535. Liberatory Leadership: Centering Equity and Justice in Nonprofit Work - April Walker

Meet April. She’s the Founder and CEO of Philanthropy for the People,  an equity-centered consulting firm that equips donors, foundations, and nonprofits to embrace fundraising and grantmaking that centers racial equity and social justice. April challenges us to reimagine who holds power and how we can radically redistribute it to serve the communities that need it most. The way April approaches this work is a gift to the sector and we’re thrilled to share this conversation with you🎁  This episode is as much about philanthropy as it is about the art of self-compassion💖 - don’t miss it!

💡 Learn

• What Liberatory Leadership is 
• How to center the sector on racial equity + social justice
• Case Study: Healthy Liquid Foundation

Today’s Guest
April Walker, Founder + CEO, Philanthropy for the People

Episode Highlights

• April’s story and journey to where she is today (3:00)
• April’s mindset and approach to her work (6:00)
• Liberatory leadership + how listeners can embrace it (8:00)
• What is scarcity costing us? (12:00)
• Power of inclusive decision-making, centering marginalized voices, and driving transformative action and advocacy (19:00)
• Behaviors or structures that are causing frustration so we can address and over

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:06

Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky, and this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:11

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 1: 3:20

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 2: 3:28

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 1: 3:39

So let's get started, becky, what's happening?

Speaker 2: 3:43

You know my spidey senses of just like finding good humans and knowing that they're so good to their core in like the first 12 seconds that I meet them Like that is the warm vibe I just got from April Walker in the first 10 seconds of meeting her.

Speaker 2: 3:58

So, community, you are in for such a treat. Today we are talking all things liberatory leadership, disruption, professional troublemaking I hope you have brought your notebook because we have brought such an expert into the podcast and I got to say, april, I absolutely love the name of your organization. She is the founder of Philanthropy for the People and the CEO y'all. This is an equity-centered consulting firm that equips donors, foundations and nonprofits to embrace fundraising and grant making. That absolutely centers racial equity and social justice at its core. That is exactly what we are all about. I'm so glad to know this is in the world.

Speaker 2: 4:41

A little bit of background about April. She's had this incredible career in philanthropy that spans grant making, fundraising, consulting roles at American Heart, ccs fundraising shout out to our friends at CCS and V&A Foundation. She also served as the chief development officer for a workforce development nonprofit in Cleveland Ohio where she led a $10 million capital campaign raising $3.2 million in 18 months. As a recovering major gift officer. I know how hard that is and how off the chain it is. So she was born and raised in Baltimore, but she's called the Midwest home for a long time and we just love all the ways she pours into the impact world, serving on boards and just really using her leadership to amplify justice and equity in all of her work. So this is going to be a fiery conversation. I hope you're buckled up, april. Welcome to the we Are For Good podcast. We are so excited that you are here, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3: 5:40

It's always a little bit weird hearing your own bio, but that was beautifully said.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Everything is accurate. I love it.

Speaker 3: 5:46

It really sets the right tone for the conversation I know we're going to have and I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Well, thank you for being just so warm and so kind. I mean, when we started we Are For Good, we had talked a lot about how we were talking about the pillars of this community and we really thought that DEI and mental health independently, they didn't need to be pillars, they needed to be foundational, and I feel like this is really what your work does.

Speaker 1: 6:16

But we want to go back.

Speaker 2: 6:17

We want to meet little April. Like we want to know about your heart. Where did this start from and how did you grow into this work? That's such a wonderful question and I think about my heart.

Speaker 3: 6:24

I think about my nephew. He's nine, his name is August, so we have that whole month theme going Hi August. So he's my motivation, I think, for all of the work that I do. At this point I want to make sure that I'm leaving behind a better world for him, a world where a little Black boy can grow up and be safe and not be judged and not have to mature at an undue rate just because this is the society he was born into, but I fell into philanthropy and fundraising and consulting, like many of us do.

Speaker 3: 6:54

My academic background is liberal arts, sociology, american studies, so none of this was really on my radar. But once you get in and you find your way, I found that it was a great match for my skill set communicating, being in relationship with folks advocating for a cause. I definitely was a program officer generalist and the same in terms of fundraising, because I care about everything and everybody.

Speaker 3: 7:18

My through line through all of that, though, has just been my love for Black people, unapologetically so, and my advocacy for our liberation and our joy, and I found that there is space for me to do that. It did require me to start my own firm, but we'll talk about that, but it's been a pleasure in the sector thus far.

Speaker 1: 7:37

I mean, it's not lost on me that we started this season talking about the trends that everyone's expecting to hear, like what's happening in 2024. We just felt a need to, like, center joy in our work, and I feel like it's a through line. It exudes as you talk and I think it's absolutely something that we need to lean into and it should be.

Speaker 1: 7:53

One of our goals is to you know further that and create spaces for that, and so, okay, before we get into like some deeper talk, I've got to talk about your mindsets, because you're the season fundraiser and we love to talk about mindsets around here because we feel like it's critical to just help reframe the way that we view our work, and I know you've had all these experiences throughout your career. Take us into your head a little bit how do you approach this work and what are some things that we can take away from that?

Speaker 3: 8:19

The first part of my mindset has certainly rooted in a deep care and adoration for myself as a Black woman navigating this work in this sector.

Speaker 3: 9:33

I am well aware and have ample stories of how that is not prioritized by anyone or anything, and so I have to be the one to uplift that and hold that. I've actually dubbed this year as the year of my nervous system. I'm constantly evaluating what feels good to me, what feels right, what conversation makes me clench my fist or my jaw, and then removing myself pretty much immediately from those things because I don't want to have to age any faster than I already am. But when it comes specifically to fundraising and grant making and consulting, I'm largely fixed on reparations and anti-Blackness. The more popular language, of course, is DEI, but I am of a mind that I could do this work and never say equity again, even though it's the tagline of my firm. So I'm always trying to move people to a more contextual, complete narrative of how we got here, how we ended up with a sector that we think is supposed to be about the betterment of people, but actually that's not what it's responsible for doing right.

Speaker 3: 10:34

It takes some good humans to make that true. And how we ended up with so much money sitting in these accounts, growing investments year after year while we scratch our heads like, well, why do we still have social issues? I don't understand. Let's create another task force.

Speaker 3: 10:49

So I'm thinking reparations, I'm thinking anti-Blackness, I'm thinking radical truth-telling, which doesn't feel radical to me, but I've been told that it is. But I think we need to be really direct in our approach and our values, because while we facilitate this flow of money, people's lives are at stake.

Speaker 2: 11:07

So that's where my mind typically is mind typically is I don't know that I have ever heard it as succinctly said. I don't know that I've ever heard it as emboldened and kind as what you just said. And all I'm thinking right now, april, is I want to live in that world. I want to be a part of the movement that moves nonprofit, that moves impact, that moves social enterprise to a space where we're not even having to have these conversations, because you're 100% right on this issue. And it just takes me back, john, to our value number one of our company, which is everyone matters.

Speaker 2: 11:50

And if everybody matters, then it means that we have to do things that are hard. We have to listen to these conversations, we have to be open, and I'm with you. I don't think these are radical conversations to say that someone should be able to live and work in peace and enjoy and in safety. To me, the fact that that's radical means that we have a lot of work to do. Liberatory leadership, you know, is something that you're really passionate about. I want you to kind of define that for us, like frame it for the audience, like what is an unlock for the sector when we embrace this type of leadership and how can our listeners really start embracing it?

Speaker 3: 12:34

Love that.

Speaker 3: 12:34

And even as a through line from the previous question. I think it boils down to continuing that directness in terms of let's talk brass tacks. Are you cutting a check or are you not? Are we going? Do the people doing the work feel valued? Are they well compensated? And do the people on the receiving end of a program or service have a say in how that program and service takes shape? That is the conversation. But I think, when it comes to liberation, for me and this is where I pull from my social work background it's all about asking where's harm being perpetuated. Most of my friends, even if they are in other institutions or industries, are social workers.

Speaker 3: 13:14

So we usually start with, where does it hurt? Who are you and what do you think you need? Because then, over time, you can figure out what you actually need. So it's a leadership style, but it's also a way of being. It creates space to continually be curious and not pretend that you have all of the answers.

Speaker 3: 13:31

So it's inquiry that places less emphasis on blame or who's right and who's wrong, but it's asking the question what does our culture need here? What does our environment need? What have we normalized that is actually abnormal and harmful? What have we tied our own hands to? What have we inherited? What process or workflow did we just accept? Because we've always done it this way but actually serves no greater purpose. So it's continuing to ask all of those questions, not to say, hey, Becky, you're doing it wrong, or hey, John, you've messed up. But I want everyone, like you said, to be able to show up peacefully and well compensated and supported, because otherwise we're just pretending, and that's a very expensive decision. Everyone, like you said, to be able to show up peacefully and well compensated and supported, because otherwise we're just pretending and that's a very expensive decision to make.

Speaker 1: 14:19

I mean April. You just laid out some seriously good questions.

Speaker 1: 14:23

I feel like we talk about the power of asking a better question on this podcast a lot bigger, a better question but those were just some of the. I can see us taking into our teams and actually asking the uncomfortable like what is the actual impact of these things? How do we trace the through line back? I love that you keep saying through line, because everything has a through line If we just are curious enough to keep going back to say how did this actually start to get to this place today.

Speaker 1: 14:47

So, um, I want to ask you something about scarcity, because we talk about this on the podcast a lot and we think that you know, becky and I spent our careers 15, 20 years in the nonprofit space and I think that there is this scarcity component that is very common in our sector, married with these things that you're bringing up, that I'm like it seems kind of obvious when we start talking about it that this is not okay, this is broken. How do we, kind of, you know, move through this world and how do we move away from what's the cost of scarcity? I guess costing us by saying that, oh, we're going to put that off till later, we don't have to solve that today.

Speaker 3: 15:23

Man. It's such a great question, John. It makes me think in terms of the stories and the narratives that we tell as fundraisers or even as program officers, and how rooted they are in what someone lacks, what a community does not have, what has been stolen, deprived, exploited. I can't reconcile how we can look at the lack of wealth distribution in this country, the growing resources and donor advice funds, the money in foundation endowments, and then claim there's not enough. I cannot reconcile that there's also abundance in terms of the other gifts that we have time, talent, treasure, all of those things. But for me, scarcity is not the issue. Ego is the issue. Apathy is the issue. Ignorance is the issue. Racism is the issue. A lack of care and concern is the issue. Areorance is the issue. Racism is the issue. Right, A lack of care and concern is the issue.

Speaker 3: 16:15

Are resources scarce in this country? No, Not, when you have what? 150 new billionaires between 2023 and 2024. There's no scarcity and there's not going to be in a society based on capitalism. But we limit ourselves and, to some degree, are limited to a narrative that says you can't have it. So it's not about sometimes where even the resources are. It's the question of who and what benefits from a belief in scarcity at all?

Speaker 2: 16:47

April Diane Walker.

Speaker 3: 16:51

I have a new name now.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Shout out to her.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Sorry, I was trying to create drama because I'm just I am shook right now by what you just said, because you shifted something in me in what you just said and I think back to all the moments in my career where you just you talked about nervous system at the very beginning and it's where something gets triggered inside you and your eyebrow quirks and you're like that doesn't feel right.

Speaker 2: 17:26

You know this is not the way, but there's something in this sector that makes us feel like we don't have agency to speak up, to question and the power imbalance is definitely a part of that. But I'm very hopeful and I hope each of you out there are hopeful in the shift I'm beginning to see in the sector, where people are stepping into their power and saying like we're not going to be a part of this anymore and we want to fight for something bigger, better, more equitable. And if you're like me and you're looking in the rearview mirror at some of those experiences and you're cringing I saw this thing the other day and I just loved it so much and it said if you ever find yourself cringing at something you did in the past, it means you've grown as a person, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 18:15

And that's evolution, and so I don't want us to stay in that scarcity and say, oh, I wish I could have, would have done it. I think we we need to embrace that now is the time. Now is the time for a step forward. Now is a step, at the time to ask those tough questions. But I think the difference for me, april, is we can say and I want to know more, because I really like this concept of disruption that you've brought to the, to your business, to this conversation, and it really needs to be about centering this racial equity and the social justice in our work. So one thing there, Becky, let's go for it, my friend.

Speaker 3: 19:13

I want to, at least you know, regard and thank those that I've been. I've had the pleasure of working with in this space, right? So some of my favorite humans work at nonprofits and are doing this work. And that's not, that's not a mistake, and you know, I'm just of the mindset that we can be bold and great leaders and also be well compensated for that labor and also be well as we do it.

Speaker 3: 19:36

But part of what has shaped so much of my experience outside of just being a Black woman in this country is the fact that I got my start as a grantmaker school to get my master's degree in social work and I ended up working at a foundation, again, just by happenstance.

Speaker 3: 19:57

I needed a position that was going to flex my work time schedule in a way that suited me. I was not thinking about philanthropy, I was not thinking about fundraising, but I landed at a foundation and I landed with a particular supervisor, turned mentor, turned friend, who lived out trust-based philanthropy before that was even common knowledge who sat me down, essentially, and said, while other people were in my ear, like, oh, foundation jobs are golden and this is the golden ticket. She was like, look, yeah, you have to bring your own perspective and energy to this work because otherwise you were reading and writing grants four times a year, talking to the same group of people and trying to influence them to make a decision that you see fit. You have to bring something else because, quite frankly, it can get boring and you can check out. So I started my grant making journey with no rose colored glasses, like, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1: 20:45

I'm just rewriting.

Speaker 3: 20:46

I'm just sort of facilitating a conversation for someone else's benefit, and there has to be more to this than me regurgitating information that a fundraiser had to regurgitate from a frontline program staff member for a board Hello. For a board that didn't even read the write-up. Something in that is not just wasteful but it's wrong, so just wanted to offer that to you.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Would you share your mentor's name? We got to celebrate her.

Speaker 3: 21:16

Yes, I love her. She retired last year. Her name is Claudia Beyer. I could choke up. I did choke up at her retirement party. That was earlier this year in Chicago and she worked at the VNA Foundation, which is a foundation that serves the medically underserved in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Speaker 2: 21:34

So love you, claudia, claudia, and thank you to all the Claudias out there that make this not just a grind, that we're not on the hamster wheel, that stop and say who are you, what are your unique gifts that you can bring to this, what are the ways you're going to pour into it?

Speaker 2: 21:51

That's going to again create that shift again. And so I just celebrate, claudia, I celebrate you, I celebrate thinking differently, and so I want to talk about disruption and you have this as a part of your bio, as a part of your ethos, as a part of your company. We I guess I'm going to be talking about all our values today, john, but our number seven value of our company is disrupt, adapt, grow, repeat. And we are big fans of disruption and just improving the way that not only we do our work but how we build collective power. So talk to us about the potential power nonprofits, slash social enterprise have when they start to embrace sort of the shared decision-making, when they start to maybe center marginalized voices or move toward transforming action and advocacy. Talk about that and how people can really embrace that.

Speaker 3: 22:46

Love this question too. Very well thought out, thank you. When it comes to decision making, I tend to use this country club example.

Speaker 3: 22:56

right, so, we have a lot of nonprofits with racially homogenous or I'll just say white leadership teams. You may have Black people in lower level positions and you very likely have a racially homogenous board with a sprinkling of folks of color Maybe, maybe not and we seem to think that's okay, particularly even when they're serving in like an all Black audience, where they have a ton of mixed race folks that are beneficiaries of their programs and services. I would love for someone to show me the opposite, to walk into a country club and have an all black board dictating and governing what happens on the golf course and what is served for lunch and how you're greeted at valet.

Speaker 3: 23:41

You just never see it. And I think people should be really uncomfortable sitting around tables making decisions, asking questions about finances for community and for people they do not know, because we would never accept the other side of that. And I'm not saying you need to then remove yourself from the space. No, in fact, you need to become an expert in sharing the power and access and leverage that you have. It's not just about getting more people of color in place to do the work, but you need to really develop a thirst for knowledge, not just the thirst for the title. Or you're there because you know your firm can give us a five-figure donation, but why are you actually in that seat? And if you don't have the information to make the decision, then you can actually say that. And that goes for foundations and grant makers. So we know we have this participatory grant making push, but however you shape that just because you govern an institution doesn't mean you have to make all the decisions.

Speaker 3: 24:39

That's one thought when it comes to centering marginalized voices. Know that I just wall slide whenever I hear marginalized, oppressed or disadvantaged, because that's the prevalent commonplace language, when in fact, we need to be shifting to talk about the marginalizers and the oppressors who get to act like they contribute to none of the harm that we see.

Speaker 3: 25:00

But still we're in this dynamic where there is a where there is a need to uplift and elevate certain voices and for most of that, it's us accepting that just because you have the money doesn't mean you have the information. Just because you have the money doesn't mean you have the expertise Just because you spent $20,000 on a new theory of change. By the time you begin funding in that area, things have moved on. You are not caught up, but you could be if you wanted to do business differently. And then I think the last part of that question was about transformation, and this again may sound really radical, but it's going to take something radical and bold to shake us out of this. What happens if foundations or if nonprofits stop submitting grant applications and refuse to submit reports and didn't allow site visits when it was inconvenient for them? How would funders then determine how to give their money away?

Speaker 1: 25:53

What if they said no, the three nonprofits in this community.

Speaker 3: 25:58

We actually support each other. We're only going to write one grant and we want to share this six-figure gift that you give. We're not going to duplicate our efforts. You can review what we sent to this other organization. So there is agency. It's bold, but it also takes nonprofit organizations with steady endowments. We know those are not the Black-led or minority-led organizations among us. They do not have sizable endowments, but it takes those institutions to hold space for the grassroots institutions and the community organizing institutions and it takes foundations to flex their power and influence.

Speaker 3: 26:31

You very well know that funders like fund in cohorts, right, if you get funded by one, you're probably going to get funded by the same other five people, and then there are going to be people that keep that door slammed in your face.

Speaker 1: 26:43

You need to go back and talk to your people.

Speaker 3: 26:46

This is not my problem. I should not have to try and invite Becky. I'll just pick on you to coffee 18 months in a row to try and build a relationship when Becky's made up her mind that she doesn't want to fund over here. So some of this is not even our work to do. Let us be experts in the things that we are experts in period.

Speaker 1: 27:07

April my goodness, the moment in time that you were coming on this podcast in the through line of the conversations we've had to me friends. I just want to call this out so you can stack this together. But talking to Liza Miller with Echoing Green about the collective power of how we shift the way that people fund in this country and beyond, it's going to take collective action. It's going to take us stepping into our own power and then getting together to flip the script.

Speaker 2: 27:34

I love your examples there and I have to give one quote I'm sorry, John, because it's bursting out of me from Mia Henry. We had this incredible conversation with Mia and I've used this quote, even in writing, many, many times. But oppression thrives on keeping people apart. That's what she said. And so this call to collective movement and I think that's part of the fear I sense in people is I'm going to be out there and I'm going to be alone.

Speaker 2: 28:03

And what I want to say to everybody is when you see that one person who separates from the crowd in your organization, in your foundation, in your grant making, in whatever at your gala and you see them stand up and ask that question, it is absolutely incumbent upon us to step out and get behind them. This is not about one person standing out there alone, because that is not going to move this sector forward. It is incumbent upon us to remember that everyone matters and that if we're going to radically change and upend these systems of power and this money that is just sitting, we're going to have to get in lockstep with each other. So thank you so much for letting me jump in, John, but I just had that so vital in this moment.

Speaker 1: 28:52

And so I hope we can be an amplifier of what you're saying, and I also want to like slide the mic over and say, hey, we know that you see a lot of things happening that make this work even so much harder.

Speaker 1: 29:15

And I want to know, you know what behaviors or structures that you see. That is in our work today that has you banging your head against the wall, Like because we want to help avoid them and overcome them. And I get to say, when you said moving from calling people marginalized to saying who are the marginalizers, is such a shift and it's one that I want to be an ally into, so like I want to talk about this. Where's your head space around these questions?

Speaker 3: 29:42

Yes, I love that. Well, john, I think we can agree. My head is much too beautiful to bang against the wall.

Speaker 1: 29:49

I will throw some. Sorry for that horrible.

Speaker 3: 29:50

Right, Break my glasses nothing, but I will throw some air punches when the following things happen. One of those main things that's been just so deeply discouraging and frustrating for me is when fundraisers, whose entire job is built around relationships and getting to know people to some degree, charming people, being active and deep listeners, when they stare blankly at me when I'm like, go build some community engagement into your fundraising plan, and they just they don't know what that means. They don't think it's their business. You can cold call a corporation for an event sponsorship, you can introduce yourself to a program officer at a foundation, but when the task is to call your new Blackboard member or to get to know the small businesses that are in the community and reach out to them, you're suddenly confused. You suddenly are paralyzed. And I can sprinkle on as much grace as my ancestors will allow me to muster and acknowledge that not everybody has a toolkit of cultural awareness or cultural humility. But at the end of the day, you're not going to build a muscle if you never flex it. So there's only so much grace to be given if you've done the 18 DEI trainings already. At some point you just have to show up transparently and say I am so uncomfortable and I think I'm going to say the wrong thing and give it a shot because it's not going. The solution to that is not going to change.

Speaker 3: 31:13

The other thing that frustrates me deeply is this performance of perfection that we've now amassed as part of our work. So nonprofits have to perform like excellence in all things, except the one area where they need the grant funding right. Our annual report is beautiful, our site visits are well rehearsed, when in reality everybody at this organization has said there's no trust, and if you don't have trust you can't have a positive culture, any morale. And then the nonprofit leadership sometimes delude themselves to think okay, if our P&L is balanced and the finance committee is happy, then we're doing well, you're not. What are people getting paid? What do those benefits look like, if they exist? We're in this dance and the choreography is not good.

Speaker 2: 32:02

It's outdated, it sucks, it's probably something else that frustrates me, but I think I'll stop there, yes. Yes, it is a dusty, dusty playbook and I got to tell you.

Speaker 2: 32:12

You just reoriented my brain entirely around how we prioritize relationships. And if we're prioritizing relationships based on power and money and not on community, then that's where we're going to get tripped up and it's going to show. It's going to show in our brand, it's going to show in our culture, it's going to show, whether we think it is or not, in the words we say and how we show up. And so April Walker, april Diane Walker, I just love you so much, I'm like.

Speaker 2: 32:48

What's your middle name? It's Chanel. Thank you, april Chanel. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3: 32:53

It's very good. No, I am so glad to be in this conversation because really some of these solutions, friends, are quite simple. Right, We've seen that influx of how to diversify your pipeline, how to diversify this. It's a one-minute response. You have to talk to Black people. You have to talk to people that don't look like you. You have to talk to artists and educators and caregivers. We need everybody. If you think you're going to keep sitting around the same table talking about maybe getting to know other people who aren't engaged in your community, you're never going to step out of that front door to go get to know them. If you want to build community, it's going to take you having these conversations.

Speaker 2: 33:37

You're welcome. I'm going to share something a little uncomfortable for me because I want to be real in this moment. We've probably had John what would you guess? 50 conversations, maybe 50 plus conversations around the DEI collective power movement, and I've tried to be a very good student in this. I've read a ton of books and I am uncomfortable coming into every conversation. I am uncomfortable thinking I am going to say the wrong thing. My Enneagram 2-ness comes out and I think I'm going to harm somebody or hurt somebody's feelings or have something come off. And I have just recently realized that that discomfort is very much a superpower and that we need to keep feeling uncomfortable in this because it tells me I have a lot of work to do still and that this is very much a journey. But I have to tell you, when I tell people I'm uncomfortable, guess what I usually get Grace, compassion, Because we want to move toward again evolution, getting better, getting enlightened, and I think we just need to share those stories and just be honest about it. So thank you.

Speaker 3: 34:47

I'm so glad you named that. It's a real thing and I'm being quite direct, as I tend to be, but I do understand again if you don't have a history of that. But it's to everyone's benefit, because we can smell inauthenticity. We can smell and sense when you're not being sincere, when you're showing up trying to make me comfortable in ways that don't really acknowledge the fullness of who. I am Right and that's going to be a hindrance in your relationship.

Speaker 3: 35:13

I'm not going to want to keep returning to a conversation that your nervousness is then center stage, and it's not necessarily my experience or even the people being served. But I think that this fear of I have to say the right thing, I have to make sure that we're using the right language. If DEI has failed at anything in the industry of old certainly has, like every other industry, it's in thinking that language is going to replace the truth. Right? You don't need to say diverse. When I walk into a room, you can say I'm Black, I'm a Black woman walking into a room, and if you think I'm unaware that I'm walking into a space full of white people, then maybe that's not a room I even need to be in, right, because that's a thing we can call out. I have walked into a predominantly white space.

Speaker 3: 35:59

I have made that decision for myself, as an adult as your board member as your volunteer, and then the conversation you have is about diversity. It should be about Black women, right, I am the Black woman, so I just you know. Again, I keep leaning to this space of like this DEI threat that we have and they're getting rid of all the stuff. I don't need DEI to do my work, I don't, I don't. There's a whole other conversation and narrative that has nothing to do with inclusion, access, belonging. Those are descriptors. Lived experiences are always going to be much louder and much more impactful.

Speaker 1: 36:38

Boom. Okay, I mean April, this is so good and I want to like connect, start to connect people to the work that you do specifically and I wonder if you'd take us to a case study of your work. You know, I feel like we learn a lot by just seeing how an organization has moved through some of these concepts and started to have the tough conversations to maybe get to a better place. So we usually walk us through. You know someone that's implemented this liberatory leadership idea centered in equity, and really has disrupted and changed and transformed the way that they create impact as a result.

Speaker 3: 37:09

Absolutely. But one of my current clients is the Healthy Liquid Foundation right outside of Cleveland Ohio and it has been such a special partnership because they were looking and reached out. They were looking and reached out. They were looking for ways to actually make their equity work real. Like others, they had language they were using that they hadn't really defined for themselves and folks were apprehensive, maybe even rightfully so, when they went to look for a DEI partner. You know when the rubber meets the road and you have to actually sign a contract and pay someone there could be hesitation like, oh, you know, we don't need this or we know this.

Speaker 3: 37:47

And my primary contact there and it was Kate, she's always been transparent with me. It was never an unfriendly atmosphere, but there was a level of convincing, an element in the room that said, hey, everybody said they wanted to do it, and now that we're doing it, folks are like, well, why, that transparency is one of the most valuable things I could have, because I think I literally put an elephant up on the screen Like so there's an elephant in here right.

Speaker 1: 38:14

And we can name it and that's okay. It's like what elephants are there for you? Because here's the one for me.

Speaker 3: 38:21

And we can talk about it and I can stand here knowing that there's apprehension and still get through the rest of my slide deck like that. I'm not going to die. It's not the worst thing in the world that you don't understand what's coming, but it's been so beautiful because they're turning into some of the best disruptors that I've seen. They're turning into some of the best disruptors that I've seen. They are so curious and they are so open to say to themselves the work we've done to get to this point.

Speaker 3: 38:47

It's not that it was terrible. It's not that it all sucked. It's not that we had ill intentions, but we can take steps to simplify our language. We can go back and look at our investment policy. We can have someone externally ask about our grantee experiences, so they're free to tell the full truth. We can choose to not center ourselves. We can choose to not live inside of this Well, what if X, Y and Z happens? And instead say, well, what if we don't do this? Who's going to feel it the most in this community? And so it's beautiful because it's top of mind for me. I love them, it's been a great partnership, but I also think it takes a willingness and openness from folks and then it takes a consultant, whether they're rooted in DEI or not, to say I see you and I can show where you are and get you further than you think you'll make it.

Speaker 2: 39:34

Okay, I want to give a shout out to Kate and the foundation for going through the work and thank you for explaining it in a way where it was not an easy journey. You know this is gonna be. We're gonna trip up quite a bit, we're gonna take a couple steps back, probably as we start to get into the deep root of issues. Y'all that is what nonprofit is about. It is all about finding the root issue with something, fixing it so that it doesn't perpetuate. So thank you for sharing that incredible case study and I just we love the power of story here and I wonder if there's a moment of philanthropy that is hanging in your heart, or this could be something from any part of your life career, childhood where you saw generosity come out and it just stayed with you. Do you have one you could share with us today?

Speaker 3: 40:25

I do, I'll give you an exclusive, and I think my mother is the only one that actually knows this. Hi, mom, and really quick before I jump into it. The other thing about you know the client case study and just moving through this work in general is somehow we think hard conversations are the worst things that would ever happen to us, right? If?

Speaker 3: 40:45

you've lived any number of years, if you were an adult, if you've graduated from school. I can name infinite other things even worse than a hard conversation with another human being, but I digress in terms of the moment that has moved me and stayed with me In college. I needed financial aid, of course, and so I had a work study opportunity. I ended up working in the career center and I became an expert, by the way, at evaluating and reviewing resumes and cover letters.

Speaker 3: 41:16

So if this philanthropy things go away, I have a side business as a career coach right. Love that, but we would also get calls from folks wanting to post on our job board. They had a summer internship. They had this opportunity. One day we got a call from an older gentleman who lived near campus. His name was Morton Mintz and he was a former investigative journalist from the Washington Post. And what?

Speaker 3: 41:40

he was looking for was kind of abstract. None of us were really sure, but we put it up on the site. I went back to look at it and I was like 20 bucks an hour doing something with this older guy. I'll do it, no problem, that's big money to an undergrad, I'll take. It Turns out all that he wanted was someone to sort out his philanthropy. All that he wanted was someone to sort out his philanthropy. So I would arrive maybe every other month to a pile of direct mail solicitations on his desk, everything from doctors without borders to the school.

Speaker 3: 42:10

He graduated from, a school that he washed cars over the summer. Actually to afford all the while. My tuition was $50,000 a year. I digress, bring me back for part two. Tuition was $50,000 a year. I digress, bring me back for part two. Um, but I would sit at his computer and he would pedal on a stationary bike behind me reading the newspaper or a book, and I would ask him how much he wanted to donate. If he had already donated in the last year, I would help write the checks to the nonprofits and I did that regularly until I graduated. At the time I had no interest in philanthropy.

Speaker 3: 42:45

I didn't mean I was generous in church, but I had no concept of what he was really doing and why this was so important to him even after he had largely not lost interest but lost the capacity and patience to sit there and do it himself that he was willing to pay someone for their time so that he could show support to these nonprofit organizations. That, of course, kept sending him mail. He's still alive. I think he's over 100 at this point. It's been a couple of years since I've emailed him, but he remembered me and I'll save the sweetness of our exchange for myself.

Speaker 3: 43:18

But it just holds a special place in my heart because A the universe is always 10 steps ahead of where we think it is. So it was already placing me in this environment where, when you see those handwritten checks from folks, they are so much more impactful than like an ACH transfer. But it also just gives context to why we do this work and how various missions can touch any number of people that we're not thinking about on the day to day. So I hold that experience very close. I know his wife has since passed away, but I thank Morton and I think that I was in position to do that and sit there and say do you want to give 50 or 100?. Do you want to give 25 or 10? It was just perfectly divine April.

Speaker 1: 44:04

what a story. Yeah, I mean, morton, you're a good dude. I just love that the universe has been co-conspiring for you to be in this work.

Speaker 1: 44:17

you know like the way you've ended up in these most random of circumstances that have put you on this trajectory, to even us having this conversation today. That's changed, is changing us in this moment too, so I just thank you for taking us back to that, and that's one that's going to stick with me to such an interesting story. So we got to close out this episode asking for your one good thing. You know this is a piece of advice, could, could be a mantra could be something that you just feel like the conversation is pushing you to share with the community today absolutely so.

Speaker 3: 44:47

With as fiery as I am and with this conversation has been. Uh, my one good thing and it's my primary affirmation for the year is gentleness to be gentle with yourself. We have a tendency to be our own worst critic. That is true for me, that is true for a ton of us, but gentleness will give you space to be your own champion, and I think we need that more than ever Not because of anything you've done.

Speaker 3: 45:17

just as Toni Morrison said, you are not the work that you do. You are the person that you are. So gentle because you are, because you are here, and that is enough.

Speaker 2: 45:27

April Chanel Walker, there you go. I like you so much. I'm just sitting here as you just pull that word out and and many times in this podcast, I feel like, even though we bring guests up to serve the community, I just feel like you just spoke to me and some things I'm going through with my life and I just think that the way you are saying this is both gentle and direct and I think those two things are not mutually exclusive and I think this work can walk with both of those things in hand, and so thank you for empowering us today. I don't say this often, but I'm saying it now. We want to know how people can connect with you and I want to say community, please hire April.

Speaker 2: 46:16

If you are someone who has listened to this and said, you know what I'm feeling the call to do this work inside my organization. I want to call April. I want to work out what this funding is, because this is damn important right now. Talk to us about the ways people can connect with you and tell us where you show up online. Love that, thank you, it was beautiful.

Speaker 3: 46:37

LinkedIn, instagram, my website all philanthropy for the people you can just shoot me an email directly. That's hello at aprilcwalkercom. Um, you won't find me on Facebook or X. Simply those two platforms, linkedin and Instagram, very active there. Um, absolutely, or a quick email, and I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 46:58

April Walker. I like you so much. Such an honor. I, like you too. I'm so grateful.

Speaker 2: 47:02

Thank you for the work you're pouring into this sector. We need more of you, we need more boldness, we need more collective impact. Let's disrupt do-gooders. Thank you, my friend, of course, thank you.

Speaker 1: 47:16

Thanks so much for being here, friends, and you probably hear it in our voices. Thanks so much for being here, friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.

Speaker 2: 47:26

We'd love for you to come join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. Sign up today at weareforgoodcom. Backslash hello.

Speaker 1: 47:36

And one more thing If you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community. Thanks so much, friends. Can't wait to our next conversation.