In this episode, Michelle speaks with Kishshana Palmer, the Let’s Take This Offline podcast, The Rooted Collaborative and Kishshana + Co about living well to lead well, performative alllyship, authenticity, financial fortitude and her new podcast! Please join us for this rich conversation!
References
Kishshana Palmer is a motivating and inspiring figure in nonprofit leadership speaking globally about topics like recruiting and retaining diverse talent, diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, leadership, managing high-performance teams and wellness.
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The Ethical Rainmaker is produced in Seattle, Washington by Isaac Kaplan-Woolner and Kasmira Hall, with socials by Rachelle Pierce. Michelle Shireen Muri is the executive producer and this pod is sponsored by Freedom Conspiracy.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
This is Michelle Shireen Muri, your host and fellow traveler on The Ethical Rainmaker! A podcast exploring the world of inequity and nonprofits and philanthropy and where we should step into our power or step out of the way. About stepping into power though, today's guest, Kishshana Palmer, is a power house based in New York and a child of Jamaican immigrants. Kishshana has always strive for excellence. You can hear her tell stories about the achievements she's created and you can also hear her in places like TEDx in her talk, I'm Not Your Superwoman, debunking the superwoman complex in love and leadership and the curse that comes with that cape.
For the past three years, Kishshana has been speaking globally about topics like recruiting and retaining diverse talent, diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, leadership, managing high-performance teams and wellness. She's got a consultancy called Kishshana & Co. She's the founder of The Rooted Collaborative, and she's a fundraiser, but more than that, she is an inspiration in how authentic she is about her experiences and her dedication to helping people get through this life. But one of the things that I'm most excited to talk to her about today is her new podcast, Let's Take This Offline. Let's Take This Offline is a podcast for everyday leaders. And as she says, assimilation is out, authenticity is in. I hope you'll join me in listening to every episode of this beautiful new podcast and welcome Kishshana, welcome to The Ethical Rainmaker!
Kishshana Palmer:
I am officially taking that intro. Thank you very much.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Good.
Kishshana Palmer:
I did not know that I needed a new one and now I am aware that that old one is officially trash.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
It's true. I mean, you have built several platforms. You have made several pivots in your career.
Kishshana Palmer:
I've had to.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Yeah. I believe it. We should talk about it. And you've just been providing so much inspiration for so many of us. I know my co-chair at Community Centric Fundraising, Vu Le speaks very highly of you and always wanted us to meet. And so I've been so glad to have the pleasure of meeting you and talking with you-
Kishshana Palmer:
Such a pleasure.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
... and listening to your podcasts. Yeah. The pleasure is mine.
Kishshana Palmer:
And Vu's my boo. The other day when people were trying to come to him on the internet I was like, "Anybody that got a problem with Vu Le has a problem with me. Come see me." I know nobody's going to come though. I know nobody's is going to come. You all don't want this smoke. You don't want it. Don't let these degrees and these pearly white teeth fool you. That's it. People have to understand.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
It's true. They're hiding. They're hiding. They come out snatch and grabs and then they go back in their hiding place [inaudible 00:02:50]. It's amazing. Yes. Thank you for that. Yeah, really crazy lately. And speaking of crazy lately, I mean, just listening to the podcast itself, it's so deep. You have these real conversations with people like Ify Walker, Larnell Vickers.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Damali Smith Tolson, Maria Dautruche, Bernard Palmer, your dad, you interviewed him twice.
Kishshana Palmer:
That's my dad.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
I listened to both of them. It's so good. I love hearing that. Joy Pittman-
Kishshana Palmer:
So many good folks.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
... which I was thinking too earlier this, can I really be authentic at work? It was such a such powerful episode. And one of my favorites Martyritis: The Disease Plaguing The Busy featuring Charmaine Dinkins. So good. Just so many good episodes. And of course I'll always love what we call on the podcasting industry host on mic, which is just when the person is speaking by themselves which you do so beautifully. And I love your episode about “Leadershit.”
