Are you heading into 2024 with fundraising tools that make your job easier? Today's sponsor Qgiv can help! Over 20,000 fundraisers trust Qgiv to help them raise more money and improve their fundraising events. Visit www.jcsocialmarketing.com/qgiv to get a custom walkthrough of the platform and a free "This Is My Fundraising Shirt" t-shirt.
It seems to be a common struggle in nonprofit organizations - the complaints about recruiting qualified staff, keeping great talent, and increasing diversity in a sector where more than 80 percent of nonprofit board members are white (BoardSource).
However, this may be that these leaders are focusing efforts and energies on external strategies without first assessing internal efforts. They tend to blame specific employees or larger issues because it is easier than holding themselves accountable.
My guest today is Jonathan Meagher-Zayas, MSW, MPA, CFRE, CDP. Jonathan is a Queer Latinx Millennial nonprofit strategist dedicated to addressing equity issues, building capacity, engaging the community, motivating new impact leaders, and getting stuff done.
In a recent article for Community-Centric Fundraising, Jonathan discusses his experiences with racism and discrimination as a fundraiser, and presents the argument that “the real reason nonprofits continue to fail at staff retention and equity initiatives is that they refuse to address their oppression.”
In this episode, Jonathan and I discuss:
Connect with Johnathan on LinkedIn
Resources:
Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts
Are you heading into 2024 with fundraising tools that make your job easier? Today's sponsor Qgiv can help! Over 20,000 fundraisers trust Qgiv to help them raise more money and improve their fundraising events. Visit www.jcsocialmarketing.com/qgiv to get a custom walkthrough of the platform and a free "This Is My Fundraising Shirt" t-shirt.
It seems to be a common struggle in nonprofit organizations - the complaints about recruiting qualified staff, keeping great talent, and increasing diversity in a sector where more than 80 percent of nonprofit board members are white (BoardSource).
However, this may be that these leaders are focusing efforts and energies on external strategies without first assessing internal efforts. They tend to blame specific employees or larger issues because it is easier than holding themselves accountable.
My guest today is Jonathan Meagher-Zayas, MSW, MPA, CFRE, CDP. Jonathan is a Queer Latinx Millennial nonprofit strategist dedicated to addressing equity issues, building capacity, engaging the community, motivating new impact leaders, and getting stuff done.
In a recent article for Community-Centric Fundraising, Jonathan discusses his experiences with racism and discrimination as a fundraiser, and presents the argument that “the real reason nonprofits continue to fail at staff retention and equity initiatives is that they refuse to address their oppression.”
In this episode, Jonathan and I discuss:
Connect with Johnathan on LinkedIn
Resources:
Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts
Are you heading into 2024 with fundraising tools that make your job easier? Today's sponsor QGive can help over 20,000 fundraisers trust QGive to help them raise more money and improve their fundraising events. To learn more, just visit WW dot jcsocialmarketing.com QGive. That is JC slash Qgiv. To get a custom walkthrough of the platform and a free this is my fundraising shirt t shirt. Just go to forward slash QGive. Now on to the show. 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, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Nonprofit nation. Thrilled to be here today with you wherever you are listening. The question we're going to answer today what's the real reason that nonprofits can't keep great staff? So it seems to be a common struggle for a lot of my clients. A lot of nonprofits that I work with and interact with the complaints about recruiting qualified staff, keeping great talent, increasing diversity, especially in a sector where more than 80% of nonprofit board members are white, according to board source. Well, it might be that you and your leaders are focusing efforts and energies on too many external strategies without first assessing internal efforts. And my guest today is Jonathan Mahar Zayas. Jonathan is a queer Latinx millennial nonprofit strategist dedicated to addressing these issues, also addressing equity issues, building capacity, engaging the community, motivating new impact leaders, and overall, just getting stuff done. And what really brought me to Jonathan, even though we have been friends for years. In a recent article that he wrote for community centric fundraising, I'll link to it. In the show notes, Jonathan discusses his own personal experiences with racism and discrimination as a fundraiser and presents the argument that, and I quote now the real reason nonprofits continue to fail at staff retention and equity initiatives is that they refuse to address their oppression. So we will discuss this today. I'm so happy to have Jonathan on the podcast. Welcome, Jonathan. Thanks, Julia. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yay. So before we dive into this meaty topic, I'd love to hear about how you got into nonprofit work and fundraising. Sure. I think just as many of us in the sector, my idealism hat years ago was like, I want to make change happen, so identify the best way to kind of navigate that too. And after a failed government internship experience not failed, just more like not motivating led me to the sector and build on that as well, and continuing to be inspired by great leaders. I look to my family, specifically my grandparents and my mom were community leaders and impact leaders as well, and just motivated by this sector. And truly, I think nonprofits are the most likely to make change in our community. Like, I think we're the best prepared to navigate the systemic oppressions that exist in our communities, and we're going to do that. I think we're moving forward to that. That's fantastic. And we've worked together on quite a few projects. Tell me