DCP EP. 90 Giving Black: Joy Lindsay, Kishshana Palmer

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Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:01:12] Welcome to Dear Culture, the podcast that gives you news you can trust for the culture. I’m your co-host, Gerren Keith Gaynor, Managing Editor at theGrio and this week we’re asking “What’s the best way to give Black?” So, this week I am without my dynamic, beautiful co-host Shana. She is away, moving to Atlanta, and if you’ve been listening to the Dear Culture podcast, you know that she’s very excited to be starting her new… Her new life in Atlanta. So we’re sending all the love to Shana as she prepares for her move and transitions. But this week we’re are also joined by two very special guests, Kishshana Palmer and Joy Lindsay, who are fundraising leaders and philanthropists who are focused on supporting Black and brown communities through social impact. So we’ll talk with them about the social impact sector, the challenges of fundraising, the obstacles of fundraising while Back, and how to maximize the impact of your philanthropic dollars this holiday season. But before we get into today’s show, I’m happy to announce I am in New York City, so if I have a different background, this because I am in theGrio offices in New York. I’m here visiting family and friends. And, you know, I’ve been really thinking about a lot this week, like loving on your people and the thinking about burnout. So I’ve been like, really… You know, if you’re like me, you probably are working really hard at your job, you know, pursuing the American dream as we all are pursuing, trying to make money, to buy homes, to climb corporate ladders. And so I can say that on the career end I have, I’m thriving. I recently was inducted into… Got membership rather into the White House Correspondents Association and been doing great work and feeling good about work. But I’ve also been experiencing a lot of burnout and just feeling unfulfilled in some ways. I’ve been kind of off of my regimen. I haven’t been doing yoga and meditation daily, and I was just seeking some type of rejuvenation. And so I traveled to New York to visit family. Obviously, I am a New Yorker if you listen to your culture. You know, I moved to D.C. this year and I just needed something different… Needed to return to my roots. And so I came to New York to visit my best friend, who lives in Brooklyn. She just had a baby this year. And theGrio’s very own Natasha S. Alford, who is our VP of digital content and senior correspondent. And she just had a baby this year. And so I wanted to make sure that I am around my goddaughter and my nephew. I have a cousin, her baby cousins, and I’ve been feeling so much better that I just took a little time from me. Obviously, I’m still working, but it’s really important that you lean into the things that bring you Joy as… Especially as we heading into the holiday season. It’s important for us to to be with family, to reset, to think about how we’re going to start the new year. And one really good advice I got from one of my older cousins was, you work to live, you do not live to work. And oftentimes we get so caught up in the cycle of working and making money and achieving that we forget that while we’re doing the work that we’re doing. But more importantly, what is it that we want to do with our lives? Are we in contact with our loved ones enough? Are we calling our moms and our grandparents and our friends and checking in on them? So this is just your reminder to to remember that we are here to connect. And so if you’re feeling burnout, you’re feeling disconnected. I encourage you to call up a loved one, take a trip to somewhere and visit someone that you really that really just brings you Joy because has been really helpful for me. So I hope that that is helpful for you too.

Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:05:16] Joy … Kishshana, I’m so excited that you are both joining us today. I know that you will have some really great insight to provide in terms of context on what it means to give back to the Black community and have real impact for good. I’m going to share a bit more with our listeners about your backgrounds, but then I’m excited to dive right into this conversation that I hope will be a really rich conversation. Author, publisher and philanthropic leader Joy Lindsay is the Founder and CEO of Butterfly Dreamz, Inc, a nonprofit organization that helps girls develop into women who achieve their dreams. And philanthropic fairy godmother Kishshana Palmer is a 20 year veteran in the public service space, known for a leading nonprofit organizations toward sustainability and profitability. Kishshana, Joy Welcome to Dear Culture. So let’s get into it. Can you briefly share what inspires you to get into the nonprofit space? And were you in a different sector before you entered the nonprofit space?

