Hello, everybody, thank you so much for joining me. I’m Michele Heyward. And I have a special guest with me today we’re going to be talking about a really important topic. And I love the title that we’re utilizing, because somebody brilliant came up with and I wonder who she was, or is, but if you’re new to me to the show, I’m the founder of positive hire, where we connect black, indigenous, indigenous and Latin X women, who are experienced scientists, engineers and technology professionals to management roles. And I happen to have today another social entrepreneur, lawyer, foster mom. Um, I’m a live out in the country not have good internet. So rule living partner in crime. I don’t I’m not a lawyer. I’m an engineer. So I’m on the other side of the spectrum. Right. So So Lauren Burke, thank you so much for joining me. What did I leave out? Tell him? What?

Thank you so much. No, you did great. Yeah, I’ve had a weird career trajectory. So I’m like, I don’t know, camp counselor live in nanny, and nonprofit founder, nonprofit executive director. Basically, I’ve, you know, I spent a life. But I’m very honored to be here with you, Michelle, it’s good to see you.

It is great to have you. She’s not 40. So she’s been she’s been kind of busy. Like in the last 10 years. That’s a lot to do. How did you? How did you fit in naps? Maybe I guess you don’t have home?

Yeah, yeah, naps are tricky. But you know, there’s the I did binge watch all of Survivor during the pandemic. So I don’t want to make it seem like I’m always working. I’m definitely not.

I love it. I love it. So thank you, everybody, for joining us today, we’re going to get into we’re talking about white supremacy, and the nonprofit industrial complex. So Lauren, first, I want to ask you, why did you come up with that name?

Yeah, I mean, and I think when we were talking about this, too, we were talking about the concept of getting nonprofits to move from being the torchbearer of white supremacy to the pallbearers of it right, because what I think is really interesting is a lot of nonprofits purport to exist, to fix a lot of the issues that have been caused by white supremacy, but they themselves perpetuate a lot of those same issues, right. It’s like the call is coming from inside of the house. And I’ve worked in nonprofits, my whole life of all sizes, I’ve worked with nonprofits with budgets of over $100 million, and nonprofits that literally just got started. And these are things that I’ve seen, particularly as I’ve deepened my own work with white supremacy in the past couple of years and eradicating it, just really realizing how insidious it is within the nonprofit space. And so excited to shed light on some of those things today.

Let’s do it. So. So I know you want to share something really important to get us kicked off with I know, we were fun. We actually know each other in real life, like we met, like when the world was still open. You know, we still weren’t wearing masks on planes, because we didn’t know that was going to be a thing. So who knew? But yeah, we actually knew each other before this.

Yeah. And so this this mean, this is my first meme I ever made. So you know, you can judge me someone who’s like it’s too many words. Um, but this is such an important grounding thing for us, I think, to open this conversation with, which is stop trying to make di work with white folks who have an interrogated their own complicity with white supremacy happen. It’s not going to happen. And this is, of course, the moment from Mean Girls, where they’re talking about fetch. And I bring this up, because so often, and of course, Michelle, this conversation is really preaching to the choir, right that I don’t think a lot of people understand this, but so many people just jumped to like, well, I want to do Dei, and I want to be inclusive, and how can I do all of this, but it’s happening in places where white folks have not interrogated their own relationship with white supremacy. And I’m gonna read a quote for us from my FiBL on being doing better, which is me and white supremacy. Ooh, sorry, blurred background. Anyways, it’s an amazing book. Yes, me and white supremacy by Leila Saad. I’ve actually helped over 300 White people go through this work in the past year, but I just want to read a quote that she has to ground us in this conversation. If your understanding of racism and white supremacy does not include a historical and modern day contextual understanding of colonization oppression, discrimination, neglect and marginalization at the systemic level, and not just the individual level, then you are going to struggle when it comes to conversations about race, you will assume what is being criticized, is your skin color and your individual goodness as a person, rather than your complicity in a system of oppression that is designed to benefit you at the expense of bipoc in ways you are not even aware of this lack of understanding leads to white fragility, either by lashing out to defend your individual sense of goodness, or feeling that you as an individual are being shamed for being who you are, thus leaving the conversation. And I bring that and I start that with that quote, because we’re not talking about any individual person here. We’re not talking about Oh, madam, XYZ, who CEO of this organization is doing this stuff. I mean, we can have those conversations. But what we’re talking about today is the way in which systems and institutions perpetuate white supremacy. And if when these issues are brought up, people are coming and reaction from a place of white fragility. They’re just not going to be able to listen. So I implore every white person on this call who’s listening in that, like when we mentioned things that make you feel like, oh, shoot, I do that, take it as an opportunity to be like, great. So what can I do better rather than dwelling in the fact that you did it? Because dwelling in the fact that you did, it doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t help anybody go talk to your therapist about that work out those issues, right. But put it to the side and do better, right, Maya Angelou says, like, make mistakes, learn, make new mistakes. And so this is a path that we will be walking our whole lives. And it’s important, we don’t make it about us, because it’s not about us. So I just wanted to start us with that framework.

