Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 252. How Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation Is Fighting for Climate Justice + Resiliency - Justine Lucas and Fiona Korwin Pawlowski

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252. How Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation Is Fighting for Climate Justice + Resiliency - Justine Lucas and Fiona Korwin Pawlowski · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Jonathan McCoy: Today's episode is sponsored by feather feather provides digital marketing tools and strategies for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes, including the Humane Society of North Central Florida. Stick around for the break to hear how feather power their $300 digital ad campaign that raised nearly$6,000 In just one day. Hey, I'm John.
• 0:21
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:21
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the we are for good podcast.
• 0:24
  Becky Endicott: Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
• 0:33
  Jonathan McCoy: We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
• 0:42
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:53
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. How long have we been counting down this day?
• 0:58
  Becky Endicott: I'm pretty sure you need to pinch me right now.
• 1:00
  Becky Endicott: Because not only do we get to talk about one of our absolute favorite subjects today, which is climate justice, and dive deeply into what an incredible foundation is doing to sort of write the climate crisis in their corner of the world. But let's be honest, we're hanging out with rereads people today the most incredible people.
• 1:21
  Becky Endicott: We're so excited today to introduce Justine Lucas and Fiona Corwin pub Loski, who are the executive director and the senior director respectively, of the Clara Lionel Foundation. And you may not know that name, but it was actually founded in 2012 by Robyn Rihanna, Fenty in honor of her delightful grandparents, Clara and Lionel Braithwaite.
• 1:46
  Becky Endicott: And we learned about this foundation from our good friend Susan McPherson, who said, You really need to meet with this team, because they are truly on the cutting edge of what is pushing the climate solution forward that narrative. And we love so much that when we met them, we just saw that their work really is rooted in the reality that climate disasters, which are just growing in frequency and intensity, they just do not impact all communities equally. under resourced countries, communities of color in island nations are really facing the brunt of this.
• 2:19
  Becky Endicott: And I don't know that many of us have thought about it in that way. And we're really going to lift that narrative today, and allow Justine and Fiona to dive into it. But I think the thing that really struck me is that what they're doing to combat this inequity, is they're pulling together these incredible partnerships with funders, and they're acknowledging this deep understanding of what is necessary to actually to achieve climate justice in their communities. And Justine, the first time we met, you said something that was just so beautiful, that I love that you said, how does the Caribbean become a climate resilient space. And we absolutely love when nonprofits go in and pour into using local people to solve their problems. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. So you all just committed 15 million to 18 organizations working on the climate justice crisis across the US and the Caribbean, you're partnered up with Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter on this incredible start small initiative. And I just love that this is rooted in empathy, and justice and this premise that Rihanna has of I want my philanthropy to be as big as my music and my fashion. So to say we are a little bit imposter syndrome to talk to you is putting it mildly. But welcome, amazing humans. We're so excited to have you on the podcast.
• 3:43
  Justine Lucas: Thank you so much for having us.
• 3:44
  Becky Endicott: Well, Justine, I want to start with you and the world clearly knows, Briana, we know what an incredible force for good she is. But we want to get to know you both. We want to know how you fell into this work and what it means to you personally.
• 3:59
  Justine Lucas: Thank you. And thank you for that kind introduction. You know, I started out my career as an activist, I went to school at NYU when the United States was about to go to war with Iraq and Afghanistan. And I was part of a lot of the social justice movements that were happening in New York City. And that experience of being out in the streets and community organizing is something that my career became rooted in. And I quickly transitioned in international development because I had a passion for international politics. And I've had the great opportunity to live and work in lots of corners of the globe.
• 4:35
  Justine Lucas: And Fiona and I both came to this work from the international development side of things and fell into this role at Clara Lionel Foundation. And once I had the opportunity to meet our founder, it really was this great alignment and I was so inspired by her passion for the issues and for the aspirations for how Big she was hoping that the charity would become and the impact would have on the world.
• 5:04
  Justine Lucas: It really blew me away. And we both started in 2016. We started in the emergency response space to natural disasters and you know really quickly pivoted into climate resilience, which we're excited to share a bit more about that journey with you all today.
• 5:19
  Becky Endicott: Love that story.
• 5:19
  Becky Endicott: So, Thelma, go to your Louise, Fiona, the or the Thelma and Louise of the climate crisis.
• 5:27
  Becky Endicott: Talk to us and share your story.
• 5:27
  Becky Endicott: We're so curious.
• 5:29
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: Thank you. And thank you so much for this introduction and for having us. And yeah, I started out my career as a nonprofit consultant actually working on fundraising strategies and communication strategies with amazing organizations here in New York, I had always been interested in the social impact and nonprofit space feeling like really drawn to this question of what makes us care about issues, people communities across the world that we might not have been touched by or had the opportunity to connect with and have really had that question be the through line and the cornerstone of all my work. And the issue that really drew me into this work was the HIV AIDS crisis at a pretty young age, because I felt like it showed for the first time for me all the complexities of this work, a lot of which we're going to talk about today of lots of inequities around policy, access to health, discrimination, the critical necessity to pair grassroots work with policy change, with advocacy. And through that issue, as the lens really made me want to have a career in this space for the rest of my professional career and focus on issues like that, that are complex and critical for us to address as a society, and you can't get more critical than the climate crisis. So I was grateful to have journeyed through my career from that first position, working a little bit in the foreign policy space at the Council on Foreign Relations working on the ground in Haiti with grassroots organizations. I got my master's at NYU in interest development and humanitarian assistance, and then came to Global Citizen where I was lucky to meet Justine and we were first able to collaborate in the education advocacy space. When I heard from Justine about this amazing opportunity with CLF, I had gone over to UNICEF where I was working on their first corporate Emergency Response Program. And that was such a beautiful pivot into this work where we're now looking at both how can we work with other funders in the space to make sure that this work is funded at scale, but also put forward new models of how to respond to the climate crisis and work around climate resilience and climate justice?
• 7:43
  Jonathan McCoy: Wow, what to do?
• 7:43
  Jonathan McCoy: Oh, you too, are and just the expertise and the wisdom and empathy just had the empathy that I'm hearing too. I just love that y'all are stepping into this with CLF being so ambitious, but also knowing with that ambition, that there has to be focus in there. And to really make the greatest impact is to go deep in some core areas. So I wonder if you tell thread the story of CLF and how its history kind of evolved to this moment.
• 8:10
  Jonathan McCoy: Now, when you're just so focused on a couple core pillars?
• 8:14
  Justine Lucas: Sure. Yeah. I started in 2016. And 2017, has a really devastating hurricane season. With hurricanes Irma, and Maria, in the Caribbean, on Dominika alone and island that we've come to love 90% of the structures on the island were damaged or destroyed. So just a incredibly devastating hurricane season. And CLF historically had done all this amazing work, a lot of it was in emergency response to natural disasters.
• 8:42
  Justine Lucas: And we had seen, you know, in this role, but also in our careers, that emergency response to natural disasters, it just feels like a band aid, you know, versus rush of aid. That happens in the week after the media covers it for a week. And then all of it sort of, you know, dwindles away. And communities are left to pick up the pieces for years and years and years.
• 9:08
  Justine Lucas: And it just felt like something that kept repeating, you know, us engaging in that work. Yes, it's important, but it wasn't really systems change. And in the Caribbean, in particular, seeing the natural disasters getting worse and worse year on year. You know, we wanted to explore how CLF could play a role in terms of climate resilience. But climate resilience is a really big issue. And it's complex, and there's a role for government and there's a role for lots of different stakeholders. And so we worked with university students, and we had university partnerships that you really helped us explore how we as moderately size NGO could play in that space and where we should focus. So in 2018, we announce the formation of the climate resilience initiative, which is working towards that goal that you referenced of The Caribbean becoming a climate resilient zone. And for us, we focus on critical facilities. So we look at health clinics, schools, shelters, we equip them with renewable energy. And we harden the infrastructure so that these facilities can withstand natural disasters and ensure that communities have continuous access to those critical services. So that's one piece of our work, the climate resilience initiative. And the other is the climate justice work that you referenced as well. We focus on supporting community based organizations fighting for climate justice in their own communities.
