Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.
So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Becky, oh my gosh, are you so excited right now?
Yeah, you know what my professional goal is, it's like at the bottom of all my bios that I just want to sit at the feet of a stranger and hear their story. And hold on to your butt's community because this is going to be a story today from our new friend Maria Henry. She is the founder and CEO of freedom lifted, she is also a podcast host over at the shared power podcast, we are definitely going to link that up because we want you to go check that out. And today, we're really going to be talking about the roles that equity, power and justice play in creating deeply trusting and sustainable teams and orgs. And we have had a core value and a trend this year that trust based leadership is the future of our industry. And today we are going to be diving straight into that into one of my favorite core values, which is how we can uplift justice and equity but little bit about me. She's got this incredible company, and I mean, y'all, we gotta go check out freedom lifted. It's supporting justice centered leadership development, through online learning, training and coaching. She's been doing this for more than 20 years through group facilitation, intergenerational community organizing, and through history education. And let me just tell you why I think this conversation is going to be so interesting. Mia was born and raised in the US Deep South. She is the daughter of civil rights activist, her mother, Mia, what is your mother's name, Regina Henry, her mother desegregated her junior high school in Alabama in the 1960s. And so Mia just grew up learning about civil rights history, not only in school, but on the front line from her parents and extended family in Alabama. And so we are going to talk about this incredible justice centered leadership development. She's worked with directly 9000 plus people who are dedicated to making their organizations more just an equitable, and this common thread that Mia sees with people who gives their time energy and passion to this work, is their frustration with their lack of progress. If that is you, you are in the right place. And she is committed to changing that we are going to dive in Mia Welcome to the We Are For Good podcast, we are absolutely thrilled you're here.
Thank you so much, Becky, and John, I am so excited to be here. And you all made me sound so good. I'm, I'm floating on air right now. So thank you,
I think I just think like what an honor, it is truly to sit at your feet and just learn from you get your lived experience. And that's really where we want to start we want to know about little Mia, like growing up and having this purview in this lens from where your parents were just being incredibly brave changemakers standing up and being the change they want to see in the world. Talk to us about how that really informed your life and where it led you to today.
You know, thank you so much for honoring my parents and my family. And naming my mother. This is something I usually do actually, when I introduce myself as say that I'm the daughter of Regina Henry and Booker T. Henry, who was my father who joined the ancestors 12 years ago now. And I, you know, I dedicate all of my work to them. I start my videos with dedications to them, I start when I talk to groups and do facilitation work, bringing them into the room is so important. And they of course represent a long line of ancestors, right, of people who survived Jim Crow, sharecropping, enslavement, right in this country. So I don't take it lightly. The line from which I come. And I understand that all of this work is is part of a continuum. So I have this responsibility, right to build on the freedoms that they were able to ensure, of course, our work is not done yet. They know that it's not done yet. Right. And I have, I have also a responsibility to create a foundation for future work, right. So I'm in the part of the continuum. And yeah, I truly believe and I asked people actually when we close our trainings together to think about who they dedicate their work to as well, because it's so important, I think to ground ourselves holes in memories of resistance, and memories of the work that people have done to get us into a place where we can access technology and create and be innovative and try new things today, right? So many times we get frustrated because there's so much to do. And we feel like I hear this a lot and injustice work and equity work and civil rights work. We haven't had any progress, nothing's been done. Like they'll we'll see. You know, things like affirmative action and, and the attacks on D I will see these things and completely get frustrated and erase all of the the important and incredible work that people have done. And the way they put their lives and their voices and their their their livelihoods right on the line. We erase all of that. So I think it's so important to, to ground ourselves in that before we start in a conversation about the future really, that used to be our tagline actually freedom lifted. When we started doing civil rights tours. That's how that's how my firm began, was doing civil rights tours to Alabama, where I'm from, and to Mississippi and Memphis. And our tagline was learned the past build a future. So thank you for starting there. You know, before we began talking about, you know, current issues and future possibilities, so important. But yeah, so little me that's, that's what I was, I was raised to believe that and think that way too. And I'm so fortunate that my parents, particularly in my mom, but my father did, too, we're strong enough and healed enough to tell the stories of their own struggles, because not everyone can do that. Right. I heard the other day. You know, it's We must tell stories from our scabs. I think not our wounds. Have you heard that before? You know, that when we're in it, it's very, you know, it's very difficult, and we shouldn't maybe even try to start figuring out what the lessons are. But once we've, we've had some healing. We can we can tell those stories. And so my my parents, and the other elders that we always brought into our work, whether it be organizing work we brought, you know, when we started our one of the nonprofits I led was a Chicago Freedom School. It was patterned after freedom schools in from the civil rights movement, in particular, in Mississippi. And it was a youth development nonprofit. And we always had elders, and people who've been around for a while coming in and sitting with the young people to talk to talk about issues of today in historical context, right? So yeah, that's just it's it's so key. And I think little Mia, absolutely benefited from also sitting at the feet of elders, but also witnessing the bravery of telling our stories. And so vulnerability, bringing vulnerability into nonprofit leadership was like a no brainer. For me, the whole reason why was it was, you know, it's just a structure to hold the work I feel called to do. That's what nonprofit is right? Or was for me, I am now supporting nonprofits and not running one. But the ones that I have been able to be part of leadership or simply, you know, the ways that we were able to, or the ways that I was able to do what I was called to do and taught to do, because it is both
me I get to unity.
