There’s a common saying in racial equity work: “Work can only move at the speed of trust.” This basically means that while we want movement work and systems change work to progress quickly, it often progresses much slower due to lack of trust. The disparate people, institutions, and communities trying to move this work along have complex histories of not always getting along, of having different priorities and agendas in the past, and of having different levels of privilege and power.

Often, the conventional wisdom on how to tend to this is by spending a long time trying to build trust through exercises, retreats, conversations, and more.

While building trust is important, what I’ve found is that people of color in these situations have actually been harmed by this tendency because we often have a very real sense of urgency. The people who have historically been the most vulnerable have a lot at stake and need things to progress faster than they are progressing. They don’t necessarily have the time and luxury to spend two or more years on trust-building. For instance, we need to act on climate change now. What the people and communities most impacted by climate change actually need are new policies implemented now and more money moved into their communities now. Meanwhile, I hear people in philanthropy talk about multi-year strategy processes to “build trust” or small grants to “test” if it can become a trusting grantee relationship. Basically, the funder, with their power, is setting the timeline and process for trust.

Sometimes, I’m not sure taking the time to build trust is the answer. Sometimes, building trust takes too much time, or building trust is frankly impossible. While we may get to the point where we have trust in one another as different people, it is exponentially hard for some people to trust the institutions and systems that have been, and still are, harmful to them.

In 2019, I went to Bali, in part to do some scuba diving. It had been a while since I’d been diving, so I ended up doing a refresher course while I was out there. Based on the recommendation of a dive shop, I signed up with a divemaster, and together, we headed out to a shipwreck. (I’m only open-water certified, so technically, we were diving above the wreck.)

The divemaster and I didn’t speak much of the same language, and we also obviously didn’t know each other at all. But, I was essentially entrusting my life with him.

We started the first part of our dive together in an area with beautiful coral on the ocean floor, before we headed further out, further from shore. Together, we ventured to the bow of the shipwreck, and that was when things felt different for me. I saw the wreck below me, yes, but when I looked up, all I saw was the abyss of the ocean. No sun, no beautiful coral, just the deep dark expanse of ocean.

Sometimes people tell you you should stare into the abyss to realize life is precious —

Uh, for me — in that moment — that’s not what happened.

Instead, I started to feel a little bit of panic. I must’ve telegraphed it clearly, because the divemaster recognized what was going on — he quickly directed me back to the shallow area where I could see coral again.

There we were, hovering, just above the ocean floor.

And I gestured to him that I wanted to surface. I was over it. I was over the dive. And I was over the panic that had overtaken me.

In response, he really clearly communicated to me that he wanted me to wait a moment before making that decision, because if we surfaced, we’d have to end the dive. He wanted me to persist and persevere through the difficult moment. You see, part of the job of a divemaster is knowing when to challenge your student. You don’t want your student getting used to the idea that when they panic, they just go up. You want to teach internal regulation and what it looks like to be in it — and get through it.

I remember thinking: I don’t know this man! And yet my life is in his hands! And he is telling me to ignore my survival instincts!

I remember him taking my hand and putting it on his heart. He did the same. I remember him signaling me, with his other hand, to breathe with him.

So there we were, two people who didn’t know each other, co-regulating and breathing together.

In the end, I was able to complete my dive. To me, the fact that I was able to finish my dive comes down to this fundamental thing: that trust is a choice.

And yes, there is a risk with trust. I know there are many reasons to resist it — power dynamics, historical harm — but the thing is, we choose to be part of the collaboratives, initiatives, and projects we believe in. And while we don’t choose our collaborators and partners, and sometimes we don’t know them at all — part of the work of trust is stepping up, being vulnerable, and co-regulating. We can’t continue on with hesitancy and resistance. We certainly cannot spend multiple years hoping we build trust — the urgency surrounding the issues of our time demands we move now. We can’t afford to be part in, and part out. We have to learn to fully opt in. We have to learn to put our hands on each others’ hearts.

When I was in the first quarter of leading during the pandemic, I had a similar experience — but this time above water. A mutual friend connected me to Marcus Walton, who was then the new(ish) leader of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. In our first call, we talked openly — as though we had known each other for decades. We had been stripped bare of pretense by the challenges of nonprofit pandemic leadership. We both approached the connection from a place of trust and alignment first — despite being on Zoom and across the country from each other. (We didn’t meet in person until two years later!) This trust has allowed us to build an incredibly rich and meaningful friendship where we serve as co-conspirators, peer coaches, and strategic thought partners to each other through all the ups and downs of leadership.

Sometimes we call each other to, literally, take a moment to breathe.

For those of us in philanthropy, the opportunity is there for us to make that same choice — to start from a place of trust. The opportunity is there for us to give the grant we would give if we were practicing trust-based philanthropy, right from the start. Instead of waiting and seeing, take the step to lean towards trust. I know there’s a bit of risk in making this choice. We might get it wrong. We might make a mistake and fund someone who maybe is not quite the right organizational partner for our philanthropy.

But mostly, in operating this way, I think the biggest opportunity for surprise is in the trust and partnerships we get to create, and the potential change we can enable.

We have to learn to take some deep breaths, hold our hands over each others’ hearts and find the ways in which we can lean on each other.

One of the challenges of racial equity work is both the desire by those in places of power and privilege to be seen as “good” and their insistence that if only we knew their intentions we would understand, we would trust them, we would get it!

But here’s the thing: When you neglect to state and use your societal, economic or gendered power, your intentions don’t really matter.

This is a tough lesson for a lot of wealthy people. (And let’s be real, because of how wealth accumulates in the U.S., it’s mostly white folks who really want to be known for things other than their economic privilege, who really want to be seen as good.)

Privilege can come with notoriety and extra scrutiny.

A person who has been in the thick of this particular lesson recently is talk show host and actor Drew Barrymore. In the midst of the (now ending) historic Writers Guild of America strike, which has been going since May, Drew announced that her daytime talk show would resume production. In early September, she announced that she was going to bring her show back on the air, essentially crossing the picket line.

Many quickly (and publicly) let Drew know — THIS IS A BAD IDEA. Writers need your solidarity. There’s no way you can do a talk show without writers.

After this public pressure, Drew first tried to tearfully explain (in a now deleted video) her decision with a historically bad apology — AKA the classic non-apology.

Clara (@colormeloverly), who writes the Hmm … That’s Interesting Substack, has a great breakdown of how simple it could have been, for Drew to move on from this moment with a solid apology, one that allows a clear shift back into solidarity. But Drew didn’t.

“And that’s the thing,” Clara writes in her piece. “Even after making this colossally unforced error, it would have been relatively easy for Barrymore to course-correct. That’s what continues to confound me. She has built up so much goodwill over the years — we know she had a notoriously tough childhood and a difficult early adulthood, all of which she seemingly overcame to become a Nice Celebrity who people want to see succeed. Knowing all this, how hard would it have been to type up a little story on Instagram saying, I messed up. I didn’t realize that I was diminishing the power of a united labor movement for fair wages by replacing strikers’ labor with non-union workers. My bad. Also, I don’t need the money lol.”

Okay, maybe right now you’re saying, “Sudha, we get it. Another celebrity messed up their apology. But you write about power and systems change and movements. What does this have to do with that?”

Well, here’s the thing. This kind of impact versus intent mixup is all over our movements — especially as historically white-led climate organizations try to build partnerships and work in and with communities of color. It happens all the time to people of color in situations where they need people with historic power in that system to have their backs. Sometimes, I just want to say to someone, “You told me you wanted to help make this system more just, but in this room, you stayed silent. In a room that I don’t have access to, you didn’t have my back.”

When caught in these situations, people often backtrack and look for excuses — they often find themselves sounding like Drew Barrymore.

Drew’s type of “apology” very much sounds like it came from the playbook of how white people and people with economic power can keep playing nice, pleading with folks to understand their intentions — yet never really confront their own power and transform it into a tool for justice.

Years ago, I had joined an environmental organization as their first person of color in leadership (all the other leadership on staff were white men). To make matters more complex, I was also the first communications director. Well, shortly into my stint, I was told that one of the white men on the board was a communications guru who I needed to have involved in the communications plan. He was going to “lend his expertise.”

I was also told that he could be challenging to work with.

With that warning in hand, I scheduled three planning sessions with him and my executive director to work on the communications plan in advance of an upcoming board meeting.

He was late to our first planning session and hadn’t read anything I sent in advance. He then proceeded to tear my work apart.

The next two sessions, he just no-showed on me.

At the board meeting, I presented a plan that my executive director had reviewed and that had incorporated the limited input from that board member.

The communications expert — the guy who no-showed me — was furious. He spent long minutes (which felt like a lifetime) chewing me out and criticizing the plan in front of all the board members and my ED. Half of what he criticized had nothing to do with the plan, but likely just had to do with how he felt about his loss of control — perhaps the fact that I didn’t see hiring him or promoting his company as core to our work. Who knows? His critique was laced with ageism, sexism, and racism.

I couldn’t help myself. I got visibly upset as I looked around the room of white, wealthy people on this board and my ED. Here I was, a young woman of color in an environmental organization making my first presentation to the board — and I was crying.

Ugh. Literally the worst.

I thought that surely my ED would say something, surely the board chair would step in.

They didn’t.

They let him rant.

And then finally, they decided to move to the next agenda item. No one mentioned that the board member had missed meetings or that his behavior was unacceptable.

A day later, I got an email from the board chair. She had written, “I’m sorry he behaved that way. Can I take you out to lunch and make up for this?”

What the hell?

My relative power in this circumstance was such that I had to accept this paltry gesture as enough, even though the entire thing lacked any sense of solidarity.

Basically, the board chair wanted me to absolve her of responsibility.

As for my ED, he later explained he was in shock and that he just couldn’t figure out what to do in the moment.

There was never any actual group level accountability or apology. And yet the non-apology from bystanders somehow felt especially hurtful. I didn’t expect that jerk of a board member to show up for me — but I did expect my ED and the board chair to show up for me.

I wish I could say that was the last time I experienced that kind of disappointment but it wasn’t. This is a pretty regular experience when you’re the first and only woman of color in leadership and trying to change systems.

Drew Barrymore is so obsessed with her own need to be good that she can’t see the simple path through to good actions. Similarly, that board chair and ED wanted so badly to be absolved of one board member’s terrible outburst that they couldn’t see the simple path to actual apology and accountability — nor could they acknowledge their power. My trust in them was permanently damaged after that.

Look, people get to mess up. That’s part of the work. But accountability matters too, and if you’ve lived in the upper economic sectors of our society, you may not have that much practice with solidarity. You might confuse friendship and hanging out with having genuine, power-aware relationships.

So to the folks in white environmental and climate groups stepping into work with people of color — it’s going to take a lot of practice at examining impact, showing up, noticing when you cross the (picket) line, appreciating the gift of people telling you that your organization or work is out of sync, and then getting back into accountable and power-aware relationships. You’ll have to have tough conversations about where there are clear lines and where the lines are less obvious.

This work, when done well, is what builds real relationships and is the necessary ingredient for transformation. We need it on an individual, organizational, and cultural scale. And critically, we have to be in enough of a solidarity relationship that, when we share the impact of harm, that we also hold open the possibility that someone does want to really acknowledge and provide amendment for harm — and that we can have the conversations and connections to do exactly that.

The door was open for Drew Barrymore. She chose to back up and slam it in the face of writers and those who needed her solidarity. So did the leadership who failed me in that environmental organization. Let’s hope our current climate movement can do better than this, moving forward.

When I was 7 years old, my dream was to become a vet.

I love animals. I got my first dog when I was four. I grew up spending all of my free time outdoors. I grew up seeing monkeys all over India, where I spent summers. As a kid, I even interned at the Cat Tales Wildlife Center near Spokane, Washington, where I grew up. In so many ways, I find animals simpler than humans. Animals embody so much of the qualities I find interesting and beautiful in the world. They’re easy to love, and they love easily.

When it came time to pick a school, I quickly decided on Cornell University, which yes, is a really good school for many reasons, but mostly I wanted to be as close as possible to my dream by being at the place that also had the #1 veterinary school in the country.

One of the things you have to do to get into vet school is clock in enough “animal hours.” During the summer after my freshman year, I interned at a vet clinic. I had been taking all these biology classes. I felt prepared. I was ready to care for and learn so much. I was ready to further my dreams of becoming an animal doctor!

And then I found out that I am allergic to cats — like, very allergic.

It was devastating. The vets had assigned me to hold animals while they were getting acupuncture. I figured out that when the patient was a dog, everything was fine on my end. But when the patient was a cat, I had to be so careful not to sneeze. (Cats, needles, and my allergy are a real dicey combination!)

At first I was in denial. I was like, “I can take a ton of meds!”

So I spent most of that summer on a cocktail of Zyrtec and Flonase. But by the end of summer, I was feeling unconvinced and uncertain of a lot of things. There were aspects about vet life that I discovered were much different than I anticipated. (Veterinarians experience depression at a disproportionate rate, for instance.)

After being so sure of what my career trajectory was going to be for most of my life, it was pretty nerve-wracking to suddenly not have a clear path ahead. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

At that time though, I was also becoming more and more politically aware. It was the time of Bush v. Gore. Hillary was running for U.S. Senate in New York State. And I was a young 19-year-old experiencing my very first and big election cycle.

Growing up in Spokane, all the local politicians I saw were just white men. Because that’s what I saw, even though politics were a regular part of our family dinner table conversations, the subconscious messaging I got was, “Politics are for other people, not for me.” Yet at the same time, I also grew up with a strong civic duty thanks to my parents. On election day, they always took my sisters and me to the polls, and we got to punch the ballots with their votes. That moment of casting a vote held a certain kind of thrill for little me.

So there I was, a 19-year-old who wasn’t going to become a veterinarian, who was still taking all of these biology classes, who had a burgeoning (but undefined) interest in politics. I was beginning to see that the science I was learning in my coursework was at odds with what some really influential politicians were saying — such as the science of climate change. Even though I was learning that the science of climate change is so clear — that the urgency is so clear — there was still this political debate over whether or not it was real.

By fall, I was voting but also frustrated.

As I became more politically aware, a lot of what I cared about was naturally centered around climate and environmental policies — due to my deep interest in animals and their ecosystems. Because I grew up in a place where I didn’t look like anyone else, after George W. Bush won, it was horrifying to me — not just because of the anti-science policies he advocated on the environment but also because I watched as my country turned a corner and was so overt and proud of its “othering.”

I started talking about politics a lot. I talked about politics and power constantly. I also started doing things like organizing rallies, making sure everyone around me was registered and voting. I became super committed to engaging fellow students in getting involved in election cycles.

And I was also having an existential crisis.

I remember having this conversation with friends, trying to figure out a new path, and saying stuff like, “If I’m not going to be a vet, what am I going to be? Maybe I’m going to rehab birds and wildlife? Maybe I’ll be a wildlife biologist?”

Luckily, I had friends who knew me very well. They heard my ponderings about rehabbing birds, counting elephants, and they countered with, “Okay we know you love working with owls and all, but you really seem to love this political stuff. Why don’t you do that?”

I also had mentors express that while being a scientist is incredible, we had to make sure to get this science into policy, especially if we wanted to make sure that habitats and ecosystems had protections for the long-haul.

And then 9/11 happened.

I remember flying home from winter break after 9/11, and so many of the people I knew and loved were subjected to extra security checks. Flying in and out of Spokane, I also experienced extra security checks, racialized and anti-immigrant comments — and it made all my academic coursework on race and power very real. While I had always been aware of my race, the political way in which race and racism was weaponized and then that hate was turned into policy became really clear in the months after 9/11.

I started seeing the impact policymakers had on our laws in huge ways. I started to understand that it’s not enough to vote. We have to actively push for policy changes, for communities affected by injustices and for our environment and world. We have to create cultures where people are welcomed.

I ended up doing another internship, this time at The Wilderness Society. I got to do drop-ins at Congress — dropping packets to try and influence representatives to pass an amendment to a budget bill that would help protect a wildlife refuge from potato farming. The experience showed me that there are a lot of people making decisions and that the only way we can be part of this is to build power so that there are more people who are committed to this issue and more people who understand what’s going on.

Those moments, the days of running around all the Capitol buildings, urging and hoping each Congress member would do the right thing on behalf of this wildlife refuge while coordinating with activists and community leaders who cared about the refuge — to me it felt like the first time in my life that I was truly building real power. It was the first time I felt I was changing the game.

From there, I knew I was going to make a career out of pursuing that kind of change. From there, the rest is history.

So many of us go to school and think about our formal education as these fixed linear paths. Of course, that was not the case for me. Instead, my story has been about following a moment, an intuition, and listening to what my gut was telling me. The 18-year-old version of me didn’t know I could be an environmental organizer, or that there was meaningful work to be done in philanthropy.

This outlook has served me over the years — and it has allowed me to be “the first” in many of my roles, to bring an entrepreneurial spirit to my work, and to trust that sometimes it’s not about knowing the path or knowing what my “lifelong” purpose is — it’s about following a thread, doing my best, and learning along the way. Maybe the best things we can do in life are the things that are off the path we thought we would walk. Sometimes the thing that feels like a devastating obstacle — in my case, my allergy to cats — becomes the thing that sets us on the path we were meant for from the start.

About two decades ago, I accidentally found myself in the role of “change maker” within institutions. I was often the only woman of color in leadership in longstanding organizations, so I intuitively knew that part of my unwritten mission and work was to make these institutions more welcoming for those who would come next — which is what I did. It’s one of the things I became known for.

These days, I regularly take calls from friends — especially women of color — who are considering stepping into executive leadership within historically white-led organizations and systems. These friends often ask me, “What should I consider as I explore this role?”

Well, all of these very smart women already know and have already heard all of the conventional wisdom … so here are a few oft-overlooked pieces of advice that I like to share with others:

Gather and create community with your buddies

Even in best-case scenarios, where it seems like the work is flowing easily and clearly and you’ve got a whole team aligned behind your work, executive leadership inside institutions that aren’t built for us will still feel lonely.

Having a core group of friends who see me as more than a specific leadership role and job title has been the key to many of my most challenging moments.

During 2020, I was fortunate to be part of Rockwood Leadership Institute’s National Leading from the Inside Out Yearlong Fellowship cohort. The fellow executives in this group, many of whom are similarly positioned, were my thought partners, coaches, and shoulders to cry on. We talked about things like what it is like to be a woman of color leader who faces blatantly racialized and misogynistic comments in the course of work (including from board and staff and stakeholders closest to the organizations!). This is a specific experience that not everyone has, so being around people who get it, who don’t ask for explanations and “proof” that racialized moments happen, makes all the difference in not feeling alone.

Talking to others who are on similar paths and are from similar backgrounds helps beyond just problem-solving. Notably, these folks will remind you that you are a whole person no matter what happens at work, that your dignity is in you, not in outcomes and productivity. Also, having folks with whom you can have fun and not talk about work is often one of the most important things you’ll need to get your head out of the weeds and into a more strategic visionary space.

Prioritize community care for yourself — and ask for care

We’ve all heard that we need more wellness practices, especially for folks in these kinds of leadership roles. But too often, these practices boil down to things you do by yourself and for yourself.

However, it’s equally as important to know what needs you have that cannot be taken care of with a pedicure or a solo hiking adventure.

For me, community care has become increasingly important — being able to ask for and receive moments of tenderness from your community — because so often being in leadership roles makes it hard for us to practice that kind of tenderness.

This might look like serving on a new board of an organization that gives you joy (there’s a lot of research showing that purpose driven service helps us feel connected to each other) — or it’s as simple as asking a friend to join you as you get through your personal life chores, which can often build up as we focus on taking on new leadership roles. It can also be finding someone to be a workout or walking buddy. (One of the things I appreciated is when a friend made and dropped off some healthy food for me during a period of intense work travel. That little bit of nourishment and care made a huge difference to me while stepping into a new role!)

Whatever community care looks like for you — know it, and practice asking for it. You’ll be surprised at who says yes and where you find new connections as a result of these asks.

Create achievable only-for-you goals

When I started my prior role leading the Equity & Environment Initiative at the City of Seattle, we had three huge goals for the initiative, and certainly not ones I could accomplish on my own.

As I got into the work it became apparent that I needed to know what I would consider “accomplishments” on an everyday kind of scale (because change work happens on a much longer timeline than most people’s tenure in a specific role).

Drawing inspiration from the wise counsel of two mentors, colleagues, and friends (shout out to Michael Davis and Sahar Fathi), I wrote down my own only-for-me goals for this role:

• Build camaraderie, relationships and power among and for people of color leaders in Seattle who want to influence environmental work
• Establish a city-wide framework for environmental justice so that communities would experience less redundancy of asks and more progress
• Assemble resources so that communities of color embedded organizations could see themselves as environmental leaders and decision makers for their own communities
• Catalyze leadership and open the door for people of color to be in influential roles related to environmental policy and decision-making
• Gain personal understanding of city-government based power and processes and plant seeds to create more structural changes in the long term

Now, these goals certainly overlapped with the goals of the initiative, but they were also my own personal and attainable goals for my tenure and for my overall career as someone building power for people of color. As things grew and changed over the years, I was still able to mark my own progress.

When I left that role, I’m proud to say I had accomplished all of these things, and because I had these internal goals, I could satisfyingly reflect on my time in the early stages of changing a system (a time that is often lonely and difficult to see clear markers of progress and success).

Connect with fellow disruptors

It is a sad truth that there will always be people who want to maintain the status quo in every system and organization. They will see change-making leadership as a threat. That means that even before you get your feet off the ground to start running, they are already figuring out ways to trip you up.

Often the hardest thing to find when in change-making roles are other people willing to put their relationships on the line to have your back when things get tough. But in this work, we all need people who will have our backs for us when we’re not in the room. These are people who will help reinforce the boundaries we set, who will lend their power by showing others how to have patience and trust, and who will problem-solve and be thought partners with us.

For me, two people come to mind who filled this type of role for me when I began working at the City of Seattle (shoutout to Tracy Morgenstern and Pam Emerson). In both cases, they were willing to lean into risk, shared their expertise openly, and stepped into authentic relational partnerships with me. I observed them strategically work to shift power often in their own work, and it gave me confidence that we had an important values alignment.

Finding these kinds of people will take time and sometimes finding out who to not rely on comes before you actually find the supporters you can count on. Look for these folks in networks, ask committed program officers at foundations who fund you to step up and play these roles, and look beyond the surface. Sometimes the best supporters are not the obvious ones who say all the right things, but rather are the ones who will sit with you after a hard day and listen, affirm your humanity and strategy, and then roll up their sleeves to help you figure out the next step when it seems unclear.

Delegate — but don’t delegate away what brings you joy

A lesson I’ve learned is that we cannot do it all in these big entrepreneurial roles or in leadership roles that have different (new) responsibilities than it had historically.

Too often, as leaders, we delegate out the things we know — the easiest things to delegate — or we delegate out the things that staff around us most want to do. But what can happen in doing that is that we delegate out the very things that bring us joy and connection. We end up doing more of the things that are necessities but not what brought us to these roles in the first place.

To anyone stepping into a new leadership role, I encourage you to bring on teammates and consultants who have the skills to do the pieces of the work you’re not as excited about doing (or perhaps the things that just take you longer) and keep yourself focused on the overlap of your joy and your purpose. Don’t accidentally outsource your vision for someone else to build. (But do hire someone to help you translate your vision into a great powerpoint if that’s where you need help.)

Don’t “step up” — step into instead

At the end of the day, what we don’t need more of are women of color doing work just because we’re asked to do it and “should” do it.

Rather, we need more women of color doing what brings us joy.

To do systems change work for the long run, I think it is critical that we know what brings us joy and that we find work that aligns with that calling. For some of us, this might mean stepping into executive leadership or becoming an elected official. For others, this might mean being a coach, serving on a board, facilitating sound healings, leading communications efforts, or supporting organizational transformation.

While there will never be a lack of people asking us to step up — to run organizations, to run for office, to serve in a variety of ways — what ultimately matters is not what we’ve been asked to do, but rather what we want to do.

After all, in a world that asks women of color to put ourselves last and to sacrifice for others, prioritizing our joy is systemic change.

For so many leaders, when we start a new and important job, the tendency is to think in 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month time frames. We’re trained to think of time in terms of months when it comes to ramping up our productivity at a new job. Part of this, for me, is that the culture we work within is a productivity culture, and productivity culture is all about maximizing results! Creating more efficient systems! Staying busy and achieving more and more and more!

When I became CEO of Social Ventures Partners International, of course I felt this pressure! I was a woman of color with a desire to make a big impact, stepping into a role with new responsibilities, including figuring out a global racial equity strategy framework, tasked with building and strengthening an entire movement of network partners all over the world to invest in social change that will impact people’s lives for the better.

I felt the pressure to already have all the answers because people, donors and funders especially, were asking me what the silver bullet ideas were to solve incredibly complex problems. I felt pressure to hit the ground running because I was being asked when I was going to deliver the “big new thing” — and there was often the unspoken expectation that future funding was contingent on that thing. I felt the pressure to go too fast. When I talk to other new leaders stepping into similar roles, I hear them saying the same things. This pressure is not unique to me.

Going too fast is a recipe for disaster. It is a recipe for burnout and emotional and mental health deterioration. It is also a recipe for change work that ends up taking much longer and costing more.

After all, when it comes to tackling the biggest problems of our time on a global scale — when it comes to systems change and movement building work — is coming to the table assuming we already have all of the answers and going at warp speed ever the right answer?

Instead of asking me what my 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month benchmarks were, here are three questions I wished funders had asked me instead.

“What would it take for you to stay and thrive in this leadership role for at least the next five years?”

We need to give leaders longer runways (which, I know, is easier said than done, especially if you’re a leader with a board keen on deliverables!). But thinking in years, instead of months, will allow for more successful leadership models to develop.

When we think in years instead of months, we are thinking long-term. We are not thinking about achievable slap-dash ideas and solutions that can be implemented in the next 90 days. We’re thinking about sustainability, and how we are supporting and increasingly cultivating leaders who will stay in the work for the long haul.

Right now, the pattern when a new leader comes in usually looks something like this: They get asked what their strategies are, they propose strategies, and then they have to go seek out funding to implement their strategies. And a lot of the time, we will get only one-year commitments from funders. We rarely get funding to figure out strategies with deliberate, relationship-building processes.

This approach to transition is ineffective. It naturally yields a conservative approach because in the back of our minds, we’re creating strategies that can scale way down — in the event that the entire funding doesn’t come through and in the event that we have to share hard “outcomes” for each 12-month period of funding. We’re also less able to create strategies with broad buy-in or people organized to come along because doing that kind of intentional process takes resources and time.

But what if longer-term support was already baked in?

When I first became a CEO, if more funders had asked me what it would take for me to thrive in this work for at least five years, I would’ve told them what we all need:

“We need six-plus years of commitments from you.”

When we get multi-year support right at the start, when we have the wind at our backs, there’s far more opportunity for boldness.

“It’s okay that you aren’t sure what to do yet — how can we help you figure out your strategy and vision?”

Many funders are reluctant to fund “nebulous” and “undefined-as-of-yet” work. Many funders like to fund programs and initiatives that can tell them exactly what bang they are going to get for their buck.

When I first became a CEO, I met a lot of funders. One thing I heard time and time again was, “Come back to us when you have the plan.”

That was discouraging.

When funders only fund “defined strategy,” you end up with the most urgent and fastest “defined strategy,” which not only severely lacks stakeholder and community engagement, it also handcuffs us. This approach makes it all the more harder to get funding for effective long-term change work further down the road because we’ve invested in, and gotten locked into, a knee-jerk way of doing things that might not even be a very good strategy.

Look, leaders actually need funding just to figure out and define what the problem is, to ask the right questions, to do full-scale assessments and determine who to organize. We need multi-year funding that supports ongoing transition processes (because the geopolitical realities of our world and the nature of systems are always in states of transition and change). Funders should think in terms of 3–5 years for the initial transitions and expect to be partners for that entire time and onward — partners in strategy and change work.

Also, having this kind of early support from funders is huge for any CEO, but especially for non-white, non-male leaders stepping into organizations that have been white-led in the past. There’s so much criticism and skepticism that happens when we challenge norms and conventional wisdom, and funders giving early support to a leader who comes from a non-traditional background is also giving third-party validation and protection — so that this leader can do more of the change work we all want and need.

(Here’s a real life example of how to do it right: In late 2020, in response to a concept note I wrote, I had a funder step up to provide this kind of exploratory “planning grant” funding to figure out what was next and help us map out a multi-year engagement process with leaders of color to inform our strategies. That funding has been invaluable to the change work. I think we need more of this kind of support, which recognizes that we might not have all the answers upfront. Answers and impact are found in the process of exploration.)

“How can we support your wellness?”

Being a leader in systems change, and being a woman of color tasked with leading people through racial equity change, means we’re constantly working (and obsessively thinking about work), we’re constantly fundraising, and we’re constantly stressed out. Activism fatigue is so real, and it’s a problem that has cost us so many incredible, effective leaders and potential leaders.

Funders need to support people as humans, in addition to supporting people in their work. Funders need to fund not just time off and paid sabbaticals that take us away from our daily work focus, they need to fund us to take strategic rest that we can integrate into our work.

Rest has to be strategic and intentional because we’re all different people, and for nearly all of us, getting our cup refilled is not just about getting more sleep. It’s often a lot more than that! It’s about creating a container that helps us get out of stressed and problem-solving mindsets and into mindsets that allow for dreaming.

For some leaders, strategic rest can look like a lot of self- or community-care practices. For others, strategic rest can look like being able to have space and time away from the day-to-day fires of running an organization or campaign, to build connections with other leaders — to have the breadth to co-imagine together and also to hang out and play. Strategic rest can be many things: resourcing a leader to write and have a practice of reflection, attending a leadership conference, going out to dinner with colleagues, serving on a Board and gaining a different perspective, or doing something else that leaders don’t usually don’t get to do in their daily work days.

Now, funding strategic rest can make some funders nervous because our toxic productivity culture really trains us to believe that worthwhile endeavors need to have tangible and measurable outcomes — funders like to fund work. But I argue that when it comes to the work of systems change and movement-building, our work selves cannot be divorced from our human selves. When we see and support people in their humanity, of course we are still supporting the work — but more importantly, we are supporting a resilient and robust movement.

We need a leader-full movement, and to get there, funders need to step up and holistically support leaders.

Four summers ago, I picked up my 8-week-old poodle puppy, Mozi, who immediately became a significant part of my life. Having long been a nerd about all things animal behavior and training, and this being my first time raising a dog from puppy-hood as an adult, I was eager to dive into the best-in-class practices to set us up for a lifetime for fun — I read the puppy prep books, got all the supplies, and joined all the Facebook groups (if you’re a fellow dog-training nerd and don’t yet follow Bunny the Talking Dog and Bindi’s Bucket List, you should). Based on the books and what I saw other dog owners doing, I started with the typical obedience training most people do: sit, lie down, place, walk well on a leash, bow, and stay (that is, until he sees a squirrel, ha!).

Guess what? Mozi blew past those lessons in no time.

When I realized I had a genius on my hands, I told him, “Mozi, you and I are going to learn how to find truffles together.” (Because truffles are yummy, I love to cook, and I figured this tiny dictator of my free time should help with all my hobbies.)

Learning how to hunt truffles was a good activity for Mozi and me — it gave us something to immerse ourselves in for hours, and it also gave me a routine, as well as a reason to go out in nature. (We often trained in the backyard or at local parks.) See, this hobby started in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also during racial uprisings in the U.S. after the murder of George Floyd. Truffle hunting gave my mind something to do, besides hyperfocusing on my work to change systems toward justice.

Naturally in the activity though, I found parallels between the two. In a lot of ways, truffle hunting has a lot in common with systems change work.

It’s about connection, not ‘technique’

One thing the truffle hunting trainers communicated to me early on in our training was that I needed to think about truffle hunting as a completely different exercise from obedience training. In obedience training, the goal is pretty much to get your dog to do what you say, and to progressively get your dog better and better at doing exactly what you say — reacting to your directions rather than doing much of their own thinking.

In contrast, truffle hunting is collaborative — with Mozi and I figuring out how to work together as a strong team. In truffle hunting, while I, the human, do have to initiate certain things with Mozi to inspire him into these activities and actions — which are not sequentially what he’d naturally do if left to his own devices — the fact of the matter is that I, the human, actually do not know where any of the truffles are! I can take him to the forest, but my nose is not as miraculously advanced as Mozi’s. Therefore, in order to be successful in finding truffles, Mozi and I have to strengthen our bond and our teamwork, as we merge both of our different strengths and talents together. There was no way either of us could find truffles alone. We need each other.

By the same token, systems change work has to be relational, and lasting effective systems change work will hinge on the strength of relationships between those advancing the systemic change. (This is in contrast to a lot of the prevailing conventional wisdom out there about systems change work — the idea that the success of systems change is mostly about methodology, book clubs, trainings, and perfect frameworks.)

There’s no roadmap

There’s a reason why truffles cost an arm and a leg. It’s because they are rare and fairly hard to find! Truffle hunting is not a paint-by-numbers activity. It’s a dynamic activity that constantly shifts and changes depending on the geographical area, the climate, the season, the soil — all of it. Success in truffle hunting requires creative and critical problem-solving. It requires adaptation. It requires intuition. It requires communication and checking in with your partner. In my case: Mozi.

Similarly, there is no map for effective systems change work — yet, I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered folks who expect a map. This was certainly true when I was co-creating and leading the City of Seattle’s Equity & Environment Initiative. It’s true in a lot of different contexts and situations. People will say, “Give me the toolkit,” or, “Tell me what to fix, and I will fix it.” They are basically saying, “Tell me the answer.”

Look, I completely understand the desire to want a map for this complex work. I had similar desires when I started truffle hunting with Mozi. I wanted to follow directions step by step, and I wanted my reward at the end of it to be a beautiful, smelly truffle.

But like our systems change work, it’s not that easy. There is no map. We might have goals and north star purposes, but not a map that tells us how to get from point A to point C.

Instead, our systems are like a thick, expansive forest — of which some of the terrain is known, but parts of it are completely unknown. Truffles may lie in places where we guess have a high likelihood of truffles, but there also may not be any. We can do a lot of prep work to end up in a location where there are right conditions for truffles, but we can only confirm if we actually make the journey there to look and search. And maybe we find a little bit of success, maybe we find a lot of success, or maybe we find no success at all that day. We record the effort, and then we carry the wisdom forward to another day. To date, Mozi and I haven’t found a truffle in the wild, but our partnership has helped us in a myriad of other endeavors (including paddleboarding together!) None of our effort goes to waste, it’s all part of cultivating a practice and an orientation towards a north star and discovering what we can achieve along the way.

It can’t be a grind — it needs to be enjoyable

So much of the early part of teaching Mozi how to find truffles was actually creatively figuring out ways to make the exercises fun for him. In obedience training, sometimes trainers do push their dog beyond their dog’s current interest in an activity. In truffle hunting, however, fellow truffle hunters are always saying, “If your dog is not feeling successful, then stop.” (Mozi huffs and stomps his front paw a bit when he’s getting frustrated, then starts to get distracted by squirrels and pointing out things that are not truffles).

I make the practice of truffle hunting fun for Mozi by carrying a scent tin in my pocket, along with the ones I hide in our search region. Whenever he is starting to feel frustrated in the midst of us practicing, I drop the scent tin in a conspicuous spot so that he has something to find and get that boost of ‘Yay, I did it, Mom!’

When Mozi enjoys the practice of truffle hunting, he is so much better at it. We always end on this high note so he looks forward to truffle hunting whenever I pull out those tins.

A lot of the time, systems change work is a downer — especially for those of us who are people of color in this work because we feel the urgency, the constant pressure to do right by our communities and take the brunt of the critique from those stakeholders who have had historic power. The work is complex, the stakes are high, and there are a lot of people who are vulnerable and in pain. Sometimes, that is all we see, and systems change work can feel labor intensive and frustrating.

It’s in these moments where we — and I’m speaking especially with my fellow women of color in systems change work — as humans, will experience burnout — physical and emotional burnout. And sometimes, really talented and smart people leave the work because they are tired of the frustration and burnout.

We have to find ways to ‘drop scent tins’ for ourselves in this work, if we want to stay in it and persist in it. We need to find ways to enjoy being out in the pouring rain, traipsing through mud in the forest, even when we’re not finding a truffle. We have to find ways to preserve our excitement for this work!

We need to remember that systems change work is a lot like truffle hunting — it is very rewarding work. It’s exciting when we find that first little nugget in the dirt. It’s exciting to think about the possibilities and the potential — of how many other rewards and opportunities there are out there, lurking underneath the surface, waiting for us to unearth them. It’s really fun to do this work alongside my furry best friend who trusts me with everything, having him close to me with his nose to the ground.

(By the way, Mozi also loves truffle hunting very much. He goes wild when I pull out the scent tins because he knows we’re going to practice and play. He gets so excited about problem-solving and using his skills that he even tries to cheat sometimes! I’m here for it all.)

The early stages of my career looked a bit different than it does now. Today, I consider myself a systems organizer working from within for change. But when I first started out, I was a community organizer. I went to and organized rallies, advocated about policy changes, and I often had to elbow my way into shareholder meetings to speak out and advocate for my causes. In those early years, I was on the ground doing systems change work in a very direct way alongside others — advocating from downstream about the problems and challenges needing to be addressed by those in power upstream.

On many days, that work was very challenging. On many days, that work was also discouraging. Sometimes, our message wasn’t being heard.

I started to observe who was being heard and whose opinions were being given the most credence. A lot of the time, it was those upstream — individuals with big job titles working from within systems. I began realizing that in order for me to personally grow my influence and potential for enacting impactful change, I needed to make my way upstream.

So, as my career progressed, I got more involved inside those very systems I had previously advocated to change from downstream.

Power structures and downhill flows

I know when many of us talk about social change work, we like to focus on the interpersonal and community aspects of it — the stories of how ideals and organizing came together and created collective action and impact. But what is often less talked about — because it doesn’t provide the same kind of exciting sound bites — is that social change work also needs to be adequately resourced to get off the ground.

The flow of capital and how our economic systems are currently structured affect the kind of forward movement we can make with racial justice, environmental justice, labor justice, and more. The flow of capital is traditionally a downstream flow, where large organizations or entities that are already better-resourced often receive the lion’s share of funding, with the assumption that these large entities will spread the wealth down to smaller, on-the-ground efforts.

Unfortunately, funding doesn’t always work out like this. Funding typically gets spread out unevenly and often unfairly. The current model has not been working for the communities most impacted by the inequities within our systems.

There are many reasons why this happens. One reason is that people on the funding side — usually those who do not have on-the-ground and direct experience of what a movement looks like and what a movement needs — end up making decisions they are frankly not qualified to make.

Those who do have the expertise, knowledge, and insight on the work — such as those doing community organizing work and those with personal experience and first-hand knowledge of how the systems are not working — often are too far downstream from the mouth of where capital flows. As a result, they do not have a say in deciding how social change work within their movement gets resourced.

This was one of the reasons why I felt it was especially important to shift my career, to be someone with a foot in both worlds to influence where funds get directed. That’s why so much of my work these days is about how we can change philanthropic and economic systems to move resources downstream.

Changing the direction of flow

Today, I’m a systems organizer who does have power and oversight when it comes to funding social change. Having been at many different positions, one thing I can broadly observe is that being positioned further upstream from where I started has afforded me many opportunities to see avenues and paths for systems change that had been more opaque to me when I was a community organizer. When you’re downstream, not only do you typically lack the same kind of influence and power as those further up, you unfortunately also don’t get to have the same view as those further up.

At the same time, I often feel culturally different from many of the people who also exist upstream. Many individuals in positions of power don’t have the real life or professional experiences resulting in the specific kind of wisdom and insight needed to truly fund and resource systems change. My background and track record as a community organizer has been invaluable in my current work, allowing me to be the bridge sorely needed in these types of conversations. I still have the relationships and communities I came up with — and my fundamental orientation remains towards opening gates so more people can come into systems and see the opportunities with me.

And as we continue to examine how we can do this work more effectively together, why traditional models of funding have been grossly unequal, and how we can set newer movement leaders on their route for success, I often wonder: Why did I have to transition my career upstream in order to grow my impact?

Why are resources so limited for the work of community organizing? Why did I and others have to work so hard to get funding for comparatively smaller gains?

As I mentioned earlier, part of my work these days is finding ways to change the direction of flow. I want to make it so all of these awesome, energetic movement leaders out there doing good in the world don’t have to face the types of barriers I faced. I don’t believe people have to eventually move their careers upstream in order to be impactful — nor is this the way we will create change in the world. I believe we can and need to collectively create a flow where community organizers and frontline leaders have more influence and power.

Last month, I flew across the world for a week-long global board retreat and also managed to prioritize some rest and relaxation by snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia.

And let me tell you, the snorkeling experience made me think a lot about systems change work and how, sometimes, we may be approaching it a little bit wrong.

I first got to Fitzroy Island as the sun was making its way down. In preparation for the next full day of snorkeling, I did a test run. I checked over my snorkeling gear — inspecting my stinger suit, trying on my snorkeling mask and mouthpiece — before I dipped into the water and started swimming along the reef. It was amazing to be immersed into a completely different world full of encompassing sights to absorb.

For a moment, everything was tranquil and still.

And then — all of a sudden — something that looked like a rock started moving!

It was then that I realized the “rock” I was staring at was looking up and staring right back at me!

I was face to face with a green sea turtle who was out for its evening snack. (BTW, green sea turtles are the same kind of turtles in the movie Finding Nemo. Fun fact: They are green primarily because of what they eat, which is seagrass and algae.)

In the moment when this turtle and I were gazing at each other, one thing I was really struck by was how big it was. We were comparable in height. This turtle’s shell alone was three-quarters my entire length! Given its size, it had clearly been around these waters for quite some time. (Another fun fact: green sea turtles live to about 70 years old.)

So there I was, hanging out with this turtle that I would have never even realized was there if I’d been standing on shore, looking into the water.

I thought to myself, wow, here’s this creature living an entire life in the coral reel. How magical!

You know, it’s so easy for us humans to forget about the magic that exists in our world when we get too wrapped up in our work. With my social change work in particular, it’s become centered around making the right policies, organizational structure, and all of the problems that result from systemic racism. A lot of the time, my focus is on some pretty heavy and serious topics, and I can get really stuck in a certain mode of operating — a mode that focuses overly on intellectualizing and making arguments for change based on intellectualizing and horror stories — such as sharing statistics and information about what plastic pollution does to sea turtles.

When I was a young environmental organizer, I spent a lot of my time on planes, in and out of my car, and I was always on the computer or on the phone. I used to rush between meetings, not really having time to go out to explore the places I was flying to. In those days, it was about how much money I could raise and how many connections I could make.

I didn’t have a sense of wonder about the work. I just had this internalized sense of: I need to work constantly and so hard, because my hard work will help prevent these corporations from doing terrible things.

It was disconnecting. And at a point, that go-go-go mode also resulted in burn out and a legitimate feeling of hopelessness and disillusionment, which as many of you already know, is the beginning of the death knell for change work. The thing was, I became emotionally exhausted because all I was trying to do was connect people to these terrible stories about terrible corporations doing terrible things.

When we amass a lot of bad stories, they weigh on us and drag us down. We start to believe the challenge is so insurmountable, and maybe there isn’t a point in trying to make change happen at all.

For a lot of my early career, I neglected to remember the optimism and magic that led me to social change work in the first place — the many hours spent rehabilitating birds of prey that made me wonder how I could help protect the environment. The optimism I had as a young kid spending summer evenings chasing after bugs in Spokane, Washington, as well as seeing elephants roaming the hills in India.

I know there are lots of reasons for us to feel anger, frustration, and fear in this challenging work. And for a short time, those feelings can definitely be motivating. But what I’ve found is that they sure aren’t sustainable or healthy feelings to hold inside. For me, to do this work for the long haul, I have to connect it back to something bigger than myself.

Looking at that turtle, I remembered my childhood. I remembered that I love wildlife. In India, I grew up seeing elephants in the wild, seeing all sorts of birds in every color the human eye can detect.

Looking at that turtle, I remembered, we need to share beautiful stories, too.

This sense of awe and wonder can be put to good, productive use! It doesn’t have to be some ephemera we use to re-energize ourselves and demarcate it from work. We can also fold it into our daily work lives.

For example, at the global board retreat I mentioned earlier, other board members and I came together and made big decisions, of course, following the formal agenda of the meeting — but we also got to go outside and see an echidna for the first time together. In between conversations about the nuances of climate change campaigns, we also found ways to prioritize connecting with each other in personal ways.

What we have to be better at in our work is reminding ourselves that very important social change is connected to the things that connect us to awe.

We all have to find the things that bring us that connection to the change work we’re passionate about — and we have to find it in the everyday (because I acknowledge that it’s not tenable for me or you to visit the Great Barrier Reef when we need to refill our sense of wonder!). For me, at home in Seattle, sometimes it’s just driving a little further out from the city, away from light pollution, and looking up at the sky to see the Milky Way and feeling like I’m part of something much bigger. Other times, it’s about watching the heron hang out on Lake Washington near my home.

For some folks in this work, it’s their children that instills in them a sense of awe and wonder. Others may find it hiking on their days off. And for some friends of mine, it’s really about being around people and building resilient immigrant communities.

Wonder can look different for everyone. This week, I humbly challenge you to go out and find what instills a sense of awe and wonder in you, and I urge you to remember it and revisit it often, especially when you have a particularly challenging week!

I once had an executive coach candidly say to me, “You are someone who is biking up a steep mountain, and your greatest challenge is that every time you hit a rock, you look at it. Not only that, you slow your pedaling, you start really noticing the speed of your pedaling — your awareness makes you feel even more tired than you previously thought, you see every round, and you say, ‘I’m not moving. This rock is getting in my way.’”

This observation about me was pretty wince-inducing — particularly because it felt very accurate, especially when it came to my work changing systems.

My coach told me that the opportunity here is to look up instead of down at the rock. “Just keep pedaling, but look up,” she said. “Think and talk about what you see when you look around. Look at and describe the top of the mountain. The exertion isn’t the ‘journey,’ just a part of it. You want to prime yourself for the entire trek. Hydrate, care for yourself, and make sure your muscles feel good, of course — but you also want to spend 90 percent of your energy on painting a picture of what you’re seeing in front of you from your vantage point as you climb, as well as what you’re seeing behind you. Observe where you’ve been, how far you’ve come, and ultimately keep sharing what’s at the top of the mountain.”

As leaders, sharing our experience and perspective — especially on where we’ve been — is very valuable to others, but we often neglect to, whether we feel modest and shy or maybe because we are so mired in our work that we forget to share.

However, as I have recently (re)learned, it’s important that we share because our situations are often unique. For instance, sometimes we are the ones who are furthest up the mountain, and it’s imperative that we share for the sake of everyone else who is coming up behind us. Or perhaps we’re not the first to summit a particular mountain, but our viewpoint, outlook, and context may be very different from others who have climbed the mountain, so it’s important for us to share our very specific perspective to the benefit of people similar to us.

Looking up

I know that it’s one thing to know that we need to look up. It’s an entirely different thing to actually do it. Here are some ideas that can help you train yourself to ignore rocks as you pedal up your mountain.

Find practices that nourish you and incorporate them into the journey

Think about how fast you’d burn out if you tried to sprint up a mountain. Exactly! Going full-speed isn’t sustainable and will result in premature exhaustion, injury, or worse — complete discouragement.

The journey up a mountain is lengthy and challenging, both physically and mentally. As leaders, we need to find ways to both conserve our energy for the complete journey as well as generate more energy.

Find practices in your life that nourish you and prioritize them and create scheduled time to engage in these practices. For me, I love hosting parties and making great drinks (with or without alcohol) for my friends. Designated time for connection and spaces for joy help keep me nourished. It can sometimes take real commitment to make sure I put energy into hosting friends — but I have learned to create space for these connection events so my schedule isn’t just about “climbing the mountain.”

Don’t down-shift into cycling-instructor mode! Stay in leadership mode.

Alright, this one is a tough one for me to remember after so many years of crisis management (pandemic-instigated and otherwise) — but leaders need to hold the overarching vision. In contrast, cycling instructors are concerned with the day-to-day “hows,” such as how to be more efficient at pedaling, how to pedal harder and faster and longer.

While the role of cycling instructor is definitely important, and one of the many hats a leader occasionally wears, we must take care not to get stuck in that mode or expect our leaders will always be that person. The journey up a mountain needs someone who has that 30,000-foot view in their mind’s eye at all times — someone with expansive and broad perspective who can map out the route, anticipate obstacles, and articulate why the endeavor is meaningful to begin with, as well as relay what they can see from that bird’s-eye perspective. We often miss what a critical element of the ecosystem this role is, but it’s necessary to have someone who can see across organizations, causes, moments, and, in some cases, nationalities to find new possibilities and trends.

If you’re wondering how to do this, I recommend creating practices that provide you with the spaciousness needed for periodically shifting into a birds-eye view. Connect with networks and peers where you can gain that perspective. Be in the stance of learning from other leaders outside your local area or specific topic focus.

Staying in leadership mode can look different for each of us. For me, leading a global network and serving on global boards requires me to curate a broad perspective on a variety of topics in philanthropy, climate change, and racial justice. I try to prioritize time connecting and learning with other people and hearing where there are themes — or sharp contrasts — synthesizing this together into perspectives on the sectors in which I work. Over the last several years, I’ve been fortunate to develop relationships with a group of peers who each share their perspectives from their respective roles on philanthropy, justice, climate, and other topics of the moment. We are learning and shaping a leadership perspective together.

Create practices that help you deliberately share where we’ve been while also painting a vision for where we are going

How many times have you wanted to go to a particular restaurant or visit a beautiful place because a friend told you a story and shared pictures about their lovely experience there?

Stories and narrative matter so much in leadership. They can foster kinship, they can inspire imagination, they can be sources of encouragement, they stand as proof of concept — they can be how movements begin. It’s so important to create a deliberate practice about sharing instead of just expressing our good intention to “share more.”

I know it can be hard. Like myself, I know a lot of leaders who are focused on doing the work and feel uncomfortable talking too much about themselves or the work. Additionally, I know that when doing systems changing work, it’s easy to get caught up in the details (the pedal turning) and feel like we need to make sure that — before we even tell people about the mountain — we feel like we need to know exactly what the route will look like.

But despite doubts, which are natural, we must commit to keep going forward and to keep sharing, even when we aren’t completely sure when we’ll see the next sign post. We must keep going forward and believe that it’s okay to sometimes say, “I don’t know yet.”

Sharing can look very different for everyone. You may join a network or community group to do your sharing. You may share on social media. You may share by giving speeches and doing speaking engagements. For me, you are actually seeing the product of my practice. I’m documenting my experiences and stories, and I’m sharing them out to you via the written word.

Find ways to share that makes sense to you, in ways you can sustain, and commit to doing it.

Researchers found that during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, donations actually increased — surprising many social scientists because previous research had shown that people are often less generous during hard times. The reason for this? It could be something called “catastrophe compassion.” Researchers speculated that because many people felt powerless during the pandemic, they turned to charitable giving as a way to cope.

But what about now? Pandemic fatigue, the feeling of apathy and lack of motivation toward continuing vigilance against the pandemic, has begun settling in across the world. National leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have ushered in a sense of ‘moving on’ from the virus, de-escalating the way the government is treating it.

So what does going back to business as usual look like for those of us in philanthropy, as we now grapple with the possibility of a recession? Will we lose the kind generosity we saw during the height of the pandemic? Will we forget the lessons we learned during this period?

I sure hope not!

Look, I completely understand the urge in all of us to get back to “normal” and live in a world that is truly “post-pandemic.” However, we also need to be aware that we’re collectively battling pandemic fatigue and the pressing dangers and issues it illuminates remain. It’s imperative for us to retain the lessons from these past few years that made us more empathetic, curious, and action-oriented.

Here are some pandemic lessons that we, as donors, need to reflect on and retain:

1. Be intentional with your contributions

Individual donors often offer the most flexible resources, so be intentional about how your contributions can be maximized. Allocate resources toward efforts organized by those directly impacted by unjust systems and leaders doing the work to change systems for the long-term.

There are amazing leaders mobilizing and guiding meaningful, community-scale movements. But many of these leaders don’t get the same level of access and support compared to large, more well-known causes. Partner with leaders to let them know you welcome them using your (hopefully unrestricted!) funding for things that might not be seen as “most important” to a large institutional funder — things like organizational infrastructure, overhead, staff wellbeing, communications, technology — to name a few.

2. Commit to the long term

Make a long-term commitment to make contributions to organizations doing transformational work important to you. Consider joining a network of philanthropists so you can learn together and be a direct part of the movement pushing for social change.

Giving via multi-year commitments, intermediaries, networks, or pooled funds will allow you to become a philanthropist who has a holistic understanding of the systems we are trying to change. This also helps ensure that your resources are going to the most pressing needs across movements for change.

3. Scrutinize power dynamics and do the work to flatten them

When pushing for equitable solutions in the sector, we have to acknowledge and talk about where the power and influence is held in our current systems. We must build, foster, and maintain deeper relationships with the communities we are trying to advocate for and serve. They have the expertise and solutions.

In addition, we must be connected and engaged, encouraging corporations, large institutions, and foundations to collaborate in dispersing power. We must give voice to those on the frontlines experiencing social injustices.

4. Support the people telling these stories

We are living in an era where a segment of the population is pushing to undermine and sow distrust in our institutions. As such, we need to continue supporting and offering resources to journalism and long-term narrative change so independent presses can continue to document and share important, accurate, and impactful stories.

To extend that idea, we also need to empower cultural workers, including writers, filmmakers, photographers, artists. They offer insights and tell stories of those affected by inequity, they visualize what the future may hold. Investing and supporting culture makers will only add to the impact for long-term benefits.

5. Focus on funding to change systems and address root causes

We must learn from the lessons of the pandemic and usher them into our efforts to transform systems that continuously cause harm. We must keep making impactful contributions to upstream efforts focused on changing how systems operate and continue funding work that addresses current and historic inequalities. We must build collective power.

This can take on a lot of different looks, like creating space in our personal and professional lives to contribute to the work behind such change. This can be a mix of time, money, wisdom, patience, and flexibility to learn what we all need.

The pandemic has given us an opportunity to reevaluate our systems and honestly consider what works and what doesn’t. We need to connect with each other, to collaborate and innovate, and imagine what is truly possible.

We need to have genuine conversations about our unjust systems and how we can use money, influence, and power to give voice and decision-making power to those on the frontlines. Only then can we create a world where we can all thrive.