Sharon Miracle and Brenda Solorzano

Brenda 

Doing equity work in a state like this is very different. I actually come from California. That's where I grew up. And I've had to shift my paradigm of what does it mean to do equity work from being sort of in a liberal echo chamber in the Bay Area, to come into Montana and having to think about it very differently.

 

Nancy (Host)

From The Giving Practice at Philanthropy Northwest, this is Can We Talk Abou...? a project to normalize the messiness of leading for racial equity in philanthropy and reflect on what it takes to create lasting transformation. In our pilot season, leaders across philanthropy reflect with one another on their experiences working to advance racial equity. at the governance level. We're asking leaders to explore sticky topics, look for learning, practice vulnerability, and give themselves and each other permission to speak in first draft. And what we ask of you is to do the same. In this episode, we're joined by two remarkable leaders navigating the complexities of racial equity in rural communities. Here they are introducing themselves.

 

Sharon 

Hi, I'm Sharon Miracle. I'm the president and CEO of the Yakima Valley Community Foundation, located in central Washington, I identify as she/her and I am a white woman. I'm also a mother of a young adult.

 

Brenda 

Hello, my name is Brenda Solorzano, and the CEO of the Headwaters Foundation based in Missoula, Montana, we are a health conversion foundation, working on social determinants of health and I use she and her pronouns.

 

Nancy (Host)

Brenda and Sharon share steps they've taken to work more effectively towards inclusion and equity within their communities, including stepping out of the status quo of board bylaws and practices and modeling continuous self reflection and learning. Let's listen in.

 

Sharon 

Hey Brenda, great to see you again. It's been a while.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, it's nice to see you as well. I've been looking forward to our conversation.

 

Sharon 

Yeah, I think the last time we actually visited about similar things was in a conversation at Philanthropy Northwest during a meeting at some point along the way there.

 

Brenda 

Yeah and it seems like this issue of equity keeps coming up over and over in different kinds of meetings and settings that I'm at so I think it's an important time to have this conversation.

 

Sharon 

I do too. So maybe we'll just dive right in, then, you know, we should maybe give some context to the folks listening to this, about where we're working out and, and why that's different for each of us. And I'll let you maybe start with that just share a little about the context about Headwaters Foundation, the work you're doing there.

 

Brenda 

Yeah I'd love to. So Headwaters is based, as I said, in Missoula, Montana. And I think you know that it is a very large state, very rural, very conservative, not very diverse, most of the population in our state is are white folks. We have a small population of natives, with seven reservations within the boundaries of Montana, and not a lot of other kinds of folks. So doing equity work in a state like this is very different. And I actually come from California, that's where I grew up. And I've had to shift my paradigm of what does it mean to do equity work from being sort of in a liberal echo chamber in the Bay Area, to come into Montana and having to think about it very differently. And realizing that the national landscape is informing the conversations of what is happening at the local level within Montana. And there's some resistance, there's some challenges to doing this work. It isn't always easy, because of the environment that I find myself in, in Montana. But you know, as a person of color, I feel like it's important. And one of the things that I have appreciated being here is that my eyes have been opened up to think about equity very differently than if I had never lived in a place like Montana. And I think that's a good thing. I think that if folks were able to get away from their echo chambers, we might be having a different kind of conversation. So that's, that's sort of a little bit of the environment that that we are here in Montana. And then in terms of Headwaters, we're a new foundation. I was founding CEO, and so had an opportunity to really think critically about whether or not we were going to address the topic of equity. And to be honest with you, Sharon, I had concerns about doing equity work as a brown woman coming to Montana and leading with that. So we've had to work our way around it and bring in different concepts that allow us to have a space in which we can have difficult conversations on a lot of different topics, including equity. And that's really what we've been doing over the last, I would say, three, four years at Headwaters is really thinking about how do you work your way into this? Starting internally, and then thinking about how we're going to shift that work externally? And how do we meet communities where they're hot, because the other thing that, that we believe in is the notion of trust-based philanthropy and, and listening to communities and being respectful of where communities are, and not pushing things on on to communities, you know. And so it's it's a lot of balancing act, a lot of really trying to think about how can we address these issues without creating a knee jerk reaction back from the communities and the organizations that we work with. So that's a little bit about our context here at Headwaters, and in Montana. And I'd love to hear what your context is like.