And no, we just like you so much. And I think the way that you've tone set into this conversation, I'm excited to spend this time together. Because I also hear a value that I'm feeling connection to this, of just playing the long game, something we talk about when you're honoring your ancestors, when you're honoring the process that's gotten us here, it's the acknowledgement, you're also making decisions that you're absolved, or you're you're okay with the fact that everything's not going to be fixed today. But you're that you're not going to give up because of that. And so I think this work around equity and justice, and these deep seated things that are not going to be quick fixes, they're going to take a lot of work, you just have to have that mindset. And so I think your tone setting was so beautiful with that. So I want to I want to lead into this conversation, because I want you to catch us up with where freedom lifted came in. But before it can we kind of tone set of like, let's talk about really the difference because this conversation is going to be a little bit different than some of the DI conversations we've had. What is like really the piece that you want to talk about separately here, that it's moving from dei to like, what is this equity and justice conversation look like in our organizations and how can we lift it?
I spend a lot of time teasing that out for both myself and others because I come from a background where I was working in nonprofits that were explicitly working to advance justice, right? Not they weren't advocacy places because we can't do that and nonprofit right as far as political ads. accuracy. But there were people advocacy. You know, they were, they were spaces that we weren't even, we would never think that di would be a training that we would get or work with a DI consultant, because that's we were doing the work. You know, and this was a while ago when I started working in nonprofits as again more than 20 years ago. So the landscape has certainly changed. But I think it's so important now in our current work, because I have to situate freedom lifted in the DEI world for people to, you know, just even find us. But we're not the AI in this in this traditional way. And I know that there are great people out there doing di work. It's a it's a broad range of, of quality and content, I know that I see us at the edge of that work, and really talking about what justice and equity looks like, because that's the background that I have, and what having a justice and analysis and an equity lens, right. And both of those things, how they, how they're different from diversity and inclusion, in particular, if we just take the words, right. Diversity, I've always felt like was just the initial step, just baseline work, right to diversify. It's it's can be, it can be easy to measure hard to maintain, though, if we're just thinking about and I always say we're just, you know, bringing new faces, sometimes bringing new faces into broken places, right? Like it was just about getting new people are not thinking about why they hadn't been part of that community in the first place. Right. So it was a historical, and it's also short sighted, we're not necessarily thinking about with diversity initiatives, not necessarily thinking about what supports people with need, and how they, if they have power in our organization to would change the the culture of those organizations. And then inclusion assumes that the environment and the conditions that we're bringing people in are desirable. It's not really taking time to reflect on again, why people weren't here in the first place. And is this even going to be a good space for them? Based on how we've set it up on our own cultural values, it really takes some self reflection on why we do things the way we do, why we are set up the way we are set up. And I'm going to take an example. That is, you know, normally people think about this, they are thinking about race and thinking about gender, I'm going to take the example of age. Because, again, even though we didn't think we needed equity initiatives in our social justice, nonprofit, we did have to look at equity based on age because we were defining ourselves as an intergenerational organizing, nonprofit community organizing nonprofit. So we wanted young people when I say young people, I'm talking about teenagers right? On the board, we wanted to make sure young people were part of the leadership structure. But we hadn't thought about when we hold our meetings during the school year, school day, how we hold our meetings, what does it look like for for, you know, implicit bias against young people, right? Or just, you know, these ideas of young people should be seen and not heard? How does that actually show up in the way we we host our meetings. So that was that was work that we needed to do. That inclusion, in and of itself does not always address right, the inner work that we need to do. So I like talking about equity