Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 295. Redefining Board Leadership + Investing in Girls to Save the World - Tara Abrahams

Transcript

295. Redefining Board Leadership + Investing in Girls to Save the World - Tara Abrahams · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:00
  Jonathan McCoy: Hey, I'm Jon.
• 0:02
  Becky Endicott: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Jonathan McCoy: And this is the We Are For Good podcast.
• 0:05
  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.
• 0:14
  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.
• 0:23
  Becky Endicott: So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Jonathan McCoy: So let's get started. Okay, Becky, we've been counting down what is it six months, we've been waiting for this conversation.
• 0:41
  Becky Endicott: We've been waiting for this conversation for six months, but I will tell everybody that this is one of the first times I've gone through someone's bio and I could literally not omit anything from Tara's bio because she is one of the most impressive one of the most kind and heartwired people I think we've ever had on the podcast.
• 0:59
  Becky Endicott: So we're just so delighted to have Tara Abraham's here on the podcast today. She is the head of impact at the The Meteor. And she's also the board chair at one of our favorite nonprofits She's the First and we want to give a shout out to Tammy Tibbets and Christen Brandt, two of our dear friends, and she is also on the board for the International Center for Research on Women. So we have someone that is working at the intersection of gender equity, multimedia, and using research and voice to really empower and uplift women. And so I want to give just a little bit of background on where Tara started. But in 2021, she founded Kahani, which is a print magazine and a medium platform designed to amplify the stories of adolescent girls around the world. You're going to hear this empowerment of girls throughout all of this, by the way, and she really started her work and girls education at Girl Rising, which is a global movement, and feature film that raised awareness about the importance of educating girls in the developing world. Tara has also served as the founding director at Maverick Capital Foundation, which is a strategy consultant at The Bridgespan Group. She's advised a variety of leading girls and women focused initiatives from Girls Who Code and Vow to End Child Marriage to the Obama Foundation's Girls Opportunity Alliance, founded by our former First Lady Michelle Obama, who is probably on our like, most dreamy ungettable guest list. But she was also recently named to a political list of the 100 most influential people in gender policy. And she's also was added to the 2022 class of presidential leadership scholars, which is a BDD (a big damn deal) for anybody who does not know this. She is in there with our dear friend Aila Malik and all these extraordinary world changers. So Tara, I know we could go on and on. But I also want to say she is a mother. She is a wife. She cares about people so deeply. And I we just felt that the first time we ever met her. So we're excited to just pick your brain. Learn from you and figure out how we can empower girls today.
• 3:09
  Becky Endicott: Welcome, Tara.
• 3:12
  Tara Abrahams: Thank you so much for having me. Are we done? I should just leave it there because I think it's it's gonna all be downhill. I don't know.
• 3:19
  Becky Endicott: I don't know if you're aware of this. But you're kind of amazing. And I kind of want to be you when I grow up.
• 3:24
  Becky Endicott: But I want to know where all this came from, like, take us back to little Tara. Where did you grow up? How did her heart for empowering women start and lead us to today?
• 3:36
  Tara Abrahams: Well, it was a journey. I will say that I grew up in a northern suburb of Chicago, my mom kind of hauled us to this neighborhood because she had heard how great the public schools were in this particular area of Chicago. So like many families, education was the most important thing. My mom's from the Philippines. My dad's from India, they met when they were both getting their PhDs in chemical engineering, obviously, big underachievers.
• 4:04
  Tara Abrahams: So I kind of fell far from the tree on the science front. But in any event, I really date a lot of my work and my journey to that time as a young person, because it was an interesting place and an interesting time.
• 4:20
  Tara Abrahams: So I came from two different cultures. It was a pretty homogenous community. There weren't a lot of people who looked like me or who had my background, you know, there weren't a lot of people who were either Filipino or Indian, let alone the combination of the two. And so, you know, that was interesting. And then especially at the time, and I will date myself now, late 80s, early 90s, you didn't have as much of the celebration of diversity and multiculturalism that you have today, fortunately, and for me at the time growing up, I sort of felt some of these tensions around really this this idea of blending in and the reason I bring that it up is because I thought I was gonna do what every good daughter of immigrants will do, which is become a doctor, right. And so I think that was a little bit of where the ethos of service started. But also because this community was proximate to Chicago, and was in sight of a lot of the challenges that Chicago was going through at that time. And I'm sure many big cities and everywhere is going through around gaps in education gaps and social services. From a very young age, I was invited to volunteer and that was a formative experience for me as a young person, because as someone who didn't have a lot of resources, no connections, nothing kind of, but my smarts and my heart, to be asked to contribute something beyond myself, was very inspiring and empowering for me. And so I think that's really what set the foundation for me to go on and do some of the things that I've done. It was instilled in me, I think, by virtue of those circumstances, from a very early age that I had something to contribute. And I think that's such an important thing for young people to know and to be told and to be challenged to do is that if you can start so early on making your community a better place, that's what I was asked to do, and charge to do, and along with my friends, my buddies, we did that. And it was it was really just a wonderful experience to start to volunteer at that time.
• 6:32
  Jonathan McCoy: Oh, my gosh, thank you for taking us back.