 

Sharon 

So the thing we have in common, I think, is rural communities primarily, so context about the work of the Yakima Valley Community Foundation, our location, so we are located in central Washington and Washington State's a really large state, a lot of folks across the nation probably recognize that it's a very liberal state for the most part, but the population of that liberal body is what we call on the west side or across the mountain range. And it tends to be the things on the eastern side, or in Central Washington, much more conservative politically, really grounded in kind of an agricultural based old agricultural base communities. So Yakima Valley versus the Yakima County is the second largest county in the state, geographically, but has one of the smaller populations, we've got about 280,000 people in almost 3 million acres here. And what's kind of interesting is of that 3 million, over a million of those acres are actually owned by the 13 tribes and bands of the Yakima what are known as the Yakima Nation, and its protected tribal land a lot of it. And what we all share that's really super important is the the rivers that flow through here, the value of that water to both our egg industry, which is really the driver in our local economy, and even at a statewide level. But for fishing, and all kinds of things really important to us. This community, like many communities across the nation, has really been changing. And I think folks across the nation recognize there is a browning of America, right? It's just it is naturally occurring with all kinds of things. And it's just how we've grown more diverse. At one point a couple decades ago, we didn't look like a stark community. But right now, the last report was 63% of our folks identify as Hispanic Latinos. And, and that's really changed dynamics, we have a small percentage of Native Americans. And the dominant culture, the white dominant culture, still runs our egg businesses. But our farmworkers are incredibly essential to what goes on here. So we've got this really interesting disparity between kind of the working folks and the haves and have nots. And you can imagine, we're a philanthropic organization, we too are health care conversion foundation. So we have a corpus that came from that. But the additional gifts that have come to us have come from primarily our ag industry, and the folks who are leading that industry. So difficult conversations to have both in a political stance, but also in that those funder dynamics components.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, I hear a lot of similarities and differences in in your context, in my context. And this browning of America, I think, is something that we'll probably also see in Montana, beginning to see it even in the last five years. And I think the that the more that we can raise these issues in these communities, and be able to have conversations about it right now. I think the better we will be as a community really trying to work and have conversations that address issues of equity in Montana and Washington. So it was great to hear about the context. But one of the things that both you and I know is that any work that comes out of the foundation is informed and/or driven by the board. And the board has a big role in setting strategy, mission values for an organization. And this notion of equity has gotten really popular with philanthropy and I think all of us are trying to figure out how do we raise this internally? And how do we have these conversations with our board? And I'd be curious to hear how you have been navigating that complexity of having an equity conversation at your board.

 

Sharon 

Yeah, so, you know, the mission statement used to say that we really focused on those who were frequently or historically left out or left behind and that was maybe a softer way to say it in maybe a way that it does include folks with disabilities and a variety of other things. But it wasn't clear that we were talking about racial equity specifically. And several years ago, when I was hired the board actually asked for me to come up to speed with some thinking around that, and what it really meant and and did some self study went off, got educated in a variety of ways, really trying to understand what philanthropy was addressing and talking about, and then came back and we hired actually The Giving Practice, and another organization that helped lead our board and our staff through very long process for a year. So we had a really firm understanding of how this idea of race even got constructed in the United States or around the world. And what is it? What's its impact to us and in philanthropy, and that was really important. So I guess, one of the things that we kind of did is a level set. And with learning the same language, understanding it, understanding how different people perceive it, and how it's impacted folks historically, and then decided to be really deliberate about using the term racial equity, and describing that for folks specifically. And that's because you can't improve outcomes in communities, you actually can't unless you're going to address racial disparities in a community that's growing more diverse racially, that continues to be more and more important. So that's why our focus there. And I'd also like to share that, you know, our community's been a pilot project for many national funders as well now, because they see it in this space that we've, we've changed a lot. And we have these kinds of issues that many communities across this nation are facing or going to face. And if it can work here, maybe it can work elsewhere, educational models, media models, all kinds of stuff that are changing that we're needing to address differently. So that's really it. It was about the bottom line. It's about outcomes. And if you're going to do what philanthropies you know all about, which is improving the lives of others and creating positive outcomes, then we really did need to address racial disparities.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, we had a similar kind of approach in in our work. I think one of the things that I knew going into doing equity work at Headwaters was that I wasn't quite sure that we all understood what equity meant that we'd all share a definition, or that we'd understand what are the inequities that exist in our state? And how did those inequities come to be? So we actually started with a lot of time with our board learning about the history of colonialism. In Montana, the history of what lived experience has been particularly for our, our American Indian communities and understanding that so that we could have a deeper understanding of why it is that the the health inequities in particular that we are trying to address in our work exist in the first place, and also the role that those of us who come from sort of Western society have played in creating those inequities. And then I think out of that conversation, our board realize that we probably needed more perspective of diverse populations, than what we had at the time, and they made a commitment to really start to diversify the board. And as vacancies became available, we added more bipoc people, more young people, more people that are from outside of Missoula, which is a, you know, quote, unquote, liberal spot in Montana, and brought different perspectives. And that was great from a diversity perspective. But I think what we didn't pay attention to was that when you diversify a group of people, you actually begin to change the dynamics in the room. And if you continue to operate in traditional white dominant ways, there there comes tension and conflict and misunderstandings. And so we realized we needed to take a step back and just name the fact that we had changed who was at the table, and therefore we needed to change how we do our work, how we communicate, how we run our board meetings. In addition, we had to build relationships and trust, because some of the folks on our board who were come from bipoc communities don't didn't come into the board trusting sort of the original composition. There was concerns about, you know, is this a token position for me? Are they are they really serious about doing this equity work? And so there came a time for us to do a little bit of deeper introspection of individuals, deeper sharing, and building that relationship and creating that psychological safety that is needed to do this work. That took a while. I was surprised and we spent probably a year also working with The Giving Practice on on trying to build that psychological safety, build those relationships, and build a different kind of culture among the board, then more recently, now that we've sort of gotten past that, we began to now have a more explicit conversation about how our equity work starts to look going outwards, and also how we think about equity and institutionalizing it in everything that we do. And what is our role as a foundation? Is it modeling equity? Is it advocating for equity? Is it elevating equity, and those are the conversations we're having now. And I can remember when we were first having the conversation around equity with the board, and there was sort of a desire to have a statement put out, and I think many of us have seen Foundation's put out statements, and kind of what we didn't put one out there, because I don't think we would have been able to write the statement that we're currently writing, without having done all of the work of learning about colonialism, building that trust, building those relationships, and then really creating a different culture on the board. I think that's really positioned us a little bit better.

