career as a law clerk to the honorable John J. Hughes, United States Magistrate Judge, now retired in the district of New Jersey. Jean and I recorded this conversation in May, 2020, as we navigated our way through the first few months of the pandemic. Jean is clear and compelling in how she speaks about MCCA’s work and how they’re being creative and responsive during the crisis.

Nicole Campbell: She also talks about the importance of thinking outside the box, appreciating the diversity of the nonprofit ecosystem, and reflecting on the reason why your organization exists in order to better serve the communities you work with. During this conversation, Jean asked the question, “How can we improve our communities to show humanity, to show kindness?” Such a powerful question. It forces us to think about how we can continue to support organizations that will allow us not to go back to a time that was unacceptable to those of us who are committed to social justice. This conversation encourages us to use the moment we’re in to not only focus on surviving, but to use our leadership to improve our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to build thriving communities. And with that here is Jean Lee.

Nicole Campbell: Hi, Jean, I’m so happy to have you joining us for our Fast Build Leader Series. I’m really looking forward to the conversation today. To get us started, can you tell us about Minority Corporate Counsel Association, your role, and MCCA’s immediate priority?

Jean Lee: Nicole, thank you so much for having me today. I am the President and CEO of MCCA. I have been in this role for about four years and MCCA has been around for 23 years now. And it is really the leading organization that provides research, education, professional development training in the legal profession. We have focused on improving diversity, inclusion, and equity of our profession since its founding, and that is the sole mission of the organization.

Nicole Campbell: And when you think about the environment that we’re in right now, is MCCA focused on anything new or doing anything differently to respond to the needs that are popping up in this current environment?

Jean Lee: Yeah, I think like many organizations we’re thinking of new and creative ways to respond to what’s happening, but for us as an organization, that has been solely focused on convening individuals to talk about these issues in corporate America and in the law firms that serve the corporate legal department, our focus has really been about rebuilding our community. What we have noticed in the past several weeks is that there is somewhat of an inconsistency as to the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. You know, when people are in times of crisis, your natural instinct is to focus all your energy on survival. Completely understand, and absolutely that should be the first and foremost focus, your health and safety of your loved ones, and then obviously, work. And then as you think about work, you know, people are struggling with billable hours or dealing with businesses that are closing.

Jean Lee: Again, while you’re doing that, it’s important for organizations like MCCA to really think about, how do we ensure that the work and the progress we have made…and we have made some progress, probably the most notable in the last few years in improving the diversity of the profession. And there are so many leaders who have shown commitment, have come out publicly stating their commitment. We want to make sure that those commitments and that progress is not lost during this time. And we are really focused on bringing our community back together to rebuild, to continue to work on the mission of the organization, which is to improve diversity and equity and inclusion of the profession. The ways in which we are doing that, we just recently hosted a virtual conference. It was an all-day conference. It was the first of its kind in the legal profession where we did not just cobble together a CLE, but we really thought – thanks to the many guidance and advice from our experts and our leaders – we really thought about what are the ways in which allows us to bring a community together virtually.

Jean Lee: How do you connect virtually when you’re really looking at a person through the screen and thanks to their expertise and guidance and just suggestions, we were able to successfully pull off a seven hour, all day conference with networking reception, breakout sessions, CLE as well as professional development programs, just last Wednesday. And so we really focused on bringing people’s stories together; what are leaders dealing with, how can you as an associate, a diverse associate, navigate the law firm that is perhaps going through maybe even a boom or a major crisis, which many are dealing with? Or if you’re in a corporation, perhaps some parts of your businesses aren’t doing well, how do you stand out? How do you still do your day to day and manage what’s going on at home? Because we are all staying at home, you know, for the most part, at least until last, I think Monday or so, most of us were still working from home and we’ll continue to do that for the foreseeable future. And that opportunity gave people an outlet to reconnect, to recharge and to be re-energized about the work that they have done, as well as the work we have done.

Nicole Campbell: I really like that. And a couple of things jumped out at me from what you said, which is that you really don’t want to be one of those organizations that is just exclusively focused on surviving. Like how do we just survive within this current environment? And instead you’re really tackling difficult issues, like you’ve pointed out, like how do we still keep our focus on improving diversity, equity, and inclusion within the profession, and even trying to see how you can bring stories together in order to do that. And you talked about the event, I just think it just speaks to how innovative and creative you’re still trying to be during crisis, which is extremely important for organizations and your sustainability. So along those lines, I want to provide any sort of advice to nonprofits, that a lot of them at this point are in fact focused exclusively on their survival, which is understandable, they’re fundraising as a significant part of their budget. So what do you think should be top of mind for them right now during this time of uncertainty?

