Latest / We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits / 515. The Cost of Code-Switching for Fundraisers of Color + The Health Effects of Racism in the Sector - Jonah Nigh, The New School

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515. The Cost of Code-Switching for Fundraisers of Color + The Health Effects of Racism in the Sector - Jonah Nigh, The New School · We Are For Good Podcast - The Podcast for Nonprofits

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm John.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm Becky.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is the we Are For Good podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: 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
  Speaker 2: So welcome to the Good Community.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're non-profit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabbit fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So let's get started.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Oh Becky, have we found a friend?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: No, we are having my new best friend on the podcast today and I'm so excited about it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am just so pumped for this conversation because not only did this individual get introduced to us by Evan Wildstein, who is just one of those people who just pours into this community, who cares so deeply about the sector and the people that are powering it, but he has introduced us to Jonah and I, who is this incredible force as the senior vice president for development and alumni engagement at the new school.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And you know, friends, we like to have real talk around here.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We don't have a lot of patience for things that are kind of skirting issues, and we brought Jonah on because he is going to talk to us about something that has not been centered in conversations.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about cost, the cost of code switching for fundraisers of color and the health effects of racism in the sector.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So I want you to buckle up.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: But before we get into this heavy topic today, you got to know where Jonah came from, because he's got like the most Renaissance human I've ever met in my life, probably Totally.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Before he came to the new school, he was this accomplished fundraiser with more than 16 years of experience.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: He worked for the Jewish Museum.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: He was at the major gifts officer for Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: He was the assistant director of development for Opera America.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Hello.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Are we counting up all?
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the arts roles and all the connections here, but Jonah is this incredible classically trained singer we're asking for some music rights here.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe he'll sing by the end of today's episode, but he earned his undergraduate degree at the Lawrence University in a Masters of Music degree at New England Conservatory.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: You know what Julie's sending us Instagram reels?
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: He was also a baker and a semifinalist on season one of NBC's Baking it.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Like literally hanging out with Maya Rudolph.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, what an honor to have somebody like you in this house, just ready to pull up a chair and let's have a conversation with a cup of coffee today.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Jonah, welcome to the we Are For Good podcast.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So glad you're here.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me and, as I was saying sort of in the pre-tape, I am so grateful for people like you in our field.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: We need more people with that caffeinated anything is possible attitude, because it is hard work and you have to sit.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: But we're called upon to be like that as leaders, right To not be okay with the status quo.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, jonah.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, I gave you like bullets from your bio, but I feel like we could just sit and talk for hours.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Give us a little bit of the through line of your story.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: What are some formative moments of growing up?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: We want to get to know a little.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Jonah, what informed this work that you're pouring into, in the way that you see the world today?
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: So I was adopted at pretty much right at birth and I was born in California, then raised in the Midwest and in Virginia too, so all over the place.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: I fell in love with opera around age 16 or 17, by a fluke, I was taking voice lessons.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: My teacher took me to one of her auditions just to sit and observe, and the panel decided they're like let's hear the kid, just to give him feedback.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: And they had a small role for me and that's when I was hooked.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: So I think I came into that art form, which has a lot of stigma as being something elitist or something only for rich people.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I just came into it as oh, it's just music, theater in a foreign language, and I happened to like it.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: So I did that.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I sang professionally, went to school for it, as you mentioned, had a surgery on my voice when I was 26.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Had to stop that then, didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, so I just situated myself in a wide variety of communities.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: I trained to be a sommelier for a while and sat for the quarter master sommelier's exams in San Francisco.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: That was very fun.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: They were not my people.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: They like to stay up late.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: It turns out restaurant people have a lot of energy in ways that I don't have a lot of energy to say that, but love them, love them.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I mean the bear is kind of accurate, that show is sort of accurate.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: So then I moved to New York.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I was a booking agent for dance grant writing on the side, hated it.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: It felt like doing my taxes over and over again.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, I guess development's not for me.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And then 0708 hit and someone's like, sorry, you have to also do annual fund.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: It's like great, what's that?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: And then realized, oh, it's just, I can just talk to people and ask for their money.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: That's a lot easier.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: So got myself situated in a shop like Columbia versus schoolyards and journalism, and what I liken it to is you know how, like if you're a little kid and you have natural ability for an instrument or something like that.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: I think I had natural ability for fundraising and then I learned my technique at Columbia and then I took that technique to other places, and so that's how I think about my career 18 years in the business now and I've worked every station in the kitchen.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: So I think it's helpful to have started as a grant writer.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: It also helps that you know I work with operations a lot, because there's a lot of people on the team that are.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: You know you hear about the big gifts but you don't necessarily hear about the people behind the curtain.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: So I was trying to make a point of making sure that that work gets surfaced.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: The baking thing was a fluke.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I was a fine baker whatever it's a hobby and my husband saw this thing.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: It looked like a Word document, didn't say NBC or anything on it Said bakers and your helpers send in or apply for this competition Right.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: So my husband sent it to me on Instagram with no words.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: It's just with the gif from Schitt's Creek of David and Moira fighting in the kitchen Wonderful.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, fold in the cheese scene, and he was just like, oh no.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: He did say he's like if we were ever on something like this, this is how we would be, like we'd be awful for it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: So I was on a lunch break at my desk and I filled it out and I forced his signature and then I had to do it.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: They wanted a 30 second video.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: So I just did it from my desk and I said hey, I'm Jonah, I'm a diversity bingo card.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Here's the boxes I fill for you.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: I said I don't need America to like me.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I have five friends, so I'm fine with the villain edit.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I'll look dead.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I didn't do camera one and say I didn't come here to make friends, I came here to bake, you know.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: And then I just turned it in, I didn't think anything and three hours later a casting agent called from LA, from NBC.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I did have to audition, though.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: For four months.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I had to show videos of me making pie and making a three tiered cake, of me making this, of talking about what was in our kitchen.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: My husband was like horrified, no-transcript, so like he wanted none of this.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: The night before we were gonna find out, nbc it said we're gonna let you know either way at a certain point and he's like I know you really want this, but if we don't get this I'm gonna be really relieved, and I was like how could you say that yeah.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: And then we got cast and then you know it ended up being Hysterical and fun and it was like as and now meets great British Bake Off.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: It was not competitive, no one cared if they won.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: It was about, you know, good vibes any polar produces it, so you know her sort of parks and rec sunny disposition, really optimistic.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: It was just really silly and fun.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, my god, I mean you.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: John said it best you are a Renaissance man, you are a unicorn and I I love the natural curiosity.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I and and you are at the new school, do you?
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: I want the community to know about the new school.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: They started this sort of creator community.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: You know, in looking at education and intellectuals, you know curiosity in completely different ways and combining the arts.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I want you kind of to just go over who is the new school, because you are such a powerhouse of development.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Your team and what you all are doing is really Revolutionary, kind of set the stage for that mission for our audience.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: So our interim president, donna Shalala, who you know she was in the Carter administration, clinton administration, clinton global initiative and a politician in the congressperson.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: She likes to joke that the new school has.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: We have none of the things that make you money, we have none of the things.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: We have none of the things that a university to bring joy yeah sports, law, medicine, business school.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: We don't have any of that, so we were.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: First of all, the branding is confusing because it's called the new school, but it's, it's a university, so it's a university.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: It has campuses in New York and in Paris.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: A good way to think about it is over 70% of the 10,000 students are involved in some sort of creative practice, making something fashion, art, music, design, and then of course we have humanities and psychology as well.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: So the schools themselves, the branding themselves of the schools, is probably more recognized than the name the new school, so Parsons School of Design, for example, in New York and in Paris.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: It's also the largest Thank you project runway, speaking of reality TV.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: The others colleges College of Performing Arts, which has the landmarks, nana School of Music inside of it, school of Jazz and Contemporary Music, school of Drama, and we have Eugene Lang School for Liberal Arts, the new school for Social Research and the schools of public engagement.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: So the origin story is that you know this is over a hundred years old, a group of American intellectuals and educators.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: We're like higher, it's moving too slow, it's too timid, we're gonna start something new.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: So we've always been kind of branded as progressive, as anti establishment and then in the 1930s, they took German scholars who are fleeing Nazi Germany Into and made the graduate school of political and social science and called the University of Exile, which still exists today and, sadly, is still very relevant.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: So that's, that's the, that's the school.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about your team, because I'm just so curious, this Development team that gets to serve such a progressive cause too.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I mean you're at the helm of this.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about your team, because I want some context.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It's so fascinating.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: So the development and alumni engagement team.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: We are small for a university or size, it's about 30 folks, but we are growing and I think it's one of the best out there.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: But I could be biased.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: According to my bias, awareness training that is mandatory.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: So I mean we cover all the major functionalities annual major plan, principle giving, analysis, research, etc.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: One thing to note is that about 60% of our frontliners are BIPOC and, as you know, our, our field is just under 90% white.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: So we feel good about the work We've done there.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: We've been very intentional.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: When I talk about this, you know in other spaces I'll say like 60% of the frontliners are right BOP and they're qualified.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: How about that?