 

Sharon 

Yeah. So we followed a pretty similar path. And I was really hesitant to write an equity statement as well in the beginning. And for a couple reasons. Like you were in an environment where that is a big bold move. And lots of folks, including some of my staff, were saying, we've got to just really put a stake in the ground and, and throw this out there and see what happens. And it was one of those things that I looked at it from a different perspective, I come from, you know, a very large organizations where if you're going to make a claim, and you go out on social media, or the web or anywhere, it's like being naked out there, you've got to be living it. And we weren't, it was just a statement I mean it was more like a vision or we'd like to be there. But we weren't there, far from it. So we we did it in small steps. And we have finally gotten there, where it's something that we feel good about, we're standing behind. But this, this is an ongoing piece, it takes not just practice in language and practicing, looking at things from inside out changing policies, and all of those things. You know, it's ever changing the dynamics around it change all the time, as we learn new things and see how things are, are adapting and take taking shape. So we're going to share maybe just a little bit more, with a little bit more of our history as well. So our board started diversifying, and primarily because like I said before, looking at our community changing dynamics, it didn't make sense for a community foundation, a community by and for the community to not have representation by and from this community. And so there was a really big commitment about this board's going to look like our community looks now and doing our best to shape that and we have switched out. So more than 60% of our board are women, we're certainly now almost exactly like the dynamics of our community that you talked about with much more Hispanic representation. We've got actually a pretty wide array of folks from different lived experiences, age brackets, etc. And to your point, we had to figure out how do we work together, it's not about having diversity at the table. That's one small piece. But people need to feel like they're included and honored and have not just a right to be there but that their voice is meaningful and important. And just as important as anybody else at that table, we did set up kind of rules of engagement on the front end that everybody agreed to that was really important. And we practice that we put it on our agendas. And we orient new board members around that frequently. And things like you know, speak your truth responsibly. Don't take up all the airspace, you know, some really basic things when people like, oh, what does it mean? And at first, the old traditional model of running a board meeting that seems strange to do that, but it really helped because what it actually indicated was, things are going to be different. And that was helpful for folks to go, oh, they're they're really serious about this. And we asked one of our board members, who was pretty skilled in this already to be a guide. And if folks were really going down a path that wasn't, wasn't productive or wasn't following those ground rules to help call them back in. So that was helpful. Another thing that we've done as an inclusive practice as well. And this has taken a bit besides changing. We actually change policy governance and bylaws and everything around it and spent time those deep in the committees of the board worked on that. So they got it firsthand. But one of the things that I've loved in the last several months, we've been practicing, instead of Robert's Rules of Order, or something along those lines voting, which is power voting basically, since like a majority thing. So what's the majority going to do? That doesn't really take voice into account very often. So we do the fist to five rule, you know, either no, I'm a hard no or I'm all in go ahead and count. And it allows us to actually open that up for having a broader range of opinion other than yes, no. And then where do we need to have dialogue and to suddenly have experience around that that we can hear about. And that's been really interesting. And people have enjoyed practicing that. And at first, we had some pushback going, that seems silly, and it's not productive. And what happened is, it's been faster, way faster at the board meetings. And we can also see where there's alignment on different issues and topics, which has been enjoyable, because now they know, oh, gosh, this person kind of thinks about this the same way I do or had the same concerns. So it's also doing some trust around that stuff.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, I love some of those things, that you're sharing, Sharon. And we've done, we've done a few things that are similar, we have our board norms, we incorporate them into every board meeting, we always pick a norm keeper. And then at the end of the meeting, we have the norm keeper report on how we did against the norms, and where we maybe didn't meet the expectations of the norms. And that's been a great practice for our board. We also created an American Indian board committee, that is tasked with really lifting up Native American issues and helping the staff think about how we work more effectively with Native communities and with tribal communities in particular, and tribal government. And the and we've also done a lot of things around breaking the, you know, the white dominant Robert's Rules of Order. And so we always have a soul keeper. And that brings in sort of a different way to start the meeting. It's a poem, it's a painting, it's a reflection, whatever the person wants to do. Another thing that we've done is, we have really thought about creating different ways for people to hold power. So we've eliminated you know, the notion of an executive committee meeting and figuring everything out. And then, you know, driving it. And so everybody is part of all the conversations, we've done away with the executive session at our board meetings. And we have used a lot of interactive exercises to allow for people to participate in different ways, because we all have different ways of being. And it really is culture work, from my perspective, that is shifting the culture of the board with with centering equity at the middle of that, and that just means that you're going to do your your board work differently. And I would say it's far more relational. It's far more meaningful. And I think it's far more empowering, especially for the more diverse voices that have historically not been at the table to be at the table. And it's been uncomfortable for some of our board members to like, that's been hard, right? And I think it's made some people wonder, is this the right fit for me? Or what what do I need to change? Or what do I need to be open and curious about that maybe I haven't been because we've not operated this way on other boards that I've been part of. So that culture change, culture shift, I think is really important. And that's, that's the inclusion part, right? Like, it's great to diversify your boards. But if you don't do this work, then you're not really creating an inclusive culture. And if you don't have an inclusive culture, then you're never going to get to equity.