and justice, primarily, because I think that that's what is best, the best defines the our approach. But particularly because equity, when we talk about equity, we have to talk about power. We have to talk about history, because we're trying to eliminate disparities, right? So in order to even define disparities, we have to figure out where they come from. And then for me, Justice also requires that we look at history, and not just the injustice. But also, again, what I alluded to earlier is the resistance, right? How people have fought for justice, because that is those are the learnings and the lessons that inform the frameworks of moving forward today, you know, so in, in our training work, we have this resistance module. And I use an example from the National Civil Rights Museum and Memphis where Dr. King was killed a few years ago, they did a renovation and that so before you go into the main part of the museum and us have the chronology of the civil rights, high watermark moments, right, you go and you watch a film on Civil War and the failures or reconstruction and before you even go in there and your waiting room, there is just learning spaces around what life was like for black people during enslavement, right, which is hundreds of years so it's a lot to cover in one room. But what I really appreciate that they do there is they have one law when They talked talked about how black people resisted while enslaved. And they break it down in six different ways escape revolt, petition and protest, achievement and success, community building, and defiance. And I know you all as people who you know, know the value of community building, really understanding this as a form of resistance, right? Holding on to each other, to our traditions to the things that that oppression and that restriction of power has tried to erase, right? Because oppression thrives on keeping people apart. So just by the work of staying together, we're resisting. And going back to all six of those things, I walk organizations through how to recognize this in their own communities, like the people they serve, how do they see them resisting? How do they honor and support them in resistance, right. And then, of course, the work of solidarity is starts with supporting resistance, and then doing our own work from the personal to the institutional level of dismantling the systems of oppression, and addressing the imbalance of power. Right? And seeing power, this is huge for us, right, seeing power as abundant, and not scarce. Right. And a lot of times that social good organizations in the communities do they are fighting for more power for their people in community. And we struggle with figuring out how to do it internally.
Yeah. Oh, no kidding. And I just feel like the way you're approaching this conversation is so warm, and generative, and, and it it feels so abundant. And I have to say, though, the word resistance, I would not have even thought that word would be so absolutely perfect for this conversation. But it is. And you talk about abundance, and this is nonprofit is a sector of scarcity, from resources, from power from just hierarchy from every level, we all can identify with that. And if you are someone who has ever looked around and said, Why are we doing things the way that we are, if you have ever taken a step to one wine, that you are a part of resistance, and I think that it's healthy. I want to say that right now, because I feel like so much of this has become political, which I mean, this is human work. This is how we give human beings agency and peace and thrive ability. And it's going to require us to talk about hard stuff, it's going to require us to work through very hard stuff internally within each of us and challenge us. And I mean, I know when I say we keep throwing out trends from this year, but one of our big trends was also how do we lean into being a change agent. And that is a form also of resistance of speaking up and building a world where everybody has enough where there's a space at our table for everyone. That's why this microphone is on. And I want to give some context for anyone who may be new to the we're for good community, you know, we have core values, we have pillars that we wrap things around, but we never put DNI any justice work in a pillar because we felt like it needed to be the bedrock, it needed to be baked into everything. So I thank you so much for these conversations, because one of the most repeated phrases I hear from our community is I believe so deeply in this work, but I cannot get my leadership on board in there are many organizations who want to advance justice and equity. But they're suffering from these crises in leadership. And I would love for you to share more about what you've seen, and how even freedom lifted comes in and provides even training or ally ship and that form and give, give our young listeners some hope, who really want this equity and justice baked into the places that they work.