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: So this idea of access and excellence being disarticulated, which is really pernicious in our field, that needs to stop.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I Say that on purpose.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: And then you know, I it's just, it's a lot more fun to show your values than talk about them.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: So that's what we try.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: That's what we try to do.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: There's a Joan, and I quote right there we don't always get it right, and I'm not saying, I think in general, who lives up to their ideals.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: No one lives up to their ideals.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: But what I will say is we definitely run hard at our values, we run towards our values, we don't run away from them and you know we really do try to get it right.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: And that attracts, we attract a certain type of feisty worker.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: You know I'm very anti-established I was gonna say.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: That's really about the movement I feel like you've built, which is when you and we talk about this all the time, when you uplift your values and put them so Front and center and you model them.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: You actually do that.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Like them and you point them out in your work.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be a magnet to the people who also value those same things, and so One I want to thank you for just the way that you are Confidently boldly talking about these systemic issues of racism in the sector, and we want to go hard into that today.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about this cost of code switching for fundraisers of color.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Please first define what code switching means in the context of the nonprofit sector, and particularly for fundraisers of color.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: Sure, first I have to give a major shout out to dr Renee white.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: She's our provost and executive vice president and she's a professor of sociology.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: She's really done this research Well.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Before this, you know, idea came to me, and then also my friend Melissa Manquist, who's a development director at NYU.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: She and I co-founded the forum for BIPOC fundraisers and have been talking about this, and then we thought why don't we sort of Take this on the road?
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: So we've done it online, we've done it at case, we're doing it at Aspen leadership group in a couple weeks and the University of Chicago later this summer.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: So it's like a weird touring band about racism, thank you.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: So code switching, just it started as a sociolinguistic term about when people who are multilingual or Bilingual would switch between languages.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: That was how it started, so language based.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: And then the 50s and 60s that moved towards monolingual people.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: And how would people switch between colloquial speech and and or different kinds of dialects?
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And then since then it's really expanded to talk about culture.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: So how do you present yourself?
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: What are you wearing?
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: What cultural references are you, or are you not gonna say and and language too?
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: So it's broadened from language-based to all about culture and community.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that context.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Let's dive into like some specific situations because, specifically from like fundraisers of color, what are?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: What does it look like in a professional environment to like feel like they need to code switch or feel like that they Can't show up as their full self?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Like walk us through what that looks like.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: So the why of it is?
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: It's really about safety and comfort and identity and community.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: So if you're in an environment where you can't relax your shoulders, where you feel like an outsider, you're gonna have to engage in some other kinds of presentation of self.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I want to give two pieces of research that dr White uses to reference, if they're unusual, but they're profound in ways of thinking about these issues and how pervasive they are.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: So take the act of hand washing, for example.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: If you're at a restaurant or at the movies and you go and use the automated faucets In the infrared light that is in those faucets was beta tested on white men and therefore it is meant to reflect off of light skin.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Now, when so people who have darker skin, the faucets generally don't work right away.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: You should see the looks on people's faces when we, when she talks about this doctor René White, because by pop, folks suddenly think, oh my god, oh my god, prohalo, I've heard this happen.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Someone's like I thought they were broken.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I would say they were broken for you.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: Then another scary study research, as we all talk about AI and its possibilities.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Sure, fine, I'm an early adopter and I have an iPhone 3 and all that stuff.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: But mail presenting ID is correct 99 percent of the time.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: For BIPOC folks it is wrong 35 percent of the time.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: It's wrong 35.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: And why is that?
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: It was beta tested on white men.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: So these are just.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: They're kind of odd examples to translate onto the issue.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: But you can see if systems are invisible and they've been set up for whiteness and there's no problem.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: If everything's working for you, then anyone for whom it's not working is either lazy or not trying or sensitive.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I just what's the problem if it's invisible?
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: So the reason that people have to code switch is for issues that a lot of times seem invisible to the majority.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: But just under 90 percent of our field is white.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: 83 percent of frontliners in higher ed are white.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: So the question of when do fundraisers of color code switch?
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: All the time?
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I was going to say every minute, probably Every minute at work with donors in life in general.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: I personally I have specific clothes for different types of donors.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: People freak out when they see me in the real world and I'm wearing jeans.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: It's like, you know, when you see your second grade teacher for the first time at the grocery store, it's like what it's human, you know.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: So it's like it's that kind of novel.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, people really do.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: They're like they think it's really weird to see me not in a suit.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: So the answer is sadly, it's all the time.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for hitting it between the eyes and for having some real talk about this, because when you are aware of these things, it becomes a responsibility to make those cultures, make those environments less stressful.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I am just thinking about the stress on the body, on the mind, I mean emotionally of having to hold that tension all the time.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And I think you know we're all on our own, like anti-racism journeys, I think each of us who've ever held privilege in any situation, because we don't know the things that have just been so easy for each of us.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And so I want you to talk about the mental health aspect of this and the well-being, because we're already in this mental health crisis.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: We are knee-deep into it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: We are watching from our survey data, we are for good what has happened to the sector as a whole in the mental health.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: And then you layer on something like racism, not having psychological safety in the offices that you're working in, that you're having to think about the way you talk, the way you move, the way you dress.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I mean this is just exhausting.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I feel like it adds another layer of mental health stressor.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So talk about how that's affecting communities that are marginalized and what we can do about it.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: The first version is that racism is literally bad for your health.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Research shows this and again Dr White was sort of on the forefront of calling out racism as a public health crisis at a time when people hadn't kind of wrapped their brains around that.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: Managing how people see you versus how you really are is exhausting, and in social science terms it's called protective surveillance.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: So it means when you're in spaces where you're always in some sort of anticipatory mode because you don't know what's going to happen Am I safe?
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Am I less safe?
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Should I be more protective?
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: That already takes some wear and tear and then add on, say, a microaggression or something worse happens.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: That moment goes away for the perpetrator, but the person who's been affected is still left with the residual effects and that has cognitive effects and that takes up brain space and capacity to do the work.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: So, specifically, higher rates of hypertension, higher rates of stress, lower satisfaction in work and in life, because it's almost impossible to compartmentalize the work from these other spaces.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: That kind of stuff bleeds into other things that you do.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: So it's got emotional, cognitive, physical effects and for the employer that means then turnover.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So in a field that is already pretty quick on the draw for turnover.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: It's even faster than that.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, help us connect the dots.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of leaders that listen to this podcast too of if you are trying to step into being more aware, more supportive, more helpful.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I do feel like, as a white human trying to walk through this too, there's like a tension of I don't want to create more harm or stress by asking questions or saying please explain this to me, why this is problematic.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: But I also may be missing it.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I may have used automatic faucets my whole life and I would never have thought that you know what I'm saying.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: This is just a terrifying study.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying, but I'm like that tension is real, of like I believe the people in this community really want to show up as our best selves, so everybody can show up as their best selves, their full selves.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: What does that look like in practical terms that you can build into that culture?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Thoughts on that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: So I thought Catherine and Fred Vancekul did a great job at this conference last week.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: They talked about the difference between well, their presentation was on intergenerational working relationships and their father daughter and they're both in the same business, so it was really interesting to see it play out.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: But they talked a lot about the difference between mentorship and sponsorship.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Someone like me at this point in my career 18 years I don't really need another mentor, I need sponsors, and who are sponsors?
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: They're people who have the kinds of power and positionality that I don't have in other spaces, in other rooms, when I'm not there, to advocate for the work and then not tell me about it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: I don't need people to run and tell me about it.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: So that's one piece of it.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: A second piece of it is if you truly want to diversify your staff and I get that institutional change is hard, fine, but if you actually mean it, you only have to do two things, and I know because I've done it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: You need to have leaders of color, because staff and prospective candidates need to see that it's actually a thing, and you need to not require them to live in communities where they are not safe.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: And that is the more controversial one, especially with the work from home, work in the office, debate or whatever.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: But you cannot ask a person of color to move to an exclusively white community or rural community where they will not be safe.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: So you have to make choices, and this is a steal from Dr Melanie Hart, who used to be our head of equity, inclusion, social justice, the word salad of it all.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: This is how I think about it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Diversity is a fact, it's just a fact.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I don't need to talk about that.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Diversity is a choice, inclusion is an action and belonging is a result.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: So, again, I don't even talk about belonging, because belonging you don't get to claim, because that just it happens or it doesn't.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: So I focus on equity and inclusion, the choices that are being made and the actions that are being made.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: And choices are budgets.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Choices are prioritizing and making critical decisions around what is more important having staff in the office working and sitting at a cube to zoom all day, or is it to actually open your search to other parts of the country where there's bigger populations of the minorities that you say you want to add to your team?
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: And then inclusion is the actual action.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: So making the choices is really hard, but a lot of times consultants will come in to your point, john, like how do I get at that information without inflicting awkwardness or harm?
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Consultants can give advice.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: That's what they're meant to do.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: And as I tell consultants which I think is like the last stop for all of us, right?
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I mean that's the exit ramp.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, no, I've been a consultant, I think it's fun, but I also think there's a very.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: I think it's a lot easier to give advice than it is to make decisions.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: And so those of us who are in positions where we have to make decisions, then you have to decide how are you going to prioritize?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And I have not seen institutions, big or small, actually prioritize the desire to diversify their staff.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I see resolutions.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: I see a lot of what I call the whereas, whereas, whereas, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera documents.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I see a lot of hyperlinks to books by Abram Kendi.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I see a lot of Heritage Month events, but I actually don't see critical decisions being made from the top down.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: That would actually lead to an environment, a result of belonging.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I want to live and work in this world that you're talking about, and I feel like you're lifting the veil on some of the things that we don't even talk about, that we don't even see, and I want us to have the veil lifted.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I think we're for good as a community, as a space where we don't want harm, we don't want suffering, we want abundance, we want inclusion, we want vibrancy and to thrive in this world, and we don't want to do it alone.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: We want to lock arms with the people next to us and bring them with us.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: And I think this focus on leadership is a really solid place to start, because one of our trends this year is focusing on the fact that our sector needs whole leaders, and we've been lifting this trend over and over, and it really comes down to not just the practice, but what are we doing in our humanity, what are we doing with our empathy and what are we doing with those soft skills and building culture that make people feel safe, seen and valued in this work?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: So talk to us a little bit about how we can build these cultures within our organizations and allow our leaders to show up as their whole selves, which will have a ripple effect down to the people, who can also feel whole as a result of that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah Well, thank you for saying all that, and I know I just met you and John, but you do strike me as sort of yes and people.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: So there's this joke that the difference between improv and stand up improv is yes and People, stand up is no but, and I think, unfortunately, the majority of the people in our industry who have to make these decisions, I have found to be more than no but column.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: So thank you for being a yes and person, but in terms of showing up as your whole self, this is cliche but it is true.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Leadership is everything, from the board down, and even though higher education and, I think, increasingly other kinds of institutions have a shared governance model, there is no getting around the hierarchy and there's no denying it.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: So, from work life boundaries to consistency, to open conversations about career goals, to showing values again, not just talking about them if those in power and positionally have to demonstrate it.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I will say a big caveat, though I do not buy the bring your whole self to work talk.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I don't buy it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: I think we are paid to be there every day and you can't just say or do whatever you want without accountability.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: So, to quote from Mad Men, that's what the money is for.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: That is why we are there.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: So that is the balance of being in a workspace.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: But I think bringing your whole self includes all those other, especially as leaders.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: It is actually understanding your team, actually getting to know them as humans.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: It just so happens I adore everyone on our team, so that is not a hardship.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: But if that's not the case for you, you still have to wrap your brain around doing that kind of work.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: That is what you are called upon to do if you are a manager.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love your thoughts around that and I know we just talked about whole leadership with Jennifer Mulholland and said you know, sometimes we dress a certain way and it's not because we're trying to put on a front.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: It's called just discretion of like you know, in this situation maybe you need to show up this way.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I wonder if that's kind of resonates with what you're saying to you.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: It's not just like I want to wear pajamas, I'm going to wear pajamas, you know, and we're trying to close multimillion dollar gifts where there's certain level of like certainty that we want to come to this situation.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is a profession.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: It is not, and that's, I think, also been interesting in the generational divide conversations.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: As I usually say it this way to folks who may have old school notions of fundraising, it's like it's a profession now.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: It's not a function in the.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Perhaps in the fifties and sixties, yes, it was a function that was done behind doors, it was dirty, you didn't talk about it or something.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: But now I mean I'm hiring second generation fundraisers.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: You know people like you know and I asked them like about their journey and they're just like oh, my parents did it and I love that it wasn't just this.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I mean there's, I'm Gen X, so there's I think most of us are like I stumbled into it stories.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: But I'm increasingly getting more stories of just like well, it's a job, it's a job that my parents did.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you for just for this conversation.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I feel really fed and invigorated by it, and I don't know why, but I just feel compelled to tell you and any person who is listening to this podcast who has experienced any sort of harm because of who you are, I want to apologize and I want to tell you don't deserve that, and I want to tell you that we can all be a part of making sure that doesn't happen for somebody else, and so thank you for bravely bringing this conversation in.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I think you're a brilliant storyteller, thank you, and we value stories so much on this podcast, and I wonder if there's a story of philanthropy that has stayed with you, maybe a story of generosity, of human kindness, that you would share with our audience.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Sure, I mean in general, I find plan giving to be the most moving to me personally and professionally.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: They are, of course, as you know, the donors that don't want to name a thing.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: They don't want to, they don't get the flashy headline, they're doing it because of other reasons.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Americans, I think, in particular, are not good about talking about future plans or death and dying.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: So thankfully I was trained very well by Michelle Cass when I was at Columbia about how to do this work.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: But I think of one gift in particular, when I was working in a museum and I was working with a woman whose mother had recently passed and she wanted to do something in her honor and very significant gift.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: But at times the conversation was just too raw, it was too recent for this individual.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: So I just I used a trick from the journalism school where I used to work at Columbia, and I did a walk and talk and, as I said, let's just talk about the objects in the museum and what they might bring up for you.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: So that was a way to get into the nostalgia and sort of culture and then we were able to sort of do the work on our feet rather than trying to sit down and be like, okay, we have to talk about your mom's legacy, we have to talk about this.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: And so it was.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, the largest gifts I've worked on have never been the ones that I'm the most proud of, for whatever reason.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the ones where I had to, where it meant a lot to the donor and or I had to just show some level of tenacity on the border of like stalking, I think that that those ones I really oh my God, there was this one.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: It took.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: I said something like 17 or 18 moves.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: I mean I was calling this poor donor's assistant, like monthly, and I'd be like, hey, you know, Becky, it's your monthly call from Jonah.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: And like at some point I was like, look, Becky, I mean you're going to get a meeting or a restraining order, but you have to tell me, you have to tell me right now which one is it going to be.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: And she's like you can have 30 minutes.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: And it's like, okay.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: And then we got in and we got the 150,000 bucks, but I was like I was probably I probably could have left that one go, but I didn't.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: You're too tenacious, you're not going to let those go.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: It kind of made me mad, because I'm like just say no or don't pick up my calls, but you're picking up the phone, so I will, you know.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I think it was easier for you to get on the reality show than that.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: So that's impressive, Seriously.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I'll bring up high.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: This is funny, though, because donors have asked since watching the show you know like, will you bring something?
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: And it's like that's very expensive now.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: I mean I will, but you can talk about it.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: It's like a four-tier wedding cake.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: New School is a place where entertainment and arts and showbiz is actually not frowned upon or seen as frivolous Again.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Originator a project runway at Parsons.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: So they understand the power of branding and marketing and sometimes things just not having to be that deep all the time.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm here for that.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, my friend, as we start to wind down this convo, we have to ask for a piece of advice from you.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: We asked for everybody's one good thing.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: What's a?
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: It could be a habit that you've embraced.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe just a piece of advice.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: You want to leave with our community, but you want good thing.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Sure Sorry, I have five, but they're really fast.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: You got the microphone taken Five good things, jonah go.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Five good things.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Number one, as we talked about earlier do you really want to diversify your staff?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: If you do, I feel like I'm on lost cultural racism.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I'm doing a rant, but if you actually want to diversify staff, you have to have BIPOC leaders and then you have to ask them, and you cannot ask people of color to live in communities that are not safe.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: The second one, another good thing cynicism only supports the status quo.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: As leaders, we are called upon to be unsettled, but the status quo is our duty to push it forward, even when it's hard.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: If that's not for you, if it's too hard, then get out of the way.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Don't be a leader, it's totally fine.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: Everybody has to make their own decisions, but there's no room for cynicism.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: It's like my kryptonite.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Third, we need to unlearn the culture of helplessness that is pervasive in our field when it comes to these kinds of topics.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: We have a learned helplessness, both on the ally side and on the minority side.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: On the minority side, everyone's taught the donors always right.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: We have learned that not all money is good money.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Sackler, epstein, we are beyond that day.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: We do not.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: Actually, if someone says something racist to you, you must hold them to account On the ally side.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Well, what do I do?
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: I'm just a white man or a white straight man or something like this.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: It's like no, you have choices.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Your sponsorship, mentorship, elevating voices, saying the hard thing, helping if someone's getting talked over in a meeting, which happens all the time being like.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: I want to go back to something that Jonah said.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: Would you say that again, jonah, because I'm not sure everyone was able to hear that.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: So this learned helplessness about these very difficult things has to go.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Then, sorry, the fourth one exercise the agency that you already have.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Stop asking for it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Right, everyone has power.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: The people junior staff to me who are white.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: They have certain power that I will never have.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: My gender gives me power that some women will never have.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: So it is about exercising the agency that you already have.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Stop asking for it.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Do the things that only you can do.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: That's what you need to focus on, especially as leaders.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: What is the my head of really great boss, dwight McBride, who would when I was pulling my hair out about this or that?
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: This is probably like an HR form or something it'd be like.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: I need you to focus on the only the things that Jonah can do.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I was like fine, that kind of thing.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: And then I said it early.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: The fifth good thing it ain't that deep.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: It ain't that deep.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: It ain't that deep.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: As it starts to well up in you and you start just letting it weigh down.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Take a break, do some help, fake a cake or whatever, Although that didn't cost me.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: That cost me so much anxiety, so that's not that fun for me anymore.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: But whatever it is for you, it ain't that deep.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Take a step back and then get back to the work.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: That was like a mini masterclass in like how to be a whole humanist job and I have to tell you, the one that's resonating the most with me is the rejection of cynicism.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I think right now the world is is rife for you to jump in there and get angry, and hell.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I'm angry about a lot of stuff, but if we can chase the purpose, the joy, the good.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Again I'm going to pull this back to the new school values.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Those become the magnets to the people that want to live in that kind of a world.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: So thank you for setting the tone for that.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Jonah, I think you are just an extraordinary human.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: I wasn't kidding when I said I want you to be my new best friend.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Tell people how they can connect with you, tell like, where you hang out online, how they can connect with the new school.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: And totally go check out Jonah's Instagram, because the cake that's our amazing yes, the opera, all of it.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: So I may regret this, but first of all, if anybody wants to have this, extend this conversation or help or do the work, ask questions, they can just email me.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: I want to hear about your journey and if I you know, if I don't have the right set of maps for you, I'll tell you to go to someone else who might.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: So it's nighj at newschooledu Again, my last name, nye J at newschooledu.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: For the fun stuff, tiktok I'm apparently I'm better at that.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: For the work stuff, linkedin, and that's where you'll also find the forum for BIPOC Fundraisers, a free resource for fundraisers of color.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: That is completely free.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Just set to sign up on LinkedIn.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Instagram, nye Jonah.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Facebook, jonah Nye.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: So that's it.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Those are all my things, and I really don't do Twitter because it's stupid.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I just have to say from my arts mother, the soprano just thank you for seeing the world in color, Thank you for being others with you.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to just follow your journey and learn more from you.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming in today.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Thanks for making this a space back here, and John.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being here.
• 36:50
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• 36:58
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• 37:00
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• 37:04
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• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Backslash hello.
• 37:08
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• 37:12
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• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, friends.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to have our next conversation.