I love that, quote, current day what is going on right now? Because often when we talk about racism, people go, Oh, well, no, no, slavery is over. Okay. But if we talk about the night, well, that was the 1960s. Your parents are still alive, your grandparents are still alive before dependent, which your great grandparents are still alive, that were born, raised, or were raising families during that period. These people are definitely still relevant. And so if they’ll sit in great conversations happen, I Hey, they’ll show a picture of a boycott, a sitting rather, at a lunch counter, but from North Carolina a&t university students, and they will see all the white guys around a black man is like, I wonder how many we can identify because most of them are alive. And so you’re trying to say, that was in the past? And we don’t do that. Well, what does it look like now? 60 years later, right? Because these people are still alive. Do you think they had a reckoning and 60 years? Or did the internet? I don’t know. So I think we all like you said you need to look and see what it looks like currently, because it has transitioned, it has changed in certain ways over time. And so that’s a really important part of what I heard, it was a lot of different things. But it’s that current day, because so often is reflected to things in the past, you still have to address the racism is still exists here in the current state.

Right, right. And in that to, like, individuals need to look at their individual current day complicity. Because I think what a lot of white people do is they’re like, Oh, I’m gonna sit and learn about what happened 50 years ago. But then I mean, I’m just saying exactly what you’re saying. But they’re not looking at like, Well, why was it that I don’t have any black friends to invite to my birthday parties? Why is it that we have a pipeline issue, right, which is just code for racism, right? And so people when they’re not when they’re like, Okay, I’ll learn about the past. But they’re not examining current day. That’s where problems run into. And a really good example of this to get us kicked off talking about ways that shows up in nonprofits, like, for example, like background checks, right? We know, at this point, hopefully, you all know, if you don’t know, we’ll send lots of good books and links for you to read that the criminal justice system in the United States is deeply, deeply racist. And a lot of experts think that the actual point of our criminal justice system has been to incarcerate black and black brown folks, right? So if you as a nonprofit organization, Institute blanket background checks in your hiring process, the only thing that you are really checking for is for whether or not somebody got caught and people get caught, if they have black or brown skin if they’re poor. And so really, that’s that’s all that you’re searching for, if you’re doing that sort of background check. So I posted about this on LinkedIn like a month ago, as I want to do, and you know, I had two different people sliding into my DMs being like, Is this about me? Is this about my organization? Should and it’s like, one, it doesn’t matter if it’s about you, right? are you implementing this practice? If you’re implementing the practice, stop, right? It’s not It’s, I’ll get all these things like, oh, but this is why we have to do it. And this is the reason I’m like, I’m sorry, I haven’t yet heard of a justification for blanket background checks. That isn’t just, I don’t mean it in this way, because I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. But it’s just lazy, right? It’s like, oh, this system, it’s the way we do things. And it’s like, actually, you don’t need to be doing things that way anymore. And just change it, just change it. It’s not that hard.

I love it. And coming from the perspective of a lawyer, so I’ll take, I like that. And it’s been a lot of work about banning the box, too. But it is a perpetual system. Because once you get out, now, it’s hard to get a job.

Right. And it’s hard to get a job at the institutions that are trying to help people like you, right. And so I mean, one of the things, I mean, I don’t want to jump too far ahead in the conversation, but one of the things I hope we’ll talk about today is like the ways in which nonprofits hoard power, mainly with white people. And we’ll talk about that. But it’s because largely like, they like say, You’re a criminal justice organization, and you Institute background checks for everybody, then you can’t hire your your constituents, it just literally makes no sense. And you’re just perpetuating the problem.

Absolutely. So let’s talk about first of all, let’s be very, very clear, we got to talk about race today. So when we talk about race, we’re not going to do what neurodiversity that’s not what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to actually talk about race and racism, anti racism. So if you’re looking for a different discussion, that is not that topic today on this event, but if you’re looking for that, I highly suggest you Google Events about that. So we’re going to focus on race today, because we get people that want to go in other directions. But when we’re talking about nonprofits, let’s talk about the history like how did they get started? Why they were started? Yeah. And because that’s, that’s really important to understand why we they do the harm, more than they do the work they should?

Yeah, so a lot of nonprofits and sort of the charitable industry in the United States has a lot of its backing actually in shocking white women, like big problem when it comes to racism. It was often seen as like a social thing to do on your free time, because you had a wealthy husband, right? And women were totally being oppressed during this time. I’m not neglecting that. But that’s we’re talking specifically about race today. So like having a charity, having a cause was a part kind of, of the social scene. And it was seen as a way to really like climb up the social ranks. I mean, we still see that today, a lot of celebrities have their own foundations are on wings. So a lot of the systems that we see come from the concept of, well, nonprofits don’t need to make money because they’re, they’re people that started them or used to work on them were independently wealthy, right. So we can talk a lot about like the pay issues in the nonprofit sector and how that’s related to white supremacy. A lot of them are rooted in the concept of white savior ism. Right? The concept of white savior ism is that we as white people, eyes, the white person, and here to save right, those poor children in the Bronx, right? Like that was a narrative that I very much grew up with. And so that’s where a lot of the charities comes also. And white supremacy is tricky, right there. There are ways in which it shows up in a much more insidious way. A lot of people when they first learned about the concept of white savior ism, struggle to understand how that’s rooted to white supremacy, because it’s like, well, I’m trying to help, right? But then we look at Lilla Watson, who is incredible, incredible Aboriginal activist from Australia. She says, if you’ve come here to help me, then you’re wasting your time. But if you are here, because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. And so the idea that white people are here to save brown and black people who were oppressed by white people, that’s it that’s so important to always bring up right? Black people are not at a lower socioeconomic class because of anything they did. It’s because of what white people did, right. And I just feel like that doesn’t get mentioned enough. But the idea that we are here to save has that concept, right, that white people have more to give, and black and brown people take and so that same mentality has stayed in nonprofits till till today till the modern day. I mean, if you look at grant applications, some of them still use incredibly outdated language for which you’re basically forced to engage in what is often called poverty porn. Anyways, I could I’m going off on a tangent. But yeah, so those are those are a lot of the roots of our nonprofit sector.