When we are working with organizations. Sometimes it will be leadership that will bring us in, and then they see what we're doing. And they're like, we're not ready for that. Or maybe we should just have a conversation amongst us and not the whole staff yet. Right. Yeah, it
was just a great first step. And Bravo if you're doing that, it can be a
great first step. And I think, you know, there's always a concerns around transparency and what our leader what is leadership up to and that type of thing. So we do try to create an experience that we can tailor for people regardless of so that there's shared language across the organization around justice and equity. Right? There's we understand what what how we talk about power, which again, in an abundant way for everyone, and we talk about it, and as far as how our personal experiences are all the way up to our policies and stuff. ruptures. So there's pathways and entry points for everyone regardless of their role into our training. And we want to make sure that they are having an experience together, both regardless of where they are in that hierarchy. Because we see that built trust, people in the organization want to see leadership in the same training that they are in, they may not want to be in a small group with them. But they do want to see that they are they are committed to learning and growing in the same way, they're asking their staff to do it. Yeah, that's powerful. So I we really do like for our education work to be something that everyone in the organization can ask. But there's this absolute crisis of leadership. I mean, I remember when I was an executive director, I remember this so well, because it was such a struggle. You know, the board had asked me to lay out what my responsibilities were, like we were do we were founder, you know, as a founder, founder, director, he was, you know, administration and operations, right. It was like five categories, administration operations, fundraising, programming, supervision, and board development, of course, right? board work. And so there was five categories. And I was supposed to add my, you know, when I was being evaluated, and everything I was supposed to talk about, like, what percentage of time was spent, you know, each of those things, it's just hilarious for me to think about it again, because there's no one who's ever led nonprofit who can actually say that they weren't trying, you know, doing all 100% of all those things, 110%, everything, everything, everything. But this, that was 20 years ago, and now that there's unprecedented challenges at that time, I felt like fundraising was absolutely my biggest challenge. Right? It was my biggest learning edge. And I find that that's true for a lot of newer nonprofit leaders, for sure. And it was the landscape is always changing. And the the, the the things that philanthropy is cares about is always is always changing. So I felt like there was the floor was always moving there. And compared compared to the other things, because I love people and supporting people, the supervision was difficult, but it was it was challenging, but it wasn't my hardest thing. Fundraising was the hardest thing. And a little bit of board development, for sure. Programming I could have done all day. All this things. Today, though, there are unprecedented challenges in all of those areas, you know, for for programming and service oriented organizations, I mean, that there's a crisis in so many there's the environmental crises, there's mental health crises, there's housing crisis, like the world is much imminent, you know, it's probably always on fire. But it is much more on fire today with this like low hum backdrop of, you know, pandemic and war, there's no, you know, that the need of a community is it's difficult to even create boundaries around what you should do and what you shouldn't do for communities, because there's so much need. So I think that's, you know, that's difficult for folks, even admin and operations with the advent of so much technology. I love it. I'm always embracing it. But it's difficult to learn new technologies to even manage our nonprofits, right? board development is more difficult because there's more movement in boards than ever, people are leaving much quicker and much less loyalty, right? In the boards. And when we think about to supervision, with the advent of remote work, the mental health crises that affect our staff the need for paying competitive wages. Now, every single one of those areas is very, it's on it's on 10, right? Yeah, the challenge is it's whelmed easy to get overwhelmed. And it's easy to sit in a place of fear and isolation for leaders versus hope and possibility. Right. And so that's, I feel like we have a crisis, because it's difficult to keep people in leadership. Now with these things, and it makes sense. It's a lot, we see you, we see you. And that's why, you know, I want people to embrace this power and this more abundant way. And this idea of you aren't, you should not be no one should be leading an organization alone. And I work with a lot of people. A lot of organizations that are experimenting with collective leadership, co directorships, where I shared leadership in that way too. And even still, there's, there's too much for any one or two or three people to take on themselves. So what does it look like for leadership to be more open and bringing people in to the processes that are necessary for running that this whole organization?
And I know I mean, I can just Are you everyone listening feels very seen as you kind of described that because I do think there's like a lot of tensions being managed at the same time all the time. And, and I do think though there's an unlock here. And there's clearly an unlock of what this would do for retention, if the trust levels go up, because there's trust is the bedrock of so much of not just how we're attracting and keeping donors but how we're growing our teams and how we work together better as teams that power of trust. But I'm gonna talk about power, because you kind of teed us into this, and you were a power player on this, such a dad joke, but I just feel like this is where we want to go with this conversation is, there's so much impact in the power dynamics that organizations have in our, in the culture within the organization, which we talk about all the time is a magnet to the type of people that surround their organizations to so how can you know break this down for us? How does power really factor into creating adjust workplace,
we always like to start with three questions around power. Oftentimes, when we're thinking about power, and we're talking about power dynamics, we are moving to where how power is used. But we'd like to back up a little bit and just talk about what is power? What is social power? What do we have when we have social power? For us? Like if I asked you both that question, what would you say? What do you have when you have social power? Whether it's through position, or identity? or what have you? What do you have?