• 6:35
  Jonathan McCoy: Because it just kind of makes sense knowing and seeing the impact and the footprint that you have today. What has just struck me about you since the first time before I met you and then when I met you is that you have put stakes in the ground of like, this is why I'm here. This is the values that I'm fighting for. It's how I'm orienting my entire life around this, to really champion things. And the second piece that I realized about you is we met kind of through Tammy and Christen, who started She's the First. And they were just effusive about their board chair. And they were effusive about you as a human of the hearts and the smarts that you speak of, but of how they learn from you, but how they co-partner with you in that role. And to me, I guess it just grew my heart of like, man, this is what board leadership could look like. And I think the way you show up value driven with your heart with your mind is really a hate that is disruptive. But it's not how all boards look. And so I'd love for you to kind of share a little bit about your board experiences. And then we're going to try to unpack the mindsets that make the Tara's because we want to replicate you.
• 7:39
  Becky Endicott: We want as many Tara's out in nonprofit as humanly possible.
• 7:43
  Tara Abrahams: Oh, that's so kind. I mean, there were fits and starts, right. So before I ended up in this sort of dreamy, dreamy position that I feel I have as the board chair of she's the first, which we can talk about in a second. There were definitely moments in my journey where I was in a board role, and it just wasn't a great fit. And I think there were a number of reasons for that one, just sort of skip ahead in the in the Tara story, a few chapters. I didn't go to medical school. I don't know if that's obvious. But I didn't. I ended up going. I ended up going to business school. So I graduated from college, was a young person working in New York City and community health, I was thinking about what my career trajectory would be. And I was looking to see, oh, wow, there are a lot of job descriptions that really elevate the MBA as something that would be really useful for nonprofits. So I went, I went off them, I went to business school. But the challenge for me was that I didn't at that time as a probably early mid 20s didn't really have one particular issue that really moved me and inspired me. So I kind of always thought of myself as somewhat behind the scenes being a COO type and so therefore business school would be a really good thing for me to do. I say all of that, by way of background, because from the perspective of the board roles that I took on during that period of time, as I moved back to New York and started to make my way post MBA. I didn't really have what Tammy and Christen talk about right that North Star. I didn't have that. And so at that point in my career, I knew I was making impact. I did know that empirically.
• 9:23
  Tara Abrahams: intellectually. I knew I was doing good work. But I wasn't inspired by the work that I was doing. It wasn't the kind of work that got my eyes popping open at 6am in the morning. And that kept me from sleeping at midnight that night, and everything in between that you could imagine. And I was really in a rut, I would say and I think that's the reason that some of those early board positions for me, just weren't a great fit. I think the other thing at that time too was it was almost the thing to do, the thing I was supposed to do was start to get on boards, because that's kind of what you're supposed to do. And yet, if some of these factors don't come together in alignment, it's not the right time, and it won't be valuable either for the board member or for the organization.
• 10:15
  Tara Abrahams: So I think it's really important to examine and unpack the reasons that you want to join a board in the first place. And there are lots of reasons that you could want to do that. Is it, of course, about the mission of the organization? Are you drawn to those particular the leader or the leaders of the organization? Is there a kind of peer group or aspirational group that you would be part of, by joining a board? Is there professional advancement that can come from joining a board and having a position with an organization in a governing role? I think all of those reasons are incredibly important. It can be one, it can be many, but I do think it's important to isolate what for you, as the prospective board member, is the most powerful thing or the reason that you want to join a board in the first place. And if I look back on my career, and when the shift happened to when my board positions were more productive and more fulfilling, I think both sides, it was because I had I think just through a series of just it was destiny, it was fate, whatever you believe in, it really was it was it was because I stumbled into the fields of girls education, and women's empowerment through Girl Rising. That's really what I can just clock it to going back, I guess, more than a decade now, which is crazy to say.
• 11:40
  Becky Endicott: Yeah, that would have been 2010. Right?
• 11:42
  Tara Abrahams: For sure.
• 11:42
  Becky Endicott: I mean, I want you to talk about that. I want you to talk about that moment.
• 11:46
  Becky Endicott: Because I see retrospectively how passionate and on fire you are for this cause and I think about what it must have been like before you found that cause where you're just trying to get in your lane and find purpose.
• 12:03
  Becky Endicott: And and I want you to talk about Girl Rising, which holy smokes, is a powerful organization and the way that you started to focus on girls and women. And then you started to find the right board roles to like, lead us through that sort of evolution of yourself and tell us what you learned.
• 12:21
  Tara Abrahams: Sure. So I was probably a few years out of my MBA, and I was in what on paper would be considered just an ideal position and role which was leading a new small but pretty influential foundation at a financial firm here in New York City, the focus of the foundation was really on social services in New York City. So job creation, supporting people who are homeless or unhoused, health services, to a certain extent, lots of education reform, very focused on New York City, which was really interesting and dynamic. Again, not necessarily the poll that I wanted. But you know, I tell this story a lot, right? When you are the head of the foundation, lots of really interesting people want to take you out to lunch and tell you about all the cool things that they do, right? Because, of course, they're interested to see if there's any potential for support there. So I had just met such fascinating people throughout the course of my time at the foundation, and always tried to be helpful, of course.
• 13:22
  Tara Abrahams: So but this one, I think, I hope I was really, really helpful.
• 13:26
  Tara Abrahams: Because I ended up meeting Holly Gordon, who's now a mentor of mine, she was the executive producer and co founder of what would eventually become Girl Rising. And I truly it was it was a friend of a friend's to this nth degree said, Oh, you work at a foundation, you might want to sit down with Holly and hear about what she's doing. So Holly lays it out. The initial idea. I mean, this really was back in 2010, when it wasn't even called Girl Rising. We're a group of journalists, we did some research on the best ways to alleviate poverty globally.
• 13:57
  Tara Abrahams: And every single expert whether it was public health, economic development, education, told us that one of the top things that you can do is invest in the education of adolescent girls.
• 14:10
  Tara Abrahams: And once you do that all of these incredible things start to happen. Communities, cities, countries start to improve. If there's anything that we have that could resemble the silver bullet, this is it. It's girls education. So we want to make a film telling the stories of different girls in different countries, pair them with writers from their countries, basically reimagine their stories. We want to make this beautiful film and then we want to pair it with an action campaign generate not partnerships with nonprofit organizations to actually have impact on this issue. And it was like lightning had struck when I was sitting there talking to her. Everything made sense, and fell into place. Because I was the perfect test case. Someone who's fairly well educated socially aware, right I have I had what we wouldn't call it at that time. But I think we would now is social justice orientation right or aspiring to here was an issue that everyone in the world should know about.
• 15:11
  Tara Abrahams: And yet we did it right. This is this is before Malala. You're right in 2010. Right. So this was was pre Malala. And we, of course, we never wish that she had to come on the global stage the way that she did. But that's just to set the stage a little bit for where we were with awareness around this issue, Girl Effect barely come out with their first video, right. So this was really early days, in terms of the girls education, what I think now that She's the First we would call the girls rights movement. And so for me, everything just clicked at that moment. And I realized that about it, I have found it, gender equity, women's empowerment, girls education, all of those things have been those. That's the lens through which I have looked at my career. Since then, it also helped that at the moment that I was sitting there chatting with Holly, I was pregnant with my first daughter, I was thinking about what my working life would look like, once I had her, I was thinking about the world that she was going to come into. And I really, I believe in certain things. And I believe in that moment, that moment, was everything to me. And it's it's basically been the defining force of the past 10 plus years of my career, and my life.
• 16:30
  Becky Endicott: Woah.
• 16:30
  Jonathan McCoy: I just feel like when that gets in alignment, it just allows you to just start sprinting. And there's so many things that I kind of want to like go back and camp out on.
• 16:39
  Jonathan McCoy: But I think these moments and I think if Susan McPherson, who I know is a mutual friend, too, she talks about this constellation of connections, and just this idea of building this network of people that you never know how one thing is going to completely change the trajectory of your life and one meeting. And I just think of like the impact that you're having now a decade beyond that, a little even more than that.
• 17:01
  Jonathan McCoy: And you're just getting started, you know, and we're gonna talk about The Meteor, and I can't wait to hear that. But can we go, you know, for someone that's listening, and I'm sitting here listening, and saying, how do you break in? And if you want to, you know, join a board, you've got this fire in your heart. Maybe you found that thing. What's those questions to ask yourself, you know, so you don't get in the place where you're holding people back or even holding yourself back?
• 17:29
  Jonathan McCoy: What's the right questions to ask as you're trying to break into a board somewhere?
• 18:07
  Tara Abrahams: Yeah, it's a really good question. It comes right back round to She's the First which pretty much got up and running around the same time that Girl Rising did, right? So are we at at Girl Rising, always looked to partner with She's the First. And then I personally, always kept my eye on what she was doing. Always. I've been honest with Tammy and Christen, this is absolutely how it went down. I was tracking them. Maybe they were also tracking me, but I was definitely tracking them.
• 18:35
  Tara Abrahams: And I've got witnesses to attest to this. But I mean, Jon, to your question. On a practical level, one of the things that ended up happening is as I was having my babies, because that was always a little bit of a juggling act to try to figure out, you know what that right balance was, for me, I was always looking for opportunities to stay engaged and involved.
• 18:56
  Tara Abrahams: And I spent a great number of years at Girl Rising and then went on to, to advise Girls Who Code, International Center for Research and Women. But again, I've always kept my eyes on she's the first. And truly, something came across my email that was Harvard business school related, which is where I got my MBA, they were looking for a pro bono consultant, to do a project for an organization called She's the First again, setting the context. Of course, there were a lot of people and organizations NGOs, doing girls education work, but was through Malala, Girl Rising, Girl Effect all of these other entities that it started to have its moment in the public consciousness, which is exactly the goal of the initiative. So I raised my hand to do that pro bono project, because I felt like it was a really great way to reengage, learn about the organization in a practical way, and start to explore if it was really a place for me to deepen my engagement in the girls education, space and sector. So I think being open to some of those opportunities, some traditional, some non traditional, and a lot of organizations have great structures around starting to build a pipeline of prospective board members, advisory committees, young professional groups, right, that engage to the next generation of folks to do fundraisers and advocacy campaigns so that they start to get to know one another right?
