Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell

Moving Nonprofit Boards Towards Racial Equity with Christal M. Cherry & Renee Rubin Ross

• Julia Campbell • Season 1 • Episode 31

Share episode

About 87% of nonprofit CEOs in the U.S. were white in 2019, down from 90% in 2016. Similarly, roughly 78% of nonprofit board members were white in 2019, down from 84% in 2016, according to Board Source, a nonprofit that tracks this information.

In a country where Black and Latino individuals and other people of color make up about 40% of the population, this lack of diversity is a major concern for nonprofits that provide services or advocacy primarily to communities of color, and among those groups whose mission is aimed at promoting race equity.

In the latest episode of Nonprofit Nation, I talk with board management consultants Christal M. Cherry and Renee Rubin Ross about how we can best move our nonprofit boards towards racial equity.

Christal M. Cherry is a trained fundraiser with more than 22 years of nonprofit experience serving on executive teams, as a liaison with boards, and a confidant to the CEO/Executive Director. Christal has a passion to help transform board members into impactful leaders, and touts fundraising as her ministry - the place where she feels she can make the biggest difference. Christal’s mantra: Fundraising is not an F word. Christal founded and leads The Board Pro, a company that equips board members with the tools they need to effectively govern and help nonprofits to fulfill their missions, scale, and become change agents in their communities.

Dr. Renee Rubin Ross is a recognized leader on board and organizational development and strategy and the founder of The Ross Collective, a consulting firm that designs and leads inclusive, participatory processes for social sector boards and staff. Committed to racial equity in the nonprofit sector, Dr. Ross guides leaders and organizations in strategic plans and governance processes that deepen social change, racial justice, stakeholder engagement, and community strength. In addition to her consulting work, Dr. Ross is the Director of the Cal State University East Bay Nonprofit Management Certificate program and teaches Board Development and Grant Writing for the program.

Here are some of the topics we discussed:

  • Their new service for boards, called  Planting the Seeds of Change: A Journey towards Race-Equity Culture
  • The challenges facing nonprofit boards right now
  • How to initiate tough conversations at your organization around racial equity
  • Where to get started if you are interested in learning more about DEI work 

Connect with Christal:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christal-m-cherry/

Connect with Renee:
https://www.therosscollective.com/subscribe
https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneerubinross/
https://twitter.com/reneerubinross
https://www.instagram.com/rrrconsults/

Do me a favor? Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts (or your podcast player of choice) - it helps this podcast get seen by more people that would enjoy it!

About the host: Named as a top thought leader by Forbes and BizTech Magazine,

Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts

Julia Campbell:

Hello, and welcome to nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently Find Your Voice. Definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie, or an experienced professional, who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact than you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of nonprofit nation. Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host, Julia Campbell. And we have a really great episode today we have two very special guests, I'm going to introduce them. Crystal M. Cherry is a trained fundraiser with more than 22 years of nonprofit experience serving on executive teams as a liaison with boards and a confidant to the CEO executive director. Crystal has a passion to help transform board members into impactful leaders, and she touts fundraising as her ministry the place where she feels she can make the biggest difference. Crystals mantra, fundraising is not an F word. I love that. She founded and leads the board fro a company that equips board members with the tools they need to effectively govern and help nonprofits to fulfill their missions, scale and become change agents and their communities. I also have with us today, Dr. Rene Rubin Ross, a recognized leader on board and organizational development and strategy, and the founder of the Ross collective, a consulting firm that designs and leads inclusive participatory processes for social sector boards and staff committed to racial equity in the nonprofit sector. Dr. Ross guides leaders and organizations in strategic plans and government processes that deepen social change, racial justice, stakeholder engagement, and community strength. And I love this because I do have a nonprofit management certificate, although not from Cal State University, East Bay. But Dr. Ross is the director of the nonprofit management certificate program at Cal State University East Bay, and teaches board development and grant writing for the program. So welcome to both crystal let's begin with your story and sort of how you got started in nonprofits. And then we can talk about this exciting collaboration.