I mean, I think everybody has some level of power that they can bring to it, whether it's with your position, whether it's with your socioeconomic status, whether it's with the your gender, or your race, or really anything, I just think that power comes in so many different forms. I don't know how you would define that John.
I was thinking like influence or ability, perceived ability to make change, or to kind of carve the path etc. Maybe just be positionally, even if you don't have the support of people per se, even like self
awareness is how much are you willing to give up some of your own power for someone else and to share whatever you have feels like a really something that would be needed desperately in this conversation.
Yeah. Yeah. And that what both of y'all are hitting on are both the use of power, right? Like, what are you? How are you using it, and how you gain it. So Becky, the things you were saying of like the kind of identity markers and positions that give us power? Right? And then John, what you are saying and the influence, the ability to do that's like the textbook definition of power, right is the ability to do and I love to even backup even more, what gives us the ability to do? And so when I asked this question of so many people over the years, we can't come up with a list. Resources, right? Yeah. So not just money in capital, but also space, right? connections of people. Visibility, when we have power where we're seeing, right, so all of those things, you named Becky, those identity markers, what do they give those folks, depending on how they identify, they give them a certain level of visibility, right or invincibility. They dictate that we are heard, right? What we say matters, what we say is part of that, you know, to in decisions that impact our own lives, that those are things that we are able to influence those things, right, we are heard, we have choices. Right? When you have power, you have choices, you have choices on how you react and how you show up in a room and how you will, you know, deploy the power. And you have and you have safety. Right, you're safe. Right? When we have power. There's a lot of other things we talked about benefit of doubt, representations, a lot of things but if we just took those five things, we have power, we have resources, visibility, voice, safety and choices, right? I'm always telling nonprofits to look at that at every level. How are you ensuring that the people you serve are seen heard, resourced? Have some self determination and choices and safe? Right? It especially considering the historical systems that have denied them those things? So when they have identities that have they've been systemically denied those things? How are you restoring right, their ability to have those things, that's what it means to bring power to people to bring power all people now with the power that we have, just like you said, we all have some level of that just being just living in the United States gives us Yeah, some level of that, right. And so and then there's all these other intersectional things that we have that compile our levels of power, race, gender, age, all of those things. So there's always like we're always looking at for me as a person who identifies as a person without disabilities. That gives me power right? What am I doing with it though? What am I doing with it? I have a choice. I have a choice either use the visibility, the voice the ease that comes up a lot the safety See that I have to bring more of that to the people around me to ensure that people who do have disabilities have access to the spaces and places and the education and the and the work that they deserve, right. Or I can use my power to restrict that. So first, I have to acknowledge that I have those things, right. And just and not just look at myself singularly as identify as a black, you know, cisgender woman, that just saying, okay, for some of the Black and I'm a woman, I can't do anything. That's not true. First of all, as we've talked about, we open the story. Black people have worked and come together and create a collective power in this country. Right. And I have benefited from collective power that black people have built and changed, you know, just even public segregation, for example, I mean, I wouldn't even be here talking to you right now. Right? Had it had it not been for black people building power? So there's collective power that comes as well, we can we can gain power in so many different ways. But our choices to use it right, are our choices to use it. And so I hope that makes sense that we have to identify and see where we have those five things. And then we have to figure out what are the ways that we use it to bring power to people on our staff, to people in our communities, to other colleagues, obviously, in nonprofits and their relationship with philanthropy. There's always like, again, that power dynamic and, you know, funders, those funders that are being reflective, and are thinking about the power that they've had and the historical power that they have. And thinking about how to use that in different ways, is a great example of saying like, how, what does it look like to share more power with nonprofits in particular, nonprofits run by people of color? And you know, struggling nonprofits in, in in communities in low social and economic communities? What does it look like to invest in those in ways that we have not in the past? Those are the questions that philanthropy can ask, right? What are we doing for Latinos, they have the resources to have the visibility, they have the voice, they have a lot of safety, a lot of protection, right? What does it look like for them to put that on the line? For organizations, groups, nonprofits that have been denied that? It's always to me? It's just It's always that question, regardless, what is power? How can we gain it? And how can we use it? And regardless of how we gain it, if you have it through privilege, which I was called unearned benefits, right? Yep, you still have a choice of how you're going to use that. That power, and there are people with privilege who have used it to work for liberation. And there are people and when I work with a lot of organizations that are all people of color, and all, you know, organizations that are doing deep social change and movement work. And they can have oppressive systems happen within their organizations, as you can build collective power. And still, because of the way we've been socialized, see it as scarce and not want to share or have, you know, relationship dynamics happening within the within the communities and within the organizations. So to me, a power conversation and a routing and justice and equity helps us go go deeper than di, which a lot of times people see as like work for white people, I'm just gonna be honest.