• 20:25
  Tara Abrahams: Get to know if it's a fit on both sides. So I would say on a practical level, being open to those opportunities and also just doing the work to find them. It doesn't happen magically, I don't mean to, in telling my story want to make it seem that it was all magic and kismet. I mean, there was a little bit of that in there. But at the same time, it was a lot of work. It was work to do the project, it was work to join the advisory committee at She's the First, which is what I did next.
• 20:53
  Tara Abrahams: And I definitely want to emphasize that you got to do your research, you got to do your homework, because I think that's what ultimately allows you to find the best fit. And I do think, especially this next generation of board members, I would argue, really needs to be in it with their whole heart in terms of knowing that there's work to be done and these organizations really rely on board members to contribute themselves. And in particular, their skill sets to the advancement of their mission.
• 21:22
  Tara Abrahams: It's not just about showing up for a meeting three times a year, you know, they really want you to be engaged. And the culture around engagement looks different at every organization.
• 21:30
  Tara Abrahams: And that dynamic between the board and the actual staff and management looks different. But at the end of the day, an organization, their leadership wants the board to be their biggest cheerleaders, their biggest advocates, and they really want them to be engaged and invested in what the organization is doing. And that takes work takes work on both sides.
• 21:51
  Becky Endicott: The thing that's striking me about you so much, Tara and why it's so antithetical to what my experience has been a nonprofit, is you hustle it out for your mission. And I mean, I want everybody out there listening to raise your hand and say, who has a working board, and who has an advisor board, because if you don't have a working board, you are not maximizing the passion, the potential, the network, the financial gain on any part of the volunteerism. And so I mean, I would just challenge everybody out there, like, what is your board engagement strategy? I know we've had Sabrina Walker Hernandez, come on and talk about this, Christal Cherry has talked about this on the program, but like I listened to you, and how passionate you are and and you're so curious, and you absorb data. And if you are on my board, I will be pushing you articles all the time about what's going on in the world, or why think, where's potential, where's our landmine where something we need overcome, and even just pushing that information to you is cultivating you not necessarily as a donor, but we call it a believer, somebody who believes so deeply in the mission that they're willing to show up in any way. And I think that's the value of what someone like you brings to the sector.
• 23:13
  Jonathan McCoy: And I just think like Tammy and Christen are such strategist, that they are creating those engagement opportunities. So that's something everybody can lean into.
• 23:29
  Tara Abrahams: Well, and I do think, Becky, you kind of alluded to this in terms of this idea of Tammy, and Christen or whoever the leadership may may be, and she's the first or any organization, really pushing knowledge and information to someone like me as the board chair or a board member. And I think that is really important and is reflective of my experience in particular working with with She's the First, which is that I never went into it with the idea that I had everything to teach them. In fact, yeah, I didn't go into with that idea at all. Actually, for me, it was much more about what they had to teach me. And I'm a huge believer in this idea that mentorship goes in so many different directions and in no place is that more evident than in my relationship with Tammy and Christen, as the leaders of She's the First because I think there's a there's a false notion out there that mentorship only happens between the mentor who is more experienced, ie years on the earth which I definitely have on them.
• 24:41
  Becky Endicott: You're not showing, your skin routine looks great.
• 24:43
  Tara Abrahams: So yeah, so I think that I think that's, that's a little bit tricky for me just this idea that a mentor can only be someone who has been around longer and it's their job to teach the younger generation how to be and how to operate and how to manage and how to lead. I think it absolutely goes in so many different directions. There are peers of mine who are incredible mentors to me, Tammy and Christen are incredible mentors to me. I have learned so much from just understanding how they want to push the field of girls education, push the field of nonprofit management, and I will tell you if we don't always agree. That's another part of it. We do not always agree.
• 25:27
  Becky Endicott: Isn't that beautiful?
• 25:28
  Tara Abrahams: It is it is and I have learned so much about the from those moments where They really challenged me to think in a different way about the work that we're doing about how we talk about the work that we're doing, and the kind of impact that we want to have in the world. And that I think, is a really important dimension to be thinking about as you go into potential board position is what do you have to learn? I've no doubt that so many people out there as prospective board members have so much to contribute, because I believe everyone does. However, I think an equally important question is what do I have to learn as a board member from going on this journey with this organization, because that's, I think, what's going to make the relationship that much stronger, and help set the stage and foundation for much more highly functional board, staff relationship, and ultimately, board culture, which is so important to be thinking about actively.
• 26:33
  Becky Endicott: Okay, I just have to make an observation that is just blowing my mind here, because we have that conversation that's coming up.
• 26:39
  Becky Endicott: In very much the same vein with Mona Sinha, who is the who is a dear friend of yours, and she's a board chair for Women's Moving Millions. And twice now, we have women who are board chairs that are saying, I don't always agree. And I love that we debate, I learned from them. And there is a complete absence of power dynamics. And this that I don't think honestly I've ever seen in my experience. And when I've worked in nonprofits, and they're I think the the problem with boards for a lot of people is it just seems so hierarchical, and so untouchable, and you can't have these conversations, and there are gatekeepers, and there are things to say and when not to interrupt, and that is not present in any part of what you're telling me right now.
• 27:29
  Becky Endicott: Because you all just want the end product, the girl at the end of this to succeed. And when there's no ego, and there's high hustle, it's no wonder to me that you all are scaling and growing so quickly.