Kishshana Palmer [00:06:21] Oh, that’s a good question. Absolutely. So I started out in investment banking like lots of us and went to business undergrad. I went to school. I was in a really great program. So when I was an undergrad that put young folks from underrepresented communities on Wall Street, and I was also part of the first cohort that went international. And so got to do investment banking before I left college and before I went to grad school. And I remember one of the bankers on the trading floor. I was on my second year saying to me, Kishshana, do you know the this is the million dollar seat? Do you want us to hold this million dollar seat for you and for your talent? Because if you don’t want this seat? It was, y’all — I was shook’eth. And I remember thinking to myself — I had all these fly shoes — Listen, y’all, this is more money than I had seen in my whole life. I was making more money than my friends. Everybody was any little piddly internships. And I was like, I am rich, OK? It was so hilarious, totally incorrect y’all and terrible. But I remember thinking to myself, Nobody’s ever going to see my really great shoes. I at this desk all day, there’s got to be more in life. And so after I went to grad school, got my MBA, I thought about like what I wanted to do in the world, and I had been doing surveys for as long as I can remember. And so much so that part of my scholarship to college was a service learning scholarship. In so doing, something in nonprofit work seemed like a natural fit for me. Fundraising felt like I slipped and fell in the kitchen and was like, “Oh hell,” and caught myself in here I was raising money where I’ve been for the last 20 odd years, so a little bit of a, you know, circuitous route in. But I was always about the money. No matter what side of the house I was on

Joy Lindsay [00:08:15] That’s so funny beause, Kishshana, I actually started in investment banking too. I was a finance major in undergrad at Howard and It’s so…  Like so, but I did investment banking, went into consulting and so was in the private sector. Similarly, so I could that I’ve always been about the money too, but I’m sure I had that feeling of like, you know, I oh, I love work. I love like producing.I’m a creative person. And so it’s not that I didn’t enJoy the work. It was just that I didn’t enJoy spending so much of my time making very rich people even richer. And I’ve always wanted to do something that I felt was giving some kind of impact to the world. And so probably about my second year, I decided to do still do finance, but do it for a nonprofit organization. And so I transitioned from working in the private sector, consulting to working in finance for a nonprofit called New Leaders. And that just opened my eyes to the nonprofit sector and nonprofit world how I could use my finance and business background and in this sector. And so I went to grad schooln and did an MPA and my MPA was focused on public and nonprofit management and finance and policy. And in 2013, the year I graduated from from NYU, my younger sister was shot and killed. And I, that was one of those life changing moments that was like, you know, my younger sister is not just my sister, she was my best friend. And so I it was a moment where I was like, What really do I want to do with my life? And so part of not just working in the sector, but starting a nonprofit was out of that personal experience of healing, but also wanting to create something that would honor her legacy and honor who she was. And so it was. A mix of me, a desire to use my skills in a way that would be helpful, but then also, I think, wanted to honor my sister and and girls who look like her and look like me. So that’s kind of how I came to that.

Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:10:30] Wow. But one one, thank you for sharing that Joy, and I’m and I’m sorry for your loss. And but you’re just really…. to lean into that in a way to have to to want to have social impact, I think is very powerful. Also, very interesting that you both worked in and the banking industry. That’s very fascinating to me. For those who don’t understand what the differences are like, you worked in the private sector, in the business world and then you go into the nonprofit world. What would you say are the most glaring differences?

Kishshana Palmer [00:11:04] I think that there is a perception that folks who work in the nonprofit sector who work in charity work in the social sector because depending on what part of the world are, and it’s called different things that we are, we’re bleeding hearts who don’t want to make any money, who do this just because we want to do it in the world and and the passion is going to pay the mortgage and that is incorrect. In fact, many of the professionals and in the nonprofit sector, 70 percent of nonprofit professionals are women. Women identifying, have multiple degrees, a gazillion certificates and can out think you, out strategize you, out money-run you, out plan you ou sell you. I will sell you the shirt you have on your back and you will buy it from me at twice the price. And so really gifted and talented. But there’s a perception that coming into the sector is easier work, in fact, that when I was directly working for organizations as a chief development officer folks will come and interview and when I would ask them, like why they were excited about coming to work on our development team, they would say, Oh, you know, I’m trying to take a break or I’m trying to just to downshift from the work that I’m doing at fill in the blank job and I would say “Baby, this is not the career for you. I just want you to know you’re going to throttle down into six where you will stay for the rest of your life, OK? On 8th of gas, just want you to know. And if that’s not your idea of a good time, then that is not going to be the career for you.” But that is a big perception that it’s easier work. Misconception. It’s easier work and that perhaps we may be not as smart or talented, etc. and therefore ended up in these jobs as opposed to for many of us did “whoops” into the job, but it wasn’t because there were not other options. Joy, don’t you find that happens to you all the time, too?

Joy Lindsay [00:12:50] Yes, I’m over here, not even because I’m like, Yes, and it’s always like, you know, if you have a private sector background like it holds more weight or you’re just so much more knowledgeable and it’s always what can the nonprofit sector learn from the for profit sector? And I’m nodding my head as you’re speaking because I had to be so much more creative in the nonprofit space. You have to do more with less because of all of the misconceptions. You have to be entrepreneurial. You have to be creative. And so I feel like you, you leverage so many skills and you learn so much. So I think that it’s a key difference is that because of all of those misconceptions, Kishshana talked about, when you come into the nonprofit space, you really do have to do a lot. You have to take on a lot of different roles. You have to just really be an entrepreneur, even if you didn’t find your own nonprofit. Like most cases, wherever you are, you’re going to be doing a lot of different jobs. It’s very likely you’re going to be short staffed. It’s very likely that you are going to play fundraising, even if you’re not on the fundraising team, right? Like that, you are going to be investing in the mission in the organization. So I think, yeah, I think those are some of the differences I would add to everything Kishshana was saying.

Kishshana Palmer [00:14:11] And I think this I got also this idea that we have tin cups, “I have no bread” and that you are going with like a hand out as opposed to seeing organizations in the sector as tightening and filling in the gaps of the social safety net. And that our jobs, regardless of whether you are for the babies, the education, the diseases, the trees, the bees or the doggies that you are trying to right side inequity in communities that typically do not have the types of resources necessary to be on equal footing. And that is a critical critical component because not only are you charged with bringing in revenue to fuel programs to pay your teams, but you also have to demonstrate impact, which is defined by behavioral change. And so it’s a really tough charge where your stakeholders are many. But your resources are seen like magic. And so, you know, the “find a way or make one” that some of us learn when we would, you know, join a different civic organizations and social organizations in our come-up-its that it extends to the work that I think Joy and I both do in our day to day lives and many, many nonprofit professionals. Would I think +1 us on that, don’t you think so, Joy?

Joy Lindsay [00:15:39] I agree. And the other thing I would add is you really do have because of all of that, you have to own your career in ways you may not have to do in the for profit sector. So if you’re at a for profit company, it can be very your career can be very planned out like, you know, your two years of the analyst day and you’re an associate, and if it’s very clear pathway to how to get to where you want to be. And I think that you really do have to navigate your career and network and have your community and and learn from people who are in the sector to really figure out what it is you want to do. And so and I was very fortunate in that New Leaders, which is not I think like a lot of nonprofits, they prioritize human development in terms of like the training of us in terms of how we saw our career. But I’ve had now the opportunity to work at several different nonprofits as a consultant and work in space and that’s not common. And so I would say the other thing is you really do have to, you know, be a little bit, not just an alchemist. It’s also like you’re you’re really I don’t want to say hustling, but you really do have to in many ways, create your own path and find community because that structure that you would find at for profit may not is likely not going to be available for you at at a nonprofit.

Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:17:04] Yeah, yeah. So walk me through, let’s say, you know, I decide today I want to start a nonprofit. You know, you filed to be a 501c3, then where does the funding come from? I think that that’s like the thing that people don’t quite understand. I know me, I was I’ve been very ignorant to that world. I just know a nonprofit. That’s great. But how do you actually keep the organization running? How do you pay staff like so what is the funding goal? Can you break that down for us?

Kishshana Palmer [00:17:35] Yeah, absolutely. And, Joy– you’re in the thick of it now, so I’m curious to know what’s happening now, so it depends on what type of organization that you actually have. So I think I just want to name that so there are folks who are in what we would consider grassroots organizations, typically from a ethos perspective, seen as smaller organizations doing localized work. But you can be a national organization that has grassroots meaning you have lots of small pockets of folks who are actioning in your work. So I think the first thing is to understand the genesis of your organization. Then there — Joy mentioned New Leaders, and that’s a social venture. Almost all of the organizations, except for one that I worked for, were social ventures, which means on day zero, you have zero dollars. On year one, You might have 200 or 300 thousand from some foundation who were like, “We believe in you, Craig.” And then by year three, you are five million dollar organization. Then you’re doing a growth campaign and which you will triple in size and be 20 million dollars within seven years. Very different trajectory than organizations that are trying to paddle their way to their first 50 thousand or writing nine ten thousand dollar grants. And so when organizational leaders come to me when founders say, “Kishshana, I want to start an organization, I need your help. My job is to help them fast track to what level of impact do they want to have and what type of revenue do they want to bring in so that they are put in a place of sustainability from day one? And that looks different from different people. Everybody mission is not sexy. OK, Gerren. Joy, You know this is true. You have a sexy mission, but everybody’s mission is not sexy. Therefore, your your mission may not be right for corporate dollars who are looking to increase their revenue share in the market. They’re looking to expand on their demographics. Or they’re looking to help their customers see them as a socially active company so people can spend more money. But, you might be more attractive to foundations who are looking for a particular type of impact at that time. So each organization comes into their revenue mix a little bit differently. And what a lot of founders don’t think about at that initial stages, is how is this going to be financially viable and stable over time? What most founders are thinking about is this thing has happened in my life, my mama’s life, my family’s life, my neighborhood life, and I need to do something about it. And so they get to work. Joy, would you say that that’s been your experience?

Joy Lindsay [00:19:58] Yes. And I think you come into it not only get into work, but also thinking that people are going to care as much as you care about what you’re like. “Yes, this is a great idea” and everybody is going to be like. “Yes! Jump on board, they are going to want to volunteer. They are going to want to donate,” and then the reality hits you of how incredibly hard it is to start something and to galvanize support, particularly financial support for your endeavor. And so to answer your question like, yes, everything you’re trying to say, it does depend on the type of organization. And if you are trying to start a nonprofit, likely it’s a grassroots rightt like… Likely you are starting with nothing and you are fit…You want to make it happen. And so there is a paperwork side of it. So yes, there is the travel trying to get a 501c3. And like all of the documents and things you have to do. For us, we worked with a pro bono attorney, so there is advantages to having a 501c3 because it opens the doors to allow you to get grant funding. And if people donate to your organization, they get tax benefits, right? And so but even that has a cost to it. You have to pay the IRS to file that, you know? And so we were lucky and we were we were able to to work with a corporate firm who covered those costs and did our paperwork for us. But so your question is a lot, in there in terms of like how to start because of so many things that you that you just don’t know about when you begin. So, a board of directors. So a board of directors are the people who are helping you and are on your team and helping you to not just govern the organization but also helping with the fundraising of the organization. And when you first start a nonprofit, you may not have a full board. I started Butterfly Dreamz in 2013. Our first program was around 2015 2016. We just got a full board of directors for the first few years. It was.. it was just like, you know, people who I could trust and who, you know, were close to me and that takes work. It takes work to get people to, you know, not just see your mission and believe in it, but to want to invest their time and their money to helping you build and helping you strategize. But I would say get a team of people. That’s number one, even if they’re not on your board. We started with an advisory board. And so the benefits of having an advisory board is that you can kind of work with people and see how they work, see how committed they are before you ask them to make a commitment. Our board commitment is that not just to our board members give their time, but each of them commit to giving five thousand dollars. So if you have a strong board, you have a fundraising team, you have a strategic strategy team and then you think about what kinds of revenue you want to have. Right. So like, do you mean you don’t want to just have one line of revenue so you may start out with writing grants and like, you’re you’re you know, you’re trying to get those grant funding, you’ll start out probably with the five thousand ten thousand dollar grant applications that Kishshana mentioned. And that’s one area. Then you may want to have a fee for service, which means that you’re doing something that’s related to your mission and you’re getting paid for that. So like if you are training, you know, you’re teaching and people are paying you for your teaching services. If you have an education nonprofit, you could have a line of a revenue line that is individual donors. I… Definitely just have more than one. That’s what I say. So really, think about your your business plan. Have a business plan just like you were starting a nonprofit and think about the revenue is not a one size fits all, but really, I would say to strategize is the first step.

Kishshana Palmer [00:23:44] Gerren, one of the things I think is so important that Joy in the just like name is the plan, like just not jump people alike. Like I feel inspired and depending on what your faith background is….Folks are like, “And the Lord spoke to me and said,” And then there was an organization. I would like everyone who feels that way –Thank you so much —Please pause. Because organizations, there’s there’s less than 20 percent of organizations that actually crosse the $1 million mark.  More than 50 percent of nonprofits have budgets of less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and shudder within five years. And so when people come to me and say “Kishshana, I need help,” I have a course  — 501- See Profit. and line one says, “Oh, you’re thinking about starting a nonprofit? Don’t.” Because I guarantee you there’s one thousand nine hundred and thirty five other organizations in your community, and at least half of them are doing something similar to you going to be a donor and be blessed. But if you decide that you want to step forward powerfully like Joy has done, then making sure that you do a couple of critical things. Who do we want to be when we grow up? Who do I want to be aligned to so that there is solvency for the organization? If our organization grows and served in this community locally, regionally or nationally, and then we disappear. What is the like tsunami sized damage that’s going to happen in the community because we don’t exist? That means that that’s the problem that you’re solving for. And then who needs to be aligned with me to accelerate us to this goal? A lot of times organizations and particularly organizations founded and led by Black and brown folks do not start with the level of largesse that our entrepreneurial counterparts were trying to do product or service have. And it is as much an entrepreneurial venture as doing a fee for service, a doing a product, et cetera is. And so that level of big thinking has to be there, which means you’ve got to be mapping for the folks that I need to come along that are going to say early. Yes, because any organization that’s able to catapult in funding and do it, you got to do this right. So you’ve seen this. You’ve got to have folks who are behind you saying, I believe in her, him them and I am planning to back there, play long before you have an outcome to show for all your hard work.

Joy Lindsay [00:26:06] Yeah, I’m going to. Definitely, definitely.

Joy Lindsay [00:26:12] nd I will tell people ” Like –don’t,”.

Kishshana Palmer [00:26:14] I do the “Don’ts!”

Joy Lindsay [00:26:17] know you really. You really have to think about that because you know, you people, yeah, you have to you have the you have to have the right team. You have to have people to invest in. You know what? Coaching to say it is. Not only do you, not as a person of color, as a Black or brown founder, particularly as a woman, not only do you not have that the luxury oftentimes of having this pool of money or a lot of money to start with when you get money is usually more restrictive. Right? And so that is and the research shows that too. Not only are do Black women get less in a nonprofit space for our endeavors when we get it, it’s really restricted, meaning that you have to spend it for this exact thing. And so it is. It’s unlikely that you will have all of this unrestricted money that you would need to play around, you know, to play and not play around with, but to kind of figure out those first couple of years and to be able to pilot different programs to evaluate. And so I do tell people, you have to have some kind of into individual financial sustainability. Like, I think that you have to, particularly with starting a nonprofit and we don’t always talk about that. You yourself need to be financially stable in order to. At least that’s what I would recommend. Like I remember, I bought my first investment property before I started Butterfly Dreamz, which took out rent. And so I and I and it was a multifamily property, so I was able to rent out, you know, a couple of things and I had some income coming here because there are going to be tough. See, that is a lot to get people on board with an idea, just an idea, because that’s what it is at first. And so they’re, you know, even if God is telling you to do it and I, you know, I’m a believer and I think that could be true, right? And also go to God about the strategy and about the framing and how you go about how you need to set yourself up financially to be able to do it because, you know, you really do have to plan personally and for your organization, particularly as women, you know. And some of us have children, some of us have families. And so you have to think about yourself and the organization and the impact so that that personal finance get that together as well as you’re thinking about starting a nonprofit.

Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:28:40] You know, Joy, I’m really glad that you touched on the challenges as a Black woman in this space because we all know that in any industry, Black women always have face hurdles. I saw I remember seeing reports about the tech industry and how, you know, it’s like maybe like one percent Black women who own it, who get who get, who get like the funding for startups or the the lack of Black women and C-suite in Fortune 500 companies. And and I want to read this this this number for our listeners, because according to Give Blk, which is the platform that centralizes Black founded nonprofits to make it easier for donors to connect with them, Americans give four hundred and fifty billion dollars to charity each year, but only less than four percent goes to Black organizations. You can imagine what that number is for Black women and Joy. You spoke so, so powerfully about your experience –Kishshana, I wanted to open the floor for you to express how you feel about the challenges that Black women specifically face in raising money in a nonprofit space.

Kishshana Palmer [00:29:47] So one of the things I saw over the last 20 years in my career is that. Many of us had this experience of being only and that transcends any factor, like you could just put all the folks from engineering, I.T., tech, medical lawyers in a room. Many of us who have risen to that VP, senior VP, our chief suite level are going to tell you a similar story. It’s going to feel like deja vu. And so I mean, twenty eighteen, I started a community, the rooted collaborative, whose sole function is to help women leaders of color in the social sector find community, be able to learn in a safe and brave space, be able to reassert our commitment to our own wellness. And the reason why is because people are just tapping out. They were like, I quit, never to be seen again. OK. And I am all for the endeavors of wonderful candle companies and going to do yoga instruction and all of the things that allow us to leave fulfilled lives. You talked about your friend earlier who had the love of travel like to be able to go out and do those things in the world. But if you feel like you are a prisoner with the gate open because you’re committed to the passion, the mission, et cetera, but you are being maligned at work, you are dealing with microaggressions in and out, both with donors who you are soliciting from right and building relationships with, as well as internally with your peers who see fundraising as a service center. You need a place where you can recalibrate so that you’re able to be fortified and then go back out to be able to do that work. And so the really collaborative does that go through our membership community and through our annual retreat, where our sole function is to get women and get folks who are aligned to making sure that we’re sort of thriving in the sector. So that, to me, was a critical game changer because I didn’t have it when I was coming up in my career. And, you know, faith and having a small circle of friends who were dealing with those things in different sectors kept me held. But younger women and younger professionals are looking for something different, and more seasoned professionals are like, enough is enough. And so I’m just glad I’m able to be able to contribute to the conversation.

Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:31:54] And Joy, I love a call to action, so how can we as individual donors, what can we do to support Black orgs and ensure that our dollars are being reinvested into our communities? And this is our last question, our last question. So I wanted to also have you guys on the weigh in on that as well.

Joy Lindsay [00:32:14] I’m going to reiterate the board piece, right? Because you serve on boards as nonprofit and like you mentioned, that you have someone you went to school with who started a nonprofit. That is a very hard journey. I mean, it’s a journey of faith, and it’s very hard to do. If you know someone, particularly a Black person who has founded a nonprofit or you, you know, a couple of degrees of separation, ask them what they need and listen. And so like, yes, write the check, write the check, write the check, write the check. I’m gonna say that —give money. So yeah, give money. But also see where else you can give like your time. Your skills, particularly as a board, help to be not just a donor, but a fund-raiser. And so I think that was most valuable in how we’ve been able to have success. It hasn’t been from the corporate donations that are now starting to come in, and the foundation of it was because early on our community got behind us and they got other people to say “give.” And they were. It was small donations, but that is what sustained us for those early years until we were able to have the things like, you know, the evaluation and the full board and all of that it was us or, like, you know, organizing in our people. So I would say, get involved, don’t just write the check, but get involved, donate your time and be a fund-raiser for an organization.

Kishshana Palmer [00:33:39] I love that, and I would say board service is so critical. I would say, write the check. So I’m going to +1 you in that. And I would also say get in groups. And so a lot of times I get together with your friends. So in my sorority, we have our “specials”. So my spec family, we get together every December and we have a nice time together. And then we give we pick an organization and we give big time in a group and so get together so that you are galvanizing revenue, going into an organization and be vocal about it. And don’t just say to folks, this is a cool thing I give to. If you are reshare somebody something, make it public and then go. “I give because… I love this because…. They do good work, because ….” Enroll folks into the work that you’re doing, because for those of us who are from the corporate sector, almost every company is doing some version of a company match. It is easy, breezy to go right into your company intranet and click Click Click Sign up. And for every dollar you give, your company is matching that money, so put your money to work the same way. We’re doing it in investments. Investing in the social safety net through Black founders in the work that they’re doing at every intersection of our society is going to be one of the ways we’re able to action forward. And Gerren we have a history since the Sun has been going up and coming down of giving OK of tithing, of stewardship, of putting the sou sou together, OK, the care package. It’s the same idea. But what I want everybody who’s thinking about investing in organizations to do is think of it as an investment. Number one, and folks who are looking to have folks join them, give them the invitation. We put the tin cup away and we invite folks in to come along with you on that journey so that you can do good work in your community. And that is what folks can do right now to action. What Joy said.

Gerren Keith Gaynor [00:35:37] Wow. I learned so much from you too. You two are one– you’re just doing phenomenal work. And I think it’s important for us to just reignite this need to invest in ourselves and not look to white corporate dollars, white people to save us. We can save ourselves right? And the the power is in our own hands. And I just really hope that our listeners really took this and they can take this and learn from it and do good work. Whether you are wanting to get into the space yourself, a wanting to donate. I know I will be using that advice and pooling some of my Morehouse brothers to support Black owned nonprofits. So thank you guys for inspiring me and giving me some tools and giving our listeners some tools as well. So Joy, Kishshana— thank you again. And if you want to learn more about Joy and Butterfly Dreamz, please visit their website at Butterfly Dreamz of dot org. That’s b u t t e r fly f l y dreams with a z. So that’s d r iams z dot org. And to learn more about Kishshana Palmer, visit her website at Kishshana and  Co dot com. That’s k i s h s h a n a c o dot com. Or you can follow her across social media platforms at Kishshana Palmer and to find a list of Black lit nonprofits as you plan your holiday giving. Please visit give Black dot org that’s give g i v e Black without the A and without the the C — blk — dot org. And as always, for more commentary on the culture, visit the Grill’s website at WWW Dot TheGrio.com. We want to remind our listeners to please support your local Black businesses and donate to your local organizations and religious institutions. The business that we will highlight this week is Mirror Group. Mirror Group LLC is a Black owned, woman owned consulting firm that leverages partnerships with fellow evaluators, researchers, subject matter experts and changemakers to bring collaborative evaluation to life. They apply their expertise and culturally responsive and equitable evaluation, stakeholder engagement and rigorous research designed to support programs and organizations. To learn more about Mirror Group, visit Mirror Group LLC dot com. That’s M I R R O R G R O Up LLC dot com. The group has published a list of 50+ Black businesses to support during the coronavirus pandemic. If you would like your business to be featured. Email us at Info at theGrio that’s  G R I O dot com.  Thank you for listening to your culture if you like what you heard. Please give us a five star review and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts and share it with everyone you know. Please email all questions, suggestions and compliments to podcasts at the Grio dot com.

Natasha S. Alford [00:38:49] The Dear Culture podcast is brought to you by The Grio and co-produced by Taji Senior, Sydney Henriques, Payne and Abdul-Quddas.