 

Sharon 

Yeah. There's also this piece about how do you hardwire it in your organization. So when the CEO leaves or the chairman of the board leaves, your chair of the board leaves, that this still stays in place. And that reminds me, so we one of the things we did. And I do think this was pretty bold. Our board chose to change our bylaws. And our bylaws actually have one, there's, you know how they usually in the bylaws like board members will have these things kind of motor these things in mind or serve this purpose. And ours actually say recognize lived experience as equally valuable and important. And the other one is, must be committed to the ongoing learning around equity and diversity. And that's one of the requirements of being a board member. And it's in our bylaws. So it's not going away. I mean, that's, you know, that's how we recruited. That's, you know, when you go to recruit someone, there's the bylaws, that's one of the very first things to show them. They're going to run away from that if they're not open to it at all. So we're not going to continue to a path where we have that rub.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, that's great. I think that's the piece that we're just beginning to explore. So this is maybe where our next conversation goes, Sharon is, well, how do you institutionalize this work? So it does live beyond the current people that are on the board and on the staff? And I think those are some great ideas and suggestions. I'm gonna go back and see if that's something we could do. We've also started to do that in all of our policies, right. So our hiring policies, how we pick consultants, just really kind of institutional spread of everything we do. Even in our investment portfolio, you know, how do we apply an equity lens to our investment portfolio so that it isn't just this, you know, we support organizations doing equity or the board is doing equity, but we are in everything we do we are centering equity. I think the other thing I want to say before I jump sorta to another issue that I want to talk with you about is the fact that equity in places like Montana, from my perspective needs to be even broader maybe then they are on in other areas. So for us when we think about equity, yes, racial equity is an important part of what we looked at and think about and trying to address in the work that we do. But the reality is that there are other communities that face significant inequities in in rural America. And predominantly, I'm talking about families, children and families that live below the poverty level, that have for a long time not had an equitable opportunity to engage in policymaking in gets funded in any of the other power conversations that happen in society. And so when we think about equity, when you think about it about racial equity, we think about economic equity. Right now, there have been groups of folks that have been targets in Montana, so the LGBTQ community, and then even the extreme kind of sexism, that that exists in states, like Montana is also something we think about, so and disabilities, right, we just grew, we just opened a building. And for us, we wanted to make it ADA accessible, because there aren't a lot of buildings in downtown Missoula. And so I just wanted to share that because I think that that's very different than what I hear other folks talk about when they're talking about doing work on equity.