• 27:44
  Tara Abrahams: I think that's right. I mean, I hope that's the way we're doing it. I hope it's working. I mean, I just do think it's what you said around driving towards the impact. I just don't think that there's any space or even time for ego, right? I think that these issues are so urgent, and there is so much work to be done. And we're chipping away at it. All of these organizations are doing incredible things to support women and girls around the world. But I don't want to get mired in, in, you know, the the politics potentially, of of board chair, the governing committees and this that and the other I want to give people like Tammy, leaders like Tammy and Christen and Peggy Clark at International Center for Research on Women. I want to give them ownership over the organizations that they're leading. And I want them to fly.
• 28:38
  Tara Abrahams: And I'm going to be in the background and I'm going to be as helpful as I can whenever I can wherever I can. But I want them to just do their thing. I can't figure out another way to say it, just want them to be able to do their thing, because at the end of the day, that's what's going to lead to more impact for women and girls. Full stop.
• 28:56
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, this is why we said we want to bottle you up. And this is like such a Northstar to the industry. I mean, we feel like the nonprofit sector is changing quickly. At the same time, we're trying to figure out how to really empower boards to step into this moment.
• 29:10
  Jonathan McCoy: And I want to just give you the floor to say what is what is meeting the moment look like for really empowering a modern fundraising board today?
• 29:19
  Tara Abrahams: You've just got to listen, start with that. And we have thought a lot about this at She's the First because we're small but mighty. We're growing.
• 29:27
  Tara Abrahams: And it's obviously been an interesting time for nonprofits over the past few years. Here we are sitting in 2022. I took on the board chair role of She's the First January 1, 2019 If I'm clocking it correctly.
• 29:47
  Jonathan McCoy: Had no idea what was ahead.
• 29:49
  Tara Abrahams: Absolutely.
• 29:49
  Tara Abrahams: Right. So I clocked a full year before, you know eventually the pandemic hit in in early 2020.
• 29:56
  Tara Abrahams: So pretending that we're back in that sort of 2019 spot. What I thought was really interesting and modern about She's the First and one of the reasons why I came on board was the fact that even as a small organization, there was a sense of the need to diversify funding beyond any one revenue source. I think, for me, the older guard and the way that fundraising has often happened for organizations is that some amazing and philanthropist, and we love them dearly, ends up adopting almost an organization and making it their, and I'm going to use this word very purposefully because we can talk about how Tammy and Christen as leaders of she's the first feel about it, make it their charity of choice, right. And for us that She's the First as we were building, and as I came on to the board chair role and started to learn about what Tammy and Christen had been building for a long time, it was frankly, without that benefactor, from the sky coming in, and basically infusing the organization with a really good foundation from a budget perspective. And so talk about hustle, they were hustling on so many other different dimensions of their fundraising strategy. So thinking about grassroots fundraising, thinking about how to mobilize the corporate sector, thinking about how communications and marketing could really elevate the brand.
• 31:36
  Tara Abrahams: And really, as the saying goes, right punch above our weight in terms of how the budget size was relative to our reputation in the field. And it's no accident that She's the First has been built the way that it has been, given the fact that Tammy and Kristen both started in journalism. And both started with an understanding of how you communicate effectively. So key and so critical in in the nonprofit space, right? We have incredible organizations doing unbelievably powerful work driving so much impact. But if you can't talk about it, how does the word get out there? And so what I love about she's the first is all these different levers leading to different kinds of funding support, which I think is so powerful. So it's not just foundations, right?
• 32:26
  Tara Abrahams: We're really building on building on a strong foundation there. But certainly, it's around corporate partnerships.
• 32:32
  Tara Abrahams: It's definitely around making sure that there's kind of participatory strategy where you know, what, yeah, $10, every month, to She's the First $20$50, incredibly, incredibly important revenue for us, if we can get those monthly donors, that sets the stage for our revenue base, because then we can just be building on that.
• 32:55
  Tara Abrahams: Tammy talks about this all the time. And so I think as a young ish organization, a small ish organization, with a lot of hustle, they've had to try so many things. And I think that's what makes it so powerful for the board, because we know coming into it. And this is also really important for board development, that we're not just looking for people who can write big checks. We're looking for people who can understand messaging and communications in order to get a campaign out there that might then generate a lot of visibility, and unexpected opportunities for us, fundraising wise, we're looking for for people whose firms or companies can actually contribute skills to understanding how to diversify our fundraising strategy. We're looking for people who want to mobilize their friends and family to make those smaller dollar donations, but maybe they're doing it on monthly basis. And so that means that we're building on that more steady, unrestricted revenue base that is so so important. So I think it's just having that diversity. And and knowing that the hustle doesn't necessarily ever go away, that you always have to hustle, right? I mean, that's just the nature of it.
• 34:07
  Tara Abrahams: And that's okay. MacKenzie Scott has changed that game a little bit. But,
• 34:13
  Becky Endicott: God love her.
• 34:14
  Tara Abrahams: Yes, absolutely.
• 34:14
  Tara Abrahams: Until we get that phone call.
• 34:17
  Tara Abrahams: And for many years after we're just going to be hustling.