what you're working on right now. I know you're wearing many multiple hats. Yeah, many hats, which are all exciting. My favorite hat right now is working with Cause Effective, a nonprofit in New York City, where we're focusing on equitable fundraising and helping a lot of great rising leaders of color and organizations serving and tackling racial justice issues focus on their fundraising efforts. So really excited to build on that, too. And then I've been training, coaching leaders across the country in their various ways and kind of building as well. And my favorite new hat, which I have to just brag about, is I'm an adjunct faculty for my alma mater, so I'm teaching a bunch of aspiring grad students on how to fundraise in very focused and tangible ways. So lots of hats, but pretty exciting stuff going on right now. I love it. That's fantastic. Especially in today's climate where I think fundraising has some bad connotations, sadly, even though it should be like, really joyous, happy work. So today's topic is really going to be difficult to hear for many people. I just want to warn people. But I really want to thank you, Jonathan, just in advance, for your courage and your generosity and being open and sharing your experience with us. And in the article for community centric fundraising, you wrote, after eleven years in the sector, I've left three full time jobs without a job lined up due to traumatic experiences. Can you sort of set the stage for us? Can you talk about, first of all, how you decided to really open up about this and a little bit about what happened? Yeah, no, and my reason for kind of sharing, too is first a healing process for my own. So many of us go into this work and we're like, we're good people, we're trying really hard, and when something uncomfortable happens and we're navigating, we're like, what's wrong with us, too? And I think that's an instant fear or instant thought that many of us have is like, when we have to leave a situation that's not working, we're like, what's wrong with us? And I think reflecting on it was like a healing way to be like, okay, yes, of course I have areas of improvement. However, there's stuff going on that I was like, I don't want to deal with anymore. I don't want to navigate that and I want to focus on how I can move forward too. I think the even more validating part of that experience is hearing from everyone else who's like, oh, I've had this similar experience, I built on that. There's way more people saying I validate and I hear you and I can relate to you more than that was like that's on just you. So it's a great experience to just have that validation and especially when things go wrong, just to more to connect and be like, these exist and we build on that. And I think sometimes our identities in the sector get tied to just being good people. And when anything bad happens, we don't want to talk about it because we're like, we're good people, we're helping our communities. Yet when something does bad happen, we have to kind of wrap around that idea that relates to our identities and how we can move forward and grow specifically. So I always like to say I'm committed to racial equity. I build on that. Am I the leading expert. No. Will I continue to learn? Of course. And I think many of us sharing experiences and hearing these perspectives can build each other up and kind of help motivate some action in our sector. And you talk about some sort of specific things that happened to you. Do you mind? Do you want to share maybe like your very first experience with this? I'm sure we all have that very first sort of wake up moment as well. I think early on, one of my first jobs that I left, I just had a boss that was so intense and so micromanaging and I reflected back and that person was a little overwhelmed. So that's why they resulted in some toxic behaviors. But when you're the youngest person on staff, you're the only queer person on staff and you're likely to just live in a way that doesn't fit their definition of what a leader is. You're just more likely to get a lot of the criticism and attention that way as well. So in that example, even though all the staff were experienced, it me being the one that was a little bit different than everyone else and the little vocal one about it too. It just was a way for me to feel targeted too and build on that. So not just being overwhelmed in the situation, this leader could have recognized some power dynamics or some bias that they had towards how certain leaders interact and want to perceive in the sector. And the systems and the organizations weren't prepared to navigate that as well. They just weren't prepared and the agreement was like, okay, you're just gone. So that's where the discussion is. So I think when many of us are kind of realizing these situations too, recognize what our own actions are, but what are the systems that are reinforcing some of this too? Because it's usually easier for an organization to just dismiss an issue and pretend it didn't happen than actually fully embrace it and admit a wrongdoing on their part? Definitely. So what are some steps that we can take to address this bigger problem, either as nonprofit leaders or as board members or as allies or as people experiencing this? Yeah, I always use my favorite new quote that I quote all the time in trainings. It's from James Baldwin, and it says, not everything faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced. So I set that up as a way to be like, first you have to acknowledge what the issue is. I think people again, we're good people, so we don't want to admit that something bad happens in our organization specifically. So first assessing and acknowledging like, it's here, it's happening. We're not exempt to these issues and how to be a part of that. So assessing and maybe doing some research to understand what that is. And then once you acknowledge what the issue is, taking some time to maybe heal from it, understand where you can repair any harm that came from it as well, and then focusing on what type of actions and next steps you can do to prevent it from happening