 

Sharon 

Yeah, that's a, that's a really good piece, we have this, this is probably one of our strongest connections or similarities. That rural inequity piece has been huge. And during the pandemic that we experienced, it just came to light even stronger. So the lack of infrastructure for broadband, phone service, I mean, stuff that you just take for granted. But there's no transportation systems here. I mean, you know, if you don't have a working car in your family, you don't know how to mooch a ride off someone, there's, there's no Uber, that's going to come to pick you up 52 miles out in the country, which that's what we're talking about. There are so many families who the closest hospital is 50 miles away. I mean, that's a long way if you're delivering a baby or having an emergency or doing those kinds of things. And, you know, in our county, it's one in four families who live in even the outskirts of our, our larger city here, which is about 96,000 folks, one in four households is without a vehicle. I mean, that's a lot of folks, how do you get to school? What do you do, I mean, or work very, very, very challenging. And poverty level is, you know, we're definitely have that as a component as well, just low wages, essential jobs, for sure. But low wages, a variety of those things that go probably hand in hand with you got to work hard and make a living, put food on the table, take care of your family, which means you probably don't go to school very often, you know, this, it just this compounding factor. And I'll just share with you, when folks in a metropolitan city tried to address the homeless issue. There are a variety of resources that come into play. And we have over 2000 students that are homeless in our in our county 2000 students, and knowing where they're at or how to address that or help them. Because we have these little teeny communities spread all throughout, we don't know how to gather all those folks up or go out, send vans out to them to help bring them places and provide shelters in all those different small towns, it's really, really challenging.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, I often challenge some of my friends and family from urban areas, come visit me, come see what it's really like to live in these communities. It's very different on so many different fronts along the lines of what you shared. So the other thing I wanted to make sure we touched upon in this conversation is what does it take to do this work? When what does it take as as a leader, and a leader that's working in in, you know, more rural communities? Can you share a little bit with me around what has been your journey, as a leader trying to do this work in Washington, and in particular, as a white woman? I think it would be really interesting to hear that perspective.

 

Sharon 

Well, again, we're working in philanthropy. So I guess my personal bias is, if you don't have heart, you shouldn't be in this role. Because that's what philanthropy is about is it's about giving of yourself and giving of heart and caring for other human beings. So to me, it's not about just moving the money. And when I got to see up close and personal the issues that had impacted so many folks, including members of my own family that I hadn't understood before, that historically, how these decisions had been made in the systems had been set in place that intentionally or unintentionally left them out, I'll just say that because that's pretty controversial to say, but true, how it really, really negatively impacted them and left them with some pretty deep wounds. It pulled at my heartstrings and in a really deep way. So I felt super, super committed to be continuing to learn, continuing to advocate for not only my staff, but the grantees that we serve, the community that we serve, and the folks who I feel need to be at the table with us who need to be making those decisions. And we just kept hearing these stories about communities who had done some things I've you know, like, I'll give you an example. This is one of my favorite stories that in learning about this work, and you know, the difference between intent and impact. And we have this going on in our own community, a group of folks wanted to raise money and get and give bicycles to poor children. And that sounds wonderful. I remember, you know, I used to think, gosh, that is so cool. They're getting a free bike, until you actually hear that they were going to a playground, in a community. And this isn't our community, but in a community not very far from here, incredibly busy streets going to a playground, no parents there, the kids were playing after school, to drop off these bicycles, which the children had to, they may or may not know how to ride them for one, but they were given a bicycle by a group of white folks out of a van. That sounds interesting enough, but then to take that bicycle home, to a household that may be hungry, and a mom who or dad who's maybe not there in the after school hours to watch where this child rides its bike on a busy street, and the impact about what's going to happen when that poor mom has the decision, like, I could sell this bike and actually be able to, you know, pay my utility bill for the family this this month, or you know, those types of decisions. It was like, oh, my gosh, I bet that was never considered just because we just don't have the insight on it. Right? We just don't know how folks live like that until you know folks who live like that, and you get their shared and lived experiences from them. So I just kept thinking, I'm going to bring these stories forward, I'm going to, I'm going to tell the stories like this, and we'll have other folks tell these stories. And we have grantees talk to us. And then it became I don't want to be the white person in power. And I don't want my organization to be empowered just because we're the money holding the money as well. And in fact, we were moving to an entirely trust-based philanthropy model to address exactly this, where we have relationships and community where people come to us in hopefully, and honest relationships and say, these are our challenges. Here's what we need, if we can address that we will we don't ask for detailed written reports, the burden is on us to go out and ask questions, to get to know them to learn more about them. And we hope in time that we're incredibly responsive, and what we hear from both our grantees, and even on a broader scale from even our county officials is oh my gosh, how have you guys been doing this work? During the pandemic, we pivoted quickly and we became this really incredible resource for our community. It was heartwarming. So that is, I feel like we are doing our work better, deeper and a more efficient and effective way than we ever have been before. Because we did move forward with this. So for me, those small rewards and wins kept me motivated to keep going. And so far, you know, I have a couple folks who have challenged it before. But I'm like, you know, when one of the big challenges, and I've heard this from some of my colleagues in the field, oh my gosh, but aren't your funders gonna drop away when you start using that language and do those terms and I'm, like, really interesting. Ours did exactly the opposite. We went from a couple of million dollars a year in contributions to the last few years, six, seven $8 million in contributions just in for a community foundation our size, that's phenomenal. So I think it's because it is making an impact, and it's resonating well.