• 34:20
  Becky Endicott: That's right.
• 34:20
  Becky Endicott: And I just, I love everything that you're saying. You're so evolved in the modern way.
• 34:25
  Becky Endicott: You're looking at the world right now. And I mean, we will give it up to Tammy and Christen because they have diversified beautifully. Julie, I want to say our incredible unicorn producer. That was her first monthly gift. She is still a member of the front row, because she was inspired by them. I remember when they came on the podcast. You remember this, Jon?
• 34:46
  Becky Endicott: They had been on the Drew Barrymore show the day after we felt such impostor syndrome. But it's like I do think the messaging, not just diversifying your funding, but diversifying how you're showing up how you're getting your story told. And I thank you for understanding that. Because I think even just trying to get dollars and nonprofit for marketing for digital community and connection is very difficult. But you fundamentally understand this and I'm so geeked out to talk to you about the media because I want people to go and check out The Meteor. And we want to talk about like innovation and collaboration within the sector because throughout your career you've seen that intersection of media, nonprofit government affairs, journalism, fundraising, consulting, you know, on and on, talk to us about what you've learned about the intersection of all the skills for good. How can we move forward as a sector, with greater collaboration between industries, flexing all of these different avenues by which they can really help our missions rise?
• 35:52
  Tara Abrahams: Yeah, I mean, I was so fortunate that as I was starting out, I was already a little bit of a fish out of water, let's say going to business school, in that I came from the nonprofit sector, I sort of had a sense that I was definitely going back to not to the nonprofit sector. And yet here I was, at this bastion of capitalism, right, and learning, primarily through the lessons exemplified by for profit companies. And so starting out of the gate, I mean, that was just another aha moment. If I had to go back to some of those early years around, what do you mean, you can go to business school and do still do good for the world. I mean, by the way, I had to also figure out what business school was, I had no idea what an MBA was, and I was going to college. So I mean, this is just not the world that in space that I came from. So again, it's a little bit off brand, but I'll take it. But you know, then I so I feel fortunate that I kind of had that orientation, from a very early time in my career around what the sectors could contribute to one another. And so I sort of started out armed with my newly minted MBA, going into, at that time, early childhood agencies and helping almost as an onsite consultant, bring, you know, accounting, marketing, data analysis, financial management, all of those skill sets to these agencies that just had lacked capacity in those areas. And what was super interesting, for me was realizing over time, that the skill set that I had developed over time on the impact side, was actually attractive to for profit companies, and bringing me in to really help devise their impact strategies was, was sort of a new idea for me. And I didn't know that that was an option. I didn't know that that at that time, it would look to be fair, that field had just really started to accelerate and evolve at the time, again, dating myself like early 2000s, coming out of business school, you were starting to hear about corporate social responsibility. But it had a lot of different names.
• 38:09
  Tara Abrahams: And some people were doing it well and others were trying to figure it out. Everyone was well meaning but it wasn't the robust and rigorous field that I do think it is now. And so for me, I've always sort of operated I talk about being on the cusp of the sectors and I don't like to even say that I've worked in the nonprofit sector or that right now I work at a for profit company. For me, I work in impact. I work in the impact sector, because I work in a in a sphere and a space and ecosystem of organizations that care about advancing impact. And primarily over the past 10 plus years that's been about advancing impact for women and girls, you could certainly apply that to companies and entities, nonprofits, NGOs that are working in the climate space, right, that are working in the economic development, space, job creation, supporting small business owners, supporting racial justice. And so to me, if we could break down some of those silos, between the sector's it would be so powerful. I mean, I think that's what we're starting to do.
• 39:14
  Tara Abrahams: That's the good news. I do think that's what we're starting to do is recognize that someone who has spent a lot of years working at a small, nonprofit organization, certainly knows about hustle, knows about how to do more with less, knows about strategy, knows how to talk to investors, stakeholders, all those skills are translatable to for profit entities, particularly if they're interested in impact, but just they're translatable no matter what. And so I think this porousness is so important amongst the sectors, because I think we all need one another. I don't think that nonprofits can get it done alone. I don't think that for profits can get it done alone. And I am hopeful about companies really taking up the mantle of of impact The Meteor is an extreme example of that.
• 40:08
  Tara Abrahams: And we're all about impact, right? We're using storytelling.
• 40:11
  Tara Abrahams: Yeah, we're using storytelling to advance gender equity and racial justice. That is the reason for our being so we're a little bit different in that regard, I think. Happily so.
• 40:21
  Tara Abrahams: Right. We're trying to break the model around what a traditional media company looks like. And I think that is so powerful the vision that Cindy Levy, the former editor in chief of Glamour, now co-founder and CEO of The Meteor. That's what she and her fellow co founders cooked up in Gloria Steinem's living room no less the same place where Ms. Magazine was conceived of and founded.
• 40:45
  Jonathan McCoy: Unbelievable.
• 40:45
  Becky Endicott: Feet are trying to get back on the ground.
• 40:47
  Tara Abrahams: That's right. I think that's the way that so many companies are going to go.