again. Build a more inclusive kind of space and obtain the resources needed to kind of integrate more equity in your organization. And to really help identify how oppression impacts organizations. You write about how you utilize the four eyes of oppression, and it's a framework, and the framework names that oppression shows up in multiple aspects of our society and oppression shows up differently in different ways. Can you sort of maybe elaborate, maybe share with us the four eyes or a couple of your favorites from this framework? For many of us, when we begin our equity journey, you're focused on one component, like you're focused on diversity of donors. You're focused on being included to your colleagues, but you don't really think about all the compounding issues that exist in our society and that show up too, that we just have to understand and acknowledge. So the four eyes just help us understand where that shows up and helps us understand the best interventions where we can be specifically. So, first off, we have ideological so that's the ideas that we have about certain people and how we educate our communities, we have institutional oppression of where certain government systems or our organizational procedures might impact oppression as well, or compound it specifically. We have interpersonal oppression where that's how we treat each other. And if you've heard of microaggressions or subtle acts of exclusion that way, specifically, how we treat each other impacts that way as well. And then we have internalized so for many of us who come from marginalized identities, we internalize the oppression in it, and we think less of ourselves. We think we don't deserve as much, and we think that society that's just how it is. So we've internalized it in our own way as well. And just understanding those can help us bring into different approaches of how we can best solve the issues that might impact our organization. But usually a collection of understanding all these areas can help kind of move your organization forward. I love that and I do work on the school committee here where I live. And we have gone through the steps that I think are fairly standard now for school boards, I hope, but it was. We have to hire a consultant, and we have to do an equity audit, and we have to sit down and have a meeting. And it's almost as if we've crossed these things off the to do list, and I feel like that's not the way to do it. And I love how you said equity journey and how it is a journey and how it's not just something that you say, okay, well, I read this book or we had this meeting or we hired a person of color, so now we're done. So how can we get around thinking how can we get around that mindset? Yeah, I think focusing on outcomes and the impact too as well. Many times we just focus on the quote unquote uncomfortable portion of this work of where we have to have an important conversation or we have to tell our existing board of all white people that like, hey, this isn't working right now. And we focus on that too, where instead of focusing on the outcomes we're trying to achieve and then driving towards that as well. So, like, for example, we want diverse boards because we want better opportunities for the people we serve to see themselves in our board and be connected to those issues as well. So it's about representation. We want more diverse boards because we want a better understanding of how to address community issues and having those perspectives at the table help that as well. So bringing in different perspectives helps us better deliver more inclusive programs, achieve equity outcomes. So thinking of the outcomes that you're trying to achieve in your organization and does bringing on one diverse board member help? Or doing one training work on this or updating a dei statement on your website achieve those outcomes? No, it's progress towards them too, but focusing on what the outcomes you're trying to achieve and kind of thinking about that way specifically. And many of us, we have visions for our organizations and you should have a vision for equity of what that's focused on too and working towards that as well. Many of us say our visions aren't we haven't accomplished our visions yet. So if we're not saying we accomplish our vision yet, why are we saying we're competent in this cultural area as well? Or we've achieved diversity because we have one token on our board specifically, or we had one donor event that was focused on a new demographic area. So I think many of us kind of thinking about what the impact we're trying to have and working towards that. And it will be a journey too, that might probably will exist beyond your lifetime at your organization. What are some of the biggest sort of myths and misconceptions about this work that you've had to deal with? And I'm just thinking of one off the top of my head where we had a parent email us on the school board and say we don't have to do this work here because our district is 90% white. So I would love to know your response to that. I'm sure a lot of people listening are thinking, oh yes, I've heard the same thing. This is why an assessment helps, because then you can actually assess. Because for any decision you make, you need to leverage data and data insights. So how are you using data in whatever way that works for you at your organization? So this person might be using data, but are they using it in a way that's helpful for them specifically? But I think people have a misunderstanding of what even you're trying to achieve specifically. I think that's why a di statement is great, but what are you actually trying to achieve in helping people bring that along as well? And with the divisiveness in our country and the politicized nature of this work, it's even more important to just educate like this is what we're trying to do and this is what we're trying to solve and what that builds on specifically as well, and then helping people navigate whatever feelings they have about the work as well. I wrote another CCF article that fear is a big issue of what people are just afraid and they show up, they