 

Brenda 

One thing that I'm curious about Sharon is what do you think are the strengths of being a white person doing this work? And what do you think are the challenges?

 

Sharon 

Oh, good question. Ah, well, I mean, I'll be super candid, you know, some folks have probably heard that term white fragility, you got to, you really do have to check your ego, if you will, or your feeling sometimes and let other folks speak when, you know, I've been in leadership roles for very long time. And I'm used to sharing an opinion and speaking up and hey, let's keep things going. And really having to practice that. And I think that's when I say that as, as the white person in the room. And many times now, I will be the only white person in the room many, many times now. And it's knowing that it's not my time to talk. You know, there will be a time and if I'm asked to sure, but I want to hear what other folks are having to say and I want to recognize and know that they think their voice is just as valid as mine, if not more. And I'd say from white peers. It's interesting. So far, it's gone fairly well, I don't get a, I really did think when we started this journey, I really did think I'd have a lot more folks going, what are you doing? You know, we're like, why are you doing this? Or you've changed and not at all? Not at all. And I do recognize, and I just want to say that, Brenda, I recognize that is such a completely different burden I have than what you must feel or the responsibility of that my staff who a large portion of them are Latinas. When they're in the room, and they're one of the few people of color in the room, I can see that that burden, it's, it's difficult. So we do a lot of work internally, to empower them to talk and be a confidant, anything goes, tell me anything, provide any feedback, and they can come to me with tough things to say. And I think that's part of it, you got to be super open, and super flexible and adaptive, and bite your tongue. Lots of times. And just don't be too fragile. I guess just you know, that's what I'd say.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, thanks for, for being so candid. And sharing that I think it's always important to hear different people's perspective, because we operate so much in our brain, I think, our own head and helpful to hear and have a little bit of empathy for people who have just a different experience simply by who we are. One of the things that I've experienced in a variety of different settings along this is sometimes the weaponization of race, by bipoc communities, and in ways that sometimes is not helpful. And sometimes I'm looking at my white allies going, okay, so don't be so fragile that you can't step in and call somebody out when they're acting inappropriately, because bipoc people can act inappropriately too, but simply because it's a bipoc person, it sort of seems like gets let go, because people are afraid that oh, if I say anything, then I then something, you know, I may be perceived as racist. And so I always remind my, my white allies, like, please, if you see something that's inappropriate, regardless of who says it, don't just sit back. Because I think that that can also be very challenging. And I appreciate all the work that you're doing, especially for your your colleagues that you that have a different experience than you and I can, I can really resonate with that as as a as a woman of color. You know, I came into philanthropy over 20 years ago, and philanthropy was not diverse 20 years ago, not the way it is today, we still have a lot of a lot of ways to improve. But it's definitely far more diverse. And we're talking about these issues. But when I first came in, I was often the youngest I was often one of a handful of females, and almost always the only bipoc person in the room. And that was a lot of times intimidating. And I learned very quickly that I had to work twice as hard as everybody else in order to be heard in order to be taken seriously. And that was just sort of the nature of what I did. And I also learned very quickly that if you play the game of what expected behaviors were in a white dominant world, you could get successful. I think that's why I got to the seat that I'm in right now, quite honestly. But I think now that I'm older, and I can look back on my career, I realized that the damage that I did to myself, and that the system did to me in not allowing me to be who I wanted or needed to be. And then I was stepping into this false world and, you know, on a code switching all of the time. And I think it isn't until now that I'm realizing, wow, that was not great. And so it's been something that I've been reflecting on a lot and I constantly check myself, am I am I behaving like the good little Brenda that follows all the rules and does everything that I was taught in my career and in my education? Or can I authentically be the little Brenda that was brown immigrant child that navigating the world very differently than then other folks that have more privileged than I did. So it's a kind of exciting time for me to be a leader at this particular moment, because it's very different than when I started in philanthropy. And then the other thing that has been really hard for me is sort of this, like call it a dichotomy. I don't know if it's a dichotomy, but this challenge that I constantly face of on a personal level, feeling like we should be fighting for racial equity all of the time. And and it should, you know, that should be the number one thing, but as the CEO of a foundation in Montana, realizing, I gotta think about that context that we talked about with the beginning. And I can't I can't get ahead of my communities. I can't get ahead of our grantees. I can't get ahead of the board and so I often feel like I'm not, I'm not doing what I think maybe I should do. And I sometimes feel like maybe other people see me as a sellout, because I'm not pushing hard enough, and you know, you're a brown woman, you should be doing this. And at the same time, I'm the CEO, and I can't be doing it in a way that that that some folks want me to. So it's a really kind of hard place to be in. And I don't know that I have any advice on it, other than to just name it, and I think be aware of it. And I hear it from other CEO females, CEOs of color in philanthropy that it's a hard place to be and, and a lot of bait and switch kind of situation that happened where, you know, a board wants to diversify. And so they go out and hire a person of color. And then when the person in color comes on board, and starts doing that equity work they're like, oh, wait a minute, we didn't think that that's what we were gonna do. And so there's the there's a lot of sort of clashing between CEOs and boards over this lack, again, I think, pretty, pretty complicated really fast.