Jean Lee: I think that, you know, everyone is going through a state of uncertainty. I think you alluded to that and it is incredibly challenging. So what I’m about to say, there are just times sometimes where you have to focus on survival. But if you can spare some moments to think outside of that sort of crisis mode, if you can, and it’s not easy, in no way am I trying to make light of that, but if you can think creatively, what’s the most important thing why your organization existed or while your organization should continue to exist. And I think if you can think for a moment and take a step away from the crisis, if you can and think about that, you’re going to start to see solutions in how to be more nimble. Because I think while you’re trying to survive…and I just went through this whole thing as well, right?

Jean Lee: We have the great fortune of having many committed leaders that are all-hands-on-deck helping us. Right? And you may have an organization where the leaders themselves are so focused on crisis, that they can’t lend a hand. Because you are a, obviously for most nonprofits, a volunteer organization, and it’s not the first priority because their day job is. And I would say, if you don’t have the fortune of that, perhaps take a step back and say to yourself, what was it about this organization that made you committed, that allowed you join? Cause I often think about that. And you know, when all this happened, I had, I think, six full-time employees and one full-time contract employee, as well as couple of part-time employees. So total, maybe about 10, but the six were the ones that I saw day in and day out in the office or on a Zoom or a Skype.

Jean Lee: And within the first week, first of all, we were supposed to have our conference, we had to cancel a conference, that’s a major hit to our revenue. Then we had to quickly think about, okay, how is this going to impact our revenue, our membership, cause we started hearing all this about the industry. And then three out of the six employees got sick. Two of them thought that they had COVID, had to get tested. So you can imagine, for any small business owner, I don’t need to go into the minutia and the granular details of what kind of came afterwards. It was incredibly hard. That was my first week. In addition to hearing about, okay, what’s going on with PPP loan and should we apply? And how much can we get and what are the things that are happening? So I had to take a step back and say to myself, okay, I’ve had crisis before both professionally and personally.

Jean Lee: And I have not only survived, but I have thrived. I learned a lot. Like every job I had, there were some crisis. And certainly this is probably, in some ways, the biggest, because I’m actually responsible for people as the leader of the organization. Whereas in other situations, I had many other leaders to collaborate with. Here within the walls of MCCA, it’s just Jean Lee, who’s leading the organization. So when I took a step back, the first thing I thought to myself was, why did I join this organization? What made me so passionate that I left my corporate job at JP Morgan in New York City, a city that I love and call home for 27 years. What made me do that? And it was the mission of the organization and it’s the personal story that I was moved by. Why I thought to myself, I want to give voice to those who don’t always have a voice and leading this organization and leveraging the amazing leaders and platform we have, we can make a difference.

Jean Lee: And that made me think about, okay, so that’s what made me join. what should I be doing next? And then it occurred to me about the amazing personal stories that I’ve heard in this role. You know, you’re part therapist, you’re part leader, you’re part counselor. And I thought about the personal story of so many who were so thankful that MCCA existed, of the programs that we provided. And I started connecting with individuals once again and trying to get a better sense of what’s happening on the ground. You hear everything in the media, you hear everything in the news, and it gets distorted. What is the individual’s personal story? Because even though we have corporate memberships and law firm memberships, entity memberships, the individuals within the organizations are the ones who drive that conversation. So once I started doing that, I started to understand, okay, how can we provide value, which ultimately provide revenue, which ultimately will provide our long-term sustainability.

Jean Lee: And that’s how I started to do it, step by step. Now it may be different for different organizations. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t know why I keep thinking of clean water, but if you’re delivering a product or a service, think about…and you no longer can because of quarantine or stay at home orders or whatever it is that your state has mandated, think of different ways in which you can deliver that service. I never started to use Zoom, sorry, I’m the first to admit that, until this crisis. And it’s amazing how you can still connect with people in a way that you’ve never done before. And I’ll quote Michelle Coleman Mayes again, and I told her that I would, because I think she said it so well when she said, “It’s not the new normal, this is the next normal.”

Jean Lee: Because there will be, is what our scientists and doctors and experts are saying, there will be another time where there may be another pandemic. There may be another outbreak that will prevent you from connecting. So, does that mean that every organization, company, that has done work with face to face should stop to exist? I don’t think so. So I think in order for you to be creative, in order for you to tap into that creativity, you need a moment to yourself to think about what brought you to the organization. What made you passionate about leading the organization or being a staff or a member of that organization? I think that’s the most important thing. Sorry. I know that was kind of long winded.