• 10:35
  Becky Endicott: I just love you guys so much the work that you're doing has such dignity.
• 10:38
  Becky Endicott: It has it is so ethically sourced. And I really think just the humanity of it is just so aspirational. And I just really want to thank you for that. And I love this call for climate justice. And I want you to just talk about like your global footprint, and the scope of of your work around the world. What is your impact look like today?
• 11:01
  Justine Lucas: Yeah, so we are focused on just the US and Caribbean, we have done work in other places in the globe. But you know, we really wanted through a strategic planning process we went through last year, we really wanted to focus our geographies, so we could have the greatest impact. So the climate resilience initiative is just focused on Caribbean and the climate justice work, or supporting community based organizations here in the US and in the Caribbean. And in terms of impact in 2020, because we had this emergency response expertise and COVID hit, we engaged in a great deal of COVID response. And between that and our racial justice work, the grant making that we did after the murder of George Floyd, we leveraged about $47 million dollars in grant making in 2020.
• 11:48
  Justine Lucas: Alone. So that that stat I did want to share and then because you mentioned Haiti last year, right after the earthquake, CLF was able to fund eight community based Haitian led organizations with over a million dollars. And in Yeah, we were really proud of that we still do emergency response work. But when we do it, we find local organizations to support and support their efforts in that immediate aftermath. And the last step I'll share on impact is really the fact that 95% of our funding last year went to bipoc led organizations,
• 12:23
  Jonathan McCoy: could you go a little deeper on this, because I think this is so important for every one to hear, like, the reason that you focus on working with local organizations. And from your own personal experience. I know this has got to be threaded in the approach and how you know what is going to tie to outcomes too, because you kind of just riff on that with us of that importance of how you're finding partners.
• 12:43
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: Yeah, definitely. And it is really rooted, I think, in the path that we've gone on. And I think for us, this is about people, right? This isn't about where you're from, this is about meeting people where they are.
• 12:57
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: And when we look for partners, we really do take that people centered approach, we really want to get organizations, we want to get to know organizations really well, before we even enter into a funding relationship. We want to understand how inclusive how community based they are, you know, do their communications reflect the community that they're working with authentically? How are they partnering with others? You know, how are they building coalitions within their areas of work and, and we really find that the organizations that we work with, they are best suited to knowing the needs and visions for their community they are leading. And we feel like it is critical for the philanthropic sector to see that and not view philanthropy as an outside tool coming in, but really to say, okay, how can we use philanthropy? How can we maximize and elevate these leaders that are already doing the work on the ground, and it's feels like often we've seen throughout our careers, especially in the international development space, there is a certain othering aspect to this even in the finite language that we use at CLF. We're so careful about language. We always say partners, for example, we don't like the word grantees. That's just a small thing. But it makes a big difference how you speak and how you approach who you work with as as true equals, and partners.
• 14:19
  Becky Endicott: I mean, you're exactly right. And the things that I keep hearing over and over. And what you're saying is, you all are listening all the time. Thank you, Fiona, for talking about humans. These are human beings. And the way that you were equalizing is again, the word I just keep thinking about is dignify there's such dignity in what you're doing.
• 14:41
  Becky Endicott: And this is how we all equalize on this earth, we believe. And when you can bring somebody up and not just Cavalier come in and say I'm the nonprofit with all of the answers. No, we don't always have the answers. And I love that this partnership component, that's a big trend that we've been exploring and 2022 on this podcast is this reimagining of partnerships. And I have to tell you, I'm so geeked out at the thought of using, you know, even just celebrity passion, whether that's with, you know, Rihanna, or if that's with Jack Dorsey, using that network to fund and lift the awareness of these issues to talk about, we cannot be the saviors coming in to solve these problems, that is not the way that our mindsets need to be. So I just think what you all are doing is so of the progressive now, you are meeting the moment that is happening in a digital global world and fundraising. And I want to just pivot a little bit to the climate resilience initiative.
• 15:40
  Becky Endicott: And we kind of touched on this some of the bio, but climate disasters don't impact all these communities equally. And I love that you've talked about that, can you kind of share with our listeners more about this and the work that you're doing to address this,
• 15:53
  Justine Lucas: the fact that climate disasters don't impact all communities equally, was really the impetus for the climate resilience initiative.
• 15:59
  Justine Lucas: You know, the hardest hit, and the ones that received the least support are BiPAC, communities, women, island nations, and a year or so after the 2017 hurricane season, if you and I were in Puerto Rico, and we visited a reproductive health clinic on that trip. And we heard, we sat there for a few hours and just listened to the stories of these women who had been working so hard to get this clinic reopened, repaired, prepared for the disasters to come. And the fact that that community didn't have access to those services for over a year was devastating. And just listening and hearing how, you know, having not having access to those services affected that community was really influential to us, when we were building the climate resilience initiative, we knew we were going to focus on critical facilities. And we knew health clinics were obviously going to be a part of that. We and we particularly look for health clinics that are in more marginalized, more rural communities to support but we decided from the beginning to start with reproductive health clinics. You know, it's just, we saw firsthand that, you know, reproductive health clinics, reproductive health facilities seem to fall to the bottom of the list of priorities and repairing after a natural disaster. So just realizing that intersection of women and climate and it just felt like it was something that wasn't getting any attention, and no one was doing that work. And so we lead with those partnerships.
• 17:36
  Justine Lucas: And we have projects on multiple islands with reproductive health clinics. And then with the climate justice work, as you said, we really believe strongly in building partnerships with community based organizations and really acknowledging their deep understanding of what's necessary to achieve justice in their own communities. So that is our climate justice work. We in that pillar of work, we are just grant giving to these organizations. And we our big announcement, just just recently 15 million to 18. climate justice organizations, for us was really powerful, because we touched all 50 states, we reach seven Caribbean countries, we focused on organizations that were led by women use bipoc communities, LGBTQIA communities, we really wanted it to be incredibly representative.
• 18:27
  Justine Lucas: And, you know, we're gonna continue to do these grant rounds and really be steered by this fact. But the climate, you know, crisis is not impacting communities equally, it really is the root of what we do.
• 18:41
  Jonathan McCoy: Something you said, right out of the gate, and the parallel with what you're talking about now, to me, keeps coming up. And that's this idea of a bandaid, you know, you have like this hurricane, and we're just forced in a position to put a bandaid on the issue, which we all understand. But this idea of resilience stands so starkly to that to me. And it's part mindset, but it's part infrastructure. Would you kind of talk about what does resilience look like? I mean, how do you build back a reproductive clinic that is resilient, like what does that look like in tangible terms?
• 19:12
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: Definitely.
• 19:12
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: You know, this work we do with the climate resilience partners in the Caribbean, it's very different from what we would do with our direct grantmaking.
• 19:22
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: With climate justice partners.
• 19:22
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: We dive really, really deeply with our partners in these clinics, schools. And within these three pillars of critical services, we work with each partner to specifically tailor what we're doing to their visions and their needs. And although we define resilience, and you did a great job outlining it it is infrastructure, and as operation so when we say climate resilience at CLF. We're talking about resiliency of buildings and systems, right? How do you physically in the most simple terms, just make sure a health clinic for example, can survive a storm so that they can continue to provide the services that are already so deeply needed. But even more so after, after a storm. And also, we found in the Caribbean, these clinics are often, especially in rural communities, they are the center clinic, right. They're not just providing reproductive health services, they're providing basic services. And in emergencies, we found that our partners are already positioned as the emergency response leaders for their communities.
• 20:27
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: So what that looks like is a clinic could become the actual central emergency hub after making it even more important that the building is sound, and that everyone has what they need to withstand the storm and to pick up and and provide services right after. And when we're assessing infrastructure. We look at the of course, the physical nature of the building, but we're also talking about renewable energy, right? And how do you have a 360 approach to what resilience means and what readiness looks like. And I think a good example, that mirrors what Justine was sharing about our experience in Puerto Rico, which was, it was really powerful for us to see the ramifications of that clinic not being open, but also to see, okay, how renewable energy was introduced to that clinic was done in such a way that did not involve the clinic leadership, it was not reflective of the needs of the partner, there was no process. And while well intended, often, when these products are introduced, there's not that holistic approach. So I'll just point to the recent work we've done with an incredible reproductive health clinic in the Dominican Republic, pro familia, we worked with them as part of the whole Resilience Project, we worked on infrastructure of the building.
• 21:45
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: And then we worked on operations, doing emergency readiness workshops with them, they actually lead workshops for other clinics in the region, because they are, again, that emergency focal point. But most importantly, when it came to installing the renewable energy, they were involved in every step of the process, able to really participate voice, what they felt their own needs were what kind of system they even wanted.
• 22:07
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: These are very complex transitions to make, especially when you're talking about renewable energy. And that's a very concrete example of how we've tried to combat that and really define resilience in a new way. That is, you know, really grounded in preparedness in a way that allows these clinics and other partners to be ready for whatever comes.
• 22:30
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, friends, this episode is presented by virtuous and they just happen to be one of our favorite companies. Let me tell you why.
• 22:35
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• 22:51
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• 23:54
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• 24:49
  Becky Endicott: Now let's get back to this amazing conversation. I just have to pause on that and make sure that everybody heard that.
• 24:59
  Becky Endicott: Because I think this is one of the most common pitfalls in philanthropy right now what Fiona just described and so many of us do with incredible intentions and we go in full force, and we try to just cram our mission and our services into a system that may not work with our systems and our services and I the thing I love most about what you are doing at CLF is you are really treating this as like this beta experiment and you are going in and you're You're listening, and you're doing the hard work. And it feels like you're building a framework. And you're testing it, and you're seeing what works. And I just have so much hope. And this framework that I hope could be democratized across. So not just climate, but in so many issues that's really rooted in empathy, and listening, and an innovation and flexing Tech for Good. And I think the preparedness and the readiness is such a next level mindset for individuals who are not taught. I mean, when you're putting a bandaid on it, you're in the moment, you're taking care of the crisis now, but you all are getting ahead of that.
• 26:13
  Becky Endicott: And I have to back up and ask you this question. What does it feel like when you sit down with these women? Because I have to tell you, I'm getting a little teary over here, as you're talking about reproductive health. And John and I have been very upfront on this podcast sharing that we respectively and our individual families have grown our families because we had access to reproductive health here in the states in such a rich country. And I have my daughter, John has two sets of twins. And I just I feel such a kinship to these women. And you talk about that was enough for a year. And I just think the last year of that, for those women and not just on reproductive, just just on health and taking care of yourself. What is it? What does it mean to you you to hardwired empathy activists to sit down with these women and hear these stories?
• 27:09
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: This is about human rights and access.
• 27:11
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: And we just we really believe that this just shouldn't be a question. And I think what we feel we off just and I often say that we're just every time we're looking at new partners are talking to our current partners, we're just surrounded by badass women. I mean, if you look across our partners in the Caribbean, whether it is the hospital where everything's CLF, is started with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados to the primary and secondary schools we work with, has we, you know, work on on shelters and and, of course, the leaders of these reproductive health clinics, we see just that that is the sentiment, it feels just powerful. Like there's just no question, like, everyone gets up and does the work every every day, because this is a rite that everyone should have. And it is challenging, it's been especially challenging, I think, for everyone. And I just want to call out the the leaders of these clinics and the teachers that have an everyone who's been on the frontlines of these issues for so long, but then had that elevation of the challenges that came with the past the events of the past two and a half years. I mean, it is, it is just really hopeful, I think and inspiring when we sit down and are able to have conversations with our partners, and we talked to them so frequently. And it's just really heartening. Because when we have something as urgent and complex as the climate crisis, where we need everyone and we need to reach across, you know, industries, we need to reach across borders and, and really build partnerships and support people like these women that are leading these clinics.
• 28:52
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: It's it's, it's really inspiring to me, I know Justine, you probably have other other thoughts too,
• 28:58
  Justine Lucas: or this feels like the Caribbean, like we draw so much inspiration in general, our founder was named a national hero of Barbados recently. And she got to stand alongside Prime Minister Mia Motley, who's also the most incredible leader and the new president in Barbados, because they just achieved their independence was also a woman.
• 29:17
  Justine Lucas: So just having these three powerful women stand up in these leadership roles. It just feels like we're in the wake of these powerful women and just inspired when we get to spend time there.
• 29:30
  Jonathan McCoy: So I mean, we've kind of alluded to this, this whole conversation, but these problems are so big, the vision so big that you can't do this alone, like y'all are so good at building partnerships. And yes, you have Rihanna has global brand behind this on some level.
• 29:44
  Jonathan McCoy: But it's also just about the way you've shown up that you built relationships. You know, I think that's what people remember, is the way that that you serve and the way that you listen and the way that you connect. We kind of talk about this because I think there's so much we can all learn of how y'all come to the table and partner and kind of harness that to perpetuate the things you're doing.
• 30:05
  Justine Lucas: I would just start with, you know, I think Fiona and I both believe in showing up authentically and we are so inspired by our founder and the way she shows up in the world. I'd say that, you know, it feels like you can accredit her fame and success in some ways to her authenticity. People can feel her humble nature and can feel her energy because she just shows up as herself. So I think we build partners and build relationships by just listening and being authentic.
• 30:37
  Justine Lucas: And I also want to say too, we have such an amazing team. So definitely a shout out to Ashley and crystal and Joe, who are our colleagues and our founder and her team, you know, also mostly women and support us in so many ways. And we have a board of directors, that's so amazing, we have a creative agency, you know, called critical mass that supported us pro bono for all of these years. And then most importantly, the partners that, you know, we get to serve around. So I think we have, you know, all our relationships are based in community from the core and, and we do build those just by showing up as ourselves and just being present.
• 31:18
  Becky Endicott: I mean, there's just so much alignment here. And our final core value of our company is that we believe community is everything. And I think when you have a vision as bold as what you are chasing right now, that attracts like minded people. And John, I just keep thinking, we got to get Fiona and Justine on the TED Talk stage, like it would just be such an incredible viral conversation. And it's just truly heartening to know that there are just passionate people who are reimagining the way that we can connect the way that we can conserve, and honestly the way that we equalize. So thank you for doing this work to you too, and your incredible team and the ripples that have just cascaded from it. You know, we were such big fans of story. And we love to see a way that we can visually capture what what has happened with philanthropy and your individual lives. So I want to start with you Fiona, and I want to know about a story of philanthropy that has personally touched you in your life, it could be at CLF, or it could be anywhere, what's one that sticks out for you?
• 32:26
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: I think my my moment is really reflective of this conversation, actually. And, you know, I feel like Hades also been a theme through this conversation. And unfortunately, Haiti is where we've seen a lot of these patterns, right, have some a lot of outsider philanthropy, not asking what needs are, but it's where to circling back to how Justin started this conversation we have, there are so many incredible Haitian led organizations there that are making change every day. And I was in Puerto Prince after the earthquake in 2010. And a colleague and I were conducting a workshop using the Photo Voice methodology, which is the idea of using photography and narrative as self expression and a tool of advocacy and communications, for communities often left out of the conversation. And the group was with in a IDP camp in the capital. And it was a workshop with kids. So obviously, incredible group of kids. And I think the moment that really affected me the most was on the last day of the workshop, we were reflecting on the whole week. And one of the kids about seven years old said, you know, when we first started this workshop, when we first met you all, we thought you were going to bring us things, toys, you know, and that was, of course, especially being in one of the camps, what they'd seen a lot from organizations. And he said, We don't want things we want to build skills we want to learn.
• 33:52
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: And this just hit me so powerfully, because I think that really defines philanthropy for me, and I actually just saw an actual definition of philanthropy the other day that said it was it's about goodwill between humans. And I love that definition. Because philanthropy is not about things it's about.
• 34:11
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: And it's not just about listening, listening is a great start. But it's about what you do want to listen and how you bring that into being and how you show up for others and how you meet them where they are and how we do it together. And I love that definition of philanthropy, versus it being about the giver.
• 34:29
  Becky Endicott: A seven year old gets it, they always do. What about you just do
• 34:35
  Justine Lucas: they do and I think the moral of the story that comes to mind for me is not too dissimilar from Fiona's.
• 34:40
  Justine Lucas: When I was 25, I had the great opportunity to move to Cameroon to work for a local human rights organization and I studied human rights in school. And you know, I was really passionate about really learning while I was in in that country, so I was committed to not finding a desk job of any kind. I did not want to work for an NGO or the UN I, I wanted to be immersed. So I found a local nonprofit founded by Cameroonian in a province that was oppressed by the government. If you're not familiar, Cameroon, still, to this day, has a dictator that's been in power for longer than I've been alive. And so I had the chance to live there for a year working for this organization. And one day, my colleague ebony, Ebony and I we went to the police station because we'd heard that this elderly woman was being held for bail. And we got into his long, very heated argument with the police officer, we wanted her release, like it just felt so wrong to have this elderly woman, you know, being held in jail for something that seemed to be pretty meaningless. And the police officer at one point got really heated. And he stopped me. And he held up his pen in the air. And he said, Justine, who do you think pays for this pen? And I answered, but I assumed the government, but had a hanging question at the end of my voice. And he asked me how much I thought he was paid per day, like what his salary was. And I answered that I assumed fairly decently compared to the folks that were living with in Khumba, and in this town and Cameroon. And he answered that it was the equivalent of $1 a day, like the US equivalent of $1 day. And then he explained to me that he has to hold a certain number of people for bail each month, or he can't afford the pen, and he can't afford the gas to put in his vehicle, and he can't afford to feed his family. And the money that was supposed to be supporting this police station somehow disappeared between the Capitol and reaching Khumba. And it was just my first like, real understanding of like, the implications of what corruption looks, it feels like, I feel like I've studied it so much.
• 36:55
  Justine Lucas: But you can't really understand how it affects people's day to day lives, and how, you know, folks are participating in corruption in a way that they sort of have to because the system is set up that way. And for me, it was a big turning point in life lesson in terms of realizing that so many nonprofits just focus on supplying the pencil or the pen or the book. And while it is important for one day for that kid or that person to have that supply, in a couple of months, the pencil will be gone. And the book will be borrowed. And you know, the realization that you have to solve the challenge of why there is no pencil or pen or book. And so the idea of you know, the system is facilitating that injustice with what needs to be solved for or thrown or agitated against, you know, that systems change approach is something that I learned and Cameron,
• 37:48
  Jonathan McCoy: as you're telling me that I just, I feel like with both of your stories, it's like it all threads together, you know, you told us at a high level, kind of your resume experiences, but you just can't move on. After you have experiences like that, you know, and I feel like I've had personal experiences like that too, to where you just can't close the chapter on the book, like you have to forge and changing even if you can only change one part, you know, like it's, it's worth fighting for.
• 38:12
  Jonathan McCoy: And I see that in your story in the way that you're now building this foundation to do it the right way. And it may be can't fix everywhere, but it could really rebuild in the Caribbean, and this really unique area. So thank you all for that. Thank you for vulnerably sharing goodness, I'm having a hard time even moving on that was so moving. But we wrap all of our conversations, asking for one good thing. And we define that as it could just be a mantra or a good habit, that something that you can leave our community and you've given us so much, I don't know where you want to go.
• 38:42
  Jonathan McCoy: But Fiona, you want to take that first.
• 38:44
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: My one good thing is closing the loop.
• 38:47
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: And it sounds really simple. But when you start applying that to professionally, relationship building or partnerships, or to your personal life, if you just ask yourself are Am I closing the loop? How am I closing loop?
• 38:59
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: Have I closed the loop? It is a really nice, just simple core tenant to have as a question that you ask yourself every day and I found it to be super helpful in just helping myself align priorities and just making sure that I am showing up how I should
• 39:20
  Becky Endicott: Oh, that is such a good self check. You know, truly, that is a great one good thing. What about you, Justine?
• 39:27
  Justine Lucas: Mine is a piece of advice that I got from a professor in grad school. And he taught us very clearly that nonprofits should be working to put themselves out of business.
• 39:39
  Justine Lucas: And for me, right, yeah, it seems obvious in some ways, but it's not. And I don't think most nonprofits behave in that way.
• 39:47
  Justine Lucas: And for me, it's applied in two ways. I think, first of all, it's the perspective on the impact you're trying to achieve in the world. You we should be trying to solve the challenge not just continually perpetually putting band aids on a challenge, we should be trying to solve the challenge. And the other thing, the other way I apply it to our work is operationally, when nonprofits come into money, often I see so many of my colleagues have inclination to immediately start hiring and build up large internal infrastructures.
• 40:19
  Justine Lucas: There's this perspective out there in the nonprofit space that the size of your team is, in some way an indication of success, and I really believe the opposite is true. When you know CLF has come into funding we've immediately turned around and push it out the door to community based organizations And, you know, that need it now.
• 40:34
  Justine Lucas: And I think that that is really stemming from this idea of again, how are we putting ourselves out of business? Like, how are we solving the challenge? I'm not here to like build an organization, I'm here to do the work.
• 40:49
  Becky Endicott: Oh, my gosh, I mean, two incredible things where your head is at where your mission is, that is so evolved.
• 40:59
  Becky Endicott: I mean, I would really uplift this as one of the most progressive nonprofit mindsets we've had on the podcast, I just love and adore you guys. And I could not let that put yourself out of business go without putting a little plug for anybody that's wondering, how do people how do we put ourselves out of business? We have a good friend Matt Hagan, the President CEO of water for who literally just released a TED talk last fall called Why charity should be putting itself out of business. And it's such an fantastic TED talk through the vein of the water crisis. So go check that out. But really, how can people check out CLF? How can they follow your social channels are gorgeous, by the way, So way to go
• 41:43
  Fiona Korwin Pawlowski: really appreciate those, those kind words. And Becky, we would love for people to follow on social, we are really having some great, exciting new ways of storytelling. This year, we are going to be releasing a climate resilience campaign, that's really going to be about the why and just what is climate resilience. And we're super excited for people to see that and engage with it. It's also our 10 year anniversary this year, so have a lot of celebratory moments of that. So please follow and watch the space and and then also our email list is a great way to keep up with us. And last, I would say on the programming side with our website, we're actually a big tenant of our our work is making sure that we're sharing best practices toolkits, we're going to have a portal around our resilience work on our website, also, where we're sharing toolkits that people can just download and use to scale, which is a big goal that we have. So just a third plug to in addition to social on the mailing list, please go to our website and learn more Clara Lionel foundation.org.
• 42:52
  Becky Endicott: Well, that was a little gem dropped right there.
• 42:54
  Becky Endicott: I can assure you that we are for good will be grabbing those frameworks. We'll be sharing them within our community. If this resonated with you, we want you to replicate it accelerate faster. Learn, learn what's working, fail forward. Gosh, you guys what an incredible mission you serve. We are rooting for you.
• 43:12
  Justine Lucas: Thank you so much.
• 43:14
  Jonathan McCoy: Thanks for joining us. Today's episode was brought to you by our good friends at auth zero. Without zero your nonprofit can do more with a login box. Greet prospects and rabid fans of your mission with authenticity simply make it easier for your team to manage data. There's so much about zero login experience can do. Is it auth zero.org For more info.
• 43:33
  Becky Endicott: If you enjoyed this episode, we know you'll love being part of the we're for good community. It's like our own social network where you can find like minded friends, ask questions, share resources and find inspiration anytime. Sign up today at we are for good.com backslash hello
• 43:49
  Jonathan McCoy: thanks friends.