Speaker 1: Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
Speaker 1: welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
Speaker 1: mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job. Big shout out to Maman c Ward, who
Speaker 1: is out traveling the world once again making the changes
Speaker 1: that he would like to see. And he has left
Speaker 1: me in good hands, great hands, fantastic hands in fact,
Speaker 1: because subbing in for him this week is a longtime
Speaker 1: friend of the show and just an all around amazing person,
Speaker 1: Leanna Taylor of the Arizona Pet Project. And we have
Speaker 1: a special guest that we're going to be talking to today.
Speaker 1: He goes by the name of Bulay, and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to read this from your website. I think it's
Speaker 1: hilarious and I think it really gives some insight into
Speaker 1: just the type of person that you are. Boulay is
Speaker 1: a writer, speaker, vegan ices, and the former executive director
Speaker 1: of OURVC, a nonprofit in Seattle that promotes social justice
Speaker 1: by developing leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities
Speaker 1: of color, and fostering collaboration among diverse communities. He currently
Speaker 1: writes the blog nonprofit af and is involved with community
Speaker 1: centric fundraising. And so today we're going to have a
Speaker 1: conversation about the nonprofit sector, something I'm not entirely familiar with.
Speaker 1: But first, welcome back.
Speaker 2: To the show, Leanna, thank you so much for having
Speaker 2: me Big Shoes to film.
Speaker 3: Boule, the man of the Hour, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: How you doing the day? First off, I haven't even
Speaker 3: heard your voice yet.
Speaker 4: Hi, Ramses, thanks for having me. I'm doing good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that really stood out to
Speaker 1: me when I was kind of doing a little bit
Speaker 1: of research on the work that you do is you
Speaker 1: seem to be very passionate about that. I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners are very passionate about making
Speaker 1: changes in their communities and in the world at large,
Speaker 1: and so we're very much looking forward to the conversation we're.
Speaker 3: About to have today.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, like we always do around
Speaker 1: this time, we start the show off with some Ebony excellence,
Speaker 1: and today's Ebony Excellence is sponsored by Actively Black. There
Speaker 1: is greatness in our DNA. Visit actively black dot com
Speaker 1: and today's ebny Excellence comes from binnews dot com that
Speaker 1: is the Black Information Network. A photo going viral on
Speaker 1: social media suggests that former President Donald Trump could face
Speaker 1: an all black appeals court in his New York hush
Speaker 1: money case. On May thirtieth, a New York jury found
Speaker 1: Trump guilty. On thirty four, Pellam accounts A falsifying records
Speaker 1: related to hush money payments made to adult film star
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels amid the twenty sixteen election. The now viral
Speaker 1: post a user shared a photo of five black female
Speaker 1: justices from New York's First Department A Pellet Division, asking quote,
Speaker 1: do you think Trump has a chance with the Manhattan
Speaker 1: Appeals Court? Unquote, Though it is possible for the five
Speaker 1: women pictured in the post to be selected to sit
Speaker 1: on the case, justices are randomly chosen from the pool
Speaker 1: of First Department A Pillot Division twenty one.
Speaker 3: Divisions twenty one members.
Speaker 1: The viral photos showing Justice Baharti pitt Burke, Justice Troy K. Weber,
Speaker 1: Presiding Justice Diane t Renwick, Justice Tanya R. Kennedy, and
Speaker 1: Justice Marsha T. Mitchell, was taken in February twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: as the panel made history as the first time in
Speaker 1: all black bench ever set on a case in the
Speaker 1: first department. And so the reason why we are celebrating
Speaker 1: this ebony excellence is imagine the amount of alignment that
Speaker 1: the moon and the stars and the planets had to
Speaker 1: achieve accomplished in order to make a moment like this happen.
Speaker 1: Right in and of itself, five black judges is an
Speaker 1: amazing thing. But to know that these might be some
Speaker 1: or all the people that are presiding over Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: appeal is kind of like poetic justice, and that is
Speaker 1: ebony excellence if I ever saw it. Now, back to
Speaker 1: the man at hand, Broulet, before we get into some
Speaker 1: of the questions that we have for you, for those
Speaker 1: who are uninitiated, do us a favor and just talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about yourself and the work that you
Speaker 1: do and have done historically. Just again for the sake
Speaker 1: of introducing you to our listeners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks to Ramsis. I have a master's in social
Speaker 4: work and I have run nonprofits for the past maybe
Speaker 4: twenty years or so. I've been involved in them and
Speaker 4: they range from serving immigrants to education equity work to
Speaker 4: leadership developments. And the last organization I was working with
Speaker 4: was trying to get more leaders of color into the
Speaker 4: nonprofit sector because we oftentimes don't have enough nonprofit leaders
Speaker 4: going into this field. Many of us have been pushed
Speaker 4: by our families to go into to medicine or business
Speaker 4: or law. My family tried to do that and it
Speaker 4: did not work out, and so I went into nonprofit.
Speaker 4: And I think our sector is amazing. It's doing really
Speaker 4: incredible work for the world, and it oftentimes is not appreciated.
Speaker 4: It's very invisible to people, even though it's so vital.
Speaker 2: Sure, but in addition to being vital, vo I mean
Speaker 2: last I read, nonprofit is one of the leading employers
Speaker 2: in the country.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we've been growing from what I heard, I think
Speaker 4: we were growing at like two percent, whereas other sectors
Speaker 4: were shrinking. And I think it's because younger people want
Speaker 4: to have more meaning in their work, and oftentimes they
Speaker 4: can't really find that in the corporate setting, so they
Speaker 4: think maybe if they go into nonprofit work, they can
Speaker 4: find some of that meaningful work that they've been searching for.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I know is sort
Speaker 1: of part and parcel to nonprofit work is money or
Speaker 1: lack thereof.
Speaker 3: Right, I famously.
Speaker 1: Was up there along with Q was famously at the
Speaker 1: Home of a nonprofit for about ten years now. We
Speaker 1: weren't you know, nonprofit stars or anything. That we were
Speaker 1: radio guys and DJs that happened to create the corporate
Speaker 1: infrastructure so that we could cultivate relationships with businesses, so
Speaker 1: that we could provide a service to the unhoused by
Speaker 1: providing food and hygiene and so forth.
Speaker 3: Right, But we didn't get deep at all.
Speaker 1: Again, our day jobs as radio person now that's really
Speaker 1: what we were doing. We just kind of had this
Speaker 1: thing that we did once a month. It was an
Speaker 1: event and we needed the again, the legal infrastructure under
Speaker 1: which to operate and be in compliance.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But I maintain and I know that you both will
Speaker 1: probably back me up here, is that fundraising again is
Speaker 1: one of the the defining elements in terms of the
Speaker 1: success of a nonprofit. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: has come up again in our conversations is this concept
Speaker 1: of community centric fundraising. So for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about what that is, what
Speaker 1: that means.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fundraising is definitely a very important part of the
Speaker 4: sector and nonprofits we live or die based on our
Speaker 4: donations and grants and so on, which can be very
Speaker 4: challenging to obtain and in order. We have a fundraising
Speaker 4: philosophy and system right now that includes mainly making sure
Speaker 4: that donors feel really appreciated, putting them in the center.
Speaker 4: It's called donors centered fundraising, and there is a certain
Speaker 4: art and science around it, like, for example, you have
Speaker 4: to make donors feel like they're the heroes. And you
Speaker 4: do this by saying things. You know, like when you
Speaker 4: when you write an appeal letter asking for money, you
Speaker 4: have to use the word you many times. You can't
Speaker 4: just say, oh, we are helping all these kids. You
Speaker 4: got to say because of you, we helped kids. Because
Speaker 4: of you, you did this. We couldn't do this without you.
Speaker 2: So our entire databases that manage nonprofit email that will
Speaker 2: actually measure how many times you use I language or
Speaker 2: WE language versus you and encourage you to shift that
Speaker 2: that writing strategy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and over time it has trained both us and
Speaker 4: our donors to believe that we are there to be
Speaker 4: serving donors and they are heroes and we should be
Speaker 4: always be grateful to them. But it's very problematic because
Speaker 4: one is that it creates the sort of hunger games
Speaker 4: among nonprofits where we're just competing to be to see
Speaker 4: who can suck up the donors the best, basically, but
Speaker 4: let's be honest, right and the other The other one
Speaker 4: really major problem is that it avoids having these difficult
Speaker 4: conversations with our donors about where their wealth comes from.
Speaker 4: And a lot of wealth in this country, as you know,
Speaker 4: comes from really inequitable means like slavery, stolen business, land
Speaker 4: worker exploitation, environmental degradation, tax avoidance, colonialism, imperialism, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And we don't talk to our donors about this because
Speaker 4: we've been trained to sell them their heroes. So community
Speaker 4: centric fundraising tries to reverse this by putting the community
Speaker 4: in the center, not the donors, and that means talking
Speaker 4: to our donors about reparation and maybe they should be
Speaker 4: paying more taxes. It's also about nonprofits supporting one another
Speaker 4: instead of like engaging this cutthroat competition with one another
Speaker 4: for resources with donors.
Speaker 1: So one of the other things that I'm understanding is
Speaker 1: that there is a difference between It's almost like the
Speaker 1: same way that there's a political division in this country
Speaker 1: that is more pronounced than it has ever been before,
Speaker 1: at least in my lifetime. There's a difference between progressives
Speaker 1: and conservative funders, and my understanding is that the latter,
Speaker 1: the conservative funders, are a little bit more effective. So
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that and perhaps the strategies
Speaker 1: behind that, and how perhaps the more progressive, liberal minded
Speaker 1: individuals could adopt some of those strategies so that there
Speaker 1: could be effective fundraising all the way around.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been very frustrated with fundraising. I think many
Speaker 4: of us in the sector have been. And it's not
Speaker 4: just all around frustration. It's really frustrationing with a lot
Speaker 4: of the progressive leaning funders and donors because they say
Speaker 4: that they support progressive policies, they support equity and justice
Speaker 4: and so on, but many of their practices don't really
Speaker 4: hand out. And there has been studies now where they
Speaker 4: look at, like the differences between conservative and progressive foundations
Speaker 4: and donors and see what are the differences, and there's
Speaker 4: some stark differences. Progressive conservative funders, for example, they fund
Speaker 4: they give you a grant and it could be like
Speaker 4: twenty or thirty years at a time, whereas progressive leaning funders,
Speaker 4: you're lucky you get maybe like a two year grant.
Speaker 4: Most of them are for one year. You got to
Speaker 4: reapply every single year, and it's very burdensome. There's like
Speaker 4: this lack of trust, whereas I think with a lot
Speaker 4: of conservative movements, they're like, well, you are aligned with
Speaker 4: our values, and you know, we seem to be aligned.
Speaker 4: We both like this, or we both hate these people
Speaker 4: or whatever. Right, Right, there's not a bunch of money.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I've always enjoyed so much
Speaker 2: about your blog, where you talk a lot about these
Speaker 2: challenges that nonprofits face, particularly with funding, is the question
Speaker 2: of sustain ability. Right. It's a question on every grant application.
Speaker 2: Often these are applications where we're writing for five thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: non renewable, one time investment, and the question is, tell
Speaker 2: us how you're going to change your community or this
Speaker 2: issue with this gift. And I'd love to just kick
Speaker 2: that back over to you, because those rants on your
Speaker 2: blog or some of my favorite things to read, they
Speaker 2: have me practically well literally laughing out loud, sometimes with tears.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot of ridiculousness that we have to
Speaker 4: do with all the time in this sector. Funders do
Speaker 4: expect miracles, you know, and they're like, here's five thousand
Speaker 4: dollars white in un racism last year. It's very frustrating
Speaker 4: because we have to spend like a whole year just
Speaker 4: applying for that because many of them take months before
Speaker 4: they actually give you an answer. And then when they
Speaker 4: do give you money, it's like, well, here's some money,
Speaker 4: but you can't spend it on salaries. You can only
Speaker 4: spend it on these things computers or whatever. You can't
Speaker 4: spend it on overhead, right, you know, like they really
Speaker 4: hate this concept of overhead, which is staff, salaries, rants utilities,
Speaker 4: things that are critical.
Speaker 3: And then they ask this question of like.
Speaker 4: How are you going to sustain this program when this
Speaker 4: money that we give you runs out and it's like
Speaker 4: for one year, and I mean it's a ridiculous question
Speaker 4: because all of us are like, well, we're just going
Speaker 4: to keep fundraising because homelessness is.
Speaker 3: Not going to go away next year.
Speaker 4: Right. So this is another difference is that conservative funders
Speaker 4: they understand it takes years, decades, and it takes strategies
Speaker 4: such as ensuring that conservative judges are on the benches
Speaker 4: because then once they're on the benches they can keep
Speaker 4: ruling in favor of conservative policies and values for years
Speaker 4: and years to come. Whereas progressive leaning funders, they only
Speaker 4: think in one year terms and very narrow issues.
Speaker 1: Okay, one of the it's interesting that you mentioned that
Speaker 1: because I was this was some months back, but I
Speaker 1: was researching kind of the history of the dismantling of
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade, and there's a couple.
Speaker 3: Of names behind that.
Speaker 1: But I recalled that this was probably a fifty year
Speaker 1: plan something like that, where the people were fortified fiscally speaking.
Speaker 1: They had a strategy, and they worked the plan, and
Speaker 1: they had a very long term approach to creating the
Speaker 1: outcomes that they wanted. And I can hear the frustration
Speaker 1: in both of you guys's voice because you know, at
Speaker 1: least with Leanna, I know that sometimes we'll have conversations
Speaker 1: and you'd be like, Hey, I'm trying to get a
Speaker 1: grant to continue to do the type of work that
Speaker 1: I do to shape outcomes in my community, and I
Speaker 1: literally have no time. I can't pay anyone else to
Speaker 1: do it because the money is allotted for you know whatever,
Speaker 1: and it kind of sucks the life out of me. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but also the work that you would be doing otherwise, right,
Speaker 1: And so when you spend that much time chasing enough
Speaker 1: money to sustain again, lights, overhead, that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and then you can put a little bit of money
Speaker 1: on the ground, you can't make the changes that you
Speaker 1: would like.
Speaker 2: To make, right, And I was just going to say,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it might be helpful for people
Speaker 2: listening to just understand, like where did nonprofits come from?
Speaker 3: Why do they exist in the world, And.
Speaker 2: Also this might lead in Voo to some of the
Speaker 2: work that you've been doing. So like, nonprofit and philanthropy
Speaker 2: was really created to build systems and infrastructure to support
Speaker 2: individuals and communities with work the government isn't doing. Right,
Speaker 2: We're kind of that social safety net to do things
Speaker 2: that governments are either unwilling, unable, or can't afford. And
Speaker 2: it started way way back by a bunch of predominantly women, right,
Speaker 2: predominantly white, wealthy women who came in to do work
Speaker 2: in low income communities and hand out soup at soup kitchens.
Speaker 2: And that model of nonprofit philanthropy hasn't changed a ton
Speaker 2: over the centuries. It still is here to support right
Speaker 2: programs and people that government programs are letting slip through
Speaker 2: the cracks, and is still a very predominantly white driven industry.
Speaker 2: I just think it's important to kind of level set
Speaker 2: that because a lot of the issue is that we're
Speaker 2: talking about in this work are are not by accident, right,
Speaker 2: They were built into the system, because this system parallels
Speaker 2: the system that this country was founded on. And in
Speaker 2: order for us to start thinking about community centric fundraising
Speaker 2: and moving away from donor centric fundraising, we've got to
Speaker 2: be able to have those really open, honest conversations and
Speaker 2: then start inviting, not inviting, clearing spaces, making all the
Speaker 2: room for people of color and communities of color to
Speaker 2: get involved in different ways. Boo, I know that's something
Speaker 2: that's really really important to you, and I think also
Speaker 2: speaks to why the Conservatives have done philanthropy so well, right,
Speaker 2: It serves the conservative system of the United States.
Speaker 4: It does because you know, they still want to sort
Speaker 4: of maintain sort of well avoid paying taxes and sure
Speaker 4: that wealthy people are still in power, wealthy corporations and
Speaker 4: the way that they so everything.
Speaker 3: Is aligned for them.
Speaker 4: Whereas for progressive philanthropy and nonprofit work, if we're actually
Speaker 4: if we're actually successful in trying to achieving our outcomes,
Speaker 4: many foundations would not be in existence. Many nonprofits would
Speaker 4: not be in existence because the government would have enough
Speaker 4: resources and would look like the community it's serving, and
Speaker 4: it would be providing the resources that people need. So
Speaker 4: we wouldn't have homelessness shelters, right, we would not have
Speaker 4: services for veterans because well the government should be doing that,
Speaker 4: but instead, you know, like we had to kind of
Speaker 4: step in and take care of it. So, yeah, there's
Speaker 4: an existential threat to a lot of people. And I
Speaker 4: get into trouble. But I think, like so much in
Speaker 4: philanthropy has been like a hobby for people, for like
Speaker 4: wealthy people, and the sector has become like the sky
Speaker 4: Mall catalog. Remember sky Mall catalog when we were on
Speaker 4: the airplane. Yeah, and there's like these catalogs, those all
Speaker 4: these cool things that we could look at and choose from.
Speaker 4: I think unfortunately our sector, the nonprofit sector, progressive leanings, nonprofits,
Speaker 4: you know, like that's what we become. We've become like
Speaker 4: this catalog for rich people to pick and choose from.
Speaker 4: They're like, oh, I love early learners or I love
Speaker 4: homeless people. Let me pick and choose this cause to
Speaker 4: give some money to. Is that what they should be
Speaker 4: paying doing, which is to pay taxes.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you mentioned that kind of
Speaker 1: sparked a thought, and I'd love to get your thoughts
Speaker 1: on this, is that you were talking about a government
Speaker 1: that reflects the population, and that to me, that example
Speaker 1: screams diversity, having a diverse mix of people making decisions.
Speaker 1: So I know that this is something that's near and
Speaker 1: dear to your heart, both of you in fact, But
Speaker 1: vou talk to us about the importance of diversity in
Speaker 1: the nonprofit sector, what are the benefits of it, and
Speaker 1: how those having a diverse nonprofit sector.
Speaker 3: Would help shape outcomes for communities.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Right now, the diversity in our sector, and I
Speaker 4: would imagine everywhere else is like a pyramid, right. It's
Speaker 4: more diverse at the bottom level, where people don't have
Speaker 4: enough power, so a lot of online staff. As we
Speaker 4: move up the top of the leadership pyramid towards senior
Speaker 4: level leaders, CEOs and directors and so on, board leaders,
Speaker 4: it's predominantly white. And it's also predominantly white men, the wealthy,
Speaker 4: white men, elite educated, you know, Ivy League graduates and
Speaker 4: so on. So this has caused a lot of problems
Speaker 4: for you know, ninety five percent of foundation board trustees
Speaker 4: or the most powerful people are like are white, and
Speaker 4: they get to determine where money goes. And this is
Speaker 4: why ninety percent of philanthropic dollars in our second or
Speaker 4: goes to white lead organizations who then implement strategies that
Speaker 4: may work for certain communities, but they may not work
Speaker 4: for marginalists, for the most marginalized communities. So the diversity
Speaker 4: is really critical because we need the people who actually
Speaker 4: have the live experience to actually be in charge to
Speaker 4: allocate funding and to lead in these programs and services,
Speaker 4: and oftentimes it's not happening, and people can be very
Speaker 4: well meaning, but without that diversity and lit experience, a
Speaker 4: lot of services and programs are just not as effective
Speaker 4: as they could be.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you said there reminded me
Speaker 1: of I believe it to be a quote, but it's
Speaker 1: used pretty widely.
Speaker 3: It says that.
Speaker 1: The people that are closest to the problem are often
Speaker 1: closest to the solution. And so I kind of love
Speaker 1: the way you strung that together because I think that
Speaker 1: we have a tendency to think because of conditioning and
Speaker 1: because of just I mean, it makes sense. I'm not
Speaker 1: mad at anybody who thinks this way. But you know,
Speaker 1: people who are Ivy league educated, they are somehow better
Speaker 1: equipped to tackle these great problems that ale society. And
Speaker 1: I understand the logic behind that thinking. If you have
Speaker 1: no other framework, that might be something that you would
Speaker 1: lean into. But I think that with what you're suggesting,
Speaker 1: and again this like this a little bit of wisdom.
Speaker 1: You know, those people who are closest the problem are
Speaker 1: closest to the solution. I think that that helps to
Speaker 1: kind of reframe a the problem and b how to
Speaker 1: get to the solution. And I think that there's there's
Speaker 1: definitely something there. And I as we continue to move
Speaker 1: toward a more diverse composition in terms of you know, nonprofit,
Speaker 1: ethnic composition, in terms of leadership, my hope is that
Speaker 1: we will also move toward more solutions that will create
Speaker 1: the outcomes we want to see in the world.