Nicole Campbell: No, that was perfect because what it really boils down to and what you’re pointing out is, that you start with why, right. And that’s always the starting point that I think that owners, nonprofits, philanthropies, individuals should have, whenever you start something or you’re moving along, right. What is your, why? How do you make sure that you’re keeping that purpose, that reason at the forefront of everything we do and it’s going to inform how you show up. And so once we do exactly what you said, which is, let’s think back to what is our, why, why are you doing this, it helps inform the kinds of stories that we’re telling. And it helps to improve our storytelling at the end of the day. And so if we flip that for a second, Jean, and say, “Okay, well now we discovered our, why, we are able to now tell better stories, and we’re telling them to funders who are hearing these stories.” What’s the advice that you would provide to funders beyond, you know, give more money, which would be great, but what else would you tell them? What advice would you provide to say, this is how you support nonprofit sustainability both within and beyond the crisis?

Jean Lee: I would say, where do you want to see change? You personally cannot commit to that change in the way you would like, because you have another day job, what is important to you and what services are necessary in our community. So not only, as cliche as it may sound, not only to make the world a better place, but what sort of things do you want to see? What services will provide those gaps? So for example, if you’re somebody who’s all about social justice, what organizations in your mind are great advocates and equalizers or providers who provide access to social justice to everyone? Is that important? Is that the world you want to see? If your mission, like it is for Bill Gates is to ensure that the world has access to great healthcare and medical attention and medicine, that’s where you should really think about donating your money.

Jean Lee: Right? But there are so many. And if you have the great fortune of being able to fund more than one, what are things that important to you and which ones do a great job in delivering those services that you really should continue to support? I mean, I think about the very same thing. And I, sometimes, I know some people, friends, have said, “You work for a charity. Why do you donate to a charity?” Because my charity only does one thing, right? There are so many amazing charities that provide services. I mean, my passion before I went to law school, was to work with children and women in the inner cities. I was a social worker for the Legal Aid Society in New York for many years before going on to law school. So charities that really provide the necessary services, whether it’s job interviews, clothes, or basic necessities, like food and water, those organizations are important to continuing to provide services to those segments of the population that do not have the access and the privilege that I may have.

Jean Lee: So I think about those kinds of things. And I would say the same thing to the funders. What do you want to see? You want to see where we were five years ago or 10 years ago, in our case diversity inclusion equity, do you want to see the profession more homogenous with straight white men and women leading law firms? You know, women still have a long way to go, but certainly white women are in a much better position than women of color, for example, is that what you want to see? And if the answer is no and you don’t want to lose progress, I think the answer is, think about giving. Think about donating, think about organizations that will not allow us to go back to where things were, if in your mind that where we were was not acceptable. And I think you have to be honest with yourself, what’s important?

Jean Lee: And then it goes back to, why give, what’s important to you? I can’t possibly do all the things that I would like for my nieces, for my children, for my parents, whatever it is that you may be thinking about, how can we improve our community to show humanity, to show kindness, especially in times of crisis. I think we say this about people and especially American people, there is such a great spirit of giving. Well, this is another time for us to show how much we care about each other, no matter what is happening, that we are thinking about one another, because we are, at the core, people who care and people who are good.

Nicole Campbell: I think that’s right. And I hope that others share that, that they also think about the ecosystem in which these different organizations might be operating. So they’re not just picking out one organization and saying, “Yep, that’s the one that furthers my mission.” But it’s really like how does that organization relate to the others within the ecosystem that the funder wants to support? And so now we have advice for both nonprofits and funders and that’s been really good advice to both. With all that in mind, what do you wish we did less of as a sector and what do you think we should do more of?

Jean Lee: I think we talk a lot, as I talk a lot. I think that whether it’s corporate America or a nonprofit, there’s a lot of talk and less action, or the action is so slow. And that may just go to my own shortcomings as an impatient person. But I think we need to talk less and do more, or at a minimum when we talk, our actions should match our rhetoric, our words. There is a reason why the saying, “actions speak louder than words”, exists. And I think this is the one time where we really need to show that our actions will speak way louder than any words can say, how important it is for us to come together, to support one another, to ensure that we are all thriving when this is over, because this too will pass at some point and we need to be there for each other.

Jean Lee: We can’t leave some organizations or some people…and then to some extent, I’m not trying to be Pollyanna, but it will happen. But how do we do that? You need to pull the leaders together, the community together, to ensure that we are doing more. For example, for our organization, it’s about improving diversity, inclusion, and equity. We need our leaders to show up and not just talk about it. We need our leaders to continue to invest in those dollars and not talk about it. We need our law firms that say diversity, inclusion, and equity is important, to continue to invest in the resources and not cut diversity as the first thing in their budget. We need to show that it matters by bringing our people together. We need to show that it matters by talking to people, by being human, and not talking about it to someone like you, or a podcast, or an interview.

Jean Lee: So really bringing it home and showing that it matters. So if you’re a firm that says wellness is important, give your attorneys a break, because there are some that are truly just suffering. And try to connect. If you are saying inclusion is important, connect with one another, connect with your subordinates, connect with your peers. It’s much easier to do that and has the benefits that are, I think, exponential than your words. And that may be very hard, but you know, what times of crisis require you as a leader, as a peer, to work a little bit harder to connect and to ensure survival and wellbeing of everyone. So I would say no more, talk less, or at a minimum, make sure that what you say are matching what you do.

Nicole Campbell: I really like that, the less talk, more action, at the end of the day. And I know that the focus of many nonprofits, as we talked about at the beginning when we started our conversation, they were focused on fundraising and making the right app, and also about work that they’re doing, which is extremely important, particularly now. But I was wondering how you all are thinking about building infrastructure during this time. And if so, how are you doing it? How are you thinking about what your infrastructure looks like now versus after the pandemic? I just want to hear your thoughts around your infrastructure building

Jean Lee: For us, very small nonprofit like many out there, the way we think about infrastructure for us is the programmatic services we are offering and how we offer those services. And one of the ways in which we have switched gears, as I mentioned earlier, is to really do things virtually. So that’s the one infrastructure. We had already started before the pandemic to really shift our model, primarily the fundraising and the conferences, to being a service provider. From being solely a convener to somewhat of a hybrid. How can we individually provide a product or a service, so creating our consulting and advisory work that we started to really focus on in the last two years is how can we empower, provide the tools to empower those members to do it themselves. So creating templates, having these sorts of one-on-one discussions, that’s the heart of our infrastructure that we started to change.

Jean Lee: What is the infrastructure of this organization? Okay. We provide research, we share that research during a conference, how do we make money? We have done it usually like 50 to 60% of our revenues used to come from fundraising, from galas, and conferences. How do we shift that so that we’re doing other things that will proliferate faster. So we looked at impact, how can we have a greater impact? Because gala is one day you’re inspired. Now you go and you go back to your normal thing. How can we continue that momentum that they may get out of gala as a convener? That’s our job, to inspire our audience in mass. The other thing is how can we inspire them enough to act, how can we give them the tool? And that’s the service piece, why we created the consulting and advisory work. You know, giving the experts, once again, the leaders that we have access to that’re on our board, the research that this organization has done for 20 plus years. How can we leverage that and work with some other experts in this space to provide the one-on-one service, the template, so they can proliferate.

Jean Lee: They can continue the great work of the MCCA. Because we’re so small, we can’t do that for the hundreds of organizations that are part of our membership. So we can certainly provide them with the tools to do that on their own. And that’s kind of the infrastructure shifting that we had already started two years ago. And it is now more critical than ever as we embrace ourselves. Not only this year for the pandemic, which could possibly come back in the Fall, is what everyone is saying. I mean, that’s kind of, what we have done. And the way we interact with people, you know, I meant to ask you that earlier, before our conversation, is that what you were thinking in terms of infrastructure? Like in terms of what we’re doing as an organization?

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, definitely. Because what I’m hearing from your response are some really key infrastructure components, right? Like one, how you create leverage within your own team based on your current environment, right? You’re talking about virtual work and adapting to working remotely, what you’ve already started to do with your team. The second is creating capacity. When you talked about how you create templates and give access to different items and different resources for your members. And then the third, which I stress so much, is the diversification of revenue, right? Like we’re doing galas, we’re getting lots of money from them. What else can we do to generate revenue? How can we diversify our revenue streams? And it also has the effect of having greater impact in where you diversify, but be able to think about how do you diversify revenue. So I think that was spot on.

Jean Lee: Yeah. I mean, we’ve been working on that and scalability. So to your point, we are thinking, how can we scale our work? And I think, you know, before the pandemic, we had so much potential, we certainly did pretty well last year, thanks to the hard work of our leaders and our board and our staff. Again, there’s such a small group that they’re just so committed. The amount of work we produce in the services we’ve provided, I think has been noticed. But you’re right, I mean, when I looked at the revenue stream, when I first came on board four years ago, although I knew that having been on the board as a volunteer board member for three years, it really struck me. When you, you know, as a board member, you show up three hours every four months, you kind of have one sort of that small narrow lens perspective. And then you’re sort of looking at revenue across all dreams and then data, right?