 

Sharon 

Yeah, I've heard that from other colleagues in the field as well. So one of the things that's kind of interesting I'm gonna maybe take it back to something you said earlier, which is, so I grew up in, you know, the world, I've been a healthcare executive and working in higher education, both predominantly in, I would say, mostly men's world in leadership roles, and have had to fight really hard to be in that space. And frequently, one of the only women at the table in a boardroom, or an executive leadership council and things like for a female, and I am and it's not because only females are emotional or not, but I have a big heart, and I can get very emotional about some things. And that was something I had to put that aside, you don't do those things in a corporate world, and you shove those things down. It's interesting. Now in philanthropy, what I what I said previously, you know, working in heart space, and I get to be humble, I get to have tears when I need to, when I'm engaging with someone that I actually have a huge heart for, something's going on, including one of my staff, maybe in a hard time, it's okay to be completely human, and, you know, show a tear and, and be human, you know, in that space again, and that's one of things I I've loved being in this world of philanthropy that's changed. And I think that's changed a lot in the last few years as well, that people feel humanities come through in so many different ways. There's what much more when we come together in these large meetings and stuff, people hug each other and haven't seen each other for a long time. And I love all of those components. But I was gonna say one of the things and you said, you're asking your or maybe telling your white allies to do a call out if they think someone's not saying somebody or some some said something incorrectly, but I want to share with you had exactly the opposite experience, which is, you know, a group of us working with the woman, a white woman, in a leadership role, said,gosh, I'm in this room with all these folks and the facilitator keeps passing me up, and going to all the Latinas in the room, and then never gets back to me. And it's like, my voice isn't heard. And I'm feeling really offended by that. And I recognize that. And it for her it was, she didn't look at it in any other dynamics than the power dynamics in the room, in terms of position that I have a right to have a voice here, she may have, and was really offended by that. And she's also a friend and a colleague and I, as I shared, said, imagine, I know that she came from a similar background to me, she'd had, you know, she was a tenacious, feminist and really worked hard to be in her career where she's at owning a business and doing those kinds of things. And it was really put out by that. And I said, okay, now think about this, in that room, mostly women, all of them were women of color, but you can you imagine the extra layer of that, plus, I said, so not only have they worked hard to be in a corporate world space at all, and even in the space we were in, but then for a woman to male perspective in the world, in this white dominant cultural world, add a layer of color onto that, and no inclusion of their culture or any of those things, but still operating by these very traditional old school rules. And and there's like, oh, God, I said, so I'm not calling out the facilitator, if you want to do a one on one and explain that, you know, hurt your feelings, and here's why you're welcome to, but what I'm gonna guess the pushback might be is like, oh, okay, so you know, kind of deal with it. That's just like, that's just how it is so, right or wrong, it's sometimes those are not easy situations. But we're going to bump into these things more and more.