angry or defensive, but they're really just afraid. And those are just tactics to build on. You know, people are afraid, they feel threatened, they are just trying to connect and feel part of the work too as well. And sometimes we leave certain people out of the work if we don't see them as irrelevant or many people haven't distanced themselves from the systemic issues at play to their own identities. So I think when we talk about nonprofits, we're all good people, people think of that as our identity. So when we question that too, it feels like in a personal attack. When we're not trying to say you're not a good person. We're trying to say, here's how you could be a better person, here's how you could be a more inclusive person. And this is just values you're living by. And here's how you can embrace those values. So just some things that I thought about specifically too as well. But I think in that example, so many of us will say, oh well, 90% of our people are white, so let's just focus on the white people, or we don't have queer people in our organization. So why do we focus on that too? We don't have disabled people in our organization. Well, how do you know? Not everything's visible, right? I know what you measure matters too. So unless you're measuring those demographics to understand, do you really know or are you missing an opportunity to achieve your mission specifically? I think I remember an example someone brought up of a cancer organization. Like cancer impacts everyone and it's like, oh yeah, totally agree. Cancer can impact regardless of your racial identity or sexual identity. However, the access to resources and competent care is a barrier to kind of build on that too, as well. And those are the things that you want to kind of focus on too, because you have to recognize what are the steps along the way to achieving your mission too, and what potential barriers might become as well, where might some face interpersonal oppression and feel less comfortable engaging in those spaces too specifically. So I think it's thinking about, again, what you're trying to achieve too and is everyone part of that mission being able to achieve it? Nonprofits really do. I mean, they focus on their missions. We want to put our heads down and just raise money and raise awareness and have events and just do our work and create the solution to the problem that we're trying to solve. But it's like you said, I really feel like there's a significant lack. It's almost like the ostrich bearing their head in the sand around acknowledging the systemic factors that even make our work required in the first place. And then talking about these factors, not even just relation as it relates sorry to our work, but as it relates to what you are talking about holding on to talented staff and creating a culture at an organization that is welcoming and equitable. So I think that's really interesting. There's so much to unpack there. So you have five strategies for leaders, nonprofit leaders, to execute if they truly want to tackle oppression in their organizations. I'm sure you've touched on a few of them. Could you share a few of these strategies with us? Sure. And these are, again, actions along a journey so they don't stop in a specifically way as well. But I think the first one is encouraging and promoting a growth mindset. So that's essentially helping everyone in your organization focus on growing and continued growth as well. I always am cautious when someone's like, oh, I have this many years of experience, I don't need to attend any more training or build on that. And I was like, yeah, but you still got to grow. Things change. Technology is a great example of things changing all the time too. And are you just an expert now? So helping people along that way and encouraging a growth mindset will help them specifically as well. Another area is really thinking about your policies and making sure your policies and procedures promote trust, transparency, authenticity. They're trauma informed. So acknowledging that they might be impactful the way that we show up too and not kind of in a way that's respectful to that person's identity. Too so how can you look at your policies to make sure you're kind of focused on that? Too as well? A policy I like to bring up because it's very complicated for some organizations to wrap their head around is a dress code policy, specifically because they're so usually my gendered. If you've ever had to manage interns yeah. Then you definitely have wanted one or. Have created oh, completely. And I think you can have conversations that are focused on what is needed of the work too as well. How do you help people represent themselves in a way that's aligned with a company's values, rather than just focusing on like, you have to wear this in that sense. Too exactly. It's how you frame it. Yeah, great point. Definitely how you frame it. Too and then another area. Too I like to say, and I learned this when I was beginning in my social work journey, too, is like embrace a cultural humility philosophy. And if you don't know that, there's kind of resources in the article as well, but it's kind of a challenge to cultural competency. So competency is like we've achieved a skill we recognize. We've acknowledged this too but regardless of how many people you meet or how much training you do, you will not know everything about everyone specifically. You will not know as a queer person myself, I will not know everything about every queer issue possible specifically. So I should embrace a philosophy where I'm trying to meet people, where they're at, understand their perspectives and their lived experiences. Too and recognize any power dynamics at play as I build a relationship with them to understand where they're coming from. So I think that's a great philosophy to think about. Too I think even more important for fundraisers because our job is relationship building and communications. Like, we're building relationships and we're transforming the way people think through how we build great experiences. So the more that we're focusing on building a relationship