• 40:52
  Tara Abrahams: That's what's so exciting about this new generation of entrepreneurs also coming up, they don't think about necessarily just one particular sector, they think about what impact they want to have in the world. And there, there might be a business string to that impact, there might be an impact string to that. There, I think we just have to break down this idea that you can only go in one path or another. And just keep trucking along in that direction if, if you you want to do good in the world, I just think that that's not productive. I think it really has to be this sort of melding of people coming together across the sectors and really understanding that that the value of different stakeholders coming together around a shared issue and a shared problem.
• 41:40
  Jonathan McCoy: I mean, how might this just revolutionize our world, if we all showed up to say we're here for the impact, like it doesn't matter the walls, if we can get centered around the right things and listen and create solutions?
• 41:53
  Jonathan McCoy: It's going to take all of us I feel so buoyed and just energized from this conversation. I mean, okay, you've given a little glimpse of The Meteor, I just can't move on without giving a chance to talk about y'all have this incredible 501c3 arm that's venture backed.
• 42:05
  Jonathan McCoy: Can you break this down for us?
• 42:09
  Tara Abrahams: At The Meteor?
• 42:09
  Tara Abrahams: Yeah. So no, it's actually it dates back to. And it all comes back to She's the First and girls education. It's all laid out. Right. So I'm sitting in an advisory committee meeting of she's the first and I truly just hear out of the like this. Oh, Glamour, yeah, they're looking for someone to lead the Girl Project. You know that that philanthropic initiative that they founded it after they honored Malala is one of the women of the year I just heard it. I was sitting in a conference room, not unlike this. And so I went for the job I hustled. And I said how do I get that job? And she She's the First was a grantee of the Girl Project, which is a philanthropic initiative of the brand. We believe it was one of the first initiatives of the kind of a women's media brand and all credit all hail to Cindy and her co founder Genevieve Roth, you should definitely have on this podcast at some point soon. To say this, there's something Yeah, absolutely, that there's a way that a brand like Glamour can give back on this issue. And so she's the first became part of a portfolio of organizations, including Plan International, Lower Eastside Girls Club and a bunch in between, of organizations that were supported by the Girl Project as a special initiative of Glamour as a magazine and a brand. And I think Cindy took that experience with her to The Meteor, and when she founded, co founded the company, always knew that there was an opportunity to work with philanthropic partners to help do the things that traditional media companies often don't have the resources or just the business dynamics, don't support them doing these other projects that end up being so powerful in terms of deepening understanding of the issues. And I think what we found at Brammer was that when we would do a piece about, you know, women in the Congo, and some of the things that were, frankly being happening to them, and the support that they needed after being victims of war and trafficking, etc. The readers just just responded, but it was always, as Cindy says, sort of the side dish, it was never the main course. And so with The Meteor really everything is about that impact driven, issues driven content being the main course. And so there's a really amazing space for philanthropy to come in there and help support the overall business model of the brand by coming in through this nonprofit fiscally sponsored project, The Meteor Fund. And so this is the way that we work with foundations and other philanthropists to create virtual workshops that allow us to get deeper into the issues that we report on in our newsletter and through social media, like certainly abortion access, maternal mortality, caregiving, voting rights. We've done virtual workshops on all of these issues over the past couple of years. We just did a content series called My Abortion Story is Not What You Think. It was highlighting, you know, unique perspectives and unexpected takes on on the abortion issue and really lifting up the idea that it's this is an issue that everyone is affected by. And access to this right is important for all of us, not just for birthing people, not just for women. To be honest, that's not that's not a project that this corporate sponsors, you know, rush to. And that's just the reality, right.
• 45:37
  Tara Abrahams: And so this is where philanthropy can serve such an instrumental role in allowing us to tell stories with empathy, with creativity, really at the intersection of art and social justice, so that we can help and make that content, by the way freely available to people and have it be shared as widely as possible. So that we can just tell the stories that aren't really being told, and reach new audiences reach new people, people who are on the cusp, and just poised to just come right on board. And it's just could be that one story in 90 seconds, that moves them to understand that this is this is a right, that's, that's really important for everyone to be able to have access to. And then we're able to do really interesting things around our events and our virtual workshops and our content that allow us to get deeper through through education, you know, toolkits that really lift up some of the leading feminist thinkers, I mean, I think it's the way of the future right to create and found a company in the way that The Meteor has been founded, that's the way that we've all got to be going is to really be thinking about impact from day one. And create whatever vehicle is the right vehicle for that particular company, given the business model, what is the right structure around building impact into your organization?
• 46:57
  Tara Abrahams: From the moment you open your virtual or live doors? Where does it start? And I think more brands are doing that, which is really, really exciting.
• 47:04
  Becky Endicott: Yeah, I agree with you. I just I commend you for the way that The Meteor shows up. But you're a storyteller. I mean, we've been enraptured by what you've been saying this whole time, we wonder if you have a story of philanthropy that has really stuck with you. Because we believe so deeply in this community, that story can change everything. So I wonder if there's one you would be willing to share with us today?