 

Brenda 

Yeah, I know, I thank you for sharing that because I think that that's a great example of where someone's feelings are sort of at the center of a conversation and how hard it is to be in that space, you know, like workspaces aren't set up to engage in that feeling space. And I think that the more that we can, again, begin to operate from a place of seeing everybody's humanity allowing everybody to bring their whole selves. Really dismantling the white dominant colonial structures that have been part of the way that we do our work that are part of what we do. And you mentioned that you're you've made a commitment to become a trust-based foundation. That's something that we've done in Headwaters to win, we've done it with the idea that trust based philanthropy isn't only about the grantmaking practices, it's really about creating a culture that's steeped in values of power sharing, and equity, and transparency and humility. On this, I believe, if we can, as a field, move all of our organizations in that direction across culture and leadership, on processes, and practice, we could actually achieve more alchemy. But the other thing that's you know, I was trying to share when I'm talking to groups is that I think a lot of us kid ourselves that we're doing equity work. And I often say, I'm not sure that foundations are doing equity, I think we're supporting, we're how we're partnering, we're funding equity work, but we're not really doing the on the ground in the street level kind of equity work that many of the organizations we funded are doing. I think we have to remember that. And I also think that one of the things we don't always do is flip the lens on ourselves, or reoperating in the world, in white, nominate colonial structures. And and so we might be supporting all those equity work, but are we actually doing the work in an equitable manner. And that's what trust-based philanthropy is about. So it's kind of cool that that you've moved in that direction, and that so many of us are sort of joining you in that shifting the culture and practices in philanthropy.

 

Sharon 

Wonderful. So I think there's one more thing, you know, if we're going to leave this conversation, before we leave this conversation, we just keep talking about, you know, kind of what's the journey and the challenges. And it would be this this last and final question, what one sentence would describe or what would you tell other leaders in this field to work with their board and move the organization forward in this path? What would that be?

 

Brenda 

Well, I thought of lots of different things, Sharon, I could say, because we've covered a variety of different topics. But I think for me, it's something that I've said throughout our conversation, which is, can we really focus on working to see the humanity in everybody? I think if we did that, whether it's at our work, in our foundations, in the community, across the nation, I think we might be having a different kind of conversation, and we might begin to bend, the arc of injustice that has been at the core of so much of hurting among communities that have been disadvantaged in the power table, how about you Sharon?

 

Sharon 

Probably a very long sentence. So I probably, if I were going to share it, especially someone who was fearful, and thought it was going to be really challenging, or it had been really challenging up to this point to have these conversations and not know where they were gonna go. And I thought about, Gosh, what language would would not make people run away from it, but would actually bring them to the table. And I think that's what we're talking about. So I would just say, just keep asking and talking about the desired outcomes and explaining that racial disparities have to be addressed to improve outcomes for all of us, for everyone. And that that's just not possible without addressing those racial disparities or disparities at all. And then how do you address racial disparities? Because it's kind of two part, you've got to have the knowledge of the people that lived experience at the decision making table with us to really, really know and understand how our well intended programs and funding are going to impact them and not negatively harm them further. So I just, and I think if we frame it like that, and position that it's overtime tada light bulb goes on. It's like, yeah, you're right. You're just going to continue to kind of throw money at an issue. And really never even knowing if that's making the impact that you want it to unless the right folks are at the table, helping design those solutions with your or giving you the ideas around out and telling you what that's that impact might be.

 

Brenda 

I love that Sharon and I've so appreciated having this conversation with you too. I hope it's it's the first of many, because I know that this is a journey. Yes. And the little destination and that we can continue to share and learn from each other.

 

Sharon 

I agree.

 

Nancy (Host)

What an important discussion on equity in rural communities. Thank you so much, Sharon, and Brenda for sharing your reflections, offering examples of equity centered board practices and for reminding us to see each other's humanities. You can find more information on this episode including guests bios, show notes and additional resources at thegivingpractice.org. And if you have a topic that you think philanthropy should be talking about more, let us know by emailing hello@thegivingpractice.org. This podcast was written and produced by Aya Tsuruta and Emily Daman with audio engineering and editing support by Podfly and graphic design by Asha Hossain. A special thanks to our Philanthropy Northwest and Giving Practice teams for their thought partnership, the Ford Foundation for making this project possible and Dacia Clay for their audio engineering support. I'm Nancy Sanabria and we'll see you next time.