that's, again, recognizing the oppression at play, respectful of the person's lived experience too and focusing on a mutual understanding of what that relationship could be, is more likely to yield results than to say, oh, here's how we've done this, this is how our culture embraces. And kind of limiting yourself on your past experiences. And I know that a lot of people I work with, maybe a lot of people listening, they might be saying, oh, this is fantastic, this is great. I'm going to maybe try to send my boss this episode and have them listen to it. But where would you start? Like, if you could give advice to yourself, the person that you were when you were experiencing all of these things, or a person experiencing it today, a fundraiser that really doesn't want to leave their job but is experiencing some form of discrimination or even harassment. Where do you begin this conversation? What's kind of the first step they should take? You should always take care of yourself. I think that's the first instant thing. Like you're your best professional self when you're your best personal self. So identify what resources and support you need in that moment, whether that could be more self care activities to focus on your physical and mental health, whether that's a support system, including colleagues, peers, mentors, a coach, a counselor too, and building on that, or taking up space in ways that re energize us. So focus on yourself and what that looks like too. And then if you really think there's an opportunity to grow and change and build on that too, build your movement and say a focus on change of what that looks like too, as well. And recognize it takes time too. Like you're not going to instantly have change overnight. So you're slowly having conversations with different people on what the change you want to see too as well. Or you're identifying the systems in your organization to bring up these issues too. Either through surveys or town halls or advocacy platforms within your organization what does that look like? Too. And kind of build this movement where that looks like within your organization. Too. And I've seen it work in various organizations. I've had places where I was part of that too and I've recognized that there was an issue and we brought it up and we hit roadblocks too but being honest and vulnerable and then focus on the people who can support you along the way, I think was crucial to those moments specifically. So recognize you don't have to do this alone, and try to get people along their path to support you and support what change you're trying to make specifically. And this is something that Equity Warrior Strategies, your consulting company, this is something you help nonprofits with. You do trainings? Yeah, I do training, coaching assessment work too to help organizations identify as well. A lot of it, again, is focused on relationship building. So how are you building relationships and building trust with your organization and then building up your capacity and skills to effectively make that too as well? I do coaching training in many capacities to help people just understand where they are and how to leverage their strengths and opportunities to kind of go to the aspirations they're hoping to get. So are you writing anything new for the blog for community centric fundraising? Working on anything right now? Not specific, mostly because I mentioned starting teaching. So I'm organizing my semester as well and searching for a bunch of great content to motivate my students on their fundraising skills specifically. So nothing too much too I do have a handful of kind of exciting trainings coming up, focusing on change management, focusing on leveraging your fundraising skills towards achieving equity too. Like, we recognize as fundraisers and communications professionals, we have skills that we can translate to that as well. So kind of identifying all the great things that come up as a nonprofit professional and how we can use those to achieve change in our organizations, in our community, and achieve change within ourselves too. Where can people find out more about you, follow you, connect with you? Jonathan and I'll put all the links in the show notes, but where are the best places? I have a website, Equitywarriorstrategies.com, that's the easiest way to find information. I'm most active on LinkedIn, so definitely feel free to connect with me specifically and launched an Instagram account for my business, Equity Warrior Strategies. That's the handle where you can check out some different curated content there specifically as well. But yeah, that's mostly it too. But I love connecting. Again, relationships, I think, are the important area of how we're going to drive change. So how build relationships together and kind of build a movement towards changing our sector, changing our communities and getting equity stuff done. Well, I just went to your Instagram, gave it a follow, and the first thing I see is a quote from Brene Brown. So you had me at brene, Brown. I know, it's a perfectionism quote too, specifically. Yes. The quote is, wherever perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun. Oh. Hits me like right in the heart. I love it. Oh, what was the other quote? I loved it so much I wanted you to say it again. The Jonathan Baldwin. James Baldwin. Yeah. James, not everything faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced. That's so simple but so powerful and something that I think I need to print up and actually put in my office. But thank you, Jonathan. Thank you so much for being here. It was so great to see you and talk to you and I can't wait till hopefully we see each other in person again soon. Yeah, it should be soon, but yeah, thanks for having me. Julia, so grateful for the opportunity and thanks for your support in kind of getting these messages out and supporting individuals in these situations and providing them the resources and motivation to kind of move forward. So thanks again for having me. 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 77. Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn.