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Gene Takagi: DEI & Governance
Diversity, equity and inclusion run deeper than having folks of color on your board. Are you managing treatment, access and opportunity for non-white males? Gene Takagi and I talk through the issues, goals and methods. He’s our legal contributor and principal at NEO, the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group.
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Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti non-profit radio Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be hit with like Oper diagnosis if you made me breathe in the idea that you missed today’s show. D I and governance, diversity, equity and inclusion run deeper than having folks of color on your board. Are you managing treatment, access and opportunity for non white males? Jean Takagi and I talk through the issues, goals and methods. He’s our legal contributor and principal at Neo Non-profit and Exempt Organizations Law Group on Tony Steak, too planned giving one piece at a time. We’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled Tony dahna slash pursuant but Wagner CPS guiding you Beyond the numbers. Wagner cps dot com Bye. Tell US Attorney credit card processing into your passive revenue stream. Tony dahna slash Tony Tell us and by text to give mole donations made easy text. NPR to four four four nine nine nine Always a genuine pleasure to welcome Jean Takagi back to the show. He’s managing attorney of Neo, the Non-profit and exempt Organizations Law group in San Francisco. He edits the wildly popular non-profit law blogged dot com and he’s the American Bar Association’s twenty sixteen, outstanding non-profit lawyer. He’s at G Tak. You know, it means Gene. Gene, the law machine. Welcome back, Jean Takagi. Thanks, Tony. How are you? It’s a pleasure to have you. I’m well, thank you. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well. Thank you. I think maybe this is just the first shot misses. And you’ve been on before? Yeah. You have been on to the new year. No, I haven’t. I think this might be the first one was the first buyer, and this is February fifteen thousand. Alright, well, so we wish you a happy New year anyway, on DH and I I hear you wishing it back. So thank you very much. It’s never too late. Never too late to say pleasant things to each other. Um all right. So diversity, diversity, equity and include vision. I feel like we should first identify our terms. That is that is that everybody knows that diversity, equity and inclusion are not the same thing. This is not like, what’s the law, you know, aiding and abetting. You know the law, he says. The synonyms mean the exact same thing. Break and enter or, you know, a dahna bet this’s not this is not that this is not that. So what? What? How would you define diversity? Arika? Well, I think you know, it’s a great point that that it’s not a belt and suspenders approach these three different terms, meaning three different things. So diversity, I think, is the range in way people different people differ, and it’s used often in reference to race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin is big, and the news now religion, disability, sexual identity and orientation, socioeconomic status, marital status, language, physical appearance and just a number of other characteristics. So it’s just reflects the way that we’re all different from one another. Equity is the quality of being there, I think, with respect her rights and treatment, and access and opportunity and advancement for all people. It’s kind of the constitutional principles that we think of equal protections of the law and all of us having the right toe. Life, liberty and justice and persons and organizations that work towards a more equitable society focus on understanding the root causes of the inequities, and they’re looking to identify and eliminate barriers and, of course, increase justice and fairness, both on a micro level on on a macro level and that final term Tony inclusion is really the state of creating or maintaining environments in which any individual or group Khun B and feel welcomed, respected, supported and valley to fully participate, embracing differences among different people. So diversity gets us one part of the way. But without inclusion, diversity may mean very little. Yeah, on organization could be diverse. But that doesn’t mean that it’s inclusive because divers is just a photograph of ah, multi racial, multi ethnic, multi gender aboard. But that doesn’t mean that that that that board is inclusive on DH, creating the right kinds of environments like you’re talking about. Yeah, absolutely right. So if we you know, we might approach that that topic and in a bit. But if we just bring in people of marginalized communities like certain minority groups or certain gender groups or all of the other categories we talked about and they’re just tokens but not given any authority, and they just make for the good picture that you were talking about. Well, that’s not inclusive. Or and that’s not equitable at all. That’s just having diversity for diversity. Stake? Yeah. Yeah, for a good photograph and a like a check box or something. All right. So is this. Ah, well, this is an area that non-profits are, uh, working on. I mean, it’s an area that our whole countries working on. It’s it’s in our culture with black lives, matter and metoo and, uh, marriage, marital equality. So it’s this is not certainly certainly not unique to non-profits, but but our our national consciousness has been raised. Um, how do you feel? Or how are non-profits faring? I mean, and what do you see among the groups that you work with? Two? Sure. I mean, it’s a great point, Tony, that this is in our national conscience. And, uh, there are a lot of tension and controversies where these what I will think our our moral issues are at play, and we’re looking at legal solutions on sometimes opposites sides of what some people will consider moral and Justin, others might say, are not a matter of morality but my position. And I think the position of most of the organizations we’ve worked within. And I’ll note that we do work in San Francisco, and we work with them non-profits in New York as well. And those air, certainly, um, uh, centers that that might be seen as more liberal than other areas. But, uh, there are, I think, these basic beliefs that, you know, some people are born with certain advantages or disadvantages, no choice of their own. Some people are born with certain characteristics or abilities, and some are not have no choice of their own. And many of us believe that we should work TTO help assure that all people have equal rights, equal protection, equal opportunities. And that’s sort of the moral case for saying, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion in our non-profits really matters because if we’re not leading in these areas is a nonprofit sector there’s there’s a question about that’s not a core value, really, is what the work we’re doing just focused on benefiting certain groups and maintaining status quo and improving the status quote for certain people with power and privilege. So that’s that’s kind of where I stand on that. Yeah, um, we may as well just call this right out. I mean, I feel an obligation to do that, You know, when we say certain people, some people no fault of their own, whenever you know, born with privilege and power and status. I think talking well, We’re talking about white males. There’s a There’s a white male supremacy culture in the country. And, um, that’s what creates structures that are oppressive, you know, day to day to people who don’t enjoy that power and have that that perceived status and and you know it. It creates a lack of opportunity and oppression and, ah, difficulty and just like day to day struggle, that it’s hard. It’s hard to. It’s hard for others for me to appreciate. I try, but it’s hard to understand the full the full impact of it. And I appreciate that, Tony. It’s I mean, it’s a different I mean obviously a complex and difficult to discuss subject. It makes us all uncomfortable, which is part of the reason we need to have these discussions on the board level and on a broader organizational level. Let me sort of make one sort of caveat to all of this. In America, with white male culture can be seen is, you know, the dominant color alter with the power and privilege very fairly in various duitz. Observe that, and that’s obviously a very informed opinion that you have with others and I’ll even say it’s not an opinion. It really is a fact. But marginalization goes beyond race to, you know, and and gender. It goes to sexual identity and orientation. Religion, nationality, wealth. Wealth is a big one. I think age now disabilities, um and I don’t necessarily, you know, have the capacity to understand all of those aspects, and nobody really has the capacity to ask, Understand the aspects of marginalization for all the different groups that we may have. And we do categorize people on a number of different levels and have to recognize that these are off often overlapping and interdependent zsystems um, that that involved discrimination and disadvantage, and some people refer to this is intersectionality. But it is something that we’re all dealing with this country and the one that you raise. Maybe it’s the one that’s primarily on her, uh, our attention right now. And that’s kind of the white male dominated, uh, power and privileged class of individuals and how our institutions have developed over our history with that perspective on informed by that group on how difficult it is to change on recognize the problems that we have if we just continue to go down that path and try to make little incremental changes to the system to make it a little bit fair rather than to think about rethinking some of these and re imagining how how more equitable systems could take their place. But the white male power structure, though I that’s the that’s the root of all of it. It it seems, you know, the more I read and think that’s that’s the foundation of it. Of all the all the inequities, I myself apologize. We’ve got to take a break, but we’re coming right back to this gene. Stay right there. But I have to take care of our sponsors, too, Pursuing their newest free book, The Art of First Impressions. It’s all acquisition. To attract, acquire new donors, you have to make a smashing first impression. They re book has the six guiding principles of ineffective acquisition strategy. How to identify your unique value, plus creative tips. You’ll find it on the listener landing page at Tony dahna slash Pursuant Capital P for please. Now let’s go back, Tio, My conversation with Gene and D. I and governance. All right, So Jean, you know, and so I think that’s the route is the white male supremacy, Um, and you know, And so you and I have to have a safe, you know, safe space for conversation. And it so happens there thirteen thousand people who are going to listen to this. But, you know, you and I, we know each other. So we I for the first time in, like, eight and a half years, I’m feeling a little awkward, but, um, I think if I say that, then that helps me. Teo, we’ll give it voice and just recognize it and say that’s that’s how I’m feeling. But we have to, you know, we’re two people who have known each other for for those eight and a half years, we’ve had lots of conversations where? Thirteen thousand people? Well, years ago, it was only fifteen hundred. But now it’s thirteen thousand. Have listened, and we’ve always been fine. So you know, you’re in a safe space. I’m in a safe space way. Have we have good heads when we have good judgment and, you know, just we have to just, ah, acknowledge there’s a little There was a little attention. At least I was feeling it you know, and just have toe. Okay. You know, these are just the’s air manageable topics. Fair enough. That sounds okay. Absolutely. Tony. And I’m appreciate you having you know, this conversation. It’s obviously one again that’s super sensitive, and I’m sort of, um, the beneficiary of certain powers and privileges myself, so I can appreciate. While I’m of Asian American descent and I have dealt with certain inequities because of that, I can certainly appreciate the many powers and privileges of I’ve had because of my background, including being a male and including living in AA community, where Asian American males are not that uncommon. So it’s a difficult discussion tohave, and everybody’s gonna have a different perspective on this, but I think again, making sure that people do have this discussion at every table. So at the board table, at the dinner table with your family, I think these are important discussions and, um way only benefit by talking about this. Even if there are disagreements. And even if there are attentions and a certain level of uncomfortable feeling that I get generated by them on get’s, you know, we challenge ourselves. I mean, you know, you have your own business. You’ve you’ve broken out. You’ve you’ve challenged yourself in lots of ways. I have my own business. I have a show that, you know, half years ago didn’t exist, you know, So we’re open to challenge, and so we shouldn’t fear another challenge. We’re just taking on another challenge. I gets a sensitive topic, but that doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable by any by any stretch we’re both accustomed to challenge. So we’re challenging ourselves. I mean, you spent twenty minutes on Twitter, hominy, hominy, uh, you know, postings the seasons, challenge yourself and break outside. And those who don’t think differently think, think like everybody else. And where would we be if we all were of that sort? You know, I mean, you see that stuff on Twitter and Facebook all the time, And so now we’re, you know, I mean, you and I live it, Ah, lot, because we have our own businesses. But now we’re doing it in a a different way. A different arena, but still the same thing. It’s the same concept. It’s a it’s a challenge. And it’s ah, it’s overcome oppcoll I agree? Absolutely. Absolutely. If you don’t have the difficult discussions, then you’re probably not advancing a zoo, group or organization. Very well, right? And if you don’t challenge yourself, you’re not. You’re not advancing and growing as a person. That’s because that’s what I was getting to absolutely agree. So All right, so what if you’re on a board and you feel you’ve, you feel like, uh, the board does not reflect or the leadership of the organization. Let’s even bring in the CEO of senior leadership. But you’re a boardmember because we’re talking about defying governance. Um, and you don’t feel like the that that leadership, as I defined it, represents the the people that you’re serving doesn’t represent the communities that you’re serving. What do you think you should do? Hyre It’s a fantastic question, and I think that’s the one that everybody is asking right now, Tony. And partly because we keep getting these results, uh, that show that the nonprofit sector has really not been leading by example in terms of diversity on its board of directors or diversity in its leadership. I think the first thing we need to do is acknowledge that is that we’ve been doing pretty much a terrible job is a nonprofit sector in terms of getting diversity on our boards and diversity in an inclusive way, of course, so I wanted to raise. There was a survey by board source in two thousand seventeen called Leading with intent, and it found that ninety percent of CEOs and board chairs were white. Eighty four percent of board members were white, and twenty seven percent of non-profit boards were entirely wait. And these are bear improvements over a similar survey that they conducted more than twenty years ago. So, yeah, ah ah, highly disproportionate group and we were talking about power and privilege. Um, a really disproportionate number of Non-profit non-profit leaders in governance and CEO rolls are white. And when we talk about this in terms of larger organizations on and sort of the hyre paying CEO position, the gender differences come out as well, where a lot of white males again are dominating on those boards. And in those CEO position, Um, somewhat reflective of, you know, for-profit Fortune five hundred company CEOs and boards where there’s been actual movement, Teo increase att least on a gender basis. Some diversity on their boards. But Non-profits so far have been just doing the terrible drops, I think. Acknowledging that and saying whatever we’ve been doing so far, his not been very good. I think that’s the first place to start. Okay, So you could say, you know, our board is not unique. Our leadership. Sorry of the way. Our seven. Our leadership is not unique. You know, here’s the statistics. The trend is awful. The numbers compared to the twenty years ago, it’s either flat or just our bare improvement there or it’s a walk back. So we’re not unique, but we But we can be leaders on DH. It doesn’t make me comfortable, Teo to be on a to be a part of this organization, that it doesn’t reflect the people we’re serving. Um, first thing I suppose you are a boardmember. Er I don’t Should you? What would you What would you suggest in terms of bringing it up? Would you bring it up in a board meeting now? Probably not mean, you should. You want to have ah, a couple of back channel discussions first, right before you before you make this a, uh ah, ah, anew. What’s it called on agendas? You do boardmember is all the time A new Your business new business before you bring it up is there are lots of hard work that hard work for me to find. If you have a five minute discussion at the end of the board meeting about this topic, it’s not really gonna go. Yeah, you’re very far not introduce it as an issue and put it really on the back burner, if that’s how you’re going to raise it. So I agree some back channel discussions among some of the board leadership and bringing in the CEO to say, You know, this has been a problem in the sector. Let’s take a look at our own board and lets see, do we have this issue as well? And there’s a little bit of, you know, something that’s been called in the racial context. White fragility about being very defensive about about this and think, you know, Yeah, the sector is awful at diversity and equity on board. But you know what? Our boards really different. Even though you know, our composition might exactly make up our community. We’ve got a few people you know who are persons of color, or we’ve got a few people who were women or however you wantto look a diverse. But do they have to testify that you’re being very defensive? Very defenses? I think, having open discussions about, well, what would this organization’s board look like? Ideally, in an ideal world, what would this board be composed of? What different perspectives can we bring in? And why would we want diversity on our board, Our specific board? We know it’s a problem across the sector. We know that maybe on an organizational level, we haven’t always done the best job. But we feel like we have our hearts in the right place. Well, what would this ideally look like? And I think maybe that’s the starting point of discussion to say, Why do we want diversity? What tack of diversity do we want? And ideally, what would that bring out our organization? Why would that make us on it further our mission in a more effective and efficient way. Why would that make our organization be more sustainable over the long run? And maybe after that sort of sort of going for the positive first, maybe after that going? Well, what happens if we don’t do anything about it? Are we going to still be relevant? Are we still going to be around in ten or twenty years? Are we going to still be able to serve our populations as well? If we don’t do anything about these things. So I think those are the questions you ask. Maybe start with the positive and then go to the alternatives. What if we don’t do anything? I’m feeling like Tio. If the board is goingto have, uh, focus on this and have meetings around this and that a professional facilitator could be really valuable because, you know, because of the things that that I talked about and you you seem to feel too, you know, ten minutes ago, and that’s just two of us who know each other very well. You know, but I can imagine a board of eight or ten people, and the defensiveness starts coming up. I could see where a professional facilitator could be really valuable. Absolutely, Tony. And one who has experience dealing with DEA issues. Right, Because they they are particularly sensitive. Just a strategic management consultant who doesn’t deal with this and who might be a member of a powered and privileged class might not have the same perspectives and sensitivities to be ableto bring in the discussion than the understandings of the board members. Teo, be able to move this discussion forward in a way that will actually promote inclusiveness and equity in the organization. Just when would you just said d? I was just thinking this is a really It’s a good thing they don’t call it, uh, equity inclusion and diversity. That would be I’d improvised explosive device. And this this stuff can be really explosive. So if you’re not so I think I just if you’re not careful, you could you could you? If you’re not careful, you could die from the i e d of D I Yeah, that’s absolutely all sorts of possible acronyms. And I hear E. D. I is a frequent acronym on this issue as well. But, yeah, put the put the letters together in the wrong order, and those are the bad things that can happen. You could die from the from the explosiveness of deeds of I of d I. So All right, So what are some of the positives? And, you know, we were going to take inventory. The positives. Then we’re going to take inventory of the negatives to the fear the change. Some people gonna lose their board slot over years. This is obviously not gonna happen in six months. It’s not even happening. One board cycle. But if it’s going to if the organization will be committed to it, you know, there’s going to be costs and benefits. But so what? What? What? Can we identify some of the benefits of having a board that does represent Ah, leadership? Sorry, I keep saying board, but leadership that does reflect the community that we’re serving. What We know someone we know, some advantages. I mean, I because I could spitball a couple, but what do you What do you think? Well, I I think maybe the common sense advantage that we can all probably think about say, that makes sense is that when you got diverse perspectives and diverse backgrounds, it’s going to result in. Mohr informed better decision making because it’s not a bunch of people with the same experiences on the same backgrounds in the same kind of understandings of certain things. You’ve got more, more different thoughts, a different thought. Leadership in there and diverse leadership attracts broader community support. It also leads to greater equities because you’re now thinking about well how to our programs or how our services effect not only just sort of people in general, but segments of our communities. How are we doing with our African American communities or with our Latin next communities or with our Asian American communities with our LGBT communities? And you know those air things that we can all sort of bring in more diverse boards in an inclusive, diversity. Inclusive manner, of course, brings more different perspectives. Beings Mohr leadership that’s informed by different ideas and different backgrounds on DH that really helps out on, you know, also different networks. You’re opening up the opportunities for for for networking and who could be brought to the organization by having a more representative, diverse and inclusive board just absolutely latto napor networks and I think thunders now are starting to become very interested in this area’s well. So in terms of attracting the funders, if you rely, at least in part, on having grants coming from foundations, um, there’s trying to become more and more interested in this space. And part of the reason why is because there has been a lot of backlash against Thunder’s not taking into account DEA in the past, on their being called out and there have been different books. I’m not sure if you’ve been sort of talking with people about these areas, but on and had your argast has been, he wrote Winners Take all, which was on The New York Times top one hundred books list and that talks about sort of power and privilege and philanthropy and how, it seems, you know, serves to perpetuate inequities. Well, foundations are sensitive to that, and I know there are some foundations like the Ford Foundation, that are actually really moving, um, to address some of the inequities that have been caused by by foundations. There’s rob racial Stanford, who just wrote just e-giving who talks about tax policy and how wealth and philanthropic giving like that by maybe like somebody like Jeff Bezos who pledged two billion dollars to charity is really something that deserves not our gratitude but our scrutiny because of his ability to shape policy. You hung that money, influence things going forward and again in a way that a white male sees importance but not addressing it with a broader community. So I think the philanthropic sector is more interested in funding in these areas now, as they’ve been called out on it. Uh, and so if you’re a charity just dependent upon it, it’s gonna really be important out to your funders, many of them and increasingly, mohr that you’ve got a diverse board that has taken into account different populations that it may serve. Are we gonna take a break? Someone we did have on this show just just a few weeks of December. Edgar Villanueva, Uh, the author of the book de Colonizing Wealth and his thesis that use money as as healing For all the past inequities over centuries, Edgar is excellent. Also. Jean, When we come back, let’s let’s talk some about some of the downsides, the fears that we’re going to have to categorise and and list and deal with also among the leadership for this change. Andi, let’s talk some about token ization, too. Weinger CPAs anew Archive Webinar foryou. Accounting update. What has changed that Wagner knows intimately. If you can get intimate with accounting, you shouldn’t get into it with accountants. But but that’s hard. We’re talking about the topics that they know intimately, and you just need to know them a little bit so you don’t need to be intimate with them like the accounting update. New requirements for financial statements. You find this at regular cps dot com. Click Resource is then Webinars. Now time for Tony Steak, too. Take your plan. Giving one piece at a time. I was watching a tree get cut down in my father’s yard like Abraham like, uh, and I was thinking about planned giving. I did not think about honesty. I was thinking about No, wait, That was, Who was the tree? That was George Washington, not Abraham Lincoln, right? Cutting this tree down. That was George Washington. Um, but I wasn’t thinking about either of those Anyway, I was thinking about plans e-giving there’s a guy up in in the bucket and he throws a rope around a branch so that it doesn’t fall uncontrolled after he cuts it. And that’s just like you need to have a couple things in place. Simple things. Just simple rope, that’s all. Nothing elaborate but simple rope thrown over another branch. You need to have a couple things in place before you start your plan giving like, you want to know who your prospects are going to be. We’re gonna be promoting this, too. You wanna have some? Ah, simple plan for going ahead. And then you can go ahead and start your promotion. The cutting. And that would be, of course. You start with bequest. Just take it one piece at a time. Just the way I watched this guy cut this tree down One branch of the time it took ah, full eight hour day and including all the clean up. So you take it one step at a time. And, of course, I’ve got clips of ah, thiss tree surgery, all as part of my video at tony martignetti dot com. Now let’s go back, Teo. Gene on DH talk about D I. Diversity, equity and inclusion and governance. So, Jean, some of the some of the negatives that we’re going to have to deal with, um what what do you fear of change? I mean, I’ll throw a fear of change. Like I said earlier, some boardmember is going to lose their seats. I don’t know that hands are going to be going up and saying, OK, I’ll surrender my seat, even though I’ve got I’ve got two terms left because our by-laws called for three times. But I’ll give up my last two terms for there to be a person of color in my seat. I don’t think that’s gonna happen. So what are what are some of the negatives were going to deal with? Sure. So, you know, in addition to the one that you mentioned about, well, you know, does that mean I have to go was a boardmember because I’m a white male and be replaced by somebody else? That’s not necessarily the case, but that is certainly one of the fears that comes up more. General fear is maybe that Hey, we’ve got some great board members here, but they happen to be white. Does that mean we have to let them go? So that’s one of this year’s They’re stuck on a government structure that says, okay, maybe we were goingto have at nine boardmember Zohra ratio of four to ten, and you have ten board members and nine happened to be white. And you think they’re all great people? You don’t want to lose any of them, so the side as well, we can’t make our board more diverse without losing good people. And that’s a difficult discussion. Tohave One solution maybe increased the size of your board. You go. It’s not It’s not an either or, you know, good, bad. Kind of No, that’s a center in institutional structure. Way. Have to sacrifice some loose, um, good white people so we can get people of color on know just what you suggested. How about we just expand the size of the board? Yeah, but in some cases, it might be good for some people to step aside. And I say that with respect to age as well, because, well, we haven’t talked about it very much. Ah, Non-profit boards tend to be kind of older to Tony as you may know, uh, and young people, particularly millennials. Andi, even some Jen acts are just not getting onto boards. And they’re losing interest because nobody’s recruiting them. So people stepping aside to let in younger generations new thoughts, new ideas, new backgrounds and bring them onto the board, I think is just incredibly important as well. Yeah. You know something? I’m I’m thinking, um, you know, any of these solutions or methods? I really I don’t want to call a solution a method of process that we’re talking about. Jean, you know, may or may not work for aboard, but I guess what my goal for this show is just to encourage the conversations. You need to figure out what’s gonna work best for your organization. Um, you you know? So yeah, you need to You need to tailor these ideas of just But but think about it, you know, be introspective. And if there’s if there’s some If there’s angst, you know, talk about it and give it voice and think about a way a way forward of making the situation better. I could not agree any more with you, Tonia. Absolutely right. I did want to address some of the other challenges, a swell that you raised about having these discussions. Because while it’s great to say, you should have these difficult discussions, there are these barriers to them. And so I think it’s okay to acknowledge that there barriers, including this fear of losing good board members or maybe getting kicked off the board yourself. But, you know, in addition to that, you know, people are thinking about well, in our mission really isn’t about diversity on, and it isn’t about racial equity. Our mission is about something else. It’s to increase, huh? Education in the sciences or it’s tio promote the art or to do something something else doesn’t Apparently, att leased the surface level have, ah, racial lens on it. So people think, Well, it’s working, invest and to do this right, Tony, you talked about bringing it consultant. The board has got to be prepared to invest money and time. You’ve got to do it on the budgeting process and you’ve got to say, diversity, equity inclusion. This is one of our core values, and we are going to invest as if it is a core values, and that is another barrier it’s going to cost money, it’s going to take time. It’s going to take time out of your board meetings because this is a difficult discussion that you’re not goingto have in fifteen minutes. Uh, it’s going to take time, and it’s going to be probably something that goes on forever. So these aren’t short term solutions that solved a particular initiative. These are ongoing discussions that aboard needs tto have to mean make sure that it continues to promote and observe its core values. And I would say that board members, individually you talked about the board of the whole thing, that this is the rule to have these discussions Well, I’m going to argue that a boardmember individually has a fiduciary duty. If D. IE is a core value of the organization to bring it up, Teo, talk with first, you know, private conversations with individual more members. But make sure that that goes to the full board, because if acting in the best interests of the organization is your fiduciary duty, which it is, and G I is a core, value the organization while doing things that further your mission and are consistent with your core values. That is your legal duty. And while you might not get into any legal liability situation for not observing him, it’s still your legal duty to do it. So I would say it’s really imperative upon individual board members who have identified D. I as in core Valley of their organization to make sure that it gets stated that way. And that discussion goes to the board and that investments are made on decisions are made, which will cost something. So to make investment means you’ve got to take money and time out of something else and put it towards this. It’s now time to start doing that for a great many organizations, take money from something else, or find right, raise more money. Correct. There may be sources of money that, uh, that will support this kind of work. Um, I don’t know, but but it’s again it’s not an either or thank you, that’s that’s excellent the way you explained Gene the individual responsibility, because if yeah, because if we all just looked to the if we all just looked to the collective and the collective never raises it, I mean, the collective is just a the collective just a bunch of people. And so if the collective never acts, then that none of the people are. If none of the people are acting, then the collective will never act. That’s why I’m trying to say it sticks me in the circle. Curious way of getting to things. But so, you know, if if every individual’s waiting for every other one, it’s never gonna happen. Um, okay. Uh, all right. When we come back, I got taking a break. When we come back, let’s talk some about organization, Gene. Tell us can use more money. You need a new revenue source. You get a long stream of passive revenue When cos you refer process their credit card transactions through Tello’s. It’s that simple. You give fifty percent of each individual fee and those things add up. That’s the long stream. Month after month after month. Watch the video. Then send your potential companies to watch the video. You’ll find the video at Tony that m a slash Tony Tello’s Let’s do the live listener love. Um it’s ah goes out wherever you might be from Guten Dog which would be Germany to Ni hao, which would be China two Konnichi wa which would be Korea. Um konnichi wa is what konnichi wa is Japan. I’m sorry on genes on Kenichi while Japan, of course. Because Korea is Anya Haserot. That’s right. Yes. Uh, So the live love goes out and that’s for the listeners abroad. But the live love goes to the domestic listeners. Nonetheless, sometimes I do abroad first. Sometimes I do domestic first. So this time I’m doing their broad first But the domestic listeners throughout their fifty states because it’s not only the continental United States we’ll bring in Alaska and Hawaii also, of course, the live love goes out there. So wherever you are listening, live love out to you and the podcast pleasantries, too are vast podcast audience. I’m grateful that you are with us been subscribing the numbers keep rising pleasantries to our pod cast audience. Okay, Jeanne, Um so organization. What? What does that look like? When people of color, uh, or other, uh, other classes are brought in as tokens. What? What does that look like? What that looks like Tony is it’s awful. Well, let’s use the person of color a CZ example. You have, ah, vast majority of the the current board composition being white, and that board decides what we need. Toe add a person of color onto our board. Um, so they bring in one person of color, maybe an African American individual. They bring them on the board, and then they take the picture that we talked about at the beginning of this show. It makes for a better picture than it wass before. Um, but that individual boardmember is really not given any additional power or duties. They’re not asked for their different perspectives that they bring onto the board. There’s no plan to incorporate that person’s background in knowledge to influence what mate be done with the organization’s planning efforts or its future board governance structures. So that person is just brought in there for the good looking photo that shows a more diverse board than it wass on DH by excluding such person from from riel positions of influence and power. Yeah, that’s really just making them a token. And that’s what we’re talking. There’s the key. Yeah, they have. No, they have no power in the organization. There’s no plan for rewarding sharing the power. Um, yeah, the power center isn’t changing. And if it’s one person that that’s probably that to me, that would be a red flag has to be a pretty small board for one person, too, to make a difference and to be incorporated into power structures adequately, Um, and you know the kind of something you know, sometimes you’ll see the diversity committee, right? And so the so the people of color, the lgbtq, you folks, whatever three older folks they’re put on the diversity committee, and that’s it. She really just be called the Divers committee. We have a committee that’s diverse, That’s it. That’s what they do. That’s their structure. That’s their charge to be diverse. Okay, we have a diverse committee, you know, Um, you know, it’s it’s it’s insulting on its It’s also counterproductive because people know when they’re tokens when when they’re not given the levers of power or access to them. People know that, you know, they feel it, and it’s just going toe. It’s gonna create resentment and animosity. It’s It’s counterproductive to have ah, a diverse committee. I agree. Chun hee. So in there, lots of stories where persons of color who get invited onto boards find themselves being the only, UH, person of color on that board and being appointed to a diversity committee. Um, and that gets to be a routine. They join other boards with similar sort of bored compositions, and again, they’re asked to be part of a diversity committee. And, well, if that diversity committees actually given enough power and influence to effect change so that diversity, in an inclusive way is really strengthened in the organization and its governance. Well, that’s one thing. But if that diversity committee, year after year, is just for the photo op, uh, and just for the Grant proposal that says we have one, well, that’s really classic token ization. And and that’s something that is counterproductive in the incredibly you’d be better off not having that individual joined the board. That will be a terrible board experience for that person as well. Let’s talk about how this is a e-giving deviating from what I was thinking, but it is important. How do you share the levers of power? A. CZ. So if the leadership is, is all white what? What do they do? What do they need to do? Latto give real power, too. The their newly new people of color, etcetera. They’re newly diverse board members. What does that look like? Sharing the levers of power. What? You know, I need you to talk a little bit so I can think about it cause I just thought of it myself. How do you do that? How do you start to share power? Great question. And that would be kind of one of those generative questions that board should have. Ah, long discussion about once identified D. E A. Is something they want to prioritise and adopted the core values, and I think they’re a few ways to do it. The first way is to decide well, the first thing to do is recognize every boardmember actually has no interference. Individual power. Every boardmember individually has no power unless it’s delegated to them individually. While they have no power. Collectively, as the board, they’re the ultimate power of the board of the organization. So collectively they have power individually, they have no power. So bringing on one person, colored just to be an individual boardmember not delegating any authority to that individual is classic. Token is but you have officers. So you have a chairman of the board. You may have a vice chair, you may have a CEO. You may have a development director, some of these air staff positions in all volunteer organizations that may all be volunteer positions. And there may be mixes, obviously, but their officers who do have individual authority and that where you have to think about is, is our diversity in an inclusive manner being affected through our officer positions there. Maybe committee positions that have power as well. Where they’re delegated with the authority to do things on behalf of the board and executive committee would be, you know, a typical committee that’s often asked to sort of take over Mohr of the day to day oversight. Then the full board would be and is a person of color, or whatever marginalized group that you’re trying to increase. The first report is that person, or are those people representative on those committees that have important power? And then, beyond that, maybe the other way to think about it is influence. So while I said each individual boardmember has no power different board members have considerable influence. And if you have a board meeting that’s, you know two hours long if you’ve got a board of, like, fifteen people, there’s only so much that each person Khun say and allow everybody to participate right, And that’s often controlled by the chair of the board, sometimes by the executives who run the board meetings, which isn’t always a great way to do it. But somebody is facilitating and latto presiding over the board and the board meetings. And to do that in a way that recognizes that persons from marginalized groups the person that you asked to be on the board, to represent some of those ideas and perspectives and thoughts, well, that might be unfair to say, you know, you’re brought on to represent every person who’s you know in that group. Yeah, that’s on. So just yeah, just to bring those people just to get at least their individual perspectives coming from that background or characterization, that can be important. But if the board members just don’t acknowledge that, you know, and just give them five minutes to speak at a you know to our board meeting because everybody else needs there five minutes. That’s not going to do much to effect change, either, You know, So so. But promotion, um, get mentoring access to the leadership Onda leadership that that hears them. I’d also welcoming challenges to the leadership, you know, not mutiny. But there’s a lot between silence and mutiny. There’s a broad spectrum there, and so welcoming challenges to the authority and even even in public. If you know if something comes up in public and it seems wrong that the challenge to that shouldn’t be defensiveness, marginalization and rebuking, it should be acknowledgment. I’m trying to listen and learn. You know? What is that? What’s the What’s the What’s the source of the conflict that’s been pointed out? Mean those air? Those are things that that I was thinking of. Two as a cz ways of sharing power and e-giving e-giving voice. I got to take our last break. Gene Hoexter give. Can you use more money? Need a new revenue source? Here’s a second way mobile giving. You can learn about it with text to gives five part email mini course. Fiv e mails won the day and you will know no more about text e-giving mobile giving than you did six days earlier. I did it, and I learned it’s easy to get started. It’s cheaper. It’s easy for your donors. It’s cheap for you to get started. There’s just a couple of lessons that come out of this many course to get the email many course Text NPR to four, four, four, nine, nine nine. And thankfully, we’ve got several more minutes, but probably not enough, uh, for D I and governance. Anything else you want to add? Jean, too. I threw something out that I took a break, because that was that was that unfair exercise of power? I’m sorry, E. I got it. I got to take care of the sponsors. I didn’t mean to do it that way. So anything you want, toe, respond to what I just said. I’m going to echo actually what you said because avoiding conflict going for consensus based decision making on boards, I think is really, um, enhances the white supremacy culture or a majority or power privileged supremacy culture. So I think embracing some sort of conflict is important. Having a long term focus and not just a short return focus is really important not to looking to just better perfect the status quo when you recognize that the status quo was largely designed by one group for their own benefit is also another important factor. Now I’ll just leave you with a few. Resource is so bored. Source has got some excellent subject matters, particularly those written by Veneta Walker, who used to be their vice president and now engaged in consulting. And I’m going to have a chance to talk with Brunetta about four diversity on a webinar coming up in March. So just plug that a little bit and say, look for her readings because she’s a really leader in this space and you can learn a lot. Okay? And now you’re going to be on this Webinar in March, which I’m sure you’re going to promote at the non-profit. Law blogged dot com, right? Absolutely. Okay, so people need to be subscribing to that. You’ve heard my admonition hundreds of times, subscribed to non-profit law blob dot com and you’ll you’ll find out info about Jean and on the Web in our with Veneta, we still have some time left. Jean What? What do you want to talk about? Well, I’m going to say a few more things than what one is that I was going to mention Edgar Villanueva’s Well, because his book, It’s remarkable de colonizing wealth, and I really appreciated your show with that girl. That was such an interesting show. He’s excellent. He’s excellent. Yeah, the next thing is, maybe once you figured out what you want to do in terms of Why are you bringing diversity on? And how is it going to help your organization pursue or an advance its mission in a better way. That’s the time to start to now, reach out to communities of color on DH. You’re gonna have to go through different ways because the traditional way of bringing in boards for most non-profits that have self perpetuating board, we just ask our friends or we asked our contacts and very much, you know, and I think there’s an evolutionary biology principle of affiliating with, you know, people who are of our similar characteristics, all to do with the selfish gene and and all of that and so that that’s our comfort zone. That’s what we may be predisposed to because it had sametz solutionary advantage in the past just sort of congregate with one another that we’re very much alike. But we’ve got a break out of that. And if you want diversity, you got to reach out and go beyond that. Acknowledge that you may have those those predispositions, but you’ve got to reach out. Consider Boardmember Ching Services, identity based professional affinity groups, colleges, community leaders reach out and be uncomfortable. As you said, Tony, be uncomfortable, get to know new people and get your organization to know new people and new groups and figure out how to do it right. If you’re really open and honest about it, these people are going to want to help us. Well, yeah. Go into the communities that you are under represented by that you’re under representing, uh, set up some meetings. Um, you know, maybe it’s Maybe it’s among your benefit community, The people you’re helping talk to them or uh, but as you said, Gene, you know, goingto community’s going to networks that you haven’t been in. People take a meeting, they’ll take a meeting. And if your genuine and sincere they’re going to hear that, they’re going to hear that and they’re going, They’re going to want to help you. All right, Gene hears. I don’t know if we covered this adequately again. My goal was just to get people consciousness raised and get them thinking about and talking about these things. But I want I want each of us to listen back to this, and you and I’ll decide together whether we should say some more on this or we feel like we’ve we’ve done enough. Not that now that we’ve covered the whole topic. But have we, uh, Have we met the goal? Okay, but then you know what? I set the goal. So I’m open to a different goal to see, see that white powers creeping in and set the goal. And then I’m saying that we’re going to judge it by the goal that I said, So it’s bad. So you and I will collaborate together, and we’ll decide if we’re going together. If we’re going to do this topic some more sound good. I love to do with you and love to actually talk about how you can implement some of these ideas in by-laws and governing documents from illegal angle. There’s your record to it. Okay, It’s up to you if it’s upto us together, if we want to do some more. All right. So he’s Jean Takagi non-profit law block dot com. You got to subscribe to that and follow him. He’s at G tak Gene. Thank you so much for real. Genuine and could have been even tougher. But but it wasn’t as tough as it could have been. So I thank you for that conversation. Thanks so much. Really Appreciate it. Tony. Have a great day. Thanks, Gene, next week. I don’t know if you missed any part of today’s show. I beseech you. Find it on tony martignetti dot com were sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash Pursuing Capital P by Wagner. CPS Guiding you Beyond the numbers regular cps dot com by tell us credit card payment processing your passive revenue stream, Tony dahna slash Tony Tello’s and by text to give mobile donations made easy text. NPR to four four four nine nine nine are creative producers Claire Meyerhoff. Family Blitzes. The Line producer shows Social Media Is by Susan Chavez Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein of Brooklyn with me next week for Non-profit radio Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and be great you’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. E-giving. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you stuck in a rut? Negative thoughts, feelings and conversations got you down. Hi, I’m nor in Sumpter potentially ater. Tune in every Tuesday at nine to ten p. M. Eastern time and listen for new ideas on my show Yawned Potential Live life Your way on talk radio dot n Y c. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dafs. Do you like comic books and movies? Howbout TV and pop culture. Then you’ve come to the right place. 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