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Building Momentum through Relationships with Jay Williams

May 13, 2021 Nicole Campbell Podcast

This week on the Nonprofit Build Up, we’re talking with Jay Williams, President of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Jay is currently leading the Foundation’s commitment to dismantle structural racism, achieve equity, and improve social and economic mobility, in partnership with nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders.

Jay is so thoughtful and clear in how he explains the role of democracy in dismantling systemic racism and how to build and maintain this momentum, particularly through advocacy. And Jay explains the role of community foundations as critical capacity builders and their role as a support and resource within communities.

During this conversation, Jay speaks to the importance of compromising positions (instead of compromising principles) and why we need to shift the mindset of failure and risk in philanthropy. This conversation forces us to ask ourselves a critical question: “Am I willing to redefine the way I see and understand my organization’s role and what it means to be in relationship with others?”

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Listen to the podcast here:

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About Jay Williams

Since July 2017, Jay Williams has served as president of the Hartford Foundation. He is currently leading the Foundation’s commitment to dismantle structural racism, achieve equity and improve social and economic mobility in our region, in partnership with nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders. In his role, Jay serves on the boards of the MetroHartford Alliance, AdvanceCT, and the CHEFA Community Development Corporation. In addition, he is a member of the Governor’s Workforce Council and the Community Foundation Opportunity Network Governing Council.

Prior to coming to the Foundation, Jay served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development where he led the federal economic development agenda for the United States. He also served as Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House where he was the principal liaison between the President of the United States and local elected officials. Previously, Jay served as the executive director of the federal Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. He arrived in Washington, DC after serving as Mayor of the City of Youngstown, Ohio where he helped lead regional economic development initiatives to improve the city’s global competitiveness. Prior to being elected Mayor, Williams led a Community Development Agency in Youngstown.

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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 Jay Williams, President of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Jay is currently leading the Foundation’s commitment to dismantle structural racism, achieve equity, and improve social and economic mobility, in partnership with nonprofit organizations and community stakeholders. In this role, Jay serves on the boards of the MetroHartford Alliance, AdvanceCT, and the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority Community Development Corporation. In addition, he is a member of the Governor’s Workforce Council and the Community Foundation Opportunity Network Governing Council.

Nicole Campbell: Prior to joining the Hartford Foundation, Jay served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development where he led the federal economic development agenda for the United States. He also served as Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House where he was the principal liaison between the President of the United States and local elected officials. Previously, Jay served as the Executive Director of the federal Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. He arrived in Washington, DC after serving as Mayor of the City of Youngstown, Ohio where he helped lead regional economic development initiatives to improve the city’s global competitiveness.

Nicole Campbell: Jay and I recorded this conversation in the beginning of this year, 2021, shortly following the insurrection at the United States Capitol. Jay is so thoughtful and clear in how he explains the role of democracy in dismantling systemic racism and how to build and maintain this momentum, particularly through advocacy. And Jay explains the role of community foundations as critical capacity builders and their role as a support and resource within communities. He also talks about creating wealth for historically marginalized communities by focusing on creating and supporting cross-sector partnerships. He highlights the critical nature of revenue diversification and financial sustainability and how they both allow for nonprofit flexibility and greater impact.

Nicole Campbell: During this conversation, Jay speaks to the importance of compromising positions (instead of compromising principles) and why we need to shift the mindset of failure and risk in philanthropy. This conversation forces us to ask ourselves a critical question: “Am I willing to redefine the way I see and understand my organization’s role and what it means to be in relationship with others?” Let’s challenge ourselves. And with that, here is Jay Williams.

Nicole Campbell: Hi, Jay, I am so excited to have you join us today. I think it’s going to be a really great conversation.

Jay Williams: Nicole. I’m looking forward to it. Thank you for having me.

Nicole Campbell: Okay. So to get us started, can you tell us about the Hartford Foundation, your role there, and what is the foundation’s immediate priority?

Jay Williams: Absolutely. I am the President and CEO of the Hartford Foundation. I have been with the organization for about three and a half years. The Hartford Foundation is the largest and one of the oldest community foundations – it’s the largest in Connecticut, and it’s one of the largest and the oldest community foundations in the country. And our focus area geographically are the 29 communities that are surrounded by the city of Hartford. So the city of Hartford and 28 other communities. So it’s a fairly broad region. And I can tell you that we are focused in lifting our mission, which is strategically zeroed in on dismantling racism and increasing social and economic mobility. That is how we are describing it. And the really undergirding of that is our mission to put philanthropy into action, which creates lasting solutions to add to the vibrancy of communities in the greater Hartford area. But we know we can’t do that, as we have come to evolve, without addressing some of the structural inequities and barriers that have plagued our nation, our state, and certainly our region for generations. And that’s how we’ve really just been describing our strategic focus, which has evolved over the last 18 to 24 months.

Nicole Campbell: So, thanks so much for that, Jay, and I know you talked about being a community foundation and I tend to get a lot of questions around what exactly is a community foundation. Is it a foundation? Is it a nonprofit? So can you talk a little bit more about your structure and what being a community foundation involves?

Jay Williams: That’s a great question. And I shouldn’t take for granted because foundations are so often talked about. There are three broad characterizations or foundations or classifications, a community foundation, corporate foundations, and private family foundations. Corporate foundations are what they sound like, for-profit corporations that have a philanthropic arm, family or private foundations are similar to what they sound, individuals or families who seek to engage in philanthropy through a mechanism. These are all defined by the IRS tax code. And then a community foundation, which is a special type of foundation that has a geographic focus. So we are rooted geographically. We are a philanthropic organization, nonprofit organization, whereby we accept donations and we can accept donations for our region or from anywhere. But our primary investments, or grantmaking, is in a geographically defined area, particularly from the foundations under stripping funds, donors can give wherever they’d like to give.

Jay Williams: And in doing that, we invest the money, and we manage it with an obligation for perpetuity; that we have an obligation to manage our resources, such that future generations will benefit from the growth of those resources and continue to put them out into the community. And in doing that, we take that fiduciary responsibility very seriously while simultaneously understanding that we exist to then deploy those resources and those financial resources and back out into the community, to our nonprofit partners. We also believe very strongly that we are convener, that we are a capacity builder, and helping to build the strength and capacity of partners and stakeholders in their region, and we also engage in public policy. But at our core, it’s about being able to accept donations from individuals who are very generous, invest those, and then make grants to stakeholders in our region.

Nicole Campbell: I really like the way that you have described the role of the community foundation, that it’s rooted within the community and really focused on growing that community with the resources that the foundation has today. So thank you for sharing that. I also really love the emphasis on capacity building and acknowledging the role that community foundations play there. And you talked about the Hartford Foundation being focused on economic mobility. Can you talk a bit more about how you all are approaching that focus area, particularly now in the time that we’re in, the kinds of things that have changed for you, and maybe where your priorities are sitting within that area?

Jay Williams: Absolutely. And really this has been an evolution over the past two or three years, and I credit our previous board chair along with all the current board members for the evolution of having us lean into community and economic development, and economic opportunity more intentionally. And particularly, even more with the focus toward the communities of color that have been overlooked, under-invested in, that have not had the wealth building opportunity, the gainful employment opportunities that have been a pathway to increasing wealth for so many people across this country. And it’s not because of lack of talent, or lack of effort, lack of intellect, lack of innovative creativity. It’s been often because of the barriers that have existed, that the structural racism that has existed had such a detrimental effect over the course of generations. We believe that if we’re going to fulfill our mission, that we have a role in helping to help build and create those wealth building opportunities.

Jay Williams: We can’t do it alone; we don’t do it alone. It is through partnerships with nonprofit organizations. It is through partnerships with employers, with for-profit organizations, it’s through partnerships with institutions that can bring about the types of skill and knowledge and training, entrepreneurship training or otherwise, that are part of building wealth. So it’s broad, but we have a specific and intentional focus on the areas that we think that are appropriate for a community foundation and understanding that it takes time, that it is, like I said, through various partnerships that we can do that. But we think that those communities of color that have just…the data, and this is all data driven, the data that demonstrates the net worth of households of communities of color are a fraction of their white counterparts, that they are not afforded the same employment opportunities. And even with the same skillsets, the same intellect, the same drive and ambition, the systems as they have existed and were designed in this country, just did not permit the same ascension through the economic classifications that we have. So we think that there’s a lot of work to be done, but we just absolutely are committed to doing it.

Nicole Campbell: And you’ve talked about this generational effect, like considering the role that a community foundation can play looking forward to generations and setting them up for success. And it’s showing up here in the work that you’re doing within economic mobility. And I particularly like how you talk about this partnership approach. And it really resonates with me because I know we talk a lot, or I have spoken about, this ecosystem approach that is not just one organization or one individual within a community, but it’s all this interconnected organizations and individuals working together. I’m really enjoying the way you’re approaching and thinking about the work. And you talked about some real structural issues, on systemic problems, and that leads me into my next question. I know you also are focused on dismantling racism and again, we’re sitting now in 2021, I would love to hear how you are focused on doing exactly that, how you’re able to remain hopeful in that space and work with partners to do that work.

Jay Williams: That’s a great question, and when you think about whether to remain hopeful, what’s the alternative? I mean, it is to be lost and consumed by despair, to be paralyzed by fear or anger, and that to me just doesn’t seem like a viable alternative. And that’s not to say that remaining hopeful means that we’re naive or Pollyanna-ish, because we’re not. And the recent events that we have all lived through, the horror of the insurrection that occurred against the democratic institutions of this country remind us, and in a lot of the undergirding of that being racism and antisemitism. On the day that the state of Georgia elected its first black Senator, a black preacher, and a young man of Jewish faith, and then to just hours later see what we saw in Washington, DC, reminds us that this dismantling of racism, and when I say racism, it includes antisemitism and it includes all the isms, but racism is often the most visible and has certainly, arguably existed for as long as any of us can remember. And it doesn’t diminish or take away from the others, but it reminds us that we use the term dismantling because that means piece by piece.

Jay Williams: You know, this isn’t something that can be demolished or bulldozed. We would all love that, but it has to be taken apart piece by piece, sometimes in very visible ways and sometimes working in less visible ways, but still weakening the hold and the grasp that it has had on our society. And it manifests itself in very different ways, but always through partnerships through the deployment of resources. And I think that in doing that, I would love for it to be done in my lifetime. You know, I’ve got a 10 year old son and I would love for him to grow up in a society that is much less racist, and the structures are much less present than they are for the society that I grew up in. I don’t know how far we’ll get, but I know that I, and we as an organization, feel we have an obligation to push forward and to try.

Jay Williams: And again, it manifests itself in so many different ways, but what has been encouraging and inspiring is to see that this has become a cause not just taken up by people of color. As we saw in the spring and summer of 2020, that the streets were filled with people who are black, white, red, yellow, and every ethnicity and race, saying, “Enough is enough.” It was sparked by the death of George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and you name them, that list is too long, unfortunately. And the goal is to keep that momentum going, even absent a viral video, because we know that for every viral video, there are 10, if not a hundred instances that are just as heinous and tragic.

Nicole Campbell: And you’re using different approaches and different tools because as you’re explaining, and I like the way you put it, we’re dismantling, going piece by piece and being very deliberate about it. You mentioned Jay, that you’re doing this in visible ways and in sometimes not so visible ways. And I think that at this point in 2021 and with everything that has happened over the past year, that a lot of organizations are now exploring advocacy, particularly foundations, and some organizations have already been in that space. But for those that are newer, they’re thinking about, wait, how do we raise our hands and our voices and become more engaged? And so how is the Hartford Foundation thinking about advocacy? How has it thought about it previously and how is it thinking about it now?

Jay Williams: That’s a great question. And to the board’s credit, you know, we have been in this space for a number of years, but that being said, it was more along the lines of some issues or issues that could be generally, universally agreed that this was a space that was important, but didn’t get into areas that people might’ve been less comfortable. And to the board’s credit now, we are approaching the board about being able to get into legislative advocacy and issue advocacy, and to be able to fund and support groups; not pushing anything that isn’t aligned with our values or our mission, but that they may advance that in ways that are more, I don’t want to say controversial, but more forthright, more visible, that begin to speak more plainly, more clearly.

Jay Williams: And the question was, “Oh, well, what if this protest is sponsored by the Hartford Foundation?” Well, if the protest aligns up with our values and is within the bounds, our rights, and our religion, and our freedoms to express our descent, then why wouldn’t we support that? And knowing that there are those protests that do cross a line, but that doesn’t justify. And for that, we shouldn’t say, “Well, we’re not going to do anything because they may cross a line.” We want to make sure we’re clear of what we’re supporting, what our expectations are, but the fact that some people who may be the target of protests are uncomfortable when you’re talking about systemic injustices, well, people should be uncomfortable. And we shouldn’t always have to think that the discussion around systemic injustices should be comfortable and should be you don’t advocate and would never advocate violence or public instruction or writing. But the notion that people can be made uncomfortable around issues that are just completely unacceptable and go against the tenant of who we are is absolutely right. So the board has been wonderful in terms of taking their own journey, really empowering us to explore new ways to advocate for, you know, the issues that are squarely within our mission values and strategic focus.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah. I think we’re definitely in a moment where we’re realizing that we can have real impact and systemic change. And I think that is really appealing to organizations that are working with vulnerable and marginalized communities that have been historically left out of the conversation. And so to now be able to use your voice and advocate for this type of systemic change makes a ton of sense. And as you mentioned, it’s systemic injustice and we should be uncomfortable with it. So with the organizations that are on the fence, or they’re thinking about this, what advice would you have for nonprofit organizations that are fundraising money from donors, from funders? And they’re thinking, how can we be engaged in advocacy and also do our work? Particularly since they had not been engaged in advocacy up to that point. And now it seems like a sort of pivot for them.

Jay Williams: That’s a great question. And I will acknowledge that there are those who would give much better answers than I. And I say that because I recognize how fortunate and blessed we are at the Hartford Foundation to not have to fundraise in a traditional sense. We absolutely are always engaging donors and seeking to expand our donor base, while at the same time benefiting from an endowment that provides us a significant stream of revenue to engage in our activities. But as we put it in the context of seeking to inspire new donors or existing donors to give more, it really goes back to, I think, ensuring that the mission and our work are both relevant and timely, relatable to the issues I have. I do not believe, and I’m not criticizing organizations that think otherwise, but I do not believe that we need to cater our mission to raise funds or to, in our case, inspire donors.

Jay Williams: I think that we, in fact, quite the opposite, many of our donors are coming to us looking to be inspired and wanting to be educated and saying, “What are you doing? How can we partner with you strategically?” Not all of them. Some of them have a very clear view of what they want to do, and we support that wholeheartedly. But I think if organizations, really at the core, review their mission and their work, make it clear how they’re being impactful. And I understand it’s easier said than done because there might be a dozen or a few dozen others doing that. But to me, that’s what’s most important. And then it becomes easier because you’re just naturally able to talk about what you’re doing. And it becomes compelling to donors or potential donors, as opposed to saying, “Hmm, how can we put this together in a pitch that might appeal to donors.” And recognizing that what you’re doing, how can appeal to everyone, not every donor on the planet will find what we’re doing at the Hartford Foundation appealing.

Jay Williams: Not every one of our current donors jumps on our strategic focus and says, “Yeah, I want to go, you know, we want to go that way.” They want to, some of them, want to do their own thing. But increasingly more and more of them have come to us and said, “About time, we’ve been waiting, we’re inspired, this is exactly what we hoped and wished that our community foundation would do.” So it’s been affirming to us. In disparate by saying, yes, there was one particular instance where a daughter said, “You know what? This is not what we think you should be involved in, and we’re going to go elsewhere.” And I was happy to have a conversation about trying to ensure that the donor was clear about why we took the position that we took, that we welcomed dissenting opinions. That daughter did not want to have that conversation and perhaps chose to go elsewhere, but that’s a risk and an outcome that does not negate the direction and the commitment that we have.

Nicole Campbell: So what I’m really hearing you say, Jay, at the core of it is to have a compelling vision and mission that you stick to. And you make sure that you understand your unique value proposition that you’re putting out there and how you’re problem solving with communities. And I liked the idea of not twisting and turning to sort of fit each donors or funders wishes and needs. And I think that’s going to resonate with a lot of people listening, but a follow-up question I have for you on that is how do you get to that point? How do you get to the point where you, yes, you have this compelling vision and mission. You have a compelling strategy, but you also need funds. How do you get to the point where you say, “No, we’re not going to alter the way we’ve been working just to fit this particular donor.” Assuming that it doesn’t align with what they want to do.

Jay Williams: Right. And I’m glad you followed back up on that because I realized I’m speaking from a position of having a significant base from which to operate our endowment, generates significant dollars, but we still need and want and look to inspire new donors. And the way I would respond to that is one, it is not easy, it does take time, but it’s the same principle that I used when I served in elected office is that I ran for office with a view and a set of principles that were inspiring me up that I wanted to try to execute, you know, as the mayor of the City of Youngstown, where I served as mayor. But I also recognize going in is that I would sometimes have to compromise my positions. So what I said is, I would never be willing to compromise my principles, but in elected office, in order to move my agenda forward and advance the community in the best interest of the community, I might have to compromise my position on a particular issue. And understanding that your principles and your positions are sometimes aligned, but sometimes you, as long as you maintain your principles, you should be willing to be flexible on your position.

Jay Williams: So, I would say the same thing could apply to organizations when they’re talking about their donors, don’t let a donor move you off of your principles, but absolutely if a donor’s interest is there and you could position, you know, take a slightly different position to appeal or align with that donor. Absolutely. And you’re not selling yourself short, you know, by taking a different position, as long as you maintain your principles.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah. I like that. And I like the distinction that you’re setting up between principles and being flexible then on your position. I think that’s a really important thing for organizations that are fundraising to keep in mind. Another thing I would add is that one of the reasons you can be so flexible, as you mentioned, is you have diversified revenue streams, right? So you’re not overly dependent on one type of funding source. And I think that that’s something that we should really start to explore a bit more in the sector that we’re not just relying on one type of donor, one type of revenue source, and that increases our flexibility.

Jay Williams: So even, Nicole, even in a situation where we’ve got an endowment that’s approximately $2 billion, so that generates significant revenue, but we still need to diversify our funding sources, even with an endowment of a billion dollars. For a while that generates tens and tens of millions of dollars for us to operate and do grantmaking, it still has its limitations. When the market is down, that revenue is down. So somebody said, “Oh, it’s down from 50 million to 40 million.” Well, yeah, I mean, don’t get me wrong, $40 million is a lot of money, but it still limits our ability to impact the community. So things such as our own exploration of how do we try to have other sources of revenue, other assets under our influence or management, you know, is there a revenue generating idea or entity that we might acquire to your point, even diversify further beyond our endowment, which has diversified itself, but how do we diversify even beyond the endowment?

Nicole Campbell: And it’s impressive that you all are still thinking about diversification of revenue when your endowment is so significant. And I hope that is a message that resonates with many, because at no point, should you stop and not think about how you should further diversify your revenue sources.

Jay Williams: Absolutely, you never arrived. The more diversification, that means, again, you weather those storms. And at the end of the day, it’s not for our own self wealth building. It’s the more diversified streams of revenue we have, the more diversified streams of revenue we can put out into the community.

Nicole Campbell: Agreed, agreed. And it just all ties into sustainability. So I know we’ve been talking about what the nonprofit organizations should be doing and focused on. If I were to flip that now and ask about what kind of advice should we be sending to funders? What kinds of messages should we be sharing with them at this point?

Jay Williams: Yeah, I’m always hesitant, you know, with advice and messages, because again, we have not arrived. We’re still learning. We make our mistakes. We come at this with, from a position of humility, which is always important. I think that is it, is as one thing I would say with organizations is being flexible, having a position of humility. And with funders, I would hope that the funders would be open to being also not compromising of their principles, but their position. So every funder has a set of principles and all funders have a set of positions. If funders are equally willing to be flexible in their position, I think that bodes well for organizations, because organizations of various sophistication and capacity to align themselves with a donor. So if you’ve got both parties coming to this, the funder and a potential recipient saying, “Here’s our principles, but yes, we can compromise on positions to sort of meet and marry on a particular issue.”

Jay Williams: That would be of significant, I think, benefit. The notion to funders that sometimes what an organization needs is just core operating support. You know, we have to be, and I’m sure we’ve been guilty of this in the past, of having all these programmatic supports that we provide. So an organization will say, “Oh, that program, yeah, we don’t quite do that. But if that means I can get a grant from the Hartford Foundation, yeah, we could do that program. Or we can do this program.” So you don’t want organizations chasing donors or dollars trying to make sure that they’ve got the programs that they think are appealing. I would hope that funders would look, and again, we’re both a funder and an organization that receives funding. So I think in that regard, we have to look at both sides of the coin. So funders who can look at our organization and say, “You know what, you’re doing great work. So perhaps I’m looking to support you just for continuing to do that great work. I’m not asking you to have a new program. I’m not asking you to sort of create this new way of doing it.” If what you’re doing is impactful and is appealing to a need, maybe just saying here for general operating support and the reporting such of just continue to share with us, as donors or funders, what you’re doing and how so. I think that’s the other message. Then again, I would love for, as a funder, that we need to take into the account for organizations we’re funding, but also as a recipient of funding for potential funders to any nonprofit organization.

Nicole Campbell: I appreciate that, first in terms of funder flexibility and increasing that, and then in second, general support. That core operating support that organizations definitely need. And as you said, you’re not asking these organizations to create a new program, to do all these things, but they still can do it with that funding, right? That’s the beauty of the flexible unrestricted funding

Jay Williams: Here’s a secret that I hope it doesn’t get me in trouble. We’ve heard the old axiom: he or she who has the gold rule. He or she who has the gold makes the rules. I say it sort of tongue in cheek, but sometimes the nonprofit organizations themselves know best. There’s a deep well of expertise. So, you know, a funder who wants to come in and change the world very well-intended, and this is how I think the world should change, and I’m going to write you a check as long as you’re willing to change the world in the steps that I think. Maybe saying, “Well, they’re in that space, they’re doing this day in and day out. So maybe let me ask, even as a funder, how can I help you continue to change the world, impact the world?” And if it is the program, boom, here, let me support.

Jay Williams: But if it is, hey, just helping us continue to exist through this horror, you know. So that expertise, and I think this goes to one of your early comments, how we view our relationship with our grantees. We have to not always say, “Hey, well, we’re the funder. So, here’s the rules and the terms.” But instead look at it as partnerships. And that’s particularly important as we talk about our organizations of color. And we’ve made a very intentional shift and investment in dealing with organizations that are led by people of color, that are born out of the experience of communities of color, and looking at them, not as grantees or recipients in a subsidiary role or subservient role, but as equal partners. So transferring and sharing some of the power we have, and I’m defining power right now by our wealth or financial resources, said, “You know what? You’re in that space, you know best. So we’re going to take some of this power or wealth, you have it, and now you go forth in the way that you think is best.” And you need not sort of…we would ask that you share with us what you’re doing, but you need not sort of ask us, how do we deploy the resources or wealth you’ve now shared with us or invested into us.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, I think that is the critical transformational piece. So what you’ve just articulated is really about that mindset shift that needs to happen within philanthropies, foundations, funders, Because I think we focus on a lot of the technical pieces. Like how do we actually transition from project to general support? And instead, we should spend that rethinking, like how we’re viewing our relationships with our grantees.

Jay Williams: Absolutely, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, the community foundation or the funders are positioned as the saviors. And we think, oh, again, sometimes well-intended, these communities of color oh, they need to be saved. They need someone to come in and be the hope and inspiration. And instead of looking at it that it’s not saviors that they need, it is often opportunity or resources that they have been systemically excluded from obtaining. They are able in many instances to write their own narrative, to write their own success, to be their own saviors, and don’t need saving. And I think to your point, it’s that fundamental mindset, a shift of how we view those relationships and being partners, as opposed to funder and recipient, sort of always making sure they stay in the good graces of the funder.

Nicole Campbell: And I know you mentioned that you all have increased the amount of funding that you’ve provided to organizations that are being led by people of color. For funders that have not yet made that significant investment, but are thinking about it. They’re talking about it. What do they need as a next step? The one thing that they should be focusing on now to make that pivot and start to invest in organizations that are led by people of color.

Jay Williams: Again, careful not to sound like I’m dispensing wisdom or profound knowledge, but I mean, the empathy, the putting oneself in the shoes of the other on the other side of that transaction. Every organization that we know today, virtually, as the most high performing effective, non-profits start off as some fledgling idea. The organization that, you know, people give to now without hesitation. And I hesitate to name them, but I mean, I’ll just use some broad, you know, whether it’s the Red Cross or you name it, Those organizations, first of all, aren’t perfect because no organization is, but they started off as an idea. They started off with somebody saying, “Ah, man, what a risk…should I…what does this Red Cross thing or this Red Crescent thing?” As it started. There is some risk. Funders have to be….I would hope are savvy and wise, but are not so risk averse that they’re unwilling to take that step.

Jay Williams: Think of the technology companies today, the Uber, and Google, and Facebook, and Apple. These start off with, I’ll say kids, tinkering around in their garages and with these ideas. And now the culture there is in startup, you’re nobody, unless you’ve had two or three failures. If you haven’t had a failure, a failed business IPF, at that point, there’s less trust in investing in someone who hasn’t had a few failures versus like, oh yeah, you got those three bombs under your belt. Yeah. And it’s like the opposite in philanthropy. Oh, that didn’t work out well, that last grant didn’t work out. Heaven forbid we should have another. And if you think about it, when now we’ve got, you know, these multi-billion dollar, I think a couple of them that have achieved trillion dollar, market capitalization, every last one of them, every last one of the individuals who started those will share with you a story of one or more failures they had before they got it. So how do we take a little bit of that mindset and apply it to our struggling nonprofits? Who, yeah, that grant didn’t turn out just right. But that doesn’t mean we should now not have that same mindset. Learn from it, build on it, and here’s the next opportunity.

Nicole Campbell: You hit again at the core of it. I completely agree. I think at the core of all of this is how are you defining risk and are you willing to redefine it? Right. So I think yes, having that conversation initially before moving into anything else is so critical and I could go on and on about risk. But I did want to say that this conversation has been, just like the others that we’ve had, so thoughtful and you have been so clear on the role that not only the Hartford Foundation plays, but that community foundations, as intermediary organizations, can play and really providing sound next steps for leaders within organizations. So I think, you know, I’ve just been so inspired by this conversation.

Jay Williams: You’ve made it easy, Nicole.

Nicole Campbell: I appreciate that. And I want to ask you a question that I ask all of our guests to help us continue to build knowledge through books and people we should learn from or about to close us out. What book do you think we should read next? Or what artists do you think we should be paying attention to?

Jay Williams: That’s great question. So let me start with the artists. You know, I was trying to think of any particular artists, but my 2 cents would be to be culturally and intellectually curious. I have stumbled upon artists, whether they are musical artists, performance artists, artists of any medium, sometimes just through curiosity, hearing a sound or sort of just exploring. And if someone were to look at my playlist right now, they would have no idea. I mean, from rap to gospel, to Taylor Swift, I mean, you name it. I mean, it is all there. And in terms of a book and I have not read the book, but I heard the author being interviewed on one of the NPR stations. And it will be the next book that I read. Claudia Rankin, who is an African-American poet. And she wrote a book called, ‘Just Us’.

Jay Williams: I think it’s ‘Just Us in American Conversation’, and it’s a view on how white supremacy has just become such an almost ingrained, acceptable part of the culture that we sometimes, I think, don’t even recognize it. And when I say we, I mean, we, as people of color and people in the white community. Not necessarily the white supremacy that has the proud boy, flag-waving, sort of, you would typically see. But I just heard her being, yeah…it was on the NPR show. It’s been a minute. I think Sam Sanders is a host, but just that interview in the car, you know, I was like, you know, who is this? Let me try to catch it while I’m driving. And it was Claudia Rankin and the book is called ‘Just Us’.

Nicole Campbell: Okay. So great. Thank you so much for sharing that, you are the second person that has mentioned that book. So it is now on my list as well, and great advice about being both culturally and intellectually curious. So thank you for that. We’ll put all of that information into the show notes so people can see it. Jay, again, I just really want to thank you for this conversation. I’m inspired to do even more. And so I want to thank you for sharing all of this knowledge and insight about your foundation, about foundations, generally the sector. And I appreciate how practical your advice and guidance has been. And I think that that’s the piece that helps leaders and organizations build even better. So thank you again so much for your time.

Jay Williams: Well, thanks for having me. It’s been a pleasure. I look forward to the next time we have a chance to talk.

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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.

Increasing Access for Grassroots Organizations with Angelyn Frazer-Giles

April 22, 2021 Nicole Campbell Podcast

Angelyn Frazer-Giles is honest and compelling in how she speaks about the work of NNJ and how they’re staying true to their mission. She talks about how to support grassroots organizations, leanly-staffed organizations, and organizations engaged in direct services work in the criminal justice space.

In this episode, Angelyn shares her advice for nonprofits to remain true to their mission and goals to continue to show up for the communities they’re serving instead of pivoting for short-term returns. And she discusses the role of philanthropy in increasing access for grassroots organizations that have been traditionally excluded from conversations. This conversation encourages us all to reimagine what the sector and society could become if we placed big-bets on grassroots organizations.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Resources:

About Angelyn Frazer-Giles

Angelyn C. Frazer-Giles is the Executive Director of the National Network for Justice (NNJ). She has over 25 years’ experience in community organizing, policy analysis and advocacy on civil and human rights issues and criminal justice. Previously she was the Director of State Legislative Affairs and Special Projects for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) where she was responsible for the development, articulation, and strategic vision of NACDL’s agenda on the state level.

Angelyn is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York with a degree in Fashion Buying and Merchandising, has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, studied Spanish at the Universidad De Guadalajara in Jalisco, México and received her Paralegal certificate from Delaware State University. Angelyn has traveled to Italy, Portugal, Cuba, Greece, the Caribbean and Honduras the homeland of her parents. She is also a licensed instructor of Zumba®, Zumba Gold®, Zumba Sentao™ and Aqua Zumba®. Currently she is studying to be an end of life doula.

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Read the podcast transcription below:

-Upbeat Intro Music-

Nicole Campbell: Hi everyone, this week on the Nonprofit Build Up, we’re talking with Angelyn Frazer-Giles. Angelyn is the Executive Director of the National Network for Justice, a membership-led organization established to support and strengthen the work of state-based organizations, including crime survivors, formerly incarcerated leaders, youth immigration, public health, and re-entry service organizations seeking to reduce jail, prison, and detention population safely and permanently. Angelyn has over 25 years of experience in community organizing policy analysis and advocacy on civil and human rights issues and criminal justice. Previously, she was the Director of State Legislative Affairs and Special Projects for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, where she was responsible for the development, articulation, and strategic vision of its agenda on the state level. We recorded this conversation last year amiss the growing social justice and racial justice movement, and the height of an international health crisis. Angelyn is honest and compelling in how she speaks about the work of an NNJ and how they’re staying true to their mission.

Nicole Campbell: She talks about how to support grassroots organizations, leanly staffed organizations, and organizations engaged in the direct services work in the criminal justice space. She also talks about the power of being responsive to community need and how she’s doing exactly that in her role at NNJ. Angelyn also shares her advice for nonprofits to remain true to their mission and goals, to continue to show up for the communities they’re serving instead of pivoting for short-term returns. And she discusses the role of philanthropy in increasing access for grassroots organizations that have been traditionally excluded from conversations. This conversation encourages us all to re-imagine what the sector and society could become if we place big bets on grassroots organizations. And with that here is Angelyn Frazer-Giles.

Nicole Campbell: Hi Angelyn, I am so happy to have you joining us for our Fast Build Leader Series.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: I’m really excited to, first of all, be asked, and second of all, to join you. Thank you very much.

Nicole Campbell: To get us started, can you tell us about National Network for Justice, your role, and NNJ’s immediate priorities?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: So, the National Network for Justice is a national organization providing a Big Ten approach in assisting state-based organizations who are seeking to decarcerate jails, prisons, and detention facilities. And I was hired in 2018 as their Executive Director. And what we do is we have four main objectives. We provide training and webinars to help strengthen the field of state-based groups. We are trying to expand the peer-to-peer mentoring so that a lot of these groups who are up-and-coming are communicating with groups that have been around for a while and they can help offer them some level of Intel and support. And we’re looking at intersectional approaches in the criminal justice field. So for example, immigration issues, there’s a huge intersectionality with that particular line of defense, so to speak, because immigrants and there’s a criminal justice system and they’re emerging. So we’re always examining intersectional approaches to criminal justice reform. And then the final objective is promoting funder familiarity with some of these groups that are otherwise not afforded the opportunity to have either one-on-ones or communicate with funders who are funding organizations around the country dealing with criminal justice reform.

Nicole Campbell: And so, if I were to think of what your member profile looks like for an organization that wants to join NNJ, what does that organization look like?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: So, we have members that are members of state-based organizations. We have individual members and we have members that belong to national organizations. Our focus is primarily state-based organizations, and they’re not necessarily…there’s no, like, size determination. They don’t have to be, you know…have a certain number of staff or they don’t have to be in any one jurisdiction, or anything like that. We are just focused on organizations in states who are doing this work, who are trying to educate their community, decarcerate these jails, decarcerate prisons and, more and more, dealing with decarceration of detention facilities. So the objective is to make sure that we have a lot of these groups that are doing this work as part of our network, we find that there’s a lot of state-based organizations, particularly smaller ones, that don’t get the recognition of all of the work that they’re doing, right.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: They’re working out of their cars. They’re just hustling out there, just trying to make it happen and do whatever needs to be done in terms of having people really focused on the criminal justice system. So our members abroad. We have, like I said, individuals, city-based organizations, and national organizations. Our bylaws call for anyone who wants to be on a committee, with the exception of our financial committees, can be on a committee. Anyone that belongs to a state-based organization can be nominated to be part of the board, but we don’t have that international organizations on our board. We want it to really, really focus on state-based groups.

Nicole Campbell: Okay. And I really like how you’re focusing on the smaller organizations to make sure that they’re included in the conversation and have the support and resources that they need to participate and support the communities that they’re working with. I want to talk about this current environment and what NNJ is doing right now for the communities that it works with or its membership,

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Right. So we’ve had probably in the past month and a half, maybe two months, we’ve had two calls where we’ve just been focused on members who are actively doing direct action in terms of trying to get people out, right? Because we know that the prisons and the jails are just powder kegs for the COVID virus to spread, and for people to get sick, and unfortunately, people to perish. And so we’ve been working with a lot of our groups. We don’t specifically…NNJ doesn’t do the direct service, but we’re working with a lot of our organizations who are trying to do some of that direct service, whatever it is that they might need. They may need help with getting a sign-on letter out to other members and to other organizations, they need assistance with putting together care packages. And so to the extent that we can assist them with other resources that may be out there to help them get care packages together. We are going to probably be doing some father’s day cards just to get some of those cards out to members in a lot of the facilities around the country. Particularly in Mississippi, we have a member who’s working really diligently trying to put together not only care packages for members of the community who are suffering from COVID, but also trying to help some of the young people who have family members incarcerated that are about to graduate and don’t have the support systems.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And so, we’re trying to get the word out about that and really just provide an opportunity for a lot of our members to talk to each other. Everyone tends to be in silos this particular crisis, because of the fact that we cannot move around the way that organizers tend to move around. It has caused folks to have to organize online, organize via the phone, organize via these types of Zoom calls or Google calls or whatever, to get information out, and newsletters. And so we’ve tried to just be a conduit for the conversations, and I’ve been sending out information about different funding sources that I see that come up that don’t necessarily pertain to NNJ specifically, but may pertain to some of our organizations out there that are doing specific work around either young girls or young boys, or you know, some specific issue area that we don’t necessarily cover. So there’s a lot of different that we’re doing. Every day, I know there’s several calls of people that are just really trying to get the information out and trying to let other people know what their actions are in their jurisdictions, so that maybe they could utilize some of those same types of tactics in their jurisdictions, you know, letters to the governors and caravans in front of jails. So that type of thing. So we’re there to help support to the extent that we can.

Nicole Campbell: I’ve been seeing that a lot as well, this need to communicate with each other a lot more, learn from each other and collaborate. So I think it’s really critical that NNJ is providing the space for people to do that. And speaking of talking with other people, other organizations, I was wondering if you could talk about nonprofits that are fundraising as a significant part of their budgets. I know that NNJ also fundraises as part of its operations and to support its operations. So I would love to know what advice would you give to nonprofits that have to fundraise during this time? What should be top of mind for them, particularly during the crisis and as they look beyond it?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: So, we are fundraising. We’re trying to fundraise in this COVID environment. I think the biggest piece of advice that I could give to anyone out there that is seeking funding is to stay true to your objectives, your mission, and your goals, to the extent feasible and possible in this environment. What I mean by that is, I’ve seen a lot of philanthropic ventures shift their focus to COVID-19 related funding. So if there’s an organization that maybe wasn’t doing specific direct service related to health or related to any type of issue dealing with mental health or specific PPE or anything like that, supporting folks on the frontline, that because a lot of philanthropic ventures have shifted their funding focus to providing funds for COVID relief, I’ve seen organizations try to fit that mold. And I think that, if that is not what you do, I think it’s hard to try to shift yourself and try to manage a way to fit that square peg, round hole, or vice versa.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I think that because of the fact that we are in this crisis and now this funding is coming from a variety of different sources and organizations need the funding, to not stick to your mission and your goals is going to take you off track. And then you’re going to have to try to pivot and come back when we’re not in this crisis or we’re in some other type of crisis. Right? And so my advice would be to just really be clear on what your mission, your goals, and your objectives are. And if there is money out there that’s COVID related that you see a funder is offering, and you can find a way within your mission to apply for that money, except the money, and work with that money to influence what you’re trying to do, then I say go for it. But if it requires you to totally shift what you’re doing, then I think that you really need to reevaluate and determine if that’s really where you want to go. Because I know how it is when you need the funding, because everyone’s always looking for funding, we’re looking for funding. But I’m also see a lot of things that I think are interesting that NNJ might be able to apply for.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: But then I have to all say, “Okay, is this going to lead us to what we’re trying to do?” Which is assist state-based organizations in their work and their efforts. If I don’t see that, but I see maybe a funding source that one of our network members might benefit from because it’s specifically what they’re doing, then I’m passing that on to them. I’m not going to try to apply for something and it’s really not an NNJ, but it might be one of our member organizations. So that would be probably the biggest piece of advice. It was probably a long-winded response, but my biggest piece of advice to entities who are looking for funding, because I know how it is if someone’s giving you a $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 grant, you know, they want you to do some type of COVID relief and it’s not part of your mission, and it’s hard not to take it. But you really have to focus and say, “No, I really don’t want to do that.”

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I think some of the funders will respect organizations for not just jumping on the bandwagon in terms of COVID relief efforts, when that’s not what they were designed to do, even though this is something that is new to all of us. And unfortunately it’s been something we’ve all had to try to maneuver and get used to and try to be valuate our whole life existence around. I think that a lot of funders would be willing to look at someone again, knowing the future, when this crisis, I won’t say passes, but subsides enough where people are like, okay, we can go back to our work, what we were put here to do, what our mandate is.

Nicole Campbell: Right. And so being consistent to organizations’ missions. And so you’ve mentioned that funder comes to an organization, says, “We are offering COVID relief.” And that organization thinks about it and says, “You know, we really can’t take that funding right now or participate in this particular effort because we’re doing this other piece of work that’s requiring all of our attention.” And so I know you about some funders or the majority of funders understanding that. And then maybe that organization revisiting the conversation and saying, “Hey, can we have a conversation?”, later on, once that organization’s work is underway. But I wondered if you could give some advice around how do you pick that conversation back up? So you’ve stayed strategically on target and on focus, and you just determined that, you know, maybe the funding that’s being offered is not strategically aligned with your mission. How do you then pick that conversation back up with a funder? Just say, “Okay, now I’m back. And I’d love to revisit the conversation around funding.”

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I think you set that up when you have the initial conversation about this money being offered and maybe a situation where the funder doesn’t come to you and says, “You know, I have this money and we’d love for you to apply for it.” It may be something that you just see and you could send a note, a letter, to that funder and say, you know, “This is a great opportunity. I will definitely pass along this opportunity to maybe someone who is working specifically on these efforts. We are not right now. We’re really trying to stay focused on our mission at hand, but we’d love to have an opportunity when we are out of this specific crisis to come back to you for funding, either general support funding, or particular project, we’d love to be able to come back to you and have a conversation.”

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I think that funders are willing to do that. If you put yourself out there and say, “This organization is not going to apply for funds that really don’t fit us.” I think funders are like willing to say, “Wow, they’re really trying to stick with what they’re doing.” We’re all trying to manage and maneuver in this. So I think that there’ll be more open to that. And I think seeing a note from someone saying, you know, “This is a really great opportunity. We’ll definitely pass it on to one of my colleagues, but we’d love to be able to talk to you about other funding.” We think that they would be open to that.

Nicole Campbell: So, we’ve been talking a lot about funders and I’d love to hear the advice that you would give to them beyond, you know, give more money; for funders to support nonprofit sustainability, both within and beyond this crisis.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Right. So I think that because of the fact that there are these mid and large size organizations out there, they’re doing great work and they’re getting funding so that it allows them to have infrastructure in place. And it allows them to have their financial elements of their organization to be sound, and that they have people in place to do their programming and to do their marketing. Like they’ve got enough funds where they’re able to do all of these things. I think that it’s a beautiful thing, that there are organizations being funded. But at the same time, there’s a lot of organizations that are starting up that are smaller, that are also doing great work, right, grass roots, organizing work, or direct service work. And it would be great for those organizations to get their piece of the pie. And I think funders who do fund this work, criminal justice work have a great network of other people who may not fund criminal justice.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Right? And so to be able to access some of those philanthropic entities that may not fund criminal justice work, but that funders can actually talk to some of these other organizations about, I think would be helpful for smaller organizations. Because they could say, you know, “Hey, we’re not funding this particular group, but it may be a group that you might look at if you’re trying to get your feet wet in terms of criminal justice reform efforts.” If you’re trying to get your feet wet in terms of social justice or voting justice or whatever the issue is. And I think that they have these networks and they have the ability to move around and talk to different people. And I just think that that is just one way for them to maybe take some of the pressure off them just trying to do it all. But give some of these smaller organizations, give some of the other organizations different ideas of who else to reach out to. Because I think we get stuck in this: okay, we’ve got to go to the funders who normally fund us, right?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Who normally fund criminal justice because that’s what I’m in, criminal justice. And there’s like all these other entities out there, philanthropic entities that could potentially fund you, but we tend to stay focused on, you know, these big names. I think that funders also have a great opportunity to help provide, or find entities that are going to provide some of the capacity building and infrastructure development like you, Nic, for example, just helping organizations do some of this work. It’s one thing to fund an organization that is on solid footing that knows what they are doing, that has all their ducks in order, that has their financial capabilities solid. It’s another thing to work with a group that doesn’t know what the 1099 is, that doesn’t know what they need to do financially to stay sound, right, that there are reporting requirements to the IRS and becoming a 501(C)(3). There’s even reporting requirements if you’re not a 501(C)(3) but you’re under a fiscal agent.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: There’s all of these things that I think a lot of small organizations and 501(c)(3)s that they just don’t understand, what comes with the territory and putting together an organization, right? The board development and ensuring that whatever it is your mission and your goals are, that you have someone to implement all of those things, that you’re working on capacity building. And I think that some funders have the capability to put together some of this support and it’s not necessarily them. They consult it out or contract it out or however they do it, and say, “Okay, we have this team that can work with groups on capacity. We have this team that could work on groups with fundraising.” And I think that if funders did that, people would be set up for success and they would strive, right, in their organizations, as opposed to the way a lot of organizations function now.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Just kind of…they’re looking for funding before some of the infrastructure stuff. And I think if funders wanted to really get involved with that piece of it, that would probably help a lot of these other small organizations. And talking to some organizations, some organizations don’t need to be a 501(C)(3). You need to be a project under a 501(C)(3). And having those honest conversations with people about that. I think a lot of people want to be a 501(C)(3) because they want to be in control and do what they want to do without recognizing all of the logistical issues that come along with being a 501(C)(3). So that would be my advice, because I think small organizations are kind of the lifeblood of this. They’re doing this work and I’m here as someone that they could call if they’re experiencing something that they need some help getting information out or they’re trying to get into this prison and they need a letter done, like I’m here to provide that support. But there are those groups that are out there day in, day out, hitting the pavement, talking to people, protesting, doing whatever. They’re the lifeblood of this movement. And we shouldn’t take that for granted, funders shouldn’t take it for granted. We shouldn’t.

Nicole Campbell: I agree with that. And you are definitely speaking my love language when you start talking about infrastructure and building capacity. And I do think that NNJ really does play a capacity building role, for the reasons that you’ve already described. And I think that when you echo on your points, when you build infrastructure, what you do is we create access for different organizations that otherwise may not have had it. And we give them options. So like you said, you don’t necessarily have to be created, definitely have to become a C3 for example, which it could be a project, you could be an initiative. But you don’t know these things, unless you start to build your capacity and build your infrastructure knowledge. Right? So I think that having that kind of support from funders, from the sector as a whole, would be extremely critical. And so that leads me into my next question for you, which is, we have your advice for funders, we have your advice that you’d give to fundraising nonprofits. With all of that in mind, what do you wish we did less of as a sector and what do you think we should do more of?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: I think, and I’ve thought this for a very long time, that we tend to latch onto influence and celebrity in a way that leaves people out. And I’ll say this, I remember when the Rockefeller drug laws were like one of the worst types of drug laws in the country. And there were so many people working on the Rockefeller drug laws, long before I even became involved in criminal justice efforts. There were so many people involved in Rockefeller drug law reform and trying to change these laws. I mean, tons of people, and I’m not going to mention any names on any level, because I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m leaving them out. I also remember there was a celebrity who was having conversations with the mayor and the governor. And I remember I was in D.C. At the time, and there were all these protests that were happening and they were happening in downtown New York, like by the mayor’s office.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I was thinking, okay, you folks, you gotta go to Albany, you gotta go to the Capitol, you gotta go and see your legislators. Cause that’s what I come from. I come from that type of organizing where I worked with a legislator, I campaigned. And so I know that that is how things are happening. You know, I’ve worked with legislators then and we got letters, we got calls, people came to our office, and there were protests. And that is how they made changes to laws. Right. I remember being in Seattle and the Mariners wanted a new baseball stadium and the legislature was like, “No, no way. We’re not building them a stadium.” What did they do? They had him Kenneth Griffey Jr. come to the state house, like, really? He came to the state house to lobby the legislators to build this new stadium. Right. And it was just this big thing, a celebrity.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I see things on Capitol Hill where, when there’s a celebrity, you’ll see all these congressmen in the committee hearing because it’s a celebrity there. And I’m like, what about the regular people? And so I digress. I’m going back to Rockefeller drug laws; conversations that were going on behind the scenes with the governor and this person and the talks fell apart. And I remember thinking if this had not fallen apart, if this person was able to go in and speak to the governor, and have reform and have change done, what does that say for all of the people that have been working on this for all these years; all the hard work, all the tears, all the money, all of the heartache, and trying to get anyone to listen to their issues and their concerns about how they’re incarcerating Black and Brown people in this state.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: What does that say to their efforts? And I mean, that happened years ago, right? And now we’re seeing similar things happen where people…and I think it’s great, please don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great when people are able to come home. But I think that there are a lot more people that could come home if there wasn’t a celebrity pushing one particular person, like if the celebrity was pushing legislation that would get a lot of people home, that’s one thing. You know, not going behind the scenes and having conversations with legislators and governors, but really working with the activists and the advocates who are trying to change these laws. If they were really, really doing that and not just because someone did a video and then they got some notoriety, I think we could really change things. People could come home. And I think that that is one thing that I would change in our sector, in our world, in our environment.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: That is one thing I wish that we were less concerned, with celebrity. There are celebrities that have had issues with bail reform and then it becomes a big thing. Well, bail reform has been big forever. There’s a lot of people still in jails right now. People are trying to get these folks out because of COVID, they’re in jail for these little offenses and they should be able to come home. You shouldn’t have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to a bail-bondsman to come home. And if you’re known, if you have notoriety, it seems to be easier for you to have access and get your story told, and I think it shouldn’t be like that. I think everyone should have the same options and justice should prevail across the board.

Nicole Campbell: I liked that idea of, we’re talking about celebrities, right? Or basically just some influencer who’s able to come in and make all of this sweeping change and in parallel, we have tons of activists who’ve been doing work for years, organizations who have been in the trenches and just at the forefront of the issue, and have not made as much progress. Now we need those two forces. And so I’m going to put this on you, Angelyn, to answer that, like, if you had your way, how do you marry that? How do you take advantage of the influencers as you know many businesses, right? But also take all of that expertise and all of the learning and the knowledge that comes with the activist organizations, the leaders who’ve been doing the work.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: I wish I had the answer to how to do that. I think it’s being done a little bit on certain levels, but I also know that there are a lot of tensions in the community with that celebrity/advocacy that’s going on now. And I don’t know what the full answer is to that other than a full powwow, where everyone is just…got a couple of moderators in there just to get it all out. And everyone come together and say, “We are going to be a force to be reckoned with.” And that takes a lot of tenacity. It takes probably a few strong people to come in and just say, “Hey, we need to stop all of the tensions and the bickering and ego, all of that, just lay it all out on line.” What we all should be working towards is the liberation of people, right?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And so if we’re not all working towards that, then we’re only going to get but so far in little increments. And I think having this celebrity and having the advocates come together in a way that could show unity, that this group has been around for a long time, they’ve been doing great work. And I don’t think that that necessarily happens. I don’t think that celebrity comes in and says, you know, they’ve been doing great work and we have to make sure that they are able to sustain themselves and continue this work. And we’re going to work with them to try to get legislators in their jurisdictions on board with criminal justice reform. And we’re not going to take the credit. We’re going to step back and let the advocates, but we’ll be the voice when they need us to be the voice. And I don’t think that’s what happens now.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: I think celebrity comes forward and becomes the voice. And then the groups, the people who are doing the work are kind of like peripheral, on the periphery. And then we are stuck with this situation where we’re just at this tension stand still where we could do so much more if we could all come together. And not to sound cliche, if we could all get along, we could do so much. I don’t know that that’s feasible. I don’t know it’s possible, but it’s something to strive towards. I try to do that in the work that I do, because I’m someone who has not been directly affected by the criminal justice system, though I had a family member incarcerated. I, myself haven’t been. So I have to really step back when I’m talking to people who have had that experience, because they’ve had an experience that I haven’t had.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And so being able to step back when I need to step back, right. Even though people might know a little bit of who I am, and I might have more credibility than this person who’s formerly incarcerated because they don’t know who that person is. I still have to step back and say, look, this is the expert. I’m not the expert. This person is the expert and push them forward. And I step back. And I think that’s the same thing that could happen for celebrity: you step back and push this person forward. Not in a way that trivializes them or puts them on display, but just know this person should be stepped forward.

Nicole Campbell: Right. Again, just using your platform to raise that person visibility. Right. Similar to what you said earlier. And so I know you talked about collaboration or increasing collaboration, increasing communication. What do you think you should do more of as a sector? In addition to those things.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: One thing we should do, as I say, pushing people forward is that we have to prepare people to be put forward. I think what happens now is someone comes home from being in a system that demeans them, demoralizes them, treats them as less than human. They’ve served however many years, whether it be three years or whether it be 40 years, you have people who have been through so much. And doing this work over the years that I’ve been doing this work, I’ve seen so many people come home and that’s what we do, that’s the first thing we do. We put them on a stage and we ask them to tell their story. And we put them in front of the media and we take them all around the country and we have the media talking to them and we put them in a movie and we write a book. It’s like we as a community, because we so desperately want reform, that we do sometimes whatever it takes, whatever we think it’s going to take to get that reform right.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Because the story always resonates with people. I think the story always resonates with people. And when I say people, I mean, lawmakers. Taking someone in to tell their story, it’s going to resonate. Me going in, just talking about it, not so much, but I think we have to prepare people for that. I don’t think we just throw them into the lion’s den and just expect them to just come out okay. Because they didn’t come out of the system of incarceration okay. And I don’t care what we think, what we say, folks who have been inside do not come out okay. Unless they had some work done while they’re inside, which is not necessarily the case. Or they come home to something that they can work towards that, towards a mental health, physical health. I’ve spoken to people that say, it doesn’t matter what happened when you went inside, and you could have been fine, when you come out, you’re not.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: When we come out of this COVID, we are not going to be the same. We may not even be okay. Some of us are not okay now. Right. And we’re masking it and we’re just moving on. We’re moving forward, and we’re on calls, and we’re Zooming, and we’re in these meetings and these settings where we’re not communicating in person, and we’re not doing the things that we normally did. And so I don’t think that we’re going to necessarily be okay. So why would we think that people who’ve been behind bars being demoralized, being told what to do every waking moment? Why do we think that those folks will be okay? And that immediately they can come forth and just be these great speakers and leaders. And some people can, some people can, but there’s a lot that can’t, but with that guidance and that support, they can be, they can be your spokespeople. They can be the ones that go to legislators and talk about the issues or go to, you know, some of the civic organizations, the League of Women Voters, or whatever, to talk about the issues. But I think we tend to want the immediate and we see like, okay, this person’s story has been in the news. This is great. We can put them out there and then we burn them out. We absolutely burn them out. So that’s what I think we should do better.

Nicole Campbell: I like how you put it, preparing people to be put forward and just talking about doing more preparation, more building, more supporting. And it leads me into my questions that I would love to get your thoughts on, because we’ve been talking about infrastructure in pockets throughout this conversation. And I wanted to know if NNJ’s thinking about building infrastructure during this time. And if it is, how is it thinking about building infrastructure during this pandemic? And what does that building look like beyond this pandemic?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Well, it just so happens that we had our fiscal agent since 2017. We received our designation, 501(C)(3) designation from the IRS in December of 2019. And so we are in the process of transitioning to an independent entity. So talk about infrastructure. That is a huge piece of the infrastructure for us, because it is finding an accountant/bookkeeper. It is ensuring that all of t,he financials that the fiscal agent has are transferred over it is finding someone to do our payroll and all the deductions that have to be done. It is looking for medical for the staff persons for NNJ. And that is probably our biggest priority right now, is that infrastructure, of just building from basically the ground up our infrastructure. Ensuring that we have a booklet, a packet of information, for new staff. We want to make sure that we have a employee handbook that lays out all of the issues that we had under our fiscal agent, because we had a handbook under our fiscal agent.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And so now we’re making sure all of those things in place. And so that’s our biggest piece, is just in terms of infrastructure, our biggest priority, significant priority, is putting those things in place for us right now. Because we really know that we need to build capacity. And we can’t until we have some of these things in place to ensure that when we reach out to funders, we can say, “Look, this is our accounting. This is a bookkeeper. This is how much money we’ve raised. This is our structure. This is what we have been doing. And this is what we want to continue to do for our network members.” And so we need certain things in place. We need staff in place to have that capacity to do this work. So I would say that in terms of our infrastructure, that’s where we are now, in a COVID crisis, we’re trying to do that. Trying to open a bank account during COVID was a challenge because you can’t go into the bank. So that was a challenge. And having people…our board members are around the country. And so trying to manage that was a little challenging, but we got that in place. So I feel really good about that too. That’s a huge infrastructure piece, is having a bank account.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, agreed.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: You get it. If someone says, “Hey, I got some money for you. You have a bank account?” Yes, I do.

Nicole Campbell: I would completely agree and congratulations on building all of those building blocks, because like you said, you need to have that infrastructure in place, and you’re doing it in the midst of a pandemic because you’re thinking about sustainability and longevity of the organization. So huge congratulations again on that.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Thank you. Thank you. You know, I look at COVID funding and I’m still of the mindset that if it’s not fitting for us, if it doesn’t work, we’re just not going to apply for it. Because it doesn’t make sense to apply for a grant and then you’ve got to fit yourself into that grant. Just…I have enough to do with helping the network members that I don’t need to try to recreate something for me to do that’s not necessarily going to affect them and be impactful for them and their work. So I’m good with saying no to it, unless it fits.

Nicole Campbell: I’ve been reading a ton of business books lately and you know, they keep saying, and I’m sure you’ve heard this as well: when you say no, is actually how you move forward. Knowing what you actually can say no to and not do, that’s actually how you start to progress in a really good way and do things consistently and actually be successful because you’re not saying yes to everything, and your resources are diverted, and yes, you have additional funding, but now you’re doing things that take you off your mission, and actually end up impacting negatively the community that you actually are serving. So I hear you, and it’s not like you’re saying, don’t take any COVID funding. You’re just saying you need to strategically look at the funding and say, “Does this align with what I’m proposing to do?” I being part of the organization. And if not, then again, back to your other point, maybe talk about another organization or share that with another organization and say, “Hey, I think this is really appropriate for you. You should apply for this” Right. Or do that connection.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Really, like you said, thinking very critically and very strategically about who you are, what you’re trying to do, who you’re trying to serve, and go from there. And if it doesn’t meet some of those basic parameters then you shouldn’t bother. Initially, we thought about applying for the government funds because they were giving a grant for the payroll protection, but then you also had to apply for the loan. And I’m like, well, we’re not trying to apply for a loan to protect the salary. We’re just trying to ensure that we have that cushion on the salary. So that’s one less thing to worry about. Like, you’re going to need a salary. That’s a given, but to apply for a loan, that’s going to take us away from…okay, the loan is for what purpose? The loan is to protect the salary, but we don’t need a loan protect the salary.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: We can use a grant to help protect the salary. And outside of that, we will look for funding from elsewhere. So it’s really being very deliberate and intentional in that, looking at that pot of money. And you saw that with some of the companies that were getting funding, and then they realize, and I don’t know why they realize this after the fact, that there were all of these small businesses that weren’t getting any money because big folks have all the resources to come in and take the money. You’ve got the bank institution. You got your banker telling you, “Well, yeah, if you do this, if you do this, if you do this, we’ll make sure you get it.” So all of the little businesses don’t get any money. And then they’ve got to wait for you to put the money back in the pot. And then another build has to come through so that you can apply for funds to sustain your staff, you know, to make sure that you can pay your staff at least what they were making, or a little of what they were making, and keep your doors open. It’s insane. So that’s how I look at it.

Nicole Campbell: Angelyn, your responses have been so thoughtful, so insightful, and above all, practical. It makes me try to reimagine the sector. So thank you so much for the conversation. 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 books do you think we should read next? Or what artists do you think you should be paying attention to?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: I actually have two. My family says…I mean, I stay in criminal justice, I like live it and breathe it. And I don’t necessarily, but I do in certain respects. But there’s a book called ‘An American Marriage’ by Tayari Jones. And it was an Oprah Book Club selection. And Oprah is actually, I think, bought the rights to make it into a film. And it’s a great book. It’s a good read. I’m not a fast reader. I read a lot of books, but I’m not a fast reader, but I was able to get through this pretty quickly. And then I actually started reading it again, because there are nuances, you know, you’re reading, and just like, I need to go back to that book. I’m rereading that book. And the other book is ‘Small, Great Things’ by Jodi Picoult. And I like her writing, but this particular book is also going to be made into a movie.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: And I believe, I’m going to say, Alfre Woodard is going to play the main character, I think. This is also a good book and it wasn’t based on a true story, but I think she got the idea from a true story about a black nurse that ends up having to take care of a white baby. And the parents are white supremacists and they didn’t want the nurse to touch the baby. And so the book is based on that, but it also talks about the woman who’s telling the story, a white woman and all of the biases that she has, that she doesn’t even realize she has. So I would suggest both of those books.

Nicole Campbell: And so, ‘An American Marriage’, can you talk a little bit about that and why you recommend it?

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: That book, I think I saw it maybe in Essence, they have all their books selections, and I’m like, oh, that sounds interesting. And then I heard about Oprah. I think I heard about Oprah though after the fact, after I started reading it. And basically it’s set in Atlanta, and it’s this young couple who get married, and they’re just up and coming. She’s an artist, and I can’t remember specifically what he does. But they are, you know, just your average black couple from the timeframe that is during the Atlanta murders. So it’s like in 1980s, something like that. And basically they go to visit his parents and a woman is in despair and he goes to help the woman in later on, she claims that he rapes her. And this story is about their marriage and his parents’ marriage and her parents’.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: But it really focuses around their marriage and how their marriage was a good marriage. They had their ups and downs. That’s what I liked about it is that it wasn’t perfect. They had arguments, there were jealousies, and all of that, but they were together and they were trying to build something and they were trying to support each other. And then he gets accused of this crime. And so it takes them through his years of being incarcerated and what happens to them in their relationship and how she becomes this different person. And he becomes a different person from the experience. And so that’s ‘An American Marriage’. It just tells this story about them just trying to manage, and her still be a wife to him when he’s incarcerated, and him still trying to be a husband. And what you go through as a couple, I’m trying to do that.

Nicole Campbell: Wow, so both books sound really powerful. And again, it’s ‘An American Marriage’ by Tayari Jones and ‘Small, Great Things’ by Jodi Picoult.

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: Yes.

Nicole Campbell: Okay, perfect. You have shared, like I said, just tremendous insights and knowledge and things that I think leaders, again, will be able to practice and use in their organizations. And that’s really important to me because going back to something you said during our conversation, which was, there’s two pieces of this, the infrastructure, but there’s also the implementation. And so just being able to get that knowledge, but then to be able to practically implement these things is extremely important. And I think that they can use all of them to build bravery. So I want to thank you so much again for joining us today

Angelyn Frazer-Giles: So much for having me. I totally enjoyed it. It’s interesting to be able to think about these things in that respect, because it’s not something you think about every day, you just do the work. So it’s been my pleasure to speak to you.

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Shifting from Charity to Justice with Dr. Dorian Burton

April 15, 2021 Nicole Campbell Podcast

Dorian Burton’s passion for shifting the conversation in the sector from a deficit-based framework to an asset-rich framework comes through so clearly during our conversation. He shares practical advice for nonprofits and funders on how to begin the shift from charity to justice.

In this episode, Dorian focuses on how funders can and should listen to, work alongside, and partner with communities they’re serving in order to problem solve and also about how to ensure that those communities can create ways to be self-sustaining. This conversation inspires us to reflect on sustainability models, how we can create them on our own, and community partnership in order to change the way we address the root causes of inequity.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Resources:

About Dr. Dorian Burton

Dr. Dorian Burton, Ed.L.D., is currently the Chief Program Officer and Assistant Executive Director at the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, NC, a foundation that supports building healthy and whole communities. He was formerly the Co-Director of The TandemED Initiative for Black Male Achievement and Community Improvement at Harvard University Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and was the Wasserman Foundation Fellow in the Doctor of Education Leadership Program at Harvard. Prior to Harvard, Dr. Burton worked as an independent consultant with various non-profits and school districts between Harlem, NY; Houston, TX; and Newark, NJ. In his role as a consultant, Burton worked to provide strategic support to Newark Public School principals in the launch of their Renew School Turnaround initiative. In addition, he worked in a special projects role to develop external partnerships for the Harlem Children’s Zone College Success Office.

Dr. Burton started his professional career working for the National Football League and also served as the founding Program Director of the Education Pioneers Houston Office, the Houston Director of Stand for Children, and the Chief Strategy Officer for TandemED. In addition to his doctorate degree from Harvard, Burton holds a Master’s degree in higher education from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and a Bachelor’s Degree in sociology from Pennsylvania State University, where he also was a member of the varsity football team.

During Dr. Burton’s tenure at Harvard as a Wasserman Family Fellow, he was selected to the Dean’s Committee on equity and diversity, served as a Teaching Fellow for Lani Guinier at Harvard Law School and was awarded the International Marshall Memorial Fellowship from the German Marshall Fund. Additionally, Dr. Burton was a Gordon Ambach Fellow with the National Governors Association Education Division and The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, as well as a non-Resident Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.

Dr. Burton currently resides in Durham, NC. He is deeply driven by his faith and is the proud son of two wonderful scholarly parents, the father of four great children, and brother to three older sisters who serve as his inspiration, comic relief, and confidants.

Online: In 2019 Dr. Burton was selected as one of the 2019 Black Enterprise Modern Man of Distinction, and honored by The Root 100 as one of the 100 most influential African Americans in the country. Dr. Burton was also selected to the the Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40.” list. He has his own blog on Huffington Post and tweets frequently @Dorian_Burton. He has also been published in the Boston Globe, and Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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Read podcast transcription below:

-Upbeat Intro Music-

Nicole Campbell: Hi everyone, this week on the Nonprofit Build Up, we’re talking with Dr. Dorian Burton. Dorian is currently the Chief Program Officer and Assistant Executive Director at the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a foundation that supports building healthy and whole communities. He was formerly the Co-Director of the Tandem ED Initiative for Black Male Achievement and Community Improvement at Harvard University Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and was the Wasserman Foundation Fellow in the Doctorate of Education Leadership program at Harvard. Prior to Harvard, Dorian worked as an independent consultant with various nonprofits and school districts in Harlem, New York, Houston, Texas, and Newark, New Jersey. Dorian has provided strategic support to Newark public school principals in the launch of their Renew School Turnaround Initiative and he’s developed external partnerships for the Harlem Children’s Zone College Success Office. Dorian’s passion for shifting the conversation in the sector from a deficit base framework to an asset rich framework comes through so clearly during our conversation.

Nicole Campbell: He shares practical advice for nonprofits and funders on how to begin the shift from charity to justice. This conversation was recorded last summer at a time of immense uncertainty and which in April, 2021, still largely remains. He focuses on how funders can and should listen to, work alongside, and partner with communities they are serving in order to problem solve, and also about how to ensure that those communities can create ways to be self-sustaining. This conversation inspired me to reflect on sustainability models, how we can create them on our own and community partnership in order to change the way we address the root causes of inequity. I can’t wait for you to hear the tremendous insight Dorian has to offer. And with that, here is Dr. Dorian Burton.

Nicole Campbell: Hi Dorian, I am really excited to have you joining us for our Fast Build Leader series today. To get us started, can you tell us about the Kenan Charitable Trust, your role there, and the trust’s immediate priority, particularly given our current environment?

Dorian Burton: Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me, super excited to be here. So I’m the Chief Program Officer at the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The trust is about 50 years old. We focus on roughly four program areas. So higher education, the K through 12 space – which are the early childhood through the K through 12 space – arts and culture, and I would say our most evolving portfolio is whole community health. And that ranges from everything from affordable housing, food security, to the justice system. 98% of our funding goes into four States and that’s where the families have some type of personal or professional input.

Dorian Burton: So, North Carolina, New York, Florida, and Kentucky. As I think about our work and really thinking about pressing needs and how we think about our day to day, it’s really focused on how do we get proximate to community? How do we reposition? I think the narrative in philanthropy from one that is rooted in charity to one that is rooted in justice. I would say, you know, charity makes you feel good around a dinner table. I think justice is really about riding along. And so our grant making is really targeted to that. Thinking about leaders of color, folks that are doing amazing work on the ground and that are leading the charge around change. So that’s us.

Nicole Campbell: And I really liked that shift that you’ve described; moving from charity to justice and framing your grantmaking around that. And as Chief Program Officer, what role are you playing in that shift and how does that show up for you on a day to day basis?

Dorian Burton: Well, I think there’s a few things. I think first, just coming into philanthropy…and I’ve been in the space about six years now. I think one of the things that I first came across, one was the governance structure. It was a space that was largely governed by 65 year old, white males. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with 65 year old white males. But I think when you think about the decisions that they were making or where they were choosing to place resources, often it was from communities that they weren’t from or had never really stepped foot into. And so as you think about leadership and the governance of philanthropy, there needed to be and there needs to be a fundamental shift. So you have organizations or institutions that are 90% to 100% white making decisions for communities that are 100% of color.

Dorian Burton: And I think if you look at the reverse, in no other place would you have that, right? So you would never have a space where you had institution that was a hundred percent black or a hundred percent Hispanic making decisions for institutions or communities that were a hundred percent white. And so really thinking about one, how do we start to make that fundamental shift around how we think about leadership and then also, how do we deploy resources? Another…I think you’ll find as we continue to have this conversation, that I think I’m very critical of the space, but critical in the way that I think is also very helpful for the work that we can do. Deploying resources in a way that was not perpetuating the inequalities that we were trying to solve for. So, for instance, if you’re giving…there was huge disparities between how we would and whether organizations would fund white led institutions versus communities of color, or institutions of color, or that are led by people of color.

Dorian Burton: You would find that money that was tied to organizations of color was often very much so program-restricted, in smaller amounts, and that was really kind of coded in a way that said, “Well, we have to wait until they grow. We have to wait until they get to pass.” On the flip side, I think you would find that organizations that were led by white leaders would get much bigger grants. The grant dollars would be around general operating costs but not be restricted in that same way. And I think what is ironic is that you would usually have those institutions sub granting the smaller institutions that we said didn’t have the capacity to actually hold that type of grant, but these are the people that are actually doing the real work. And so I think trying to flip the paradigm and the hierarchy, get onto the ground and get proximate to the folks who are leading the change and say, “Well, what are the things that you want to do?” As opposed to, I think us mapping our own reforms on to communities and on to organizations, I think which has dire consequences.

Dorian Burton: Second part of that is also thinking about how do we change the narrative of the communities that we’re responsible to and that we’re serving? One of the big things I also noticed when I stepped into this space is that philanthropic institutions were rewarding individuals that told the worst stories the best about communities that they serve. And my mom always told me, you can only treat somebody as good as you talk about it, right? And so pushing these deficit based narratives in order to build resources was counterintuitive to the work. And so how we think about framing the communities that we serve and how we understand the assets that are within those communities is key. One of the big folks that is driving that work is Trabian Shorters. I’m sure you familiar with Trabian and the work that he does BMe and has been doing for a long time.

Dorian Burton: They’re really starting to shift to an asset-based frame in this work, because it really changes the questions that you ask and the outcomes that you’re looking to achieve. So for example, a very small change, but I think it leads to a very different set of outcomes, was in our application process. You know, we changed the question from, “What is the problem that you’re seeking to alleviate?” To “What are the aspirations that you have for the community that you serve?” That switch and the questioning might seem like a small thing, but it really moves the conversation to not looking at communities as problems, as opposed to…there are deep assets there, there are leaders that have been on the ground before we ever decided that we want to be involved. There are people that were driving change. There are fully capable individuals on the ground moving this work that we can get behind, and that we can dream together and aspire for something better for communities as a whole. And so those are some of the things that I think we work on and that we’re trying to change in our own internal process, but also trying to rethink how we put resources in all of that as well.

Nicole Campbell: I think that’s really powerful. Like, particularly when you’re talking about these shifts, right. And you’re talking about the leadership shift with the way we look at governance, organizations, and how that then translates to programmatic outcomes and supporting of those outcomes. And also particularly, when you talked about shifting that narrative from deficit-based to really asset-based, asset rich narrative about the communities that we’re serving. A lot of the work that I do around infrastructure is saying, “How do we take these frameworks and how do they then show up in our processes and our policies within the organization?” And so when you’re talking about shaping that question in your application, for example, I think that that has huge implications about the kind of outcomes you’re then looking for, and supporting, and able to create. So I think that is all really powerful. And building on that, because you are engaging with nonprofits, I would love to hear what kind of advice would you provide to nonprofits that fundraise as a significant part of their budgets? In other words, what do you think should be top of mind for them right now, during this time, particularly during this time of uncertainty?

Dorian Burton: Yeah. I’ll answer that in two ways. Because I think the first is that, you know, folks that were charged with serving the nonprofits will always ask, “Well, what do we need to do to get funding into and to push?” And I think that power dynamic is the wrong dynamic. It really should be: what do our philanthropic institutions need to do to reform our space to better serve the folks that are on the ground? There is no way that executive directors need to be running around, chasing dollars, going from institution to institution. If you invest in somebody, get behind them, find a way to help them gain funding. This is not a job that you can do behind a desk. You really have to get out and into community. You have to work alongside the folks that you’re charged with serving, and it is not their sole responsibility just to raise money, right?

Dorian Burton: Because if they’re just raising money, they’re not on the ground doing the things that they’re passionate about doing, and they’re not effecting change in a way that they can be. So the first is, philanthropic institutions need to reform how we do our grantmaking process. It also can’t be this space where we are pitting nonprofits against each other in a Thunderdome, winner takes all type of mentality. So in that, it is really on us to think about, you know, how do we deploy resources? How do we convene, but also how do we help them to garner additional resources? On the nonprofit side, to get more so to the question that you asked, I think making a space where you’re not tied to philanthropic dollars, right? And that’s not that large of a piece of your capital stack.

Dorian Burton: So, what are the different ways that you can generate revenue? What are the ways that you can move effective programs into effective policy that are tied into hard dollars, right. If you are fundamentally changing the way that we think about housing and the way that we think about education through your program, that needs to be moving to scale. And to think about how do our cities adopt that, how do our States adopt the work that you’re doing, to scale it towards larger change. And that also ties it to harder dollars that I think are not as fickle. Philanthropy and the dollars…every three or four years, a new report will come out. And then all of a sudden, I think folks want to move and change into that space with the kind of changes or the wind. And so philanthropy has historically been a very fickle space around funding. And so it is not one that I wouldn’t depend on. I think it is one that can be risk-capital or innovation can help to see work and can help to create Brightspot’s models, but it is not built for, I think, that long-term pool of resources.

Nicole Campbell: And so, you’re talking about diversification of funding sources and not being, you know, 100% reliant on philanthropy, which makes complete sense to me. So I’m thinking of the nonprofits that I talk with and run into, and they’re saying, “Well, how do we do that?” So what’s their first step? How do you get to the point where you have diversified funding sources, you’re not 100% reliant on philanthropy for your revenue. But what’s their first step? Because right now they are. And so for those organizations, what do you suggest?

Dorian Burton: I think understanding what are the models that can help to pull in revenue into a space? So an example would be…and I’m not saying that this is right necessarily for everyone, but I think that I would like to see more of our nonprofits institutions, the ones that are doing really good work, being able to be adopted or to pulled into really changing systems at a larger scale. Let’s say our education partners, for some of our education partners, you know, they will come to us and say, “Hey, you know, we’re doing really good work. Can you fund us to do work in, let’s say, a school district, right?” We’ll say, “Yes, of course, because that’s what we were supposed to be doing.” Right. But at the same time, there is a very clear value that that nonprofit has to the school district.

Dorian Burton: The school district has funding that might not always be allocated in the right way. And that nonprofit is changing the way that the organization is doing work. There’s a clear value towards what their outcomes are. There’s these shared values. And so thinking at the district, or as a very clear partner as opposed to something that is transactional and only dependent on the philanthropic dollars. So removing, kind of, us from that space where they have a trusted partnership and that they are thinking about their funding and the resources, and building the capacity around them to do that. And in some cases that is using philanthropy for the first two or three years. And then that model switching, giving the district enough time to reform what they might be doing with dollars that they might be spending. I think that there is a lot of money that is out there, right?

Dorian Burton: Philanthropic dollars are a very small part of that. I use the Gates Foundation, for example. Gates Foundation is one of the top four, if not the biggest foundation in the world, right. They spend about $400 million a year, roughly, I think around that, on education and other things. When you think about one school district, let’s say the Houston independent school district, it has, you know, a multi-billion dollar budget and employees of about 29,000 people. And that’s one school district. So Gates $400 million might seem like a lot. But if you think about the total budget of one district, one large urban district, I mean, it trumps that, right. All of the spending that they do here. And so, like I said, I think philanthropic dollars can be the catalyst for change, but we have to figure out ways to support our nonprofit leaders on the ground to find more stable pots of resources and revenue. And also thinking about our government institution, how they can reallocate those dollars, how they can spend those to really adapt and bring in effective programs and turn those into corporate policy. Does that make sense?

Nicole Campbell: No, it makes complete sense. And you know what you’re seeing and what I want people to hear, is that you’re not saying don’t rely on philanthropy at all, but it’s like, use that as part of your model, but then expand. And I think that that second piece is what nonprofits need to hear and actually look at themselves and say, how can we use our leverage and expanding that way so that we are not just holding reliant on philanthropy. So it makes complete sense to me. And I think, you know, I want to circle back to something that you said when we were talking about how philanthropy needs to start to change that whole power dynamic and stop with this Thunderdome sort of pitting nonprofits against each other. Why do you think that happens?

Dorian Burton: So I think that there is a misconception that when folks walk into philanthropy, their IQ goes up 40 points, right? All of a sudden now that you’ve given out money, you’re the smartest person in the room, your jokes get a lot funnier and everything like that. I think that there has to be a shift between behind what we want to do versus what is already been done on the ground. And how do we get behind folks that have already created the tables to do that? So, you know, you might have a grandmother who has been running an amazing literacy program in the bottom of a church for 40 years. Why don’t we find an opportunity to get behind her and scale her work, as opposed to say, “Oh, well, we’re coming in with this brand and literacy initiative and we’re going to build this table. And then we’re going to invite you to a seat at the table in your own community.”

Dorian Burton: That doesn’t make any sense. Or we’re going to ask a focus group opinion on something that we want to do, knowing that we’re already going to do it anyways. Right. And so it’s using community as more of an insurance policy than actually valuing them as a partner or understanding that people on the ground know what they need better than we know. Right. And, you know, I know what I need in my household better than anybody else. Right. And so understanding that there is a true partnership on there. I don’t think that folks that have been in leadership fully understand and appreciate the brilliance that’s in the community. I think you put it into that, there can only be this silver bullet type of solution for work.

Dorian Burton: So let’s say, okay, well we’re only going to fund third grade reading and all of a sudden that’s going to change institutional racism and poverty, or the institutional racism and how that is created poverty-stricken situations in our community. As opposed to looking at things in a more comprehensive way. So an example would be, you know, when I bet on the things that happen or on my family, thriving, it’s not just one thing, right? I’m looking at their school for my kids. I’m looking at housing, making sure they have a safe place to live. I’m looking at their healthcare, making sure that my kids are healthy. I’m looking at my job to make sure that they have a stable financial structure. We need to make the same type of bets on our communities that we’re making in our own household.

Dorian Burton: For some reason we think because communities have not been served well by systems that all of a sudden, we can just do this one thing and it will change. And that’s not true because that’s not what we believe in our own house. And so I think it creates this ‘there can be only one’ type situation in our communities that does not serve them well. That often leads to nonprofits having mission creep and trying to do everything, because we have not properly funded the organizations to partner and find ways to collaborate, and really shine towards the things that they are really good at individually. The time to come together towards a collective action, I think would be lead to better outcomes for the community.

Nicole Campbell: And what I’m hearing from what you’re explaining, which makes a lot of sense, right? Is this idea that philanthropy comes in, can observe, can understand what’s happening, be more relational, and then trust the people and organizations that are already doing the work and find out how they can support them to do their own work. And so I’m going to ask the same question that I raised around how nonprofits get started making a shift. How do funders start to make that shift? Because we all talk about doing that. You know, we talk about having trust and being a partner with grantees, but how do you get started if you’re a funder that knows these things, but hasn’t historically acted that way.

Dorian Burton: Yeah. So I think one, understanding the history behind the work that you do, right? And so institutions making that organizational shift to really build it. You know, when we are going into communities and we’re trying to walk alongside them, what is the history that has created the inequality that we’re seeing? Right. You know, if you’re going to talk about affordable housing, you better know what’s going on with redlining or what has happened with redlining, right? If not, I think you walk into a space and assume that a community is inherently deficient, as opposed to there has been a set of systems that have been placed in this community over decades to be in the space that they’re in right now; that that is not just in the history, that’s happening in the present. So it’s one thing, that how you think about your work and how you think about the history behind what you’re working in and or on. Two, thinking about your staff and is it reflective of the community that you’re aiming to serve, right?

Dorian Burton: Not just your staff, but your Board. And I think what I see in a lot of institutions is that they will create a diversity and inclusion role with no real power. Right? So is your staff diverse, but do the folks on your staff have decision making power, right? Do they have power within the organization to really move money and resources in ways that they feel necessary and to be responsive to community. And the same type of diversity on your Board; in ways that I think again, will build bridges across lines of differences and that help us to see our blind spots. Third, I think, are you guys proximate to the communities that you serve, right? Are you moving to really understand and be present? Because what you can think at your office behind your desk might make complete sense until you actually get on the ground.

Dorian Burton: And so, working with folks that are on the ground, and do you value their leadership, right? Is it a space where you are creating where you’re the hero of the story versus getting behind individual being responsive in your philanthropy to help them be the heroes and the heroines of their own story. Because they’re fully capable of that. And then again, I think shifting real dollars, right? If you show me your budget, I’ll show you what you care about. Right. And I think for us at the trust, that is something that I think we can do better. Right? These are…note that when I’m being critical, I’m also being critical of ourselves, right? There’s still changes that we need to make, as we think about our Board. And we think about who we hire. And we think about our history and our paths. What does that mean? How we, in some cases, perpetuate the inequality that we’re trying to solve for. So when I’m being critical, note that I’m being critical of myself as an actor in this space, as well as the organization that I work for.

Nicole Campbell: So, Dorian, we have great advice now for nonprofits and funders, and on top of that, we have the practical next-steps. So I think, these are the things that nonprofits can do, that funders can do, to get started on that critical shift that we’re talking about. With all of that in mind, what do you wish we did less of as a sector? And what should we be doing more of?

Dorian Burton: Less of? We talk a lot. You know, I think we convene a lot. If you’re at a convening and it is just funders in a row, and there’s nobody from the community that you serve, then you’re in the wrong room or you’re wasting your time, right? It’s a space where, you know, you’ll find that we’ll pat each other on the back around the good work that we’re doing. Or we get in a room, we won’t bring the folks that were truly responsible to serving and getting behind into that space, because they’re scared that they’re going to ask us for money. And that’s your job. They should be asking you for money. They should be. If I get a call, I know what it’s for. Right. But that’s my job. And so I think we need to need to think about less talk.

Dorian Burton: I think that we need to also not be scared. So I think to be innovative in this work, looking at our past and looking at where this has come to, where we are now, it has come a long way. Don’t lose hope in that, we still have a long way to go and I think you have to work with the people you serve. You think about the work that Aaron’s doing at Ford, and La June and Joe Scantlebury are doing at Kellogg, and a lot folks move in this work. Melanie Brown at the Gates foundation and William Buster, all those folks that are really in there. Tonya Allen, the Skillman, that have been doing this and really driving it. Those are folks that I think that we can look towards. It’s not like we don’t have people that are doing it. I think being able to move it with a quicker sense of urgency and urgency that our communities deserve.

Dorian Burton: Right. Do we need another study? Do we need another report? Maybe in some cases, but probably not. Right. I got an organization about six or seven months ago. It was a funder saying, you know, we do a report on the opportunity gap or achievement gap. Absolutely not. You know, that’s something that has been over studied and underfunded, right? Our communities, I think have been over studied and underfunded. And so we owe it to them to work with a sense of urgency. I think, I wish that we did more of thinking about wealth creation and ownership. You know, if you are thinking about putting money on the ground for our communities, how are you tying that to making sure our communities own their own community, right? How are we thinking about wealth creation in that way? How are you thinking about wealth creation? I think Pamela and Jolly will talk about it, that it takes three generations to really move into a place of wealth. And I think we need to be moving the conversation to really getting to the root causes, as opposed to just fixing the symptoms of what, you know, long-term, unjust racial policies have put onto our community park.

Nicole Campbell:

Yeah, and that shift to thinking about wealth creation and ownership, I think if that were really at the core of a lot of the work that we were doing, I think the way we show up as nonprofits, as funders, would be so critically different. So I completely agree with that. And I like how you just put it: less talk, right? Like, you have communities that are overstudied and underfunded. One thing that you also said in your response, Dorian, is that we should not be afraid to be innovative in our work. And so one of the things that makes me think about innovation, and I don’t know if it makes other people think this way, is infrastructure. How strong is your organizational infrastructure, your Board set up, your policies, your procedures, the way you’re structured as an organization, both internally and externally. How are those things in place to support your innovation, to support your creativity as an institution? So I’d love to find out from you how Kenan Charitable Trust is thinking about building its infrastructure during this time, and generally. And how does it think about supporting infrastructure of its grantees to promote that kind of innovation?

Dorian Burton: So, I think one, there has to be kind of a philosophy at the philanthropic institution to really think about, are they funding outputs or outcomes, right? And so what I mean by that, you know, we should be very thoughtful about the systems in which we work, who those systems serve, and then try to create, I think, a split-screen innovation within that system. And so the split-screen, I think, recognizes that there are individuals in the current system that have daily needs that need to be met, but there also a better way to meet those needs. And I think building systems that are more equitable. So I think an example would be, let’s say, gas powered cars versus electric, right? And say, if we want to get rid of gas powered cars tomorrow, the infrastructure wouldn’t allow for that. Right. There’s too many cars on the roads.

Dorian Burton: There’s too many gas stations, too many jobs, other things that are tied into that. But we do need to think about our environment and think about how do we move to, you know, cars or vehicles that are more energy efficient, right. And so phasing out the gas power while we build the infrastructure for let’s say, Lumens will likely, build the infrastructure to be able to do that. I think currently an example for us would be, you know, a shelter will come to us and say, “Okay, well we need more beds for individuals that are in-between homes.” And that’s a very real need. That’s something that we have to fund, but it doesn’t get to the root cause of homelessness. Right. And so being able to fund outputs, but also don’t lose sight of what the actual outcomes are. So the now, and then what are the things that we need to be doing upstream as well.

Dorian Burton: And so, we’re trying to be very thoughtful, I think, in our strategy for what are the immediate needs, but also what are the things that need to happen upstream and providing the funding that it’s going to take to get there. And I don’t think that, you know, there’s never a grant that I said that was enough money, right? We are a small piece of that, but it’s not enough money to actually, I think, to change or to build that type of change. It’s going to take a lot of other folks and I think it’s going to take a lot of other resources.

Nicole Campbell: So, when we’re thinking about that transition and building up infrastructure to really be deliberate about doing that and knowing that we’re in that point of transition is important. And you know, your responses, Dorian, have been really insightful, really thoughtful. And 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 book do you think we should read next? Or what artists do you think we should be paying attention to?

Dorian Burton: It’s tough. I’ll give you the two books that I’m reading right now. One is the ‘Purpose of Capital Budget’, Jed Emerson is a friend and I think has thought about impact investing in some different ways. I’m also reading ‘Medical Apartheid’ by Harriet Washington, which I think as, as we’re thinking about our healthcare system, as we’re thinking about who has access and how that was created, very strong book. There’s two YouTube videos that I would recommend watching. One is James Baldwin, has a debate with William Buckley. And the conversation is the American dream at the expense of the American Negro? And then another conversation that James Baldwin has with Nikki Giovanni. Both of those were, I think, really insightful. As we think about the moment that we’re in and the change that we’re trying to drive. I think it’s very important to understand how we got there, who are the leaders, and that has set the foundation for that. There’s a quote that, when we lose an elder…I’m not going to get this exactly right, but where we lose an elder, a library burns. And so understanding where folks have been to understanding where we are now, how do we build those bridges across generations? I think in a way and in an effort to move forward. Very insightful conversations and I’ve been reading a lot of Baldwin lately.

Nicole Campbell: So, thanks for those recommendations, Dorian, I will put them all in the show notes so that everyone can have access to them. And that’s great that we’re also talking about YouTube videos and being able to learn and get some insight information from YouTube as well. Dorian, thank you so much. You have shared such knowledge and just been so thoughtful and insightful in your responses. And I think that, not only that, you’ve been really practical in terms of what leaders can do in their own organizations to help them build bravely for the sustainability of their communities. So thank you again so much for joining us.

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Rewriting the Narrative for Community Investment with Susan Burton

March 16, 2021 Nicole Campbell Podcast

Susan Burton’s life story is incredibly powerful. She is a leader in the criminal justice reform movement, the founder of A New Way of Life Reentry Project, and an outspoken voice to end mass incarceration. And in this episode, she shares why she founded A New Way of Life, shines a light on the policies and practices that encourage mass incarceration, and offers advice for leaders and organizations for building infrastructure and investing in their communities.

Susan’s advice is so incredibly transparent, honest, and powerful. It encourages us to rethink what it means to have vision, how to invest in marginalized communities, and how to build sustainably. We encourage you to listen and absorb all of the information Susan shares about how we can each write and appreciate a new narrative.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Resources:

About Susan Burton

Susan Burton is a leader in the criminal justice reform movement, founder of A New Way of Life, and outspoken voice to end mass incarceration. Following the tragic accidental death of her five-year-old son, Susan’s world collapsed. Her loss snapped the final tether of resilience burdened by a past of pain and trauma. She descended into an emotional abyss of darkness and despair, but living in South Los Angeles, Susan didn’t have access to the resources she needed to heal. Without support, she turned to drugs and alcohol, which led to nearly 20 years revolving in and out of prison.

Drawing on her personal experiences, she founded A New Way of Life Reentry Project (ANWOL) in 1998, dedicating her life to helping other women break the cycle of incarceration. ANWOL provides resources such as housing, case management, employment, legal services, leadership development and community organizing on behalf of, and with, people who struggle to rebuild their lives after incarceration.

Susan has earned numerous awards and honors for her work. In 2010, she was named a CNN Top Ten Hero and received the prestigious Citizen Activist Award from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is a recipient of both the Encore Purpose Prize (2012) and the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award (2014).

In 2015, on the 50th Anniversary of Selma and the Voting Rights Act, Susan Burton was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of 18 New Civil Rights Leaders in the nation. Released in 2017, her memoir, Becoming Ms. Burton, received a 2018 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in the category of Biography/Autobiography. Becoming Ms. Burton is also the recipient of the inaugural Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice. She holds an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from California State University, Northridge.

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Read the podcast transcription below:

-Upbeat Intro Music-

Nicole Campbell: Hi everyone, we’re in the final week of Women’s History Month. And we’re talking with Susan Burton; a leader in the criminal justice reform movement, founder of A New Way of Life Reentry Project, and an outspoken voice to end mass incarceration. Susan’s life story is incredibly powerful. And in this episode, she shares why she founded a new way of life, shines a light on the policies and practices that encourage mass incarceration, and offers advice for leaders and organizations for building infrastructure and investing in their communities. Following the tragic accidental death of her five-year-old son, Susan’s world collapsed. Her laws snapped the final tether of resilience burdened by a past of pain and trauma. And she didn’t have access to the resources she needed to heal. Without support, she turned to drugs and alcohol, which led to nearly 20 years revolving in and out of prison.

Nicole Campbell: Drawing on her personal experiences, she founded A New Way of Life Reentry Project in 1998, dedicating her life to helping other women break the cycle of incarceration. A New Way of Life provides resources such as housing, case management, employment, legal services, leadership development, and community organizing on behalf of and with people who struggle to rebuild their lives after incarceration. Susan has earned numerous awards and honors for her work, including being named a CNN Top 10 hero, receiving the prestigious Citizen Activist Award from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Encore Purpose Prize, and the James Irvin Foundation Leadership Award. Susan has been named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the 18 new civil rights leaders in the nation. This episode was recorded weeks ago, and I’m still feeling the effects of this incredibly moving conversation. It has helped me rethink what it means to have vision, how to invest in marginalized communities and how to build sustainably. Susan’s advice is so incredibly transparent, honest, and powerful. I encourage you to listen and absorb all of the information Susan shares about how we can each write and appreciate a new narrative. And with that, here is Susan Burton.

Nicole Campbell: Hi Susan, I am so very excited to have you join us today and for our conversation. To get us started, can you tell us about A New Way of Life Reentry Project, your role there, and A New Way of Life immediate priority?

Susan Burton: So, A New Way of Life is a growing organization located…it’s based in South Los Angeles. It is an emerging, what I would call, an emerging model for this nation to create, what I would call, sustainable passages and openings for people who are coming back from incarceration, but it’s also a way to divert people from incarceration to positive lifestyles and influences within the community. So when I think of what a new way of life stands for, it stands for the ability for communities to go from being oppressed, to surviving, to thriving in a way that we, as I can say, black people, have always struggled to, and for, you know, thriving in this country. And some might make it out to a place that they feel like they’re thriving, but so many more are left behind to deal with oppression, suppression, and just surviving the racism of this nation.

Nicole Campbell: I think that is all so needed. And I know we were talking right before we started recording about your work and I wanted to dig into the model, the immersion model, that you talked about, and the work that you’re doing. Can you talk about, first, your role there and your connection to A New Way of Life?

Susan Burton: Yeah, so I am Founder and President of A New Way of Life Reentry Project. And I founded A New Way of Life based on my own experience of being re-incarcerated and re-incarcerated and re-incarcerated. Of being a person that this nation or its justice system did not want to make a positive investment in. They would invest in chaining, caging, incarcerating, and exploiting my labor as a prisoner, but they wouldn’t invest in the possibilities of me getting the opportunity to correct my behavior. And my behavior was in response to a LAPD detective killing my five-year-old son. After his accidental death – the policemen ran him over – and after his death, I began to drink and I drank alcoholically. I drank to drown the grief and that escalated to drug use. It was during the war on drugs and people were being demonized.

Susan Burton: Wow. You know, people would be demonized by this nation’s leaders. Wow. The same leaders were saturating our communities with crack cocaine, and I became a victim and the prey to the systems…to our nation decimating us black folks, brown folks, in our communities with this substance. You know, and I think of that period as chemical warfare on black poor communities, brown poor communities. And I think of the attack on us as a continual way of oppressing us, a continual way of criminalizing and demonizing us. What it also did, Nicole, was it drove women into prisons in huge numbers and it left our communities so crippled. And that’s why I feel like my work at A New Way of Life is so important to rebuilding and stabilizing our communities, the mothers of our communities, the women, the workers, the caretakers, the caregivers in our community.

Susan Burton: So, the work of A New Way of Life to house women, bring them back to our community, give them the ability to heal from all that’s been done to them, including the torture of incarceration, allow them the ability to build leadership skills, to get their kids back, to become, you know, forces within our community. That’s why the work of A New Way of Life is so important. And you know, I see it, I see it and I dream it, and I have a vision for it. You know, and I invest all that I have that women who people see or don’t see, you know, women who are invisible in this nation, women that have the ability to come and make changes in their community; I see them. They’re not invisible to me. They’re very, very important. And so that’s why, you know, I’ve dedicated my life to supporting the rebuilding of our communities through the services at A New Way of Life – the advocacy at A New Way of Life and the leadership development at a New Way of Life.

Nicole Campbell: I just think that is so incredibly powerful, Susan, and, you know, thank you so much for sharing your story. And the way that you described A New Way of Life, it sounds as though it is just such a necessity for society generally, but particularly for those who have been made invisible within society. To say, you know, as you mentioned earlier, to come from being oppressed and demonized, to step into thriving and being able to say, “I am a positive investment.” Right? Like, “You can invest in me.” And that’s exactly what A New Way of Life does. And so I would love to hear more about…and you started to talk through this with when you mentioned your services – advocacy and leadership – through A New Way of Life. Can you talk a little bit more about the kinds of services that A New Way of Life provides; the advocacy that you’re doing and the leadership skills that you are helping others to build? And why you think that that combination – the services, advocacy, and leadership is so important?

Susan Burton: So, the services that we provide consists of supporting women to have housing when they are released from incarceration, a place to heal, and it’s not just housing, it’s also a place to belong. So creating a community where people feel like…that the women that come here feel like they belong and it’s a place to root themselves. And in that house, we provide family reunification services, of course food, clothing, housing, social work services, therapy. And we also do some services around education and job support to get back to work; support for jobs. And we also engage in advocacy through, you know, testified…we allow people the space to understand that their voice and their life experience is important. And we create platforms for them to speak, just like I’m speaking to you today, to inform and tell people what their experiences are, but also what the possibilities are for their lives and how they’d like to work toward those possibilities.

Susan Burton: So, we go to the board of supervisors meeting, we go to Sacramento, they become a part of All of Us or None. And All of Us or None is the voices of formerly incarcerated people advocating and speaking on behalf of themselves. We also have a leadership development called women organizing for justice and opportunity, and they can participate in WOJO, which meets monthly. And we run that every year. WOJO came out of Soros Justice Fellowship. Over 10 years ago, I got a fellowship when Susan Tucker was running the fellowship program and we’ve built on and built on into that leadership development program. And we do it every year. And we create the space for people to understand what role do they have in the movement and letting them know that no role is too small, no role is too big. All of us are working together to build a movement for change and we’re bringing other people, especially women, along with us.

Susan Burton: And then we have legal services at A New Way of Life. We have six attorneys on staff. Two of them work with women who are struggling to get their children back because a part of mass incarceration is, again, a continuation of ripping our babies apart, ripping us apart from our children, taking our babies, literally selling them off, you know, creating needs where they call Child Protective Services and Department of Children and Family Services. It’s a continuation from slavery when they sold our children. That’s how we see it. Because I got incarcerated, doesn’t mean I’m a bad mom. And if you wanted to keep me with my children, it would have been much cheaper to roll out services for me and my children than to separate us and incarcerate me while placing them in the foster care system that fast tracks them into the criminal justice system. So we have four attorneys that do post-conviction relief and two attorney that do family reunification. And then we also added to there some policy work. So we want to stop the fast track adoption system that that incentivizes these places, like Department and Children and Family Services or Child Protective Services that incentivizes them to adopt our children.

Susan Burton: These agencies get paid for the $6,000 in bonus for every child that they adopt out. And that was a part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1996 or ’94, but we’re working on dismantling that as a practice in this nation, as an incentive in this nation. And, you know, I hope the new administration looks at the harms that they’ve done, that their legislation has done, and their practices has done. And you know, puts forward what I call penance for the bad public policy that they pushed and implemented. And this is not to try to whoop them and beat them, but they have an opportunity now. I think they’ve said that maybe their approach and their thinking about how they created legislation was harmful, and so they can repair the harms now. I hope they do it aggressively. We’ll see.

Nicole Campbell: Mhm. And so it sounds like A New Way of Life is doing a ton of different direct services work, but also focusing on policy change. And I have a question actually around having children being pulled away from the moms who end up being incarcerated. Is that something that’s temporary or is it something that’s permanent? So do you just lose your rights as soon as you’re incarcerated? Is that usually what happens? I’d love to hear more about that piece. And then also about the leadership support that A New Way of Life provides.

Susan Burton: So, you have 18 months to get your children back, or they can be adopted out and that is permanent. You lose all parental rights to your children. And the thing of it is, is that there’s no recourse for mothers to…after the adoption happens it’s final. So I have women come home from prison, Nicole, and they go to try to find their children and they find out that their children are gone. And you know, I mean, I saw women who had came over prison and did everything that the judge said to do in order to get reunification services. I mean, in order to get a reunited with their child.

Susan Burton: And at the end of the day, the judge will say, “Reunification denied. Child is put in placement.” And I’m like, “What is this?” And that mother has no recourse to object to that judge’s decision. And I mean, I watched a movie, I think it was ’12 Years a Slave’, and there was a scene in there where the woman was begging the master not to sell their child. And it feels like, fast forward today, women are pleading with the judge to give them their child back, to reinstate their parental rights. And he says, “no”, and they have no recourse. So I see it as a, like Michelle Alexander writes, “the new Jim Crow,” the transference of those practices and policies embedded in our judicial system and our legal systems and threaded with the practices of slavery.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah. It just renders me speechless, but it also in the same breath, I know that there’s so much that we have to say about it because it just feels wrong and it is wrong. And just even from having this conversation, this is a really, you know, heavy topic. And so you’re doing this day in and day out, and so is your team. How are you all able to stay positive? Keep hope, keep fighting on behalf of these women when you’ve seen, you know as you mentioned, like different stories where just, you know, you can do everything right and you still are not reunited with your child. Like, how were you able to keep pushing forward and how do you encourage your team to keep doing that so that they can continue to work with the women in these situations?

Susan Burton: I mean, we don’t just have the struggles. We have wins through the struggles that are very, very encouraging and, you know, wins are important; small and large. We made progress. Nicole, I started A New Way of Life from my savings from a minimum wage job over 20 years ago. So there’s been so much progress from then ’till now, but not keep fighting is to say that I’m going to surrender to what it is. And surrender would be like, you know, like death. Like an emotional death. And I guess probably depression would set in and, you know, what have you, so you keep fighting. And I’m fighting for my life, my community’s life, my grandchildren’s life, for the future that I want to see. So that just keeps you fighting. And again, we have wins…one place I walk into, one of our homes, and these little brothers that are five and three, they run to me every time and say, “Hey, Ms. Burton. Hi, Ms. Burden.” And, you know, they’re the light and the life. And those little boys have a chance, the mother’s going to school to become a healthcare worker, and she’s going to have a chance to learn, to earn a salary that will sustain her and her two boys. So it’s, you know, inter-generational change that I see it. So, I mean, that’s enough to keep me going.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, definitely, just looking at future generations and creating that space so that they can have inter-generational prosperity, right. That they could actually be thriving for generations. Like what does that look like? So I appreciate that and appreciate the work that you’re doing. And you mentioned leadership, and I’d love to hear about what you’re doing in that space and working with people to make sure that they have the leadership skills and how they’re then employing those skills and showing up in different spaces.

Susan Burton: Yeah. So locally, we have women organizing for justice and opportunity, but nationally, we have the SAFE Project And SAFE stands for Sisterhood Alliance for Freedom and Equality. And Nicole, over the last 10 years, more than 20 years, I’ve gained a real expertise and skillset on developing, you know, reentry homes and creating leadership development, and organizing strategies that go within those homes. And so what I’ve done is I’ve created a training program for people to replicate our model. And, you know, I have a vision of a safe housing network throughout this nation that other people in their respective communities are welcoming people back into their community, and implementing leadership, and building a place for people to heal. And to walk, and stand, and work with us to change every day.

Susan Burton: And, you know, I might be way off dreaming, but, you know, I have a dream and I have steps toward that dream and a plan. And one of them is to have places for people to go all across this nation; to return from their communities, to safety, to a place of leadership, a place to belong, a place like a springboard to recreate their lives. If we don’t do it…we can’t look at, you know, this is not the work of a government. It’s the work of community, you know. I mean, I hope to build into that support from our government, but these are our community members, our people, our children, our nieces, our nephews, and they belong with us and to us. And so that’s a part of, I feel like, our responsibility during the war on drugs we’ve got. I mean our folks got brainwashed into pushing our people away.

Susan Burton: And demonizing them and finding them unworthy of investment. You know, we got straight brainwashed as a nation. You know, that tough on crime, that crack mama’s stuff, crack babies stuff, that super predator stuff. All of that, you know. And I say that there’s penance for the nation, you know, penance for our leaders, our folks at the top. There’s also penance for us to be a part of the rebuilding and re-humanizing, and we rebuilding of our communities, people…a lot of our community. What I want to say is that we kind of threw away our…I guess…In the class packing system, there was a upper class black folks that threw the lower class black folks away. Did not demand investment and matter of fact, they demanded demonizing, criminalizing and incarcerating a whole generation of people. We need to pay penance to and invest in rebuilding those people, and those children’s people, and recreating, you know, our nations communities.

Nicole Campbell: And when you talk about brainwashing, that concept, it resonates with me. And I think it’s just such an appropriate way to describe what has happened within our communities and I think just generally within society. And what I’m hearing and what I’ve seen about A New Way of Life is that it’s a deliberate model to attack that brainwashing, right? That brainwashing that has caused divestment in, in certain people, in certain communities and have said like, “You are lesser than and so we’re going to ignore, we’re going to invisibilize you.” And instead, A New Way of Life is stepping in and saying, “Actually, we are deliberately going to fight against that narrative and against that messaging.” And talking through again, the different ways in which you all work. And I know you mentioned that you all are working in an emerging model, and I would love to hear about that model in particular, why is it emerging?

Nicole Campbell: And then, just hear more about your infrastructure and the way you think about infrastructure. Because you’re doing a lot of really important, critical work, and you’ve been doing it sustainably for a very long time. You mentioned, you know, starting A New Way of Life based on your savings from a minimum wage job. And now A New Way of Life is a multi-million dollar nonprofit organization, right. It’s been around for decades. So I would love to hear more about your emerging model, how you all are set up to do this work. How do you think about governance? How are you thinking about the structure of your organization to support all of the good work you’re doing?

Susan Burton: So, when I think about combating the narrative that has been set forth is that I don’t nearly have the level of ability to communicate like they communicate and just directly attack that narrative. But what I do have is the ability to not let that narrative resonate with me as true. And what I can do is invest where I can invest to create a different narrative. And the outcomes of itself will negate that narrative when there is an investment made. So maybe that’s the way that I’ve been able to combat that narrative. And then just personally, you know, standing up and showing something different; what can be when there’s an investment made. You know, what I want to say is that, you know, I don’t believe there are throwaway people. And this nation, the way it works, throws away so many.

Susan Burton: And the cost is so high, not only in dollars, but in other ways that…we could just do better as a nation. So we have the nonprofit, you know, infrastructure of a board of directors. And then we have, you know, the officers on the board. We do strategic planning. What I can say is that strategic planning, every time we do one, we exceed it tremendously. Along with the strategic planning, we develop work plans and, you know, everybody exceeds the work plan. I guess when you have such dry ground, you know, when you water it, everything comes up blooming. Even though the ground is dry, the ground is fertile – if someone would just water it. And then we have departments, we have the advocacy department, we have the housing department.

Susan Burton: We have our fiscal management department, we’re about to build a human resources department. We have, you know, different departments across the organization. Organizing the leadership department goes within the art organizing advocacy department, the legal department, and the reunification services are within the legal department. We have our development department and we have a few development people on staff, and we have our communications department, and then our administration. And you know, five years ago, did I think this was what it would be? I did not, but I did know that I deserved a chance and other women deserve a chance. I got a chance out in a white community next to the beach that didn’t throw their people away, that did invest in their people when, you know, there was a mistake made. And I took that model, and I brought it back to South Carolina and then, you know, day by day, the beat goes on.

Susan Burton: And then we have the safe housing leadership program, well I don’t call it a leadership program, I call it a replication program. And now we are in 14 States and we have replicated the model in 14 States. And what I did is I developed a training program with the support from UCLA and my communications department. We’ve trained three different cohorts, over a hundred people, with the model and out of those people, I’ve selected – I think it’s 18 people – 18 people to replicate the program. And you know, I’ve supported them, I’ve raised dollars to help them get started. And we have training modules; every month we get on call and every month we’re together sharing and taking different trainings. And what have you to support them.

Susan Burton: You know, it’s kinda like, A New Way of Life was the support I wish I’d have had when I got released those six times for prison, and it was never there. I created it. And the training program that we have for our replicators is the training that I wish somebody would have gave me when you know, when I started out. You know, I had to learn like any way that I could, how to start, grow, and sustain an organization. And I think that if we’re gonna change this, we just had to get proactive and change it.

Nicole Campbell: And I, you know, I think as you describe how A New Way of Life is set up internally, and how that structure then supports your work, the theme that just keeps coming to mind for me is deliberateness, right? You’re just deliberately building, deliberately saying, “This is the change we want to see, and this is what we’re going after.” And you’re creating an infrastructure to support it. So I hope everyone that’s listening can see that the programmatic vision is always supported with that really strong infrastructure as well, because you can’t scale the way that you have without being able to say, “We have the infrastructure to know that each and every time we show up in a different state, we can ensure it’s going to be consistent. The way we’re working is consistent, and we’re going to engage the way that we have done in previous states.”

Nicole Campbell: So, I just think, again, it just shows, and it’s a testament to how deliberate A New Way of Life is being in both its building, as well as the work. And, you know, your responses, Susan, this entire conversation has been so transparent, and so honest and powerful. And I want to ask you a question that I ask all of our guests to help us continue to build knowledge through books and people we should learn from or about to close this out. What book do you think we should read next? Or what artist do you think we should be paying attention to?

Susan Burton: So, I hope all of the listeners today have read ‘Becoming Ms. Burton’. ‘Becoming Ms. Burton’ is my memoir from prison to recovery, to leading the fight for incarcerated women. But I just won’t promote me. What has been such an eye opener for this nation is Michelle Alexander’s book, ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration’…what is it? ‘Mass incarceration In a Time of’…oh, well ‘The New Jim Crow’ and Monique Morris, so I just, can’t say one, there’s so many great books out there. But Monique Morris has a book called ‘Pushout’, and it’s the story of how this happened so early in black girls’ lives, young black girls’ lives, that their potential begins to be smothered and distorted just because of who they are and what color they are.

Susan Burton: I think that book really describes what happens early on and how we need to intervene. And each one of us – that’s the other thing, is that every day, every one of us can be a part of the change that we want to see. If we would act courageously on our instinct to make a better world, to give somebody an opportunity to invest somewhere and not be scared, not be frightened of the disappointment or the work that has to go into it. It’s like, we can’t afford not to.

Nicole Campbell: Mhm. We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.

Susan Burton: Exactly.

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, I completely agree, and thank you so much for sharing these books. We will put them in the show notes so that people can start to read them and put them on their bookshelves as well. So thank you for that. And, you know, again, Susan, you have shared such knowledge, your own personal story, and just incredible insights that I think that leaders will be able to use going forward. Because we talked about…we did a lot of storytelling for people whose stories have not been heard as much as they should have. And I appreciate that you brought all of that to bear during this conversation. And I think that leaders will be able to hear that and take your messages away, and inform how they then build their own organizations and encourage them to build bravely. So again, thank you so much for your time and for joining us today!

Susan Burton: You are so welcome, Nicole.

-Upbeat Outro Music-

Centering Equity and Justice in Philanthropy with Melanie Brown

March 16, 2021 Nicole Campbell Podcast

In this episode, Melanie Brown offers advice to nonprofits and funders on how they can address racial injustice and inequity, within their organizations, the sector, and society. You’ll hear Melanie share her thoughts about Black women being the vanguard of philanthropy and the need to center Black women in philanthropy’s response to the moment.

Melanie shares so many insights for nonprofit leaders who are ready to listen, have honest conversations, and are ready to do the work. We encourage you to not only listen carefully to Melanie’s advice and insights, but to also ACT on that advice and her insights. They will change the way you show up in the sector.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Resources:

About Melanie Brown

Melanie R. Brown is a speaker, writer, strategist and advisor on race, gender, inequality, global philanthropy, and social investment. She is a Senior Program Officer for Global Policy & Advocacy- North America at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Her research on activism and social change among youth and women has been featured in scholarly and trade publications such as the Journal for Applied Developmental Psychology and Alliance Magazine. Melanie has developed multimillion dollar strategies to accelerate Black and Latinx student achievement, disarm deficit narratives of Black men across social and traditional media, advance Black women’s reproductive rights, and bolster engagement and organizing on a variety of issues across rural and queer communities. Melanie has been invited to speak and advise on these issues throughout the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Cuba.

Melanie is a Senior Atlantic Institute Fellow at the London School of Economics, a 2020 BMe Community Vanguard Fellow, an adjunct professor at American University and is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Women’s Funding Network, the largest philanthropic alliance in the world dedicated to advancing gender equality and justice.

Melanie earned degrees from American, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon universities. She is a native of Pittsburgh, PA and resides in Washington, D.C.

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Read the podcast transcription below:

-Upbeat Intro Music-

Nicole Campbell: Hi, everyone. Over the past couple weeks of women’s history month, we’ve shared inspiring and insightful conversations with leaders and today’s episode is no exception. This week we’re sharing my conversation with Melanie Brown, Senior Program Officer for global policy and advocacy in North America at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Melanie works with key constituencies across the United States and Canada to build public support for the foundation’s education, economic, and health priorities. Melanie is a speaker, writer, strategist, and advisor on race, gender, inequality, global philanthropy, and social investment. She has developed multi-million dollar strategies to accelerate black and Latin X student achievement, disarm deficit narratives of black men across social and traditional media, advanced black women’s reproductive rights, and bolster engagement and organizing on a variety of issues across rural and queer communities. This conversation was recorded late last year and it’s so interesting that during the time of this conversation, and currently, people are still seeking resources and direction to help them see their way through social justice, racial justice, and global health crises.

Nicole Campbell: And in this episode, Melanie offers advice to nonprofits and funders on how they can address racial injustice and inequity within their organizations, the sector, and society. You’ll hear Melanie share her thoughts about black women being the Vanguard of philanthropy and the need to center black women in philanthropy’s response to the moment. Melanie shares so many insights for nonprofit leaders who are ready to listen, have honest conversations, and are ready to do the work. I encourage you to not only listen carefully to Melanie’s advice and insights, but to also act on that advice and her insights; they will change the way you show up in the sector. And with that, here is Melanie Brown.

Nicole Campbell: Hi Melanie, I am so excited to have you joining us today and to get us started, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, your role there the work that you’re focused on, and what the foundation’s immediate priority is, particularly given our current environment.

Melanie Brown: Sure, and thank you, Nic, for the opportunity to be here, to chat with you today. As you said, I’m Melanie Brown. I am a Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. I’m based in the foundation’s Washington DC office. Most people of course know of our headquarters in Seattle. I sit on what we call our public engagement and insights team, which is part of our larger North America portfolio. In our conversation, I’ll be able to go into that a little bit more in depth, but we focus on engaging constituents across North America in the issues that the foundation names as priorities.

Melanie Brown: And so the work that I lead in particular is engagement with communities of color and engagement with constituencies across rural America women of color, and that has shifted over time, but that is the work that I’m focused on right now. And I would say like most foundations and most people, the foundation is very focused on COVID. And I would not say that we are singularly focused on COVID, as you know, we do many things and did not feel the need to…I shouldn’t say not feel the need, I would say felt the responsibility to still focus on all the other things that we focus on and while also paying attention to COVID.

Nicole Campbell: So, I know you talked about not being singularly focused on COVID and it’s really interesting because this situation that we’re in right now with the pandemic with the social justice unrest, the protests that have been happening, and it seems like you are likely in the center of all of that, right? Because you’re talking about engaging with communities of color focusing on rural communities, and focusing on women of color. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the work that you’ve been doing in this current environment with those particular communities and what you’ve been seeing?

Melanie Brown: Sure, and you’re exactly right; when we think about COVID, if we think back to February…January and February, even very early March before the shutdown, this idea was that COVID was one this very equalizer, right? That all of a sudden it put all of us on the same playing field. And likewise, at least within the black community, there was, you know, jokes about: “Oh, well we’re not going to get it.” Right? And what we found out to be true is the exact opposite, right? COVID is not the great equalizer, if anything COVID like other pandemics actually exacerbates inequality and helps us see even more who is suffering. And we see that African-Americans – and this is, again, just speaking from the U S perspective – are more likely to suffer the serious effects of COVID.

Melanie Brown: So long-term hospital stays, visits to the ICU, and even death. And we see that replicated in other communities of color. And so I think a lot of the work when COVID first hit was, of course, responding to it, right. And just, what is this new reality? Everyone’s at home, we’re not traveling, we’re not engaged in the work in the same way. And then also, how do we sound the alarm on what have been some of the disproportionate impacts of this disease, excuse me, of this virus. And so that is the work that I’ve been doing in my engagement with communities of color in rural America. And it’s not surprising, I would say, what we’re seeing. But it just is a stark reminder of how much work we need to do.

Melanie Brown: I think about my rural partners, we talk a lot about infrastructure. You know, kids are at home and they are learning remotely well. If you have internet, that’s good, and if you have a reliable internet. But if you don’t have internet, it’s not reliable, if your device that you’re using is in fact not a laptop, but it could be a cellular telephone. Think about all the challenges that that creates for you as a student to do your work, to survive and to thrive during this period. And so that’s what I’m seeing is that the challenges that the communities of color are facing, which that work tends to be more urban focused and the rural work, which tends to be focus on low income whites in the country, and neither one is exclusive. But if we were to make generalizations, you know, what we see is that there are a lot of challenges and failures of systems over long periods of time that have left these groups in particular, extremely vulnerable. And I haven’t even talked about the health impacts, right? These are all the other things that make living in a COVID world challenging, not to mention access to good doctors and, you know, testing – all of those things that we really saw a lot of us struggle with is a lot of what I’m seeing.

Nicole Campbell: So how are you finding that you can be most helpful in the situation with the communities that you’re working with? What kinds of resources are you providing, are they requesting, and where are you finding that you could add the most value?

Melanie Brown: Sure. So one of the things that’s really helpful, and this goes without saying right now, is to listen. I think people are in situations…and I’m working with organizations and heads of organizations, so it’s not the same as being on the ground in communities, but our grantees are on the ground. Our grantees are in the community and they are hearing firsthand what many of those challenges are. And we need to be in a position, we the Gates foundation, we philanthropy in general, to listen to those things and to understand what it is actually like. I also don’t want to ignore the fact that we are living in the same COVID world. I found out two days ago that my grandmother has COVID. And she’s in a facility in Birmingham, Alabama. And so this is not just something that that I have to read about or study.

Melanie Brown: This is something that the people who I hold very dear are dealing with. So one of the things that we’re doing right now is listening. The other thing is being really flexible when it comes to deliverables. So understanding that what you may have had planned in 2020, just isn’t going to happen. Right? It could be delayed. There could be factors, clearly many factors that are out of your control. We’ve had grantees that have major conferences and convenings that bring in revenue for the organization and those things cannot happen. I would say the organizations that are doing the best are those who’ve been able to pivot, but being able to pivot is also a reflection of the resources and the capacity that you have, and not all of our organizations are well-resourced quite frankly. So that’s a lot of what we’re doing is listening supporting organizations to perhaps be more flexible on deliverables and outcomes and goals.

Melanie Brown: And then really talking to them about, you know, let’s have an honest conversation. And I try to build these very honest, very open, transparent conversations with grantees anyway, but if we didn’t have that, we need to have that now. Right. We need to understand what are the real pressures that you’re dealing with and help me understand how I can support. And to ensure that our grantees are not making short-term decisions because of this moment that will impact their ability to have long-term impact. So how do we help people not panic from an organizational perspective and handle this moment such that they can still be partners and continue to do the work that we know is so needed, be it education, be it economic opportunity work, be it health work. You know, this moment will pass, right? That is not to minimize it, but it is to state effect. But how we come out on the other end of it matters and we’re supporting organization in that process.

Nicole Campbell: And, you know, when you talked about all of this is looking at long-term impact, and so you don’t want organizations to have to make these like immediate decisions that then have long-term implications on their work. And so serving as a resource and being there for them, and what you said that really resonates with me is about listening, right? Just being there, being present, and listening. And it’s really important, particularly in the moment that we’re in, when there’s so many different groups that are saying “I have voice, I want to be heard.” And so along those lines, I know that you do a lot of work and writing and thinking about black women in philanthropy. So if we’re talking about listening, we’re talking about different groups having a voice, and we’re talking about philanthropy, I’d love to hear how all of this sort of sits with you when you think about the work that you’ve been doing around black women in philanthropy.

Melanie Brown: Sure. So first of all let me say this, and my research backs this up and I believe it fully, that black women are in the Vanguard for social justice in philanthropy. At least when we speak of this country, and I think you could gesture to say in the world, that we are in the Vanguard, right, we are pushing for changes that, from what I have seen, are some of the most progressive policies. I think we saw that reflected in this most recent election and, you know, not to take sides on whomever you support, but it’s clear that when black women support a candidate or candidates agenda, their impact is felt. And we are tending to support more progressive policies and therefore candidates who run on those policies.

Melanie Brown: What I would say about this moment and about listening is that many of the things that we are experiencing right now is people of color, women of color, specifically black women, have told us we’re already going on, right? If you were to pull out COVID and talk about all the things that are going on, how much is actually new, right? And we have to humble ourselves to understand that while this moment does feel different because it is different, the issues that this moment has raised for us are actually not new. And it’s black women who’ve been sounding the alarm about what is happening in their communities, in their homes – when we think about gender based violence -, what is happening in their States, and in their countries. And so I think a lot about this moment, I think a lot about my work around black women and their leadership, I think about what does it look like for philanthropy to center not only the experiences of black women and girls, but also the leadership of black women and girls.

Melanie Brown: And I’ll never forget, I had a conversation…I did a piece of research where I interviewed 25 black women working in philanthropy across seven different countries. And one of the earlier interviews that I had, a woman said to me that philanthropy, as a sector, wants black women’s labor but doesn’t want black women’s leadership. Right? So when I think about this moment, I think about how philanthropy responds in this moment, it’s actually that, right. It is no longer giving our labor and not taking our leadership. When I think about what foundations can do right now, you know, we need to respond to the moment differently. What was once the ceiling is now the floor. And black women have been saying that and have been pushing that. And so it’s on us, as funders, to respond.

Nicole Campbell: Okay, that is really powerful.

Melanie Brown: You know, it’s so funny, as I was speaking, it was like: “I think I’m just talking, I’m not sure that I’m answering her question.”

Nicole Campbell: No, you definitely are, and it’s putting you on a path now to ask more questions and to push along the lines of what can philanthropy do. What should philanthropy be doing at this point based on exactly what you just described and the situation in which we’re in – which, as you pointed out earlier, COVID didn’t create the inequity, right. Just exacerbated it. So what can and should philanthropies be doing at this point?

Melanie Brown: There’s so much that we can be doing, and it always goes to money and I think that’s important…that’s what we have. That is not the only value, of course, that we provide, but give more money, right? We’re in a position where we can give out more money, pay out can look different than it does. We can give more than the 5% minimum. I won’t have all these statistics, so I’m not going to try to get it wrong or try to get it right. But we know that the rich have gotten richer in this moment, right? And so there are opportunities to give more, but we don’t just give more to the existing people, the existing organizations for the existing issues, and assume that something will be different. We also have to give differently, so it’s not just giving more, but it’s who we give to. We know that we need to give money to…or that we’re not giving the same amount of money to organizations led by people of color.

Melanie Brown: Be it black folks, Latin X folks, indigenous communities, Asian communities, we need to redistribute resources, right? It’s not just a matter of putting more money to the same folks, but being more diverse in who it goes to. And then, you know, what foundations do is we provide sponsorship and cover for organizations, right. By investing in an organization, we’re saying, “Hey, this is a reputable organization. This is a reputable cause.” And so, we can do that more with organizations led by people of color. I also think we need to move money faster. I’ve been in philanthropy for 13 years. I’ve been at the Gates foundation for five. I was at the Heinz Endowments for eight years. And Gates, I think, actually moves money very quickly. But it doesn’t mean that there’s not opportunity as a sector for all of us to get money out quickly and to be more open about where those dollars can go.

Melanie Brown: I think that a lot of us toe the line a little too carefully about 501(c)(3) investments. I think there’s a lot more things that we can do with our money and be more creative. And it’s quite frankly not creative, I think it’s risky. Right. But when we think about what is at stake, it shouldn’t feel very risky to do those things. And so, those are the things that I like, that I think philanthropy needs to do, that I see philanthropy doing. And then the last thing I’ll say is actually having conversations that implicate us as a sector. And so it is true that if you amass a large amount of money in the world, that it was on – whether intentionally or not – on the backs of other people.

Melanie Brown: Right. And so there’s a reckoning I think that philanthropy needs to have about its place in whether it is a white supremacy, whether it is a U.S. Supremacy over the rest of the world, whether it’s a global North over a global South supremacy that is being perpetuated, but it’s one thing to give away dollars and invest in people of color and give out more money. But if we don’t look at ourselves, look at our very existence, like Dr. King says, not just commend ourselves for existing, but to examine why it is that we exist. And then I think we’re actually only doing half of the work.

Nicole Campbell: No, I completely agree with all of that. And I think, to your point, it’s about looking at the infrastructure of philanthropy and then going forward and doing all of these other fixes, right. Because it all stems from who are we, what did we set up to do? And having that reckoning that you talked about. So, yeah, and I really liked the move money faster, give it to organizations that are not necessarily public charities or, you know, C3’s. So this all really makes sense to me, particularly from an infrastructure point of view.

Melanie Brown: And being okay to fail. I mean, one of the things that I think I hear philanthropies say, and even what I hear like big tech or business say is, “fail fast”. And so what if we fail fast on racial justice? Right. What if we, you know, decided to say like, “Okay, we’re going to just try a bunch of things. We may not get it right. But we’re going to go to the people who are leading conversations about racial justice, who have been doing this work, and we’re going to invest in them. And if it’s a mistake, that’s okay, but we’re going to learn from it, right? Because we have a responsibility to do that.” We have no issue…not even as a philanthropic sector, we had no issue as a country, when we think about innovation or we think about technology, we want to fail fast there, right. To get to the best product, the best thing. What if we did that when it comes to thinking about racial justice, about gender justice, about environmental justice, right? What if we put that muscle into that? What could be on the other side of that? I think there’s a role for government in that, there’s a role for business in that, but there’s especially a role for philanthropy and this idea of failing fast on racial justice to get to the accelerated pace and movement that I think we really need.

Nicole Campbell: So that sounds really attractive. Why do you think that we’re in a place where this has not happened yet? Particularly on the scale that we’re talking about? So we know that there are organizations that’re stepping into this space and are challenging themselves and are doing what we’re talking about, but why isn’t that happening in the sector as a whole?

Melanie Brown: So, I think people are afraid, right? I think there’s a fear of getting it wrong. You don’t naturally…you were never taught in this country to build a muscle around racial justice, right? This is something that you seek on your own, or that your family teaches you, or you learned in college, or just through life. It is not something that…our educational system is not equipped to build the next generation of racial justice activists. Right? So there’s a fear of how do we step into this space and will we offend, will we get it wrong? There’s also, I think, you know…I understand the fear. The other side of it is, I think that that many of us benefit from injustice and racial injustice in particular, and whether or not you feel that you are making it worse, you’re benefiting from it.

Melanie Brown: And you’re not willing to give up that benefit. It is sweet, right? It is good. It feels good. And so I also think inequality is so ingrained in who we are and how we are, that I don’t know that we can see a world without it. I don’t know that people have been able to think about what is a more…and when I say people, of course, I’m not speaking for everyone. There are many people who’ve thought of this. Who’ve given us visions for what this more equal world could look like, but I think too many people feel like they won’t benefit from it. Or they know that they won’t. And so they are not invested in seeing it happen.

Nicole Campbell: No, I think when you said it’s about being afraid, so there’s the fear but it’s also that benefit, it’s true. I think when we think about what’s happening, particularly in the United States right now, you say, “Oh, look, you know, it’s built on systemic racism.” I think the sector felt like, oh, we could kind of step out of that conversation. Based on the work that we’re doing, look at the organizations and the people that we’re working with, the communities that we’re serving. But I think that that actually is not correct. And as you say, like actually lean in to are we also structured that way and to the extent that we are, then let’s talk about how we can move forward from there. So it all makes sense. And I know we’ve talked about what philanthropy can do. I want to flip it and have you tell us what you think nonprofits, fundraising, nonprofit organizations can do?

Melanie Brown: Hmm. That’s a really good question. So oftentimes people will ask me, you know, how do we get foundations to invest in us? Or how can we do this better? How do we get on a foundation’s radar? And I give advice and things that I think are helpful, but I I feel like foundations are in such a place of privilege that I don’t know what else nonprofits need to do, right? Yes, you should be a high quality nonprofit, you should have a strong board, you should, you know, be doing work that is data-driven and that you can prove is effective. Those are all things that to me are the fore of what a nonprofit should be doing. You should be partnering with other like-minded nonprofits. If you are an organization that needs to address issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, you need to be doing that work internally, but there is a power balance, right?

Melanie Brown: Foundations have the money; nonprofits need the money. The relationships should be reciprocal. I always tell my grantees, I can’t do my job and be seen as effective in my job if I don’t have good, strong, effective nonprofit organizations to invest in. So they need me as much as I need them, but that’s not actually how the relationship works. Right. Instead, it’s all the need is over there. I have the carrots, right. I have the dollars and how do I make grantees and partners bend over backwards to get those dollars? And that’s the dynamic that we need to change. So I really struggle with what nonprofits should do. I think that it’s like asking the question of, “What should black people do to advance racial justice?” I also really struggle with that question. Yes, as a society, we all need to be in this together, but these are conversations that I feel white folks and people who practice our test to anti-black racism. I think that these are conversations they need to have amongst themselves that we can’t always be a part of. And so I don’t know, I don’t think that’s exactly the answer that you wanted, but I don’t think that the nonprofits that I’ve come in contact with are doing most things right. You know?

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, and I think calling out that privilege and calling out that power that sits within that relationship, and I think we sort of talk around that a lot, but naming it and saying, “Then how do we strengthen this relationship?” And a lot of the onus is on the privileged, I think is a really important way to look at it. And I don’t think we do it enough. So yeah, so thank you for bringing that up.

Melanie Brown: Yeah, and it’s hard. And I mean, I hope I don’t sound, you know, like I’ve figured it all out. I talk often about DEI work and work around belonging being a journey. We’re all on a personal journey, right. There is a privilege that I have by working, not just in philanthropy, but at the largest foundation in the world. Right. I need to…even though I may not feel like I walked through the world with privilege as a black woman, I am an English speaking, American, you know, natural born American…all of these things that we are told give us privilege. Right. I went to university, I went to an Ivy league school. These are all things that give me privilege that, although I may not see them right away and recognize that, I have to acknowledge that that still does change how I move through the world.

Melanie Brown: And so, this idea that we’re all on a journey is one that I think we all have to embrace in order to have these conversations. I just want to give one quick shout out to The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond in New Orleans, and they do a great training. And one of the questions that they ask is, you know, I won’t get the question right, this is horrible, but it’s basically asking you: are you employed? Right. Do you enjoy the life that you enjoy because other people are poor?

Nicole Campbell: Yeah, that’s a great question, it’s really deep.

Melanie Brown: It’s deep and so the people who go there and you’re like, “I’m woke, I’m about the work, I’m doing the racial justice thing, I’m here.” And they ask all of us that same question. Right. And do you benefit from people being poor? And what does that mean for you? So it’s all a journey that we need to be on. But just to wrap up to, you know, get to your questions, I’d like philanthropy to listen to its grantees, to listen and to change what it’s doing.

Nicole Campbell: Nice, and we’re going to share the link to The People’s Institute so people can learn more about it. We’ll put that all in the show notes. So thank you for sharing that resource. So I know we talked a lot about what philanthropy could be doing more of, which is incredibly helpful. What do you think that we should be doing less of as a sector?

Melanie Brown: Hmm. What should we be doing less of? So the biggest thing that I think…so when we do a lot of navel-gazing, we’re very focused internally on getting the right strategies and the right language. And I understand why that’s important. I understand that if you’re not communicating to people what you’re doing, and more importantly sometimes, what you’re not doing, you run the risk of everyone coming to you asking for dollars. However, we spend too much time out there. You know, philanthropy is about the love of humanity and love of people. We need to be out amongst the people. Of course, that’s very hard to do right now. But philanthropy needs to do less transaction, less reliance on you come to me, you need money, I decided that you get money, and I’d give you money. Right. That’s very transactional and we need more transformational relationships.

Melanie Brown: So how do we spend less time navel-gazing, trying to craft and wordsmith language, more time out with people who are doing the work, and even letting the work of those people influence our strategies. Right? I mean, this idea that we are so data-driven and we have all the right answers. One, I’m not convinced that that’s true, that we have all the right answers. And if you haven’t brought people along with you, it doesn’t really matter if you have the right answer. Right. And you may have a solution. I would say this, you know, that we create solutions to problems that people didn’t know they have. And so they’re like, “But I have this problem.” Like, yeah, but see, that’s not part of my strategy, that problem, actually I want to help you with this problem. And you’re like, “But that’s not my problem.” And so we need to do less of that, right. Less of centering ourselves and more of centering other people, and less of believing that expertise and knowledge lies in one place, and being more open to that expertise and funds of knowledge coming from, you know, different sources. People who maybe experience the world very different than we do.

Nicole Campbell: I was just about to say that, like these different sources that are not known to you and that you may not “be comfortable with”. And so you don’t trust them and you see them as quote “risky”. Be open to that as well. So I think it’s all stemming back to what you said about listening, right? Because at the core of it all, you listen, you develop that relationship, and it becomes less transactional.

Melanie Brown: You listen and then you act, right? Because it’s one thing to listen and say, “I hear you, I got it, thanks, and now I’m going to keep doing what I was doing.” It’s another thing to say, “Well, I’ve listened and I hear you, and I’m going to take what you said and change how I show up, and change what I do, and change how I invest or who I invest in.” That is how we finish that…you know, that’s what the full action looks like.

Nicole Campbell: Agreed. So Melanie, your responses and this conversation has been so insightful, and timely, and powerful. And I want to ask you a question to help us continue to grow knowledge through books and people we should learn from or about to close this out. What book do you think we should read next? Or what artists do you think we should be paying attention to?

Melanie Brown:

Wow. I love that question. So I’m going to say Ibram Kendi, who wrote how to be an anti-racist. I have had the pleasure of meeting Ibram and being in contact with him. And I want to just…he is a gentle soul. And I think just the way that he thinks about these issues is brilliant. And so I like his work a lot. I’m reading, I’m a little bit late on this, but I’m reading Just Mercy right now, by Bryan Stevenson. I know most people have already read it, but it’s just so beautifully written. And it just tells the stories of people that I personally too often forget about. Right. When I talk about all the things that I talk about related to justice, I don’t think I’m thinking about people who are on death row. And I just appreciate mercy, right? Give people mercy, give people grace. And so I think that he is a voice that I hope we continue to elevate. Yeah, those are the two…that’s what I’m reading. That’s what I’m reading right now.

Nicole Campbell: Well, thank you so much for sharing both of these books. They are both very powerful. And I think, again, just like this conversation, very relevant, particularly for the moment that we’re in and in which we find ourselves. So we are going to include the links to each of those books in the show notes so that people can learn more and pick them up.

Melanie Brown: Awesome.

Nicole Campbell: Well, look, Melanie, I don’t even know where to start. This conversation, it really has been amazing. And it has inspired me to continue down on my listening tour, right? Listening to what’s happening around all of us in the sector and pushing the organizations and people I work with to continue to listen. So I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us about your thoughts and insights about the sector, and most importantly, to share things that we could practically be doing next, which is really important. And so you’re going to help other leaders continue to build bravely. So thank you again for joining us.

Melanie Brown: Thank you, Nic. Thank you for this opportunity. I really appreciate it.

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