Jean Lee: And I’m like, okay, what’s the cost rate, like benefit analysis. Like everything has a cost ratio, right? You realize like, okay, this long-term is not a sustainable model. And in fact, one of the things I had said was what if you can’t have a gala because there is a tsunami or in the Northeast and in the mid-Atlantic, you know, I said, hurricanes, aren’t common and tornadoes aren’t common, but it has happened. I’ve lived in the Northeast most of my life, except for a few years in the Midwest, it has happened, and we’ve had earthquakes, we had power outages. What do you do then? We had 9-11. So when I thought about that, and if a 9-11 were to hit, like, what do we do? I mean, that’s kind of the conversation we started having because when we looked at the data, it was like, we’re not gonna make it.

Jean Lee: So, yeah, I mean…and it’s harder for us in some ways, because everyone says diversity, equity, and inclusion is important, but it’s always the first to go. Although this round, it has not been the case across the board, I’m really heartened to see that. But it’s not like, again…you will not be an NAACP or a PRLDEF, the Latino Justice Now, or the AALDEF, all these civil rights organizations, ECLU or so on, you’re not going to see those organizations fold because they provide a critical component of that social justice system in our country for many of those communities; whether it’s Asian, African-American, Black, or Hispanic, or Latino, Latinx. That’s where, it’s organizations like MCCA and probably some others out there, that are providing really important work and service, they may be seen as not as essential or critical. When in reality, if you think about organizations like MCCA and the movement toward ESG by many of the largest asset managers in the world, starting with BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, the S part, the social part of the ESG strategy, which many of those investors are demanding, it is a critical component.

Jean Lee: It is what MCCA can do. So again, going back to your question earlier about infrastructure and being creative, this is where I think people need to really tap into their creativity and talk to people, right? Because you can only read so much on the internet. And I feel that for me, I think, there’s just so much information to sift through. The easiest, kind of, quick way is to talk to leaders in different sectors. And that’s exactly what I did to learn about where can MCCA have greater impact. Where can we think about how to leverage our work in the corporate environment so that it becomes an important work and not just a nice to have. And that’s where we started thinking about the importance of G strategies within corporations. And it’s been around for 10 plus years. And they started talking about it at the World Economic Forum at the UN level, et cetera, you know, over a decade ago.

Jean Lee: And in the last five years, it’s come like something that asset managers are looking for when they evaluate a corporation, whether to invest or not. And again, the BlackRock CEO’s letter to other CEOs was incredibly telling us how important it is. And the F part deals with diversity and equity, because it’s that stakeholder engagement. So again, I think that idea of diversification doesn’t have to be okay, well, we only do this part. We can’t really diversify. You absolutely can. We didn’t think that either. But then when we started thinking about that a couple of years ago, we realized like there are opportunities within opportunities. How you tackle that, of course, is the challenge.

Nicole Campbell: Your responses have been so incredibly full. And I really think that you could talk again to really talk through that DEI piece, because I really would love to get more of your thoughts on thoughtful approaches and practices that we’re seeing in the sector. So definitely I think there should be a part two to this conversation. But I want to ask you a question to help us continue to build knowledge through books and people we should learn from or about to close us out. What do you think you should read next? Or what artists do you think we should paying attention?

Jean Lee: I won’t say an artist only because I don’t know much about pop culture. That’s probably where as you go into crisis mode, you pay less attention to, although I know some people have listened to music a lot more because of the crisis. I’m on the opposite spectrum. But I’ll say this one thing, I just started, and I can only do it in segments, sadly, but I would recommend reading Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’. It is really truly about her personal story. And once again, it may give you some ideas about connecting with people. I’m only halfway through, as I said, I watch it in segments. And I’m now more eager than ever to read her book, which I’ve had by the way, when it came out, because I get all these lovely books as gifts. But being on the road 80% of the time in my job, I’ve just not had the time to read a book, because whatever time I have in the air I feverishly try to catch up on an email. So I would say read Michelle Obama’s book. It is truly so inspirational. As a woman of color, as a first-generation immigrant, so many of it just spoke to me. And just what it means to be truly authentic for any woman, for anyone, a man or a woman. I actually told my brother to read it. So yeah, I would say if you want to be inspired, if you want to find that sort of inner strength or grit, as they say, read her book.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, I agree. I agree. They should definitely be your next read, if you haven’t read it already. You have shared such knowledge and insights that I think that leaders, after hearing this conversation, can actually put into use in their own organizations to help them build bravely. So I want to thank you so much for joining us today.

Jean Lee: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure and an honor, and so nice speaking with you, Nicole.

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Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupadvisory.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.