Kishshana Palmer:
Oh my gosh. And can I tell you speaking by myself trips me out so bad. My whole podcast, when I originally concepted it, I thought I was going to just do most of my episodes by myself. I have lots to say, I want folks to be able to grow in our sector around leadership and management. And I started recording and I was like, "I don't like any of this. I want to talk to my friends about this stuff. I know really dope people. I should talk to them." I changed it. All of my podcast producer was pulling the rest of the little hair he has on his head left out. He was not happy with me, but we pivoted. And so we're learning as we grow. And I have to tell you the things that I talk about on the podcast really sit squarely in four tenants of belief.
And that is, we have got to be able to address wellbeing. And for me that's around mental, spiritual, and physical health. We've got to be able to address our financial fortitude as leaders in this sector. There are too many of us who have money stories that are keeping us poor and broke, and that's not because we're being underpaid. And we've got to be able to think about professional development and personal development as necessary Siamese twins in order to be able to thrive. And so if I could have conversations with folks about all the things that they trip over their shoelaces about and ways in which we should be really thinking differently around those four things, that to me was a win. And so we'll see how it goes. But so far I've been loving the conversations I've been able to have with all of the guests you mentioned and the ones that we still have yet to come.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Oh yeah. It's so good. I couldn't agree with you more. It's so crucial for us to be able to balance our health and wellbeing with the work that we're doing. And I also agree about our emotional issues around money. I've got my own workshop around it as well. And just the level to which it really hamstrings all kinds of decisions that we make, whether those decisions are around the way we fundraise or the money that we ask for or whether those decisions are on behalf of maybe an executive director or board making decisions about the organization. I've seen leaders who maybe both come from the same background. Let's say b oth came from homes where there wasn't a lot of cashflow.
And I've seen one leader from that situation try to spend as little as possible and buckle down on every penny which has huge problems when you're looking to grow an organization. And then I've seen another executive director from the similar background go and spend as much as they can when they've got it and their philosophy, their mentality self-proclaimed was, "Yeah. I grew up in a place where you spend it when you have it because you don't know when you'll have it again." And the other person was like, "You save it when you don't have it."
Kishshana Palmer:
You just save everything. And it's interesting because my stepfather, may he rest in peace, and my dad both grew up pretty poor in Jamaica. And my dad's attitude around money has always been like, "You save it for a rainy day. You only spend what you really need. You buy things when they're on sale and put them down because when you need it, you don't want to have to go scramble to get it last minute." My stepfather, when he was alive, he'd be like, "Look, here today, gone tomorrow and you can take it with you." And so he had a much more sort of largess approach to money. Not great when you grow up splitting your time between two households, I got to tell you Michelle because what ends up happening is that you have confusion around how you view your relationship with money.
And I grew up at a time where my parents were not explaining anything to me. Okay. Context or reason. There was none of that explanation. Every time I explain something to my daughter in front of my mother, I think she literally loses a year of her lifespan, every single time. Even if it's like Benjamin Button, but she's not aging reverse she's just shrinking. I would say, "Mum, you were 5'9 now you're 5'7. I'm confused. What's happening?" It was the explanations I was giving my daughter, that's what was happening.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
She's shrinking in shame.
Kishshana Palmer:
She is.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
I grew up in a household like that too where both of my parents also came from not much. And they had totally different viewpoints on money. My mom was an immigrant from Iran. And that really just shaped the way that my childhood was, yes, two different ends of the spectrum.
Kishshana Palmer: I remember one time, Michelle this is going to crack you up. I was explaining to my mom the idea that, and this applies to this sort of leadership aspect we're talking about in our organizations too. I know folks are going to identify with part of this. I was explaining to my mom that when we were growing up, that parents parented everyone the same. There was no special treatment in terms of the nuance of your children. If you end up being a failure, and everybody has somebody in their family tree that you were like, "Ooh, that did not go well." That it was not the fault of the parents. You in fact are the problem.
So I was telling her, "No, mom, now you have to parent to the child. You have to meet them where they're at and you have to understand how they show up as humans in the world." And that lady leaned into me and said, "Now what type of newfangled parenting book you're reading?" She literally wanted to know if I was reading a new parenting book. Really?! So I know that there are leaders right now who, depending on where they are in their season of life and how long they have been in seat, that the things that used to work even 15 years ago, 10 years ago, do not work. And they have professionals coming into their organization asking different questions and wanting to have a different level of autonomy and responsibility or not.
Coming and finding earlier balance between their life and their life outside of work. And if that has not been your orientation, you are confused or like my mother, you are shrinking inch by inch from shame because they're clearly not working hard enough. We're dealing with a lot right now. And I was telling a group I was talking with the other day that I think in the last 12 months, many of us have had what I would consider to be a growth spurt. And I'm a whole grown somebody. And I definitely feel like I've had a growth spurt in terms of my learning, in terms of my own self-awareness, in terms of more layered perspectives of my why, so much so that I was like, "I don't want to learn anything else about myself." I'm starting to turn the corner into not liking myself. I was like, "This is ridiculous. I got to go back the other way where I was in dandelion fields and poppy fields just happiest clam. This is not good."
Kishshana Palmer:
I don't know if you've had that experience, Michelle, where you're like, "I have learned way too many things in this last 12 months. Things I can never unsee."
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Yes. One of the things that happened for me in my brain during the first couple months of COVID, I'm a fundraising consultant for Passion and Bread and Butter. But my clients disappeared for the first couple of months because they needed to figure out logistics, how do we handle COVID? What are we going to do? What does it mean to close our offices? What does it mean to have everyone work from home? How do we deal with that? So nobody was trying to fundraise at the very beginning because everybody was panicking about the logistics, especially those that were short-staffed, which is everybody. And so I was suddenly left with time which... Usually, I am someone who likes to be busy. I'm someone who is always on the move. I'm not a caffeine person. I don't need it.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
To be that, to have that personality and those characteristics and then to have nothing and not be able to go anywhere, I mean, I know a lot of people can relate to this, but my brain did some interesting things. And I mean, my need to self-soothe through production, a very capitalist had me take a podcasting class and really I'd always wanted to do a podcast. I had the concept for it, but I really started working on that at class at the right time for me and that's what this podcast is born out of, but what else happened to my brain is that I went through every relationship and friendship and everything that didn't work out in my life and just my brain had a field day. I would say that a lot of growth happened. So much growth has happened for me that I have been like, "Okay, can we put the brakes on just for a little while."
Kishshana Palmer:
We don't want it. I don't want it.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
I started with retro tripping and then things just got more and more complex and interesting and difficult and sad. A lot of grieving, a lot of family stuff has been happening for me in my life. It's been a lot.
Kishshana Palmer:
I'm curious about how that's going to translate to how organizations, I call it surthrival. Because I think that there are a lot of organizations that even before the pandemic were in survival mode and I'm like, "Why did you exist to just survive?" I'm not just trying to make nothing. I would like to be all the way abundant in the way that I pursue my mission, because it is so critical. And I want leaders in organizations to feel the same way and not in a sort of blinders on kind of way, but more we feel so clear about the work that we're doing and the impact that we're having, that we are almost relentless in the ways in which we invite people in and help them to find place and space so they can be a part of that journey.
I used to teach fundraising classes, I don't do it as much anymore. I do a bootcamp now called “Fundraising for the Rest of Us,” because if you are used to raising money in a really white normative way and come to understand through living that the rules don't always apply to you, but you still have goals to meet, how do you do that? But I remember in early days, I would say, particularly the board members, if you don't put your tin cup away, going up, "Can I have more bread? May I have more." I need us to not have any version of that.
Kishshana Palmer:
Literally the posture itself, when you talk to folks and you have leaned over and you've pulled your whole body posture in, and if you all doing it right now, you all know what I'm talking about, you turn your shoulders down and in. You kind of lean onto yourself. You tuck your pelvis, your voice gets a little quieter. You get hesitant. What is that? We're inviting folks into such a joyous occasion to help us to propel mission, to come on this journey with us to discover alongside us. And yet we're going to shrink away. Let me tell you what, you are not going to convince me to go bungee jumping with that kind of body posture. Oh, heck no.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
That's right.
Kishshana Palmer:
I'm not buying a ticket to that show. And so I think that I'll be curious to see because there have been so many folks in the last year that I've had, like you and I, that sort of awakening, like you said, the retro trip that you had to really kind of assess what you're doing with your life.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Seriously.
Kishshana Palmer:
How does that show up at work?
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Right. Every step of it, what am I doing with my life? I had to question everything, and I was in a good spot professionally as well. I'm like, "I'm doing what I want to be doing." And then this retro trip of everything I've ever messed up in my life. Every fuck up, every relationship I dropped the ball on.
Kishshana Palmer:
All of it.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
All of it came back.
Kishshana Palmer:
It's like magnified.
Kishshana Palmer: For me, one of my biggest revelations and it's not painful for me now because I've decided that my lived experience is going to be someone's lesson that they can take in and maybe do something with. And you've just got to live through stuff. But I realized that I had operated from this place of people telling me what I was good at for a really long time. And I know for some folks who maybe they don't get lots of folks who are like, "You're amazing. You're awesome. You're good." First of all, I wish the affirmation was my love language because I would feel full. Instead, I prefer gifts. I just want you to know what time and acts of service. So if anybody wants to send the at-home car washing service to my house, it would kill two birds with one stone. But I digress.
Kishshana Palmer:
Hey, come on, put somebody on the cash app.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Love it.
Kishshana Palmer:
But I realized that I did not know what I thought I was good at. I had not slowed down long enough to really assess truly for myself what did I actually believe that I was better at than anybody? And where was I gifted? Where was I talented and where was I skilled? And I think that a lot of times for us, we don't know that we're operating on sort of those three different modalities. So if something is a gift, that is a thing that comes to you like air. And if you choose, you can monetize that. And if something is a talent, it's something that is easy for you to pick up and understand and learn. And if you choose, you can monetize that. And then when something is a skill, you have got to work at it, but you get good at it. And then you can monetize that.
Kishshana Palmer:
Most of us professionally operate in our skills area. We very rarely move into our talent and into our gifts.
Kishshana Palmer:
And so when we think about the places where we end up feeling really bogged down and we end up feeling really heavy or we feel like we're carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, if I were to take a look at your week and look at your calendar and look at doing sort of a time study for you, I'd bet that it's because the majority of the work that you're doing sits in your skills area, not in your gifts or your talents. And you really need to be operating in those first two in order to feel that lightness, that airiness, that breath of fresh air, when you discover something. Think of the first time you ever did something that you were like, "Ooh, I was meant to do this thing."
Kishshana Palmer:
And it just kind of picked it up and came to you. How free you felt even if you had to spend hours really kind of understanding the technical aspect or reading up on it, et cetera. I feel like as it relates to this kind of moment that we're in right now, lots of us are experiencing that discovery aspect that you talked about, really understanding, "Where am I really gifted at? Where am I actual talent?" And I'm not immune. And I built a whole business for years based on skillset and not based on where am I actually naturally gifted and what talents do I actually have that can [inaudible 00:20:37] that gift. And then what skills do I need to use to help propel those things. I was operating in the reverse. One day I'll get to the thing that I'm gifted at, as opposed to leading out with that.
Kishshana Palmer:
And I think that because we have learned to be so performative, at least I have as a black woman, not just in our sector, but even when I was in corporate, but from our education, you just learn to perform, you tap dance to get the As, you tap dance to get the certificates. When I was in fourth grade, I tap dance to get a pretzel at the end of the day for Ms. Bradley. I mean, that's what you learn to do. You've been tap dancing a long time even if you don't have any rhythm friends. Here we are.
Reset 1: You’re listening to The Ethical Rainmaker, I’m Michelle Shireen Muri. Our guest today is Kishana Palmer, who you can learn more in our show notes at theethicalrainmaker.com, but you can also find her at KISHANA CO .com and the rooted collaborative.com.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
So you've built these platforms and I'm wondering if you'll tell us a little bit about it. I'm wondering if you'll tell us about Kishshana & Co and also The Rooted Collaborative, because you've been scaling your talents as well.
Kishshana Palmer:
Totally. Kishshana & Co really serves as a learning company, at the end of the day. We teach people how to use well-being, use wellness and use really good practice around that sort of mental, spiritual, and physical work so that your staff doesn't hate you. We've decided that you can't lead well if you're not living well. And we've seen those people, the diet not right. We know they're not in therapy. We know they don't take nobody's walks around the block. They're not getting any sleep. They family don't like them that much. If you're not getting invited to nobody's wedding on your staff, listen friend, your team does not like you. Okay. All right?
Michelle Shireen Muri:
That's true.
Kishshana Palmer:
Because it's actually an obligation to invite your managers, if you are not getting everybody that's really bad. And so what we do is we use real world examples. And so that's everything from pop culture, movies, music. And then we combine that with really great theory to help folks learn how to move, how to operate when they're stressed, because you do not remember, and Michelle and if you do, you are fancier to me, but you do not typically remember any fancy framework when you are stressed all the way out, when you were having a Snickers moment and you are hangry, you are not remembering the floofy, fancy framework you took in some [inaudible 00:22:59] class three years ago. You're just not doing it. Okay. You are relying on instinct. You're going to fall back on every bad habit you have. And what we try to do is break folks of that so that they have a healthier way that really aligns the way that they live and work anyway, to be able to address real world leadership problems and challenges.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
That sounds like deep work.
Kishshana Palmer:
It is deep. It makes me want to take a nap. I just want you to know. And so most of our clients engage us in one to two day training, sometimes monthly trainings in group coaching and individual coaching for mid-level to executive level managers. And then sometimes if they do, they're like, "Kishshana, actually we need a little this and little that." And so my team will put together what we call us a matrix project that gets to different leadership challenges that organizations might be facing.
Kishshana Palmer:
And that's what we do and we've done it for a long time. And I started out by myself and then I started calling on friends who were still in their full-time jobs at different non-profit organizations in senior leadership positions who had a particular skillset, but maybe they felt like they weren't really being fulfilled at work, or they want it to flex their muscles differently. They want it to operate outside the confines of the political structure of their organization. And then we put together these project teams that would do fantastic matrix projects. So for example, if you engage Kishshana & Co to do a strategic plan, I hate to break it to your friends, but if we can't help you think about your organizational framework, what does impact actually look like for you around your programs? We are not touching your people or your money. And there are lots of firms that will happily do lots of interviews with your stakeholders and tell you what folks want to hear. My job is to help you understand when we leave you with this fancy ass plan, will anybody on your staff know how to do it? Okay.
Kishshana Palmer:
Will this work in a year. Will you know how to pressure test it. And so I had to think differently about how to do the work and my perspective is that we are real people with real lives and real challenges who many times just want to go home. I just want to go home. I just want to go to my house, I want to go to my house right now. I mean, it's true. If I think about it from that perspective, then how do I design trainings and offerings that speak to what people need to solve for in real time and feel like they're coming from a real human who has actually experienced some of the challenges and some of the joys of being in the work. That's Kishshana & Co. If it touches people, we touch it.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Ooh, I love it. That's powerful. That's a powerful way to describe the work that you're doing. That's really lovely. And as you say, for those of us that are in a consulting practice, it would be really easy to just create things that will never get used or won't stand the pressure tests like you said. I'm wondering also if you would tell us a little bit about The Rooted Collaborative.
Kishshana Palmer:
Absolutely.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
What is The Rooted Collaborative?
Kishshana Palmer:
The Rooted Collaborative is essentially home for lots of black and brown women who decided that in order to be able to persist in this sector, that they needed to find a community of like-minded folks that was different, that we are not pandering to being the well-dressed version of white normative behavior, that our self care is more than spa dates and getting your nails done. And that we were willing to do the deep work in order to be able to grow personally and professionally, and that you actually cannot grow professionally if you're not growing personally. And so what emerged from that as a community of women in the US and Canada, in the UK, in the Caribbean, in South Africa, in Kenya and Argentina and growing every day who believe that to be themselves is the gift. And that for many of us, we don't know how to do that yet at work.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
That's right.
Kishshana Palmer:
And we get to come together in a brave space and really discuss what are the tools, the social tools that allow us to be able to navigate the spaces we've chosen to be in. And how do we do that in a way that builds up a well of sort of like vitamins, a defense, a real one that doesn't break us down, that doesn't tire us out. And frankly that doesn't put us into the highest risk categories across every preventative disease there is for women. And so bottom line, it is a safe haven for women who are looking for professional development, personal development, and community of women who understand what they do, but don't need to come there to perform either. And that to me is powerful because over the last year we've had so many of our members negotiate out of their roles, negotiate into better roles. Move up in their organizations, do better in searches, not quit the profession, start writing, get paid to write, get paid to speak.
Kishshana Palmer:
And part of that is when you have the structure and the actual frame of being able to learn and then try and then test and then do it again and get feedback and then be out in the world and do that. You are just a better person for it. And so they have that safe haven within the collaborative. I feel really proud of our work. There are lots of organizations that have sprung up over the last couple of years and the last year actually, focused on women of color and they cut across different purposes and ever-changing values and ways in which they want to be able to speak to women like me. But I think the beauty of that is there was something for everyone. We are not for everybody. Everybody is not for The Rooted Collaborative. If you are still fried and laid to the side, both in your dress personality in here, we don't want you, because the reality is you still have some work to do and we are going to make you hell of uncomfortable.
Kishshana Palmer:
We are learning what it means to be authentic for real, for real, and to still be able to navigate spaces that force you into this "view of professionalism" that is super made up and you are rewarded when you get to be palatable. And we don't want to do that.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
So powerful. I mean, I think everybody can't come and like you said, assimilation is out, authenticity is in. It sounds like a powerful space for personal development.
Kishshana Palmer:
And for organizations who are like, "I wonder if that would be for my fundraiser." Yes. It is a retention strategy. And a rather an expensive one too, I must say. Because if you're women of color in your organization have a place where they can reset and then come back into work ready and refueled to navigate the trickiness that your organization is. I know you love your mission, but your politics and your organization's real tricky. And so that allows them to be able to be more fortified to persist in your organization, which helps you with your retention strategy. Folks are going to be more inclined to stay. They're going to be more inclined to speak up and understand how to navigate language. They're going to be able to galvanize their team members in ways that they might not have been able to do so because they felt like they were fighting the good fight alone.
Kishshana Palmer:
And so there's so much benefit if you actually care about diversity, equity and inclusion in your organization and it's not just a statement on your website for you to be able to retain the professionals of color in your organization. I feel really proud about that. There's not just a benefit to the members, but there's also a benefit to the organizations who ensure that their team members can be a part of it.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Powerful stuff. Thank you.
Kishshana Palmer:
Of course.
Reset 2: We are in conversation with Kishana Palmer, founder of The Rooted Collaborative and Kishana and Co and host of let’s take this offline podcast If you love The Ethical Rainmaker and these rich conversations, you can follow us on Instagram for more great content and you can support this work on Patreon.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Well, so we've talked a little bit about these platforms that you've built. And I've talked a little bit about the podcast and how much I love it. I'm wondering, what is top of mind for you these days like today? What is happening in your world? What are you spending time thinking about?
Kishshana Palmer:
I mean, for me, what's top of mind right now is planning for our retreat in July, The Rooted retreat. And so I've been talking to a lot of potential sponsors and companies, for-profit companies who have folks in the nonprofit sector as sort of our target audience and it has just been so fascinating that this time last year everybody was sort of hot stepping it to proclaim the solidarity of the moment and that they were here for ensuring they were lifting up black voices. And in the last month you've seen the zeitgeists around ensuring that we're stopping Asian hate, which I have been so excited to be a part of. And there's so many conversations that were happening a year ago that now feel like they have turned down the volume to a trickle and folks maybe feel that they've done enough and maybe they're tired and they've moved on.
Kishshana Palmer:
And maybe they thought no one will notice that they actually don't do anything. And they haven't changed ranks in their organizations. They're still lily-white and we don't want your $5. What has been so fascinating is that the very thing that I have sort of railed against in terms of, again, not having out the 10 cups, "Oh, I'll take your $5. I'll take your $500, I'll take." I have had to actually step into that and be about my business and say, "Oh, no, thank you. We are not interested in your sponsorship. That's whack. No, actually, we would like you to double that from last year. Here's why. Here's the value proposition for you if you can't see it. Okay, great. But let me help you see that." And also to be able to say no to folks like, "Ah, no, thank you. We do not want your money."
Kishshana Palmer:
And that's a hard thing to do when you're trying to put on a conference for 900 people in the middle of the summer and make a virtual experience feel like you're right in their living room. Like you would want to say yes to all types of partnership and investment. And yet from a values perspective, what's on my mind is that it feels like the moment is dimming. It hasn't passed yet, but it definitely feels like you see a hallway with a bright light and you see the doors start to close slightly. And I feel like I'm running fast to the door, but I'm still sort of in sludge and I might not make it to the door. That's what it's feeling like for me now. And I wonder if a year from now organizations are going to be experiencing that exact same thing from funders as well.
Kishshana Palmer:
And call it a skepticism, call it lived experience. I just wonder how much of it is performative because so much of it is performative. And I watch money being thrown at the problem, but it felt like years ago when I was raising money for one particular organization and we got in this sort of windfall in one year, and I didn't allow my team to count it toward goal. They were so mad. They were like, "I can't believe it. We exceeded goal by this much percent. It was this much X million dollars more. "I was like, "Those people are not going to give us that money next year. We are not counting it nor are we making any decisions about growing this organization because of that gift, that money will go into the coffers because next year we're going to need it."
Kishshana Palmer:
And people boohooed and they called me all types of names, professionally, of course. And I found myself a year later on the outs. I was no longer welcome. And let me tell you what happened. Those gifts did not come in again. What's on my mind is that I see the very same thing happening now. And I still see tons of money being directed at white or white led organizations to invite more people of color into the ranks as opposed to uplifting, amplifying and continue to support in a large, and long-term way organizations, communities, and causes led by people of color. That has not changed. I would like people to stop pretending like things are actually that different. Those are the things that are on my mind. What about you? Because I could go on and on about that.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Yeah. I'm concerned about the same thing. And actually another layer that I'll add to that is that in a interview that I did earlier this season with Teddy Schleifer of [inaudible 00:36:38], we talked about billionaires in the Silicon Valley. And one of the things that became really clear to me, both in talking to him, but also just in the research that I did around that episode is this listening to the number of billionaires that are going to be created, the number of billionaires that already exist and are just getting wealthier, but really understanding, finally understanding that the next level of giving for our nonprofits is going to come from Silicon Valley. And what does that mean? Because the way that our foundations in the United States have made money have all been based on extractive economies, they're often built on the backs of enslaved people. A lot of that's old money from slavery.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
And these foundations are holding onto it, some could say hoarding it. They're also coming to the table with solutions that they've created versus solutions that have come from community. These are the problems that we know about when it comes ... Some of the problems that we know about when it comes to philanthropy and fundraising and being problematic. We have the problems of the nonprofit sector and how it is also built on racist roots. You know, but what really struck me is, we are actually going to have a high number of millionaires and billionaires coming out of Silicon Valley that is going to dorf what these huge foundations who have been so big in our eyes and third sector, it's going to dorf what these foundations have been able to do.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
How does that wealth get distributed and how does that get distributed with equity? We've seen the problems of focusing on metrics because we can see in the way that data needs to be decolonized. That a lot of data that is collected isn't actually the right data. It's not being asked to the right people. There are so many problems. And Anna Rebecca Lopez, Vu Le and I have an episode about decolonizing data where we talk about these issues from season one, but there are so many issues that come with that kind of mentality of, give me the data and I'll make an investment. But how else are we going to be able to deal with the wealth distribution, I guess, of Silicon Valley? I think that's on my mind too.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
And it's also attached to what you're saying. I think you're right. I mean, you're presenting your experience as a black woman, as a fundraiser, as a leader in the third sector and what you're seeing and hearing. And I can echo that. I believe that that's what I'm seeing and hearing as well, that the momentum is slowing down. A lot of the allyship has been performative. So now what? Now what are we going to see in the next chapters?
Kishshana Palmer:
I mean, absolutely. And one of the things that has been so clear, so I actually really cut my development teeth in Silicon Valley years ago when I was raising money from mostly venture capitalist and VC firm partners and new millionaires to that tech boom at the top of the 2010s. And it was a fascinating experience. Let me tell you what some of them folks were not thinking about - philanthropy. Oh, no. Philanthropy of the big house, philanthropy of their fancy vacation. The giving of their children to all the private school dreams that they really wanted. And then the throwaway coins to, ‘let me not look like a terrible person in the world.’ And so having to educate folks on why giving is a part of how you continue to create wealth and how you continue to create legacy was a fascinating exercise because folks just went with it.
Kishshana Palmer:
And not just the men. I want to tell you the women too, no one was immune. And so that hasn't changed in 10 years. It's just becoming more visible now because there's so many more tech companies and tech enabled companies who are continuing to grow and explode as our thirst for a tech enabled services grows. And so it is going to be so fascinating because as companies continue to outsource to other countries, to mostly men, to folks who are by and large not black, because still, I think between one and 3% of the tech workforce in the Bay are folks who identify as black. Then we're going to have to deal with a different type of diversity and conversation and relationship around wealth. And that is as it relates to intraculturally and what those layers look like. So there's a lot of work that's going to have to be done. And I think what is curious and worrisome is that we haven't gotten the first layer right. That feels like it could be the simplest and that we have to move on to other things.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Right. Exactly. The example that you just used of the door closing, the light peeking through the door, running through sledge to get to it, not sure if you're going to get there on time. That's real. I can see it.
Kishshana Palmer:
So critical. I think that for me, I am hopeful, but I am hopeful with a side eye because I really can't, that's the best way I can put it. I'm hopeful with a side eye, because I want folks to not fall into the law of the Disney version of diversity, equity and inclusion, both the folks who hire practitioners to come into their organizations and the practitioners who know that folks just want to check the box. And there's all types of folks. There's practitioners who want to do deep work, they're folks that are like, "We'll take this easy early in." There are organizations who want the easy early in. And I was like, everybody to get matched with the right people, but it is multilayered, multifaceted long-term work.
Kishshana Palmer:
And in order for us to be committed to be able to see that work through, there's going to take a level of honesty of coming to the table with some real clarity on what we want those outcomes to be. And it can't be an either, or you do the work, or I do the work, and I'm not even trying to advocate for the kumbaya of we do the work, but more specifically each of us have a now a new and distinct part to play in moving our sector forward and really understanding what our role is.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
That's right. And if we're not doing that, we're being complacent.
Kishshana Palmer:
Absolutely.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
It's easy to be lulled into that too. That complacency and that disempowerment.
Kishshana Palmer
Absolutely.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Well, hey, it has been a pleasure to have you, Kishshana Palmer.
Kishshana Palmer:
Oh my gosh.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Such a pleasure to chat with you. Before we wrap up, is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you'd really like to hit on?
Kishshana Palmer:
No, I think we had a good conversation today. I want people to run to therootedretreat.com if you're interested in really a restorative practice this summer that allow you to reset for your year and to be around other folks who are looking to be able to continue to thrive in this journey, somebody we all know and love. I'm not going to say anybody's name, but it's going to be one of our keynotes. And so I'm super excited to have a coffee chat with that particular individual. But go to therootedretreat.com to find that out and to make sure we stay connected on social.
Kishshana Palmer:
I am still exploring what it means to talk out loud, which essentially what to me, social media is sometimes about the things that are happening in the world, but I am always excited to engage in conversation with folks. And so get on my list. You can just go to Bitly/fabcrew, or go to Kishsha&Co / crew and connect with me on social at Kishshana Palmer. Let's keep the conversation going and really continue to think about the way we grow in a healthy way so that we can live well and then lead well.
Michelle Shireen Muri:
Thank you so much, Kishshana Palmer, everybody on The Ethical Rainmaker, it's such a pleasure to have you here today.
Kishshana Palmer:
Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me.
Outro: And that’s it for The Ethical Rainmaker. I’m your host Michelle Shireen Muri. You can find show notes and transcripts of this and every episode, at THE ETHICAL RAINMAKER.COM
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The Ethical Rainmaker is produced in Seattle, Washington by Kasmira Hall, and Isaac Kaplan-Woolner, and socials by Rachelle Pierce. I am your executive producer and this pod is sponsored by Freedom Conspiracy, my fundraising consulting collective, which you can find at freedom-conspiracy.com.
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