Lea Whitehurst Gibson and Bekah Kendrick talk to us about the processes they created and used to develop a community-centered organization with courageous fundraising principles…
- Virginia Community Voice “So our mission overall is to equip neighbors and historically marginalized communities to realize their vision for their communities. And then the second part of our vision, our mission is to prepare institutions to respond effectively.” Learn more and follow them on socials: Facebook, Insta, Twitter, LinkedIn and of course, you can donate here.
- Facebook: @virginiacommunityvoice
- Insta: @vacommunityvoice
- Website: https://vacommunityvoice.org/
- Lea Whitehurst Gibson is the Executive Director of VCV and is a seasoned community organizer. Priori to leading the VCV, Lea was the Director of Community Engagement at Thriving Cities Group. She also worked for Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities (RISC) where she organized 1,000 people in 20 diverse congregations to stand together for just practices. Lea has a degree in theology from Elim Bible College.At VACV Lea oversees the organization’s operations, fundraising, staff and board development, and leads Community Voice Blueprint training and coaching. Lea and her husband are foster parents and live on Richmond’s Northside.Contact Lea at lea@vacommunityvoice.org.
- Bekah Kendrick is an experienced nonprofit professional, grantmaker, and grant writer. Prior roles include: Technical & Grant Writer for Thriving Cities Group, Director of Community Impact: Education at United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg, and Director of Programs at MentorVirginia. Bekah has a Bachelors in American Studies from The College of William & Mary and Master’s in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She manages fund development and communications for Virginia Community Voice. Bekah enjoys reading, hiking, and being near the water with her husband and son.Contact Bekah at bekah@vacommunityvoice.org.
- Find the Community Voice Blueprint here
- Virginia Community Voice was inspired by Community Centric Fundraising and its July 2020 launch!
- Here are the 10 principles of CCF, and here are the Courageous Fundraising Principles of Virginia Community Voice
Process:
Virginia Community Voice equips their neighbors to realize their vision for their own neighborhoods. Locally they work with marginalized communities that have not historically been listened to or heard and implementing the solutions they think best for their communities. And they work to prepare the official decision makers and traditional positional authority to listen and implement those solutions. All of this is towards a commitment for equity for the entire Commonwealth of Virginia - and specifically in Richmond, which is the former capital of the Confederacy.
It's important to know their programs:
1) RVA Thrives, has a goal and mission of equipping neighbors to realize their vision for their own community and to make sure they have resources and coaching to engage in what is happening in the neighborhood (food access, affordable housing, gentrification etc.)
2) Community Voice Blueprint (downloadable for free) is a four-step guide to community engagement around which they offer coaching and training.
As they are a Black and woman led organization, they wanted to make sure that their inception did not include the traditional racist and donor-centric practices that most npos use.
Here are a few notes about what Bekah and Lea describe as part of their process:
- They set the intention of dismantling old ways and centering racial equity, and “injecting equity into our entire process”
- They questioned whether they needed to start another nonprofit
- They looked for resources and saw no documented path towards equitable community engagement
- As they formed the organization (as a spin off of a white-led organization) they took the time to research fundraising norms and ways of working that they disliked and are rooted in white supremacy.
- In doing research in current norms and racism in philanthropy/fundraising specifically, they identified the most problematic:
- Donor centric fundraising only presents one model of who a donor can be. Said Bekah: “we knew we wanted to have a more democratic and accessible model in which all gifts are valued equally, no matter whether they're small or large, whether they're monetary or time. “
- Avoid communication that objectifies people, is myopic, acts as poverty porn or tourism, charity model or promotes white saviourism. Said Bekah: we wanted to move away from that toward communication storytelling that is affirming, that is telling a more complete and complex picture. Even if it's one that is uncomfortable.”
- Wanted to acknowledge and talk openly about how wealth is accumulated, the racist roots of nonprofits and philanthropy and how wealth is extracted through genocide, extraction of labor, and enslavement of people, and how foundations were founded.
- In summer 2020, they are inspired by the community centric fundraising principles and were already in the process of developing their own Courageous Fundraising Principles and their fundraising model.
- Once they had formulated their thoughts, they spent a lot of time working with all staff members, to make sure all felt invested and were engaged. Their staff include neighbors, considered community engagement specialists or community advocates (and they are at every staff meeting.)
- Then they went to their neighborhood steering committee
- Then they worked with their board as individuals, and then as a group
- They also took the time to talk to Spanish-speaking communities - translating the work and receiving feedback. And Black communities as well.
- They took their time!
- Once the Courageous Fundraising Principles were finalized, they threw a virtual party on Giving Tuesday to share with board, neighbors, investors and answered the following:
- What does it actually mean to invest in local community?
- How does VCV understand its relationship to money and to donors?
- What is a true investment?
- Why is this important? Why are old ways unethical?
- Where does VCV believe it should we be investing its time?
- They also asked folx to give feedback. (And they raised money)
- As part of tactics, they intentionally began using the term “investor” - investing time and money.
- They ask for folx to become “members” and membership includes a monthly recurring investment as well as three hours a month, amplifying the voices of people of color. They promise to honor these investments equally.
- They continually ask themselves “Is this the right way to do this? Is this causing harm whose voices are not at the table?”
- They respond to the community and are transparent with their budgeting process and budget
- In working with institutions, they envision that when they sign a grant agreement with grant guidelines, the funder will also agree to guidelines from VCV, affirming what they are doing.
- In creating their board of directors, the based their board on the community itself. With at least 75% people of color, who have lived experiences in marginalization. They deprioritized wealthy folx and report that they have not suffered from that choice. With a board that comes from the community, they have more equitable outcomes!
In giving advice, Lea says: “You will get pushback from people saying, like, I'm not sure!...Are you sure?” People of color were worried. Not because they didn't think it was the right thing or it was the right way to go, but they were worried for us as an organization because of potential retaliation that could come from something like this.
But here's the thing - we have not seen that, we have not seen retaliation. We have seen our capacity grow. We have seen, investment stay and in some places grow because we've chosen to do the bold thing. Again, when you hit a point of tension on the other side, there's beauty. It is also still scary. But we're going to push forward because we know that there is something more beautiful on the other side. And that has been true of my life in general. But specifically in this space, it was scary, but also right.”
So much wisdom in this episode but I love this quote:
“For us, this is not about just doing this work, doing you know, our courageous fundraising principles, , focusing our work around equity, focusing our work around the community, rooted solutions to the problems that we face every day for the sake of doing that. We are doing it because our lives are at stake, our communities are at stake, our families are at stake. And that is the reason for this. It is not about what we think the next big thing is or how we want to move, you know, in the world differently. It is about, the very soul of our spaces, of our communities, of our lives, of our children's lives. What I want to say is this, this is real life. It affects real people. And if we don't start to change things, our children are going to keep dying in the street. That's, what's going to keep happening. If we allow our culture to support in equitable outcomes and equitable processes and equitable policies that is what's going to keep happening.”
Okay also this one:
“...you have the opportunity to pivot and to say, we need to do something differently or to kind of stay the course along the norms that are continually hurting our communities. And so we made the choice to pivot and that's, and that's actually where the beauty came from. Cause you know, it's, it's a point of tension, right? Like you get to a point where you're like, oh, we're doing something that's not fully equitable. Do we cover it up? Do we like, you know, wash it over or do we, or do we lean into the tension and say we didn't do something right. We admit to it and we want to change it. And what I find every single time is that there's beauty on the other side of leaning into that tension.”