Christal Cherry:

Thank you, Julia, thank you so much for having me today. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah. So my journey started many moons ago, probably about 25 years ago, started working in the nonprofit sector in higher education and thought I was going to be a college president. And so I was working my way up on that trajectory. I received my master's degree in education, and thought I was going to head to the dean of academics, and then the vice president. And then the President. Well, that got sidebar, I met a woman in the fundraising office at American University where I was working in Washington, DC, and she started talking to me about fundraising, I had no interest in it whatsoever. She kept talking to me and talking to me and finally convinced me that it was something that I could do. She said, You're charismatic, you know, you're likable, you're not afraid to speak up, you're the perfect kind of person to, to work in this field. And so I decided to give it a shot. And I've not looked back. And so that was 25 years ago and enjoyed a really wonderful career in fundraising, working with higher eds, working with faith based organizations, human services organizations, and then in consulting, working for a consulting firm. And then after a while, decided I wanted to give it a shot and hang up my shingle, and worked primarily with nonprofit boards where I saw there was a need. And so that's kind of how I got where I am today, really enjoying the space that I'm in and enjoy working with Rene, and we can't wait to tell you about what we're up to.

Julia Campbell:

Awesome. All right, Renee, do you want to share a little bit about your background? Yes, absolutely. And

Renee Rubin Ross:

Julia, thank you so much. It's fun to be in conversation with you. So I have a longtime background in education like crystal, most recently was working with a foundation and left and started consulting with clients on my own. And actually my my work at Cal State East Bay really impacted my journey as I met some of our students who are really a rainbow of people working in the nonprofit IT sector the program is based in Oakland, California, but we draw students from all around. And now we're online. So we really draw students from everywhere. Our students were asking these questions about leadership, and about inclusion. And as I, the more that I taught for development, I thought, their voices are so important in terms of hearing the voices and the process. And I really commit and became more and more committed to, you know, to hearing to designing leading processes that hear everyone's story on our each person. And so it's become something that I'm really passionate about. I do strategic planning. And I also do this work with crystal, which has been really life changing for for the two of us, I think, and also for the clients that we're working with. So excited to tell you more.

Julia Campbell:

Yes. All right. Well, Crystal talk about how this collaboration came to be.

Christal Cherry:

Yeah. So back in 2020, remember that you just seems like,

Julia Campbell:

I still think it's 2020. Sometimes

Christal Cherry:

it was a crazy year for all of us have been, you know, I found myself in all kinds of rooms, meeting lots of wonderful people who have been doing amazing work. And I just kept bumping into Rene, I can't remember if I attended one of her seminars, or she attended one of mine. But somehow, we connected and just started talking about the work that she was doing and the work that I was doing. And, you know, I just said, you know, what, why don't we collaborate, we have some similar interests, although we have very different backgrounds. And we just started talking and I invited her I got a client who was interested in doing some diversity, equity and inclusion work. And I just thought, how cool would it be to have you know, a dual team, who, you know, a white woman and a black woman who come from different backgrounds, who have different experiences, but shared interests, and great experience. And so I invited Rene to come on the journey with me, not knowing how it was gonna all work out. And we, you know, we just decided to go for it, and it worked. And so it's been great, we have kind of smoothed and modified our training and made it so that we can tailor it to our different clients. And it's just been a wonderful journey so far. So I'll allow Rene to, to chime in here.

Renee Rubin Ross:

What we found is that some different organizations have reached out to us who wants to begin to talk about race in their organization. And I feel so I, I had an interest in you know, in talking about racial equity for a few years, I was starting to work on this. And I really came to the point as a white person that I do not want to lead these kinds of conversations on my own, with, with people of color in the room, because I don't really have the lived experience to, to talk to the people of color and feel like I can be an expert. But it feels really powerful to have Krystal and I together, and sometimes she is. So in terms of the conversation, sometimes she's leading, sometimes I'm leading and different people in the room are able to hear different, you know, parts of what we're sharing. So it's turned out to be a really powerful collaboration, and we keep learning from each other. I also feel like, it's my responsibility as a white person to learn on my own. And not to expect some person of color to be teaching me about racism. But but so we are both kind of parallel, continuing to learn and continuing to share.

Julia Campbell:

That's fantastic. That's wonderful. So the topic today is how to move boards towards racial equity. And I know it's something that certainly has been talked a lot about in the last two years. But certainly in my entire experience with nonprofits is something that I'm really happy to see coming to the forefront finally. So we're gonna talk about the new service that you've designed. And also, hopefully give us some tips and some techniques and strategies that we can use to try to make this happen at our organization. So the new service is called planting the seeds of change a journey towards race, equity culture. So crystal, tell me about this. Tell me about your guiding principles. And tell me a little bit about how nonprofits are benefiting from this service.