Yeah, totally. That's what they say.
And that, and that's why it's being attacked, to be honest, because it's best best the vulnerability of the work that lets it be attacked, because it's seen as aimed at White people. If we're expected to do it, let's do it to get people off our back. If we're not expected to do it, let's not because then we're gonna bring a whole lot of attention to ourselves that we don't want to bring, right. So it just becomes this very surface way of addressing deep historical issues, right, that everyone is struggling with not just white people. Right? There are issues around power, and there's issues around equity, right? In every organization, regardless of how they're made up with their racial and gender makeup is right, some of our organizations that are striving, and again, doing really frontline work, and social movements are struggling around issues of power. So that's why why we feel like it's just a much more impactful way. It's a way that we can really move to the root of our issues and reframe what it means to advance justice by being able to prefigure the world we want to create within our organizations, because we're addressing power inside our organizations, not just trying to change, you know, or speak truth to power as I say it externally. That's exhausting. When we're trying to do programming and services and movement send everything externally, which requires abundance of power viewpoint. But then internally, we're still struggling because we've been socialized to take care of ourselves take care of number one, not share, not not be vulnerable not share the what's what's happening with us. Because we are committed to the hierarchy within, you know, hierarchy of power within,
I have to tell you, I'm just sitting here, thinking about collective power and what could be unlocked. I just think also, as a cisgender, white woman, the unearned power that I've had, that I've been consciously trying to be aware of, and to learn and unlearn is, is this is such a healthy exercise for every single human being wherever you are in the world to go through. Because if we're ever going to fight for something that is so worthy, which is equity. And that's what we want you all we're in the nonprofit sector, we are chasing good we are chasing harmony, we are chasing equality. And what we're doing, we are literally on the frontlines trying to equalize the biggest systemic issues that are facing this world, it's gotta start within. And it is uncomfortable, as this conversation may be making some of us, I say, if you're, if you're feeling discomfort, it's working. It is truly, truly working, because we have to take that lens and look at it. And I'll tell you, I am uncomfortable every time we have one of these conversations in the best kind of way. Because I want to be challenged on this, I want to figure out how to give up more of what I have. So somebody else doesn't have to suffer. And I want you to get real practical with us because you have four layers that we need to employ to improve power dynamics in any organization. And it's beyond policy change. It's beyond writing just sort of these cultural narratives that we hold on to it's deeper, and I would love for you to talk about, what are those four layers? And how can we really start to embrace them?
Yeah, absolutely. And I want to say, thank you so much for just acknowledging the discomfort that can come up with this and that in your own, and, and connecting that to growth. And I always tell people, I mean, we have, we have fun in our trainings like Don't
you know, because we're all in it, because it's an entry point for everyone, we all have stories, and we all have experiences with power, you know, including myself. So we're able to share those and have that common ground and our work and so that there is going to be space for there's not one is others in the group, because we all have some kind of relationship to this to this framework. And it gives it gives us space for to let in a breath, do a lot of breathing, actually, breath. And, and some joy to write and lightness as well. So it's we can do this work in ways that are both challenging, and caring and compassionate. Right. And that's really important for us. And I think when you talk about the four layers, we do always talk about these, this levels of how power is applied. So this their the levels of oppression and their their levels of of justice work as well, right. And it starts with the self that impacts how we see power, how oppression has has shown up for us can be internalized, it affects our own self perception, and our own sense of self efficacy. So we address that. And then we talk about our relationships, of course, we're going to have friends that come out of the workplace. But it's not just about the friendliness, right? It's just it's about the health of our relationships, right? And how honest we can be with one another. And just in passing, how we understand we are valued and trusted by by our colleagues. Right? How we're able to supervise people. Yes, but also just even seeing people in their full humaneness. Right. And so I'll give you an example of one of the relational things have come up I work with. So I work with nonprofits, I work with a lot of public libraries as well. And higher education institutions. Yeah. Then to talk again, I'll talk about the crises of the world kind of falling on this last public space. So in libraries, though, they were talking about we talk about kind of the five phases of repression, not kind of Irishmen and young spy phases of oppression we that's how we talk about oppression, we don't talk about just identity based. We acknowledge racism, sexism, we acknowledge those things, but we looked at those five phases of oppression. So they are exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural dominance and violence. So We take that and we say, Okay, what does exploitation look like? Internally, it may be when we believe our work is not worth or that of credit, or it's not worth value, valuable competence, compensation, right? Is when we actually don't think our work is worth recognition, right. And it's okay to just kind of let someone else take advantage of our work. That's how we can internalize it. It shows up in relationships, and this time up with the public libraries in just like, for translation services, for example, can you come over here and like, translate this document for me real quick? Or do you mind coming in interpret this conversation? With someone who just came in? Can you just stop what you're doing? And come and help me out? Right, and so again, they have this skill that is clearly valuable in the workplace. But there's no like, there's no time release, there's no like acknowledgement that that's extra work for someone to actually utilize that skill on a regular basis, right. And so that can come up in the in the cultural norms of organization, but also can just happen between colleagues, just between people who actually like and care about one another, we can actually be exploiting it right? Or when we steal ideas from people, right idea that this is a form of exploitation, that's relational, that that tears at the trust of a relationship with an organization. It's important for us to be able to recognize and give people credit for the work that they're doing. And then I'll quit. And then the next level, right is the cultural cultural norms. Those are the things I always tell people, they're the things we do that aren't necessarily written down. Right. The other jokes we tell, they're the things that get reprimanded, reprimanded. They're the things we let slide, there's the media, we create and consume all of the cultural pieces. And then there's the things policies and structures, the things that we that are written down. And so what we like to do is half people apply our frameworks of oppression, resistance, solidarity, work, and power to all those levels. How does it impact how you show up at work personally? How does it impact the relationships that you're able to build? And half? How does it impact the cultural norms of your of your office or community? And then, of course, what does it look like in your policies and practices?
Oh, my gosh, I mean, the things that you've laid out here, just to catch you up on my headspace, is because I'm over here just processing and thinking. And it's really expanding my view of what I feel like I talked about Becky and I talk about a lot on the podcast, we see it as a through line, that the change we want to create has to start from within. And like I, I believe that from like a cultural perspective, but this conversation is taking that to such a deeper level that's really moving and I think, just want to give more platform to it. Because if we're, you know, there's we there's so many like human trafficking organizations that surround our work. And it's like, if you're in the business of ending exploitation, but you're not addressing the the subtle exploitation that's happening within your own work in office, it's like you're not actually attacking the root of the problem. And it's like, how can that retrain all of us. So things like that don't happen outside of our walls, but also how it will be a magnet to people actually living out the values that we say that we exist. Like, there's so much to be unlocked. And you said it earlier that, you know, one of the first steps is getting commonality of language. And I'm like, this is the kind of conversation that I wish I would have been having in our nonprofit that we do, we do have the agency to change things on a bigger level if we can really get into the work at this level. And so I want to, I mean, we're going to connect you up to all the ways that people can bring you in, but I'm like, You got to get me up past the executive suite into the team to talk about these things, or just start these conversations in your team. But um, we always create space for story. And as we start to like wind down, which is painting me wrapped up you back me for more of these conversations. But as you think about your career, I mean, you've had this incredible journey through nonprofit obviously an aside and alongside nonprofits too. Is there a moment of philanthropy small cubby Little Big that stuck with you in this work that you would take us back to we love to celebrate the small signs of just the love of humankind, you know, philanthropy at its core.
You know, the first thing that I think of and I often am so grateful to a funder will person who was a funder who's now a mentor and a friend. My name is Deborah Harrington, and I'm actually going to be interviewing her on our podcast. She was one of the first black executives of a foundation like in the country. But she really also put together for this racial equity and grantmaking report. So she was the first to start talking about racial equity and philanthropy. And I actually didn't even know this. For me, she was just the funder of she was the president of the foundation we're trying to get a grant from. And we were just starting off. And I was like, what was a black woman is the present, I can't believe this. So you know, so she came for a site visit, along with someone else from the foundation. And I was a co director with someone else at the time. So it was four of us at the table, right? Two people from the foundation, Deborah and another, and myself. And Deborah said, we showed her around, we talked about our programming, and she was like, this is really impressive work that you're doing with young people in Chicago, and we're going to support you. But your grant was not written well. You're You're not telling the story? Well, I had to come. That's what she said, I had to come here to really understand what you're doing. So here are some tips on how you need to tell your story better. For grant makers like me, this is something she I mean, face to face, right? She tells us this. And it was just like some really good, tough love, right? It was humbling. But it was also like, Wow, you did not have to tell us this. You know, you could have made decisions either way. But what you've done is you've you've given us the resources now in this moment, but you've also given us what we need to know, so that we can continue to build get resources for this brand new space that we're creating, you know, and so to me, it was just such a an early example of me seeing power being shared in real time. You know, as a nonprofit leader, it's like and knowing that she was doing she was literally using her power as a black woman, right, she was using what we call achievement success, I call it when you use positional power, you deploy positional power to bring more power to people, right? So it's not just getting the position being the first having these, this access, entering the C suites or whatever. It's what are you doing with that? Voice visibility resources, right? And now safety that you have in that. And she really put it, she put it out there, she put it on the line for me, and I know several other leaders. And I'm so grateful, I'm able to tell her I'm so blessed, because I'm able to tell her that still today because we're still in touch. And I do consider her mentor. And we are able to talk about it a little bit. I don't tell the story on the podcast, but I'm telling it now, on my podcasts, I'm telling you, you're so that's great.
Debra, send us your notes about this interview today. I mean, let us know how we can make it. If you're listening.
Well, we in all of our conversations with a one good thing, and I wonder what you would give up to our community today, whether it's a piece of advice, maybe it's a quote or life hack, what you want good thing, man,
oh, you know, don't be afraid to talk about power to address it. And to to and be reminded that there is enough for all of us. Yeah, there's enough resources, voice visibility and safety for all of us. So live in that space of abundance around what is possible. Right. And if if we find ourselves alone and fearful and isolated, reach out for someone, I know that that's how you, you operate, and We Are For Good. That's why I'm so again, I've just I'm so honored to be connected. Because I know that sure that ethos, we need each other. We're all we've got. Yeah. So see, power is abundant. There's enough for all of us, and how are we spreading more of it? How are we creating more, more power for all of us.
I just cannot help but think about Regina, and Booker T and how proud they must be a view. And in this legacy of love. That's really what I see your work is doing. It's love. It's healing. It's community. It's growth. And I am just so delighted to know you in this lifetime. I love the way you move through this world. And I just I want to encourage anyone to just reach out to me and please tell us like how we can connect with people can connect with you. Tell them how they can get more of your trainings, because I know there's people out here that say I think we're ready. I think our organization is ready.
So yeah, so you can find us at Freedom lifted.com That's our website. So it's freedom lifted. Ella's li F isn't fish T isn't today, Ed. I always like to spell it out. We also have you can share power we can share power.com That will also get you to freedom lifted, and we're at Freedom lifted on all the socials. The best way to get in contact with me personally is through LinkedIn. Mia Henry, just LinkedIn profile Mia Henry, and we have the share power podcast, right? So you can check out that podcast. Yeah, we just launched it. And it's it's right now it's a limited series podcast. And it's all people that I've worked with in some kind of way over the last couple of decades. And how we tried struggled and succeeded at sharing power. Oh my
gosh, well, I mean, you're already in your podcast player right now friends. So go find this podcast subscribe to have me in your head more because we all need this. Thank you. This has been truly heart filling. You're an incredible human being. Thank you for coming here today and all the wisdom you've shared.
Thank you, John. And Becky, thank you so much.
Thanks so much for being here, friends, and you probably hear it in our voices. But we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.
We'd love for you to come join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. Sign up today. We're for good.com backslash Hello.
And one more thing if you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community. Thanks so much friends. Can't wait to our next conversation.