Thank you for that. And in going into how it was set up and who were going to save and and utilizing the data, how many children we fed, and all of those things. It wasn’t breaking cycles,

right? Yeah, absolutely. I think that that’s one of the biggest issues. And I think I especially, I actually think we’re coming towards the reemergence of a lot of these issues, because what has happened with the sort of like tech Silicon Valley boom, that’s occurred in the past 20 years, or whatever. People are obsessed. Now with scale. They’re obsessed with numbers. And so a lot of times, you’ll see nonprofits get a lot of money, because they’re like, We gave a sandwich to 20,000 people. And it’s like, great, that’s not solving anything, it is solving that person’s hunger that day, but maybe for an hour, because they’ll give you like a peanut butter sandwich that like on white bread. That’s not that interesting, whatever. But, but they’re not actually interested in breaking those cycles, because if they did break them, the nonprofit would not be in existence. And that’s why I also wanted to talk about the nonprofit industrial complex, because it’s an industry. And if we treat it as if it’s just this philanthropic thing, we forget that people have an incentive to keep their nonprofit around. And so how do we encourage folks to actually put themselves out of business, in a way is an important part of this discussion as well.

I don’t even think they’re putting themselves out of business. Because when you’re talking about systemic racism, so instead of giving out a sandwich, you do farming, local farming, and you actually stop off, I don’t know, maybe a food desert, right? I don’t know. And so then you aren’t worried about passing out a sandwich, your next day is how do we get the food to be priced in a way that people can afford it? Right. And so you’re reducing, then the amount of logistics oftentimes, you know, adds on to the cost of the food. So how do you reduce that? And so they’re solving a different, but giving as opposed to solution is their solution for everything is not going deeper? It’s very, very subsurface. So I want to talk about a bit on new systems that that are out there that can be done that. I don’t know, nonprofits should be investigating shouldn’t be really working towards.

Yeah, I mean, so I’m big into quote. So Ruby coward is an amazing poet has this beautiful poem, that’s the future world of our dreams cannot be built on the corruptions of the past, tear it down. And so I’ll get to new systems a second, but but one of the biggest issues I see with a lot of nonprofits is we kind of touched on this beginning, but this concept of like, well, that’s the way things have been done. Right? This is not an unprofitable given example, I’m running a summer festival in New York City this summer, very excited about if you’re in the city, come check it out, roar with us, dot NYC. Um, but we need music to go in the parks. And the parks department is like, Oh, your event was five hours long. Permits are only for four hours? And I’m like, okay, great. So can I please have two for our permits? Oh, no, we only allow for one for our permit a day. Okay, why, oh, that’s just the way it is. And I was laughing, I was actually laughing with my therapist about it. Because I was like, I’m sure there was just some old person in a room like 50 years ago, who pulled for hours out of a random hat. And so now all over New York City is stuck with this four hour permitting process. And I think we just continue to fail to understand that like, you can actually just invent whatever new systems you would like to invent, right, whatever feels equitable and sustainable. And so a lot of the things are not, they’re also not that new, right, like collective decision making power, right, Co Op models. A lot of these are systems that have been taken from various indigenous cultures that are more of a collective approach, as opposed to our very individualistic white capitalist, heteronormative, yada, yada, yada approach, right. And so like, for example, cooperative structures or new systems that I’ve actually seen some nonprofits start to implement them, which is more shared power. New systems, like there’s a really amazing webinar, which I’m happy to send to folks if they want to email me that an amazing group the SE justice group did on like, how do you build internal policies and systems that are rooted in black feminist thought and theory? Like how because I think we also what’s interesting for some organizations, they will go and they will try and be anti racist outwards. But then what they’re not doing as being anti racist inwards, right? So they are not treating their staff. They’re there hiring processes their onboarding processes in a way that really allows all of their employees to thrive equitably. And so when we’re seeing like the great resignation happening right now, and we’re seeing, particularly black women participating in the great resignation as they will, should be, I think a lot of institutions aren’t looking at like, well, what are we doing internally? And, Michelle, you’re the expert on this, but like, what are we doing internally that is perpetuating these these problems? And how can we minimize them? And so like, I’ll give another example of this when it’s a silly example. But it’s about deadlines and code switching, right? I think a lot of times, I, for example, was very privileged that I grew up with two working parents. And so certain things like email etiquette, professionalism, which I would say, are all coded as white supremacy, right. I learned those, nobody taught me those. So when I was able to first enter the workforce, and again, all my workforce basically has been in nonprofits. I knew some of these unspoken unwritten rules. Now, if you don’t have an onboarding process, which many, many nonprofits do not have any sort of onboarding process, you are not actually explaining any of those unwritten rules. If you’re not systematizing expectations, as an organization, you are basically setting people up to fail unless their experiences happen to line up with your experiences and what you deem success to be. And so when I consult with folks, like I spent a lot of time really writing down a lot of policies and systems. I’m very big. I have a lot of books by me. This is a great book, it’s called managing to change the world, the nonprofit managers guide to results. They have training programs, they have training programs just for bipoc nonprofit leaders. But I think we sort of think of like, oh, just be loose, be casual. We’re all friends. We’re all family. That’s not the case, often, right. And so you have to put things into place so that people know what they’re up against what success looks like. And so that’s just like one small example.

I love it. Um, yeah, we could talk about this all day. I do. I do have a question for you. Yeah. Was it that permit process implemented during the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York?

Oh, that is a great question that I have no idea what we did have a whole conversation about white supremacy and bureaucracy. And just like how white supremacy continues to exist through death by 10,000 paper cuts, but that wouldn’t surprise me. Right. In the Occupy Wall Street protests, I was actually working at a domestic violence shelter downtown in Wall Street. Well, that was happening. Yeah, I could totally see that happening, because people were trying to break up those protests that were occurring. Now. Can I also say something about those protests, though, Michelle, since they were brought up, I cannot tell you how many white people, white friends of mine gave me crap for not joining those protests, when I was literally working at the shelter. Like, they’d be like, Why can’t you just take a day off of work? And these were white people that like worked at firms that had all this income? And so I also I, that’s a whole side other thing, right? But, but when we think about what is counted as legitimate activism, right, that is often also deeply rooted in white supremacy. Now, protests are incredible and change the world. That protest was interesting and did some really cool things. And, and I just wanted to bring that up the title of the book, I will share all of the titles I have a bunch of books for y’all. Like winners take all, like decolonizing wealth. I don’t know how this works. Oh, thank you, Swati. Yes, that was that other book, managing to change the world. But I will include all of these I bet there’s a way that when we post this I will get that I’ll do all the links. And you better not order from Amazon. We talked about that. If your nonprofit is still using Amazon, take a deep look at yourself. Go Michelle.

Well, now you’ll see why we get along. So let’s talk about three important parts of nonprofits and y’all if you thought this is gonna be like 30 minutes already knew she wasn’t gonna be at 30 minutes I just blocked my calendar off because I know how she is. So if you have to leave that is quite alright. The replay will be here. Just capture the link and it’ll also be on my page. Yeah, it’ll be here to drop questions whenever sorry interrupt you or just hit hit Lauren I up for the link and we can send you the link back if you can’t find it. But but we were looking at the thing is the one thing I’ve always said is systemic racism is very, very consistent, and how it shows up You just don’t know. Like, it’s like a capsule wardrobe. You just don’t know if it’s gonna have great pants, a beige top and a black jacket, like, how are they gonna mix it up? So what are three? Let’s talk about the resource hoarding that goes on in nonprofits.

Yeah. So we talked yesterday, and we sort of identified these three different buckets to talk about. So resource hoarding, power concentration and employee practices. So resource hoarding is a great place to start. I consider resource hoarding to be happening when a nonprofit is taking things that they shouldn’t, because they are relying upon this outdated concept of what nonprofits are. And by that, I mean, for example, if we want to do an action in support of Black Lives Matter for Juneteenth, I cannot tell you how many white LED nonprofits are taking money to throw Juneteenth events. I don’t understand how you could be a organization that that is white lead, right run majority white and and not sort of be like, oh, there’s this money out there in the world. Let me give it to a black LED nonprofit, let me give it to other institutions that are more deeply connected to this issue. But I would just say like, that’s number one. Like I think that organizations have this scarcity mentality, which is rooted in white supremacy, right? We’re done in capitalism, where it’s like, if I don’t, I need to get everything I possibly can get. And ways to combat this are like white nonprofit workers, share your funders share your funders with incredible black and brown lead organizations. I know it can seem scary, what I tell my funder that they should give money to somebody else. Your funders have money. That’s why they’re there. That’s about infinite. I mean, it’s not, it’s not like you’re the only person they’re giving it to. And so really consider approaching them and be like, Hey, I know that you really we’re invested in childhood early education, we so grateful for the grant you gave us last year, we hope you will continue funding, but I also wanted to alert you to this incredible organization. I’ll use village of wisdom right now, because they’re an incredible black run organization based in the South that works on children’s education. Could I introduce you to the founder, right? Use those use that privilege you have of those connections, and bring other people into the fold and then actually consider giving up some of your money to like, like, look at your programs, think like, are these things that we should really be running? Is this our zone of genius? Is that what we’re best at? And then give some of it away? Right? And so that’s like one big, big point where I see a lot of white LED organizations hoarding these resources and hoarding funding. They also do it a lot in terms of taking up space. How many press conferences have we been to where it’s all white people speaking, stop it stop. I realized that’s ironic, because I’m a white person speaking right now. But I think that when I was an executive director, and I messed up a lot, we’re going to especially talk about how I messed up when we get to employ practices. But you know, I get it, people always want the founder the EEG to speak, you have, we have to start breaking those narratives ourselves. And sort of saying, like, I’m actually not going to hear is a staff member who is an incredible person who has lived experience, and I actually want them to speak on the nonprofits behalf, I want them to be the ones quoted by the press, right. And so if you’re a white, let org, that is a way that you can give up some of the resources that you as a white staff member or white leader have to give it to other staff members to Amazon is an example of this. I get it, you can save $5 on that stapler that you have been looking at. But Amazon I personally think slash research shows is the most direct way that you can be involved in human exploitation, right? The fact that you order something and it comes tomorrow, the reason that exists is because of exploitive labor practices. And so it also really amuses me organizations that use Amazon. And I did too. I totally did too, before I read the research, and I understood so it’s not again, I’m not it’s not about you, it’s about the whole system is designed to make you not see these things. But once you see them, how are you going to change? Right? So anyways, so like using Amazon, it’s like, Oh, I’m gonna save $5. But you know what, like that Amazon worker who’s getting fired because they had to use the bathroom because literally, that’s what happens. There are Amazon delivery drivers that have to wear diapers, that person might become a constituent of yours, because you’re relying on systems like Amazon, right? So that’s also how I think about resource hoarding, like penny pinching. We’ll get to it a little bit more in employee practices, but I would say like, that’s bucket number one.

Oh, I have there’s a comment. Thank you for that. There’s a comment I want us to share to bring up. I’m finding problematic that executives sometimes most of the time, do not center the voice of people that I suppose that are supposed to be represented. And, and it can you talk about that for a minute, because you’ve been in this way deeper on the nonprofit side?

Yeah. I mean, it’s so huge and so insidious, and it’s sort of getting into what I was talking about when it comes to like press. But I will say, this is one area that I feel like I did, okay, not, but so I’m just I’m saying that because I probably wasn’t going to talk about how I messed up very soon. But what I started to realize like so I started an organization called Atlas. It was for undocumented immigrants and their allies. I started it when I was 27. We started it was me and three of my former clients, we met in a coffee shop and over cups of coffee and started thinking about like, wow, how could we create a center where undocumented people were able to access the same services as US citizens, all of that? Because I was the founder who was full time because I was white, because I was like, a young, cute woman. I was at the beginning, like I was winning awards, and I was being asked to speak, and I very soon became quite uncomfortable with it, because I was like, why am I talking about the problems immigrants are facing in the United States today? Like, that’s ridiculous. And so what I started doing is when I would get invited, like, I was asked to give a keynote speech at NYU, this was in like, 2013 2014. And I said, I’m not going to give a keynote speech. If you’re okay with it. I will moderate a panel of my former clients and our members. I did the same thing. When Harvard Law School approached me, I did the same thing what Westfield approached me. I was once you know, I would do the thing when if I was called by a New York Times reporter, I would sort of say like, Will you talk to, we had this incredible Director of Outreach, Maria Kaba who started as a member, and then we soon hired her right. So a big thing that nonprofits can do is actually start elevating their former clients to positions of power within the organization itself, right. I think I was thinking about this the other day, that like, it’s really crazy to me that we will have clients that like, a lot of times, the only time they’re showcased is at a gala, when we’re trying to ask for money, right. And it’s just a nonprofit doing basically like poverty porn. And those people usually speak for free, and they’re not compensated. And so nonprofits need to start not only elevating those people, but pay them for their lived experience expertise, right and compensating them and start to see lived experience as a real value. This is not just like a nice thing that we’re saying they are actually better at their job than you could ever be. Because you’ve never been in those shoes. And so absolutely 1,000% of what that person just wrote.

Well, we have another uncommon or controversial thought, do you think white nonprofit executive directors should be encouraged to step down? I’ve talked to a couple of white EDS, who kind of complained that it’s hard to get funding these days, if your leadership is white. Wow. Imagine, imagine, so bad for them. Sorry, I’m being the inside. What were you gonna say? Michelle?

Essentially the same thing, because if you look at it, it’s like, okay, so now you understand, like, people are saying, We’re tired of talking about race. I said, Hell living for 45 years living for 70. Living all your life didn’t tell me you’re tired talking about it and not living it as a completely different thing. So I’ll go I’ll let you address this this question.

Yeah. And I just want to say, I told I know Swati, and she’s our co conspirator. And I love that you’re asking this as a way to get us to talk about it. And I know that this is not a thought you have. It’s just people that you’ve been talking with. I I mean, that’s why I stepped down from my nonprofit. It was 2016. I had been a Forbes 30, under 30, a scattered felon Echoing Green fellow had raised to under $2 million, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized as long as I was in the executive director position, the main power at the nonprofit was going to be held with a white person. And again, it’s not just like, oh, again, the quote I read at the beginning, it’s not about your skin being white, it’s about the life experiences that you have as a person that other people perceive as white are just different and they are not going to make you be the best Executive Director for an organization. If the organization’s main purpose is to uplift or power, whatever buzzword we want to throw in at the moment, right? populations that are vast majority non white. And so do I think white Ed leaders should step down I think I think that is something that more and more people should consider. Now, I think it can go the other way. Another really incredible book I brought with me today that I will add in the links is we will not cancel us and other dreams of transformative justice. Because I do think this can sometimes go too far. But that’s not we’re not going to talk about that today, because I want to focus it on this. But I absolutely think that if you are a white leader, and you are looking at your institution, you might notice that you’re not the best person for this next stage, like, Yes, you did a great job. And maybe you’re not the person pushing us into the future. And if it needs to be the fact that it’s tied to funding, that’s fine. But like, look, here’s why there isn’t as much funding going to white leaders, because we know that they’re not as effective in solving the problems of systemically oppressed people in this world, right, because they haven’t experienced that systemic oppression. Now, not saying white leaders can never be the heads of nonprofits, hopefully, obviously, right? Because there are lots of ways in which white people also struggle in this world, right. And there are lots of issues that are multiracial, but I’m specifically talking about if your organization’s if the mission and the purpose of it is to change fix solve an issue that predominantly affects black and brown people? I don’t think a white Ed always makes the most sense. Like, just I’m just saying that. Um, now I will say that, you know, we need more white people, we need more white people in operations, we need more white people doing the unsexy work of nonprofits, we need more white people, I don’t want to say in development, because development is a whole issue, we’ll talk about it, but we need more white people who will like do the boring behind the scenes stuff, right? That it’s not as fun that that is not as sexy and out there that doesn’t get much credit. But like we need, I think we need like more white CEOs supporting incredible lived experience leaders. And that’s what I tried to do as a consultant is like, Okay, well, I have this privilege, I know how to write a grant application, I know how to talk to funders, I’ve done all of this. And so I try to now help other people, like use my privileges to do that for them, or teach folks how to do it also. Because the sad reality, also of the nonprofit sector is we exist in a system where we have to get money from people who are rich, and most people who are rich, are rich because of exploitation that’s occurred. And so the nonprofit sector is just so messy and so deeply tied in. But yeah, I absolutely think that’s a that’s a that’s a personal reckoning that folks have to make.

Thank you for that. And I love the way you put put that I agree, is a common in there that Pablo has that I agree with in that the creation and the formation of a nonprofit doesn’t mean you have the skill set to actually get the long term results. Oftentimes, like you said, the nonprofit’s had is handing out sandwiches, but not helping to skill people to livable wages help bring encourage or change methodologies of how livable wages are calculated, right, and to provide what’s missing. And there’s a really great article because I focus on science, technology, engineering and math that talks about how tech keeps trying to fix people and that itself, because it talks about programs that were created in the 60s, for black people and Hispanic people to get them into tech. Get it it was not a pipeline problem. They pointed out, they didn’t have they didn’t address transportation issues. They didn’t address how it could they weren’t getting paid in these training programs. And so these there’s huge gaps of what we set it up. It’s not our fault, they don’t have food, it’s not our fault. They don’t have reliable transportation is not our fault, that the bus line doesn’t come all the way out here. And if you aren’t in a place to solve any of those others issues, he’s like, Well, we have the jobs here, they just have to get here, then you are perpetuating the system. And I think oftentimes, you’re only solving one part of the problem where like you said a black and brown Ed may know what those gaps are because they live they’ve seen it, they’ve heard it. And you can put 1010 people in that community and one of them will succeed like, well, we got a 10% success rate like no, you actually have a 90% failure rate. And I equate it differently to people. I don’t see it that way. I was like, Yeah, because it start tech startup, oh, only 10% of startups are going to succeed. And it’s like no as a white male that startups are going to succeed, and you’re okay with that. But when I look at it, I was like, well, that’s a 90% failure rate. And as a civil engineer, I just want to tell you that 9% of the British you drive across aren’t aren’t safe, right? Shit changes real quick. So it always goes back to who’s framing what and who say And who. And so if you if you are that privileged person, you’ve got to drive across that bridge is different. But if you’re in Pittsburgh all I’m crap, so good luck.

Yeah. And I think that, you know, when I was growing up in the 90s, which was also the era of colorblindness, right, equality was what we talked about. And it was all about equality. And I think that that’s why the the switch to equity. And it’s really interesting. Ask people if they actually understand what equity means, because a lot of people don’t actually know what it means. But like, for example, when I see this question I’m gonna answer in a second. But like, for example, I’m in the middle of I’m trying to find a full time job. We’ll see if I find one because most of my life is spent on LinkedIn, like trolling people that don’t put salary listings in their job posting, because we now know that that leads to inequitable results. But anyways, so I’m looking for a full time job. And I’m being considered for the senior leadership position at an international nonprofit right now. Michelle, the job interview process is over 20 hours, over 20 hours. And and when I said to them as I was like, I want to get this if I end up getting this job, I want to get it because I was the best candidate not because I was the only candidate they had 20 hours of time for free, unpaid labor, right. And so there are systems like this, that that we you wouldn’t you just wouldn’t know that like so another example, unpaid internships, I did unpaid internships, because when I was younger, I was sort of like, this is what you do to pay your dues and show you’re committed and get experience. So I did unpaid internships. I then had unpaid interns, because I thought I was doing a good thing giving people experience. Hello, Lauren, not everybody lives in like a two families, suburban household where mom and dad are paying for your summer camp. Like I’ve been working my whole life. But like, I had these privileges that just literally I could not it was I could not see that that was an issue. And so when we’re talking about the importance of representation, again, I think people get confused, like, oh, it just must be because of their skin. No, it’s because of the experience that they have. Okay, going back to that other question, how was I able to prepare and shift the board to support someone. The good news is, I would say is, so for Atlas, for example. And for camp equity, which is another program I just started. I the concept of having lived experience, folks on the board in my staff was something like that was a reason why I wanted to create Atlas, because I was so frustrated at the fact that most nonprofits that I saw when I was living in New York City, didn’t have any constituents on their board of directors and a board of directors is where power sits in an organization. So I think we have to look not just one like, is it diverse? Yes, or No, but then to like, do they actually have constituents on their board. And so this was something that I just implemented from the start. Now, what’s interesting about it is I go and do board trainings now or I’ll go and I’ll meet with different teams of nonprofit leadership. And sometimes you need to care it. I’m just talking real right? Sometimes you do going back to the other person, sometimes you do need to start with things they’ll understand. So like funding, start with, you know, this is going to be a really wonderful opportunity, yada, yada, yada. So that you can get the people in the door. And then you can change it from the inside, right? Because then I think often for our boards, for example, we had some folks that had never been on a board with the lived experience. It was somebody with lived experience from the issue. And we have like a board mentoring program. So we were focused on really getting to know each other and building empathy. And so I think that by that it was a it was a learning by doing however, you white person listening to this, it is your job to make sure that if you are inviting, or asking a black or brown person to join your space or person of color, join your space, that you have done the work with that group to make it as safe place it possible for that person to join into. I think a lot of times what we’re seeing right now and again, great resignation, we’re seeing all these organizations sort of be like, oh, I want to add this role, this role this role, but they haven’t made it a safe place to be that in that role. And so before you even do that, do I am I ready for a lived experience person to be on the board? Like is your board? Have they interrogated their own complicity with white supremacy because if the board hasn’t done that, then they’re not going to be great and then to if they’re unwilling to do that, then you need a new board and you need new board members. And again, I know there’s this fear, but like, I consulted I consulted for of Food Foundation, trying to say all this vaguely consulted for a foundation I was asked to go fly on a retreat that they did, there was this really powerful racial justice training. The room was mainly social entrepreneurs,
mostly entrepreneurs of color. The board members were there, they were white, one of them asked during the racial justice training, I just don’t know why we have to talk about all of this so much. It’s like, It all happened so long ago. I rolled my eyes. And I got fired. And because like, sorry, I went off a bit, but we need more white people speaking up saying the things saying this is problematic, saying this is not okay, risking getting fired, risking their jobs to make these spaces safer, right? Because we need like I when I look at it, if you think of white supremacy, as like a brick wall, it is white people’s role to dismantle those bricks. And then we got to shut up and do whatever we’re told for the rebuilding process. Right. I’m going off tangent A little bit. But basically, it’s like, I was lucky enough that I, I made that a clear priority priority from the beginning. And so the board members were prepped to do it, when I’m now consulting with other boards on how to do it. And they talk about problematic board members, I will say like they they need to go through me and white supremacy, they need to go through some of these trainings. And if they’re unwilling to do that, then honestly, that’s probably a board I’m not going to work with, because we’ve also found, like, a lot of di consultants are giving up right now because it’s just too exhausting, because people aren’t willing to deal with their own shit. I don’t know if that was a helpful answer at all.

But it’s, yeah, it’s that’s a Lauren answer, as y’all may have figured out, so I know we still have a couple points we want to get to. And definitely come back for the replay if you can’t stay for all of this. But But Lauren, what are your thoughts? We talked hiring some I don’t think we got through all of the hiring points.

To talk, I’ll just run down, I’ll just run down some other bad practices. But if your nonprofit is engaging in them, you need to stop immediately. If you need help stopping, so put salary line in the posting, we I cannot believe places still don’t do this. I tagged Michelle yesterday in a job that I actually was really excited about, but they didn’t post the salary listing. And then I was like, Can you please post the salary listing? And they said, Because and the reason why this is, if you don’t know and we’ll post a link, but when it’s salary based on experience, because women of color, particularly have been systemically oppressed from equal access to wealth, those coded words of based on experience often mean based on what you were paid in the past or based on what your salary expectations are. Women of Color tend to have lower salary expectations because of the way they’ve been discriminated. And they tend to have lower salaries because they’ve been discriminated. So when you don’t post a salary range, it leads to inequitable results. So anyway, so I responded to this. And I was like, please post a salary. They said, Oh, it’s on this other site. And I was like, Can you please make it equally accessible to everyone and put it on all the sites? And they were like, Oh, we’re working on that? Because New York just mandated it. If you’re doing something because it’s mandated and not because it’s a practice that’s rooted in equity, how can you Anyways, moving on. So that’s point one, include the salary range, there’s no excuse, I will look, I will pay you $100. If you can give me a good reason to not post the salary range, I will donate $100 to the charity of your choice. Feel free to inbox me. Let’s see if we can have anybody who does it. The other thing, recruitment process we talked about, do not make them long, do not make them drawn out, consider compensating employees at later stages of the recruitment process for their time. That is powerful. There’s a great blog, nonprofit AF that you all should check out. That’s about it. Um, I really messed up in terms of pay scale. So I used to believe that taking a pay cut was a good thing, right? Because I had this white savior, oh, it’s good to be poor. I don’t want to make money mentality. Because that’s kind of what I was taught. And I was trained. I didn’t realize that when I was, so I was making $60,000 When I was running my nonprofit. Then when I was leaving, and we needed to hire somebody else, of course, we weren’t going to find somebody that would do it for 60,000, who also had lived experience because they didn’t have the privilege. Like I had a privilege to make a mid I like to make a lower salary compared to other EDS because again, my parents didn’t support me, but if I got cancer, I know I could go stay on their couch. I wasn’t having to foot their car bills. I wasn’t having to worry about paying for immigration case lawyers, all these other things. And so I realized that like treating ourselves at a very low pay scale is a condemned continuing to perpetuate the problem because only white privilege people will be able to afford it. Taking those nonprofit jobs. Right. And so PayScale is so important for us to think about and talk about, and I’m not talking about being a CEO that makes a million dollars. That’s not what I’m saying. But I’m saying like getting a little bit closer to being able to have a thriving job along with nonprofits, right. Um, some other things that I wrote down. So those are two just so easy, always include the salary line, pay your people better, that might be a little harder, but those are two things. Also push back on your funders, right? A lot of funders are like, well, we don’t support admin and overhead, start questioning them on that, because what overhead often means is people and the people at your institution, and if you’re going to be, if your institution is gonna be a part of solving the problem, then you’re gonna have to have people that were once clients in your organization, so you got to pay them better. Say no, okay. Um, I will say, if you hire staff, you can also turn it into a workforce development program. And funders love that. So just think about new creative ways to call things. Also white power, okay?

If you go look at your nonprofit website right now, and if most of your staff in leadership positions is white, and most of the board is white, I would say it’s a great time to find a new job. I hate to say that, but if at this point, like your organization hasn’t changed, or gotten its act together, it’s also likely not going to like I, there’s a really, it was a great meme that was going around that was sort of talking about, like, you can’t change from the bottom up. And I used to believe you could, and I would fight and fight and like you all are worthy and important. And your work is necessary in this world. And so there’s so many places you can go to. So I just want to like, encourage, continue to encourage the great resignation for especially with places that have white concentrated power, that aren’t doing anything to show it’s different. And by doing anything, I don’t mean start a DI group. I don’t mean start a reading thing. I don’t mean take a two hour training once a month about this stuff. I mean, what are the actual concrete systems you are putting into place as a check and balance for the fact that white power, that power is disproportionately put in with white folks? Okay, also, yeah, somebody wrote about the programs, right? Like if the people deciding the programs are all white, that’s also going to lead to problematic results. And so I’m using a lot of examples that I’ve had in the past few weeks as a job looking for jobs. But this inequitable hiring practice that I’m currently a part of, which I have decided to stay in just because I’m a squeaky wheel, and they were like, Are you sure you want to keep interviewing? And I was basically like, well, if it means you’ll listen to me in the job interview about why this is problematic, then five years down the road, maybe we’ll help someone else. So I’m happy to do that. But anyways, I was I was talking to them, because the recruitment person was like, I agree, this is really inequitable. And I was like, well, who’s making these decisions? And unsurprisingly, it was an all white team making the decisions. And they’re like, well, but we have people of color on the interviewing teams. And I’m like, right, but they don’t have decision making power. And so again, you can’t just look at the aggregate you have to look at where does power lie? power lies and executive teams power lies in boards. And yes, I have an all caps, it’s not okay to just have bipoc as support staff. So that’s there. But I think that’s talking about a lot of the like, main things that I really wanted to hit.

Only the main thing she wants to hit everybody. So Lauren, how can What are your final thoughts and then we’ll, we can share where people can find you and connect with you.
Yeah, my final thoughts. The easiest thing you can do today towards equity, which hopefully all your organizations are doing is include a salary line. Next, stop using Amazon. Next, get rid of blanket background checks, you can get rid of bait blanket education requirements. Watch the SEC justice group webinar that I will also include my email on the links they said I could forward as folks I asked folks, if it’s useful that you make a donation to SC justice group. They’re incredible. They’re supporting women with incarcerated loved ones out of California that are out there great. And reading these books, and also, I don’t know if there was a lot of final thoughts, but get rid of Amazon salary lines. No, no background checks are the three things to do today. And then fuck it all up tomorrow.

I love it. So oops. So we’ll be in the comments sharing different things like the books, your email address. I don’t know why she gave it her email address. I would just you know, she doesn’t even email me. She just messages me on LinkedIn. I’m like, would you rather I email you I can email you. No, that’s okay. Whatever works for you, Lauren. I’m like, but she don’t ever do email for me. But anyway, oh

I deserve I deserve this. Okay,

so so this is this is like a three year plus relationship we’ve had. So don’t don’t think we just started this from, like last week or whatever. So, everybody, thank you so much for joining us. I’ll be back in two weeks we will be talking about inclusive communication verbally and written and what does that really look like? And what should it look like and if that’s not going on in the workplace, so, Laura, thanks for joining me. Be sure to connect with her. She will drop some links in the chat everybody. Thanks for hanging out with us. Somebody I’ll be here the entire time somebody got here before we started. I mean, like I’m here. Where are you? I don’t see you. We appreciate that. Like they waiting on you Lauren excited. So everybody. Have a great week. A great spring and um, get some sunshine.

Thanks so much for having me, Michelle. Thanks, everybody.