Christal Cherry:

Yeah, so one of the things that we you know, we emphasize and I was intentional about saying that it's a journey, because there is no fixed end point to this work. And so one of the things that Rene and I get out of the way right away when we start, you know, working with our clients is we you know, we explain to them, you know that a three month training is not going to, you know, change behaviors and attitudes and mindsets that have been in place for 3040 50 years. And so this is a journey. This is a beginning point where you can start having some of those important conversations, some of those uncomfortable conversations that need to happen when people start to explore where they are in their own journey towards learning about race equity. And, you know, we try to make the space, a vulnerable space, both of us come to the space with some vulnerability, we both share about our own background and our own insecurities and vulnerabilities. And we hope that by doing so that we kind of set the stage to let folks know, hey, you know, no one's pointing fingers at anyone, we are here to all talk and learn together. And to get you from where you are right now to where you like to be, you know, a year from now or six years from now, so that you can at least point you in that direction and give you the tools that you need, so that you can that you can keep going. And so I had done this training once by myself. And Renee and I have smooshed in and changed it around, as I mentioned, but it's a three part series where I lead a session, she leads a session, we do some race caucusing, where we separate our board members by race, I leave the caucus for people of color, she leaves the caucus for for our white board members. And then we come back together. For one final training, it can be in person or virtual, that's like a four hour training, where we talk about everything that we learned. And we kind of set them up to have a plan on how they can move forward, once their time with us is up and that can take anywhere from three months to five months, I think, you know, we had one client and it took us five or six months to get through this journey with so we don't know how it's gonna pan out depending on you know, people's schedules and how we can get you know, these things scheduled on the calendar. But it's not fast, easy work. And we tell people that so that's kind of what we do. I'm gonna let Rene chime in a little bit here as well. Yeah, just wanted

Renee Rubin Ross:

to thank you, Crystal, I wanted to share a little bit about the motivation, because I think that's so interesting. And we will, you know, we will say that the organizations that are reaching out to us, generally speaking, something has happened, that has caused them to have a bit of an identity crisis. So with one, this was there was an incident where there was a committee meeting for the board. And there were several women of color who felt disrespected, and decided that they didn't want to be on the board anymore. And that you know, that it was better, despite the fact that the organization was primarily serving black and brown families, that they just could not support the culture on the board, and they left. And so that was the point where the the organization reached out to us, not really understanding what had happened. And actually, the strange thing is that or maybe it's not strange, this organization did not reach out to us and say, Hey, here's what happened. They just reached out and said, Well, we wanted we want some different, you know, dei consulting. So okay, and then then as we started to talk to you more, yes, yeah. And it turned out that the founder was white. And that person had not really didn't have the competency to talk about race, you know, in a serious way, and to talk about the different different the inequality that's happening in our society. And those are the conversations that we started leaving in a very, you know, in a very caring and non confrontational way, but also just just holding a mirror to how the board had been acting.

Julia Campbell:

I think this is all very relevant, especially to me right now. I'm going through this with the school committee. I'm on the school committee here where I live, and we just went through as a committee, a diversity, equity inclusion and belonging, training, and also that particular consultant that led the training, the facilitator said that same theme about it being a journey, it's not something to check off the to do list, which I think a lot of people think, okay, we did the DTI training now we're good. Now, we're totally fine. And racism is over. Like that does not happen. That's not the way it works. So I'm glad you brought that up. The other thing I wanted to point out is that I thought was really interesting, is that when people do hear, you know, the terms dei diversity, equity inclusion, they do always think it's about race. But I think it's also important for boards to know and I know, you know, this, it's about so much more. It's about sexual orientation. It's about disabilities, it's about mental health issues. It's just about making sure that the workplace is inclusive for everyone from all different backgrounds. And I, I found that to be a wake up call, because what we found was, the school committee said, Well, we're all white, and we're from a predominantly white community. So why do we need this and I thought, okay, it's not. You think we're all the same Just because we're white, we don't have all the same lived experiences, we don't have all the same background. So I think for boards that might say, even they might say to you, you know, what would you say to a board that comes to you and says, Well, we're diverse, you know, we've we've a pretty good mix of different races and ethnicities on our board, and we don't need this and we're good. What's some advice you would give them? I'll throw that to you Crystal?

Christal Cherry:

Well, you know, the first thing I'd say, a lot of times, I'm gonna break it down even further, when you say race. You know, I think when people hear D I, they just think black, white, they don't even realize that there are other other groups that fall into people of color category. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, that we've really appreciated about the work that we're doing is that when we go we when we do our exercise on race stories, and hear people's race autobiographies, we get to hear from our Asian sisters, or Mexican sisters or Indian brothers about their experiences growing up, and you realize that, you know, they've had some issues as well, they just don't speak up about them. Many of the traditions and cultures don't encourage them to speak up. And so they've been kind of quietly watching the whole black white thing play out wondering, where do we fit in this paradigm? You know, how do we have a voice in the room we're not even seen. And so I know that they often feel invisible. And so you know, with this world changing as rapidly as it is, and a third of the population in the United States are people of color right now. And so it can no longer be ignored. And so even though you might think you have it all in, you know, nice and neat in a box, we totally get this we're diverse, we don't need it, the, you know, what you'll find is that once you start, once you open that Pandora's box and start talking about it, you might realize that there are some issues and that there are some people of color in the room, like your Asian brothers, maybe your Native Americans who have not said anything. And you don't even realize there's an issue, there may be some women in the room who have felt marginalized or dismissed or overlooked, who may have an issue and have not said anything, there may be some folks who have same sex loving individuals who are in the room who have not come out and did not feel comfortable being their authentic selves. And so you might think everything is peachy keen. Once you get into a room, and you start inviting people to be open and candid about how they're feeling and what's going on Pandora's box is opened, and you realize that we still have some work to do, even though we didn't realize it. So that's my response, Renee,

Renee Rubin Ross:

thank you. Oh, that was that was lovely crystal, I would just add, we talk a lot about building belonging, and belonging is this idea that everybody who comes into the space feels like, I belong here? And what would that feel like? And and you know, and if you think about, well, what's the journey from whoever, whoever kind of owns the space right now, which, you know, maybe, if maybe a white person, white man, if it's a historically led white organization, to anyone who comes here feels like, all parts of their identity are honored and affirmed, you know, and that they could really speak up and contribute. And I mean, the this like, what's the reason for this, we all this is, this is us, like flourishing as organizations as people, and everybody being able to contribute, you know, the best parts of themselves.

Julia Campbell:

And now a word from our sponsor. I'm here to tell you that this podcast episode is sponsored by my newest free training, social media in 20 minutes per day. This is where I give you my exact framework and process to schedule and organize your time, so that social media does not take over your entire day. And to do list, watch the replay for free at social media in 20. That's to zero the numbers to zero.com. And be sure to tag me on social to let me know what you think. That's social media and twenty.com. Thanks for listening, and enjoy. What would your advice be? And Renee, you can answer this one, start answering it. What would your advice be to a very well meaning development director, marketing director, someone on a nonprofit staff, or even an executive director who wants to start these uncomfortable conversations? And what's the first step along this journey?

Renee Rubin Ross:

So I wrote a whole series on that on on it's got it, it's about liberty. It's about liberty, this idea of liberatory consciousness and this is a process and I think often when, even right after George Floyd there was the sense for white people of like, okay, We've seen there's a problem. Now let's take action right now. And oh my gosh, this is if you just step back a little, this is something that's been going on for hundreds of years. And it's not going to go away without really reflecting on, well, how are we all, you know, start to learn, start to talk to people start to listen, and then start to pay attention to, you know, what's the vision of the organization that we want to build? And where are we not living up to that vision right now? And I think that's kind of the place where you could start to find motivation for this work in whatever form it's going to take.

Julia Campbell:

Absolutely. Crystal, did you want to add to that? Yeah, I

Christal Cherry:

mean, I think, you know, I think you you need to go to your leadership and share that you know, exactly what I said earlier, the world is changing, you know, our donors look different. Now, you know, we, we may have been ignoring some folks in our database, who have the capabilities to support us even more, that will definitely get their attention, right, who we have not been cultivating, we don't know how I'm a white fundraiser. And I don't know how to cultivate a Hispanic donor, or a donor who is African American, and I need some help. And I would love if we can kind of open up the conversation internally, about what our stances in this space when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, and start having some conversations with our staffers so that I will know how to proceed and be as successful as I can be as a fundraiser to make sure that all donors in our database, all volunteers, and our database, all board members who are on our boards feel comfortable in the space that we're in. And they know that we appreciate and celebrate their differences. And if you phrase it like that, that is going to help you to be more productive as a fundraiser so that you can raise more money and bring more diverse voices into the field. I mean, money is green, it doesn't matter what color, you're you know, that is, but you can have untapped populations that you're not really cultivating because you don't really understand what it takes to cultivate them. And so if you bring that to the attention of your supervisor, you probably will get some kind of positive response.

Julia Campbell:

I love that I think what's so important about these, these trainings, and these kinds of conversations, especially being led by an outside person, what we saw at our committee workshop was that we did not have a shared language around things like privilege, and bias, and a lot of the terms that make people really uncomfortable and are very emotionally charged. And what I found, I just think it's so interesting that I went through a little tiny piece of this journey, we're still going through it. But it got us all, not on the same page. But we could at least see eye to eye and we were all using the same terminology in the same kind of way. And we all really understood more, what is inclusivity? What is equity? What is diversity? What is belonging? So I think that's really important to have someone with an outside perspective come in, especially if this is a heated emotional conversation. So another question I wanted to ask just because this is a fairly new service, a new training, but both of you have been working in this space for quite some time, what are some of the results that you've seen in your work together?

Renee Rubin Ross:

So with this one organization we worked with, at the beginning, they really couldn't talk about race, like they just had no, kind of like is you're describing Julia? Yeah, they just had no competence. And I think, by the way, I mean, it's such a funny thing. For many white people, it's considered rude to talk about race, right? It's like, oh, I don't want to bring that up. Because I don't wanna embarrass you or I don't want to something like that. And yet,

Julia Campbell:

or don't interrupt you. But one woman on the committee said, I don't see race.

Renee Rubin Ross:

Yeah, yeah, that kind of, and yet Emmentaler research has shown, for example, in education, if teachers do not talk about race, students feel that students of color feel that their experiences are completely invalidated. So it's like, we have to know that like, you're not going to be it's not rude in this point. In our, in our culture, it's not rude to talk about racist, if you are, if you're able to have these conversations in an affirming, curious, you know, compassionate, honest way. It could actually be very validating. So they in the end, they were able to start talking about race. And they said, Oh, we want more. One of the things this what we do is we share race stories. And people were just really, really interested and curious and learning from each other and surprised by different things people shared and they said, we just we want to keep doing this. And they are they're going to continue the work. And that's really what we were trying as Crystal said at the beginning. We're not Problem, all problems will not be solved. But it's we help them to develop the the, you know, some tools to continue the work.

Julia Campbell:

That's fantastic. Crystal, do you have any other case studies you'd like to share?

Christal Cherry:

Yeah, you know, I want to share that, you know, my own experience with one of our clients. In fact, the same client that Rene is mentioning, I was to travel to meet with them in person and sent them the information for my flight and you know, just said, you know, let me know, you know, when you booked the flight, send me my airline information. And I received pushback that they don't pay for flights, or travel in advance that you have to pay for your own travel and expenses, and then wait to be reimbursed. And although I did have a credit card, I could have put it on my credit card, I push back and say, you know, this is part of what we discussed, it was in our contract that I was to come. And I don't want to put this on my credit card, I want you to buy the ticket, and then just send information to me. And I received pushback that they don't pay vendors, when I had to push back and said, Well, I'm not a vendor, I'm a consultant. And it just was handled poorly. And I just thought to myself, if this is what they do to staff, or board members who are not in a position to put out expenses up front, you know, if the if a staff person is traveling, if a board member is traveling on business for the organization, and the person says to you, first of all, you shouldn't even put them in that position. But if they then say to you, I'm not in a position where I can afford to or I don't feel comfortable, or I don't want to you don't really even have to explain why I don't want to do this, then if you want this to happen, if you want us to continue to work for you, then you have to, it's I just got to look for so I decided to let it play out to see how it's gonna play out. And to me, I said to them, when I met with them, you know, if I were a donor, looking at the situation, I don't know that I would want to support an organization who treats people of color, you know, and I couldn't be a donor to your organization later, I'm a consultant now, but I could later give you a gift. And based on how I've been treated, I don't know that I would support you. And so even as we were working with them, This is that same organization that Renee has been speaking about, even as we were working with them, I experienced some bias, I experienced some blind spots that they had about how they treated me. And I don't know that it was because I was a person of color. I just know that anybody, a white person, a black person, an Indian person who says I don't feel comfortable putting this travel on my credit card, for whatever reason, yeah, should not have been treated the way that I was treated. And so those are the kinds of real life examples that happen even while we'll do while we're doing the work. And I don't know that what I can point to them that they even got it.

Julia Campbell:

I like to tell a story of the way a client treated me one time when I was starting out in consulting. And I've run my business for about 12 years. And I had a daughter, and then I was pregnant in 2015 with my son or 2014. And I had a client, a longtime client, and he asked me he said, Well, how are you going to manage two kids and work? You will never ask a man that there's not something you would ever ask a man. And I just remember the feeling that I have and how I felt completely deflated and defeated. And I felt, you know, completely ignored and just dismissed almost. Because he's basically saying, Oh, you're not going to be a good mom. I mean, you. I know crystal. I know you have a son, right?

Christal Cherry:

Yes, I have a son and Renee has 222 kids. Oh,

Julia Campbell:

great. So you know what I'm talking about, then? Yes, definitely have that identifies women listen to the podcasts have had that happen to them. So I don't think that's where any stranger strangers to that. But that, that blind spot, just that he thought this was a completely normal question to ask. And I think he thought he was doing me a favor. And it wasn't something I'd even thought about just living in that way and not understanding how your actions affect other people. So I think that's I think that's incredibly, incredibly important for us to recognize, yeah, and

Renee Rubin Ross:

Julia, you know, you just reminded me of something, which is I believe that there is, you know, we, our research has shown our society is becoming more segregated. And it really is, especially for white people. There's this responsibility. If you want to work towards equity, there's going to be some active work to really learn to really do more perspective taking kind of like the situation that you're describing here. Maybe there was some missing information that this man did not have about the experience of being a mother. Right and and the same thing if there's if we need to wait as as white people need to be learning listening so that we can start to ask understand more about the experience of all people and build a better society.

Julia Campbell:

Exactly. And something that crystal, you said, when I saw you on a webinar, or it might have been a Facebook Live, you said early in the pandemic, right after George Floyd died, that people of color cannot do all the work. So don't call your black friend and say, What can I do? White ally ship means doing the work ourselves. So that's something that stuck with me. And that's very profound.

Christal Cherry:

Yes, thank you. So remember that? Yes. Yeah. Because I actually remember,

Julia Campbell:

I distinctly remember my first impulse was to do that. And you definitely it gave me a new perspective on how to approach my own education. So so thank you for that. So we're gonna wrap up here, but I want to, I want to know more about how people can find you how they can get in touch, and how they can learn more about planting the seeds of change. So Renee, why don't you go first? Sure. My

Renee Rubin Ross:

firm is the Ross collective, the Ross, the Ross collective calm, and definitely come visit our website, where I also write, I send out a newsletter every other week on racial equity, nonprofit strategy and leadership. And so, you know, we'd be happy to connect with anyone who wants to learn more about this service that Crystal and I are offering. Talk

Julia Campbell:

crystal, where are you online? Where can we connect with you?

Christal Cherry:

Yeah, so the name of my firm is the board Pro, and you can find me at the board pro.com. Um, I also have a Facebook page, the board Pro, and there will be information about planting the seeds for change on my website, and Rene's website in the future. And I also blog, not as often as Renee, so I do have some interesting blogs, online, Renee stuff is really profound. So I really, really want to encourage your listeners to, to check out hers. But we both have blogs on our website, and just trying to stay in and know about what's going on in this space. And so we're learning as you know, as we're training, and guiding or facilitating people we're learning as well. So yeah, you both, I think, reach out to us.

Julia Campbell:

Thank you. I think for me, the biggest takeaways are, number one, to start having the conversation start somewhere. Yeah. And it's going to be imperfect. And his might be emotional, and it might be hard, but just have the conversation. And then the second piece is that it's a journey. And it's not something to check off the to do list. So I think those are the two biggest takeaways from my audience. And I really appreciate the both of you being here. Everyone, check out the board Pro, the Ross collective, I will put all the links in the show notes. And as always, thanks for listening. Join me next week, same place, same time. Take care. Thank you, Julie. Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show, and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app, and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell seven seven. Keep changing the world you nonprofit unicorn