• 47:28
  Tara Abrahams: There are so many. I was really struggling with just isolating one. But what I would say and you mentioned Kahani. And so I think that's where I would want to go with, with this question, Kahani is a print magazine, designed to inform elevate and inspire girls around the world through the power of storytelling, and so far, and I have to check my notes because I want to get it right, we've had 58 girls in 27 countries contribute to the first two issues of Kahani. And they and we have this feature, which I just love, it's called Girl on a Mission. And it allows us to put a spotlight on the incredible things that girls are doing around the world, to support other girls and the community around them. And those are the stories that I think of when I think about the most inspiring moments of philanthropy. You know, you have Esther, from Uganda, who realized that there was a lack of information and knowledge about menstruation in her community. So with help from She's the First created menstrual pad project where she and other girls from her community actually make reusable menstrual pads, provide education, they fund raised around creating a washroom where the girls would have privacy and be able to, to change and, and stay hygienic. So I think about Esther all the time, I think about Katie in Canada who's going to be an upcoming issue who is an incredible climate justice activist who wants to lower the voting age in Canada, so that she and her fellow young people have more of a voice in what happens to climate change policy. I think about Muzoon, who was our first girl featured on the cover of Kahani, back in 2021. And she was a refugee, she fled her native Syria, she found herself in refugee camps in Jordan, the same camps that I visited in early 2018, as part of The Girl Project, which was exactly the moment that inspired me to start Kahani down the line. And when she realized that there were a lot of girls being kept back from school, and in starting to marry at an earlier age, she started going door to door to door to talk to families about what it meant for their daughters to continue to go to school and obtain an education.
• 49:46
  Tara Abrahams: So for me, I mean, these are girls who are giving of themselves to the world. And sometimes it's monetary, and sometimes it's truly of themselves. It's just they're pounding the pavement, wherever they are, and just trying to get a message out. And those are the moments that inspire me the most.
• 50:06
  Jonathan McCoy: It comes across in everything that you say and the way that you say it. And it is about impact for you. And we've gotten to see the magazine is beautiful. Like everyone's got to check this piece out.
• 50:14
  Jonathan McCoy: It's just truly incredible.
• 50:17
  Jonathan McCoy: Tara, I don't want to ask you this because it's our last kind of question as we wind down. We ask every guest to share with us a one good thing. You know, it's something you would leave with our audience, whether it's a mantra, or just what are you feeling today that you'd want to share?
• 50:31
  Unknown: You know, it's so funny. These things always happen for a reason. As I was trying to formulate what I was going to say, for one good thing on my way from DC, I was at a Meteor event last night, and I was having trouble formulating it. So the prosaic sort of basic version of it was going to be, and I do believe truly believe this, and I've talked about this, there's no waiting in life, right? I really believe that there is no, there's no better time than right now to set a goal, start to go after it, and start to change the world. I've always believed that I kid you not. And speaking of feminists that we don't know enough about, I was scrolling through my Twitter or whatever, and someone I don't even follow put this quote out on Twitter, by Octavia E. Butler, a science fiction author, black woman, who just died in 2006. Pretty young, as she grew up in the sort of black power movement. And I kid you not this is today, not two hours ago, this is the quote that that was put out on Twitter, "We don't have to wait for anything at all, what we have to do is start." It was just the perfect encapsulation for me of, of where we are in this moment, right, there are battles to be fought and so many different fronts. But we just have to start, put one foot in front of the other and keep going, we have to be driven by hope. And we just have to start.
• 52:08
  Becky Endicott: And you keep starting, I'm like looking at you. And it's like there's no slowing you down. Like from your MBA to these board leadership roles to The Meteor, to Kahani.
• 52:22
  Becky Endicott: I think it's a great example of your heart is leading you into these spaces, and you keep creating and every time you create, you gather. And every time you gather, the ripple of the message goes further and the network gets bigger. And I believe so deeply in, it's our core value. Our final core value of our company, which is community is everything. And we believe that people who value align, and are chasing purpose, they will do anything but you're exactly right, all it takes is the first step. And I really am just sitting here with a heart of gratitude. And I look at your darling, two little girls and your little feminist boy, you're so sweet and so cute. And I just think this, this is the way in what a model for them to grow up seeing you pour your life into something like this. Thank you so much. So tell us how people can connect with you connect with all of the different spaces that you're in, give us all the details on where you are on social media.
• 53:26
  Tara Abrahams: Well, TaraAbrahams.com is a good place to start because it's got all, I think about a portfolio right?
• 53:32
  Tara Abrahams: So it's got everything in my portfolio there. But yeah, LinkedIn and Instagram.
• 53:34
  Tara Abrahams: Definitely reach out. I'm tabrahams on Instagram, and you can find me on LinkedIn and I welcome people to reach out.
• 53:43
  Tara Abrahams: Don't wait. We've got a lot of work to do. So let's do it together.
• 53:49
  Jonathan McCoy: Yep, check the show notes. We're gonna pile up all these amazing links. Thank you. What a gift this time is.
• 53:56
  Becky Endicott: Keep going and come back and tell us how,
• 53:59
  Tara Abrahams: Thank you. I'll come back, yeah.
• 54:01
  Becky Endicott: I just I want more of you in the world. And I just think you've set a great tone today for where we need to put our focus. Thank you, my friend.
• 54:08
  Tara Abrahams: Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 54:12
  Julie Confer: Hey, friends.
• 54:12
  Julie Confer: Thanks so much for being here.
• 54:14
  Julie Confer: Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics. Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at weareforgood.com/Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community.
• 54:45
  Julie Confer: Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom.