Dr. Aisha Rousseau, Ph.D., CRC. [Starting at 03:35]: So we’re going to start off by identifying the differences between equity and equality. These are two terms that are so oftentimes interchanged and used in various ways that are not necessarily what we are thinking when we think about equity.

I’m going to start off with equality. Equality, as it’s defined here, it’s equal participation. Everybody in this room gets the same thing. Regardless of where you started from, regardless of what your needs are, everybody gets the exact same thing. That’s what equality is about. An example I gave someone the other day, we were talking about distributing gift cards for some folks, and the question came up…

The idea was that everybody is having trouble making ends meet. Is there, as inflation is going up and, for many people, paychecks are staying the same, and/or decreasing. And so distributing gift cards to everyone, that means to the family of eight, or the family of one who’s making half a million dollars, a gift card out to everyone.

And so someone described that, this is what we need to be doing. This is the work of equity. And I shared, no, I don’t negate that folks are having hard times and we need to consider distribution, but that is the work of equality. So if you’re saying that, a family of eight, on an income of $30,000, getting a $20 gift card is the same as a family of one with an income of half a million dollars, that’s equality for sure.

Equity, however, is the state, quality, or ideal of being just, impartial, and fair. Sometimes this term is used synonymously with fairness and justice.

I hesitate sometimes in utilizing it synonymously with the word justice, because the two do not always mean the same. I always take a great pause when I hear that the two words are used interchangeably, but there are times when it is appropriate. But again, equity is saying the same example of gift cards for food.

The family of eight making $30,000 – They may be eligible for a gift card that will respond to a family of eight versus a family of one receiving a gift card at the exact same amount. And so, when we talk about equity work, it does matter where somebody starts. It does matter what resources are available to them.

That’s the present day. And oftentimes the present day is impacted by history, or historical impact. So it may not necessarily be just what is happening today, but how all of this may have had a layered effect.

I love this example, and I’m actually going to go from the right to the left in this example. This was by Swindon, Parker, and Monaghan. You’ll see a lot of different visuals out here that compare equity and equality together, but equality, as you can see in the far right is, again, everybody’s starting at the same exact place. It doesn’t matter what their resources or their needs are, everybody gets the same thing.

That’s an equality and equity approach. The one in the middle is saying, you know what? We recognize that the tall person on the left, if there’s a fence there, may look a little different for them. The wheelchair user needs a ramp in order for everybody to have the same vantage point. Everybody is going to need something different.

So folks are starting from a different place. And so this idea of, well, why don’t we just treat everyone the same? That’s what equality is encouraging. Let’s just treat everybody the same. We’re all, give everybody the gift, the $20 gift card. Doesn’t matter how many are in the family. Doesn’t matter how much money they are making. Everybody is treated the same.

My husband, bless his heart, I know he probably gets tired of me listening to the news. He’s not as much of a news junkie as I am. And I was saying to him this morning, I was fascinated. I was actually up at three o’clock this morning, reading the stories on Instagram or listening to the stories and reading some news stories about the responses of folks about Biden’s loan repayment or loan assistance at $10,000 or $20,000, and I was fascinated at the folks, the arguments that were on both sides, those that were for it, those that were against it.

Some people who would, in general, maybe one might think that they will be for it, but because they’ve paid off their own student loans, there is this idea of, “How dare you! If I had to fight and struggle, you need to fight and struggle too.”

We don’t have to go to arbitrary examples. We have present day, everyday examples that are coming up in this sphere. And so I encourage you, I challenge you as different policies come out, different practices are put in place for various things, to run it through this equity versus equality lens in your own mind to determine, are we talking about addressing things from an equitable approach, or are we just providing a cookie cutter approach to everyone?

Oh, this is fun. I get to talk about SPIN. I’m going to slide my little tab over so I can see everybody here. Is anyone familiar with SPIN? Yes. Couple of head nods. I love it. SPIN is a philanthropic giving circle of Black women in Denver who leverage our collective strengths in order to positively impact historically marginalized women and adolescents and girls.

I’m always proud to talk about the work that SPIN is doing. When I moved to Denver and was making decisions about organizations that I might be interested in, SPIN really stood out to me because of the philanthropic work as a giving circle that we’re doing, and also that they are very clear about acknowledging the historical inequities and disparities that have happened.

Not just with Black folks, but particularly with Black women and adolescent girls. It was encouraging for me to be among a group of like-minded [people], and yet differently-minded at the same time. I actually love stuff like that. I’m a graduate of Spelman. Sometimes people think, oh, you went to Spelman. All the women are alike, I’m like, not hardly. And that’s one of the things that I love.

The common factor that we had is that we are Black women. However, difference of thought, difference of opinion and SPIN is, just for me, a microcosm of that, but all committed to the cause of ensuring that historically marginalized women and adolescent girls are uplifted in community.

As we talk about strategies, one of the things that I encourage is to follow the money. Look at where giving circles or philanthropic organizations that are local to you, or maybe not even local, are lending and lending their hand and/or channeling their resources.

One of the examples that I give, coming up for us here, SPIN. Today’s Thursday, tomorrow is that we will be issuing out grants. It’s our grant giving cycle, and we are so excited. I don’t know, it’s like. I don’t know. Maybe if this is how Oprah feels when she’s like, “You get a car! You get a car, everybody gets a car!”

We’re so amped about distributing these funds because we’ve done a lot of the legwork. We’ve done the legwork to go out and identify, who are these organizations? Who are these nonprofits that are doing the work with historically marginalized women and girls at the forefront of their mind? Who are they?

And we want to support them and so follow the money. As we talk about other giving circles that may not necessarily focus on communities of color, tap into networking with giving circles of color to see where are you channeling your money and why are you channeling it there?

We even encourage folks. It’s always interesting as a giving circle when we go through our giving log sporadically each year or periodically each year. We’re always intrigued. There are various individuals there. You know, what comes to mind for me most readily is, there is a Jewish woman in town who was like, “I just hadn’t been familiar with the work of what a Black woman focused giving circle does.”

And so in turn, she supported us. She supports us, through funding, and then we turn around and we support the community. That’s an excellent example of following the money. And so, I’d be remiss not to say here that SPIN accepts and loves to receive donations from various folks all across the country so that we can continue our work and support our local organizations that are focused on supporting historically marginalized women and girls.

The other thing that it’s important in following the money is that it’s not uncommon oftentimes for folks to say, oh, I’m familiar with this organization, or I’m familiar with that organization. And so the same organizations tend to rise to the top and receive funding.

But that’s one of the wonderful things about a giving circle that has this myopic focus. And I say that in a positive way, not a negative way. It has this myopic focus of saying, we are committed to digging into some of these other organizations that we may not necessarily know about every day or hear about every day, and supporting them so that they can grow and continue to thrive and do the work that they know that they are proposed here to do.

And so I think about Denver as a great example. We have several, a couple of Latina giving circles. DAAP is our brother organization, if you will, consisting of African-American men and giving circles. And then there’s a Latino male giving circle as well. We are all very clear about supporting each other, even if people are in need of funding, if they’re not necessarily the correct funding source or, we don’t hesitate to say, well, hey, let me refer you over to DAAP, or let me refer you over to LatinasGive.

There’s this understood network, understood partnership. I’ll pause here. I was sharing with Kelsey earlier, this is kind of fresh on my mind, a bit of a bunny trail we’ll go down here. I moved my parents recently here to Denver. And, I am the proud child of two civil rights babies. Both of my folks are from Alabama, my mom from Birmingham, my dad from a place that no one’s ever heard of. And, I was having a conversation with my father just earlier today about, just challenges sometimes, right? And being the Chief Equity Officer, sometimes there are challenges that I know that I stand on the shoulders of those that have come before me.

It’s always just a boost of invigoration to hear from this 80 year old who is telling me, this is how we go about doing [this]. You all call it equity work. We called it race work, but this is how you go about doing this work. And so today was so powerful. Probably not even an hour ago, he shared with me, “Aisha, it is critical. It is vitally important that we carry on the messaging and the actions of what Dr. King charged us with.”

My father marched with Dr. King. My mother always clarifies, oftentimes I lump ’em together and I say, my mom and dad marched with Dr. King. And she’s like, I didn’t march with Dr. King. She marched with his lieutenant. If you all saw Selma, the person that Common played is who my mom marched in the Civil Rights Movement. They marched with James Bevel and Dr. King and were jailed with both of them for significant periods of time as young people.

And so my dad shared a message with me today and reminded me, “Aisha, there is this insidious 21st century version of racism, that will try to pit not only individuals, but larger racial groups against each other as if we can afford to do that. But the message that Dr. King always shared was that we have to come together. That is the only way that we push forward the message of equity. That is the only way that we can be purposeful in ensuring that racism doesn’t live on.”

And while admittedly there is so much work to be done, when I think about the support, when I think of, as an example, the woman from the Jewish community who said, I want to support your organization and I want to support the things that you were doing, that’s the messaging of making sure that equity is continuing forward.

So I think about that as a pivotal strategy. Follow the money, understand why giving circles, particularly giving circles of color, are giving, where they are giving, what is the rationale, what’s the heartbeat of the individuals and the organizations that they are supporting.

So what kind of tools are best used to uplift systemic change in Black and brown communities? Listen, I’m preaching to the choir. This is what philanthropy is all about, right? We use our collective funds to ensure those folks who are doing the work from day to day, I like to use the term equity in action, are able to be able to go out and do what they do so well.

Oftentimes, those organizations aren’t necessarily the great people that are fundraisers. That’s not necessarily always their forte, but to have philanthropists – and I don’t know about you all, but I don’t take that term lightly. When we talk about philanthropists coming together, that’s like a room full of do-gooders. Like you can’t ask for anything more than that. That’s just like, man, that’s like the heartbeat of how things are thriving because folks understand that it is the right thing to do and understand that we’re putting our money where our mouth is.

Those are the types of tools that we can use to continue to uplift and empower these organizations, not just in funds, but also in opportunity to highlight these many of us operate, in various networks, in various circles that many of the folks who we are supporting, through our philanthropic organizations, may never have access to. But we have the ability not to just invite people to the table, but to invite them to the table, and then we back away and allow their voices to be heard in those spaces.

What a powerful way to do that. Both with our funds and our ability to open doors, that may or may not under normal circumstances be an opportunity for folks to have. And so, we do sit in a seat of influence as philanthropists. And so making sure that we are using these seats of influence to the best of our ability and to the fullness that we are able to.

And so as this type of work continues forward, I encourage you all to be uncomfortable or to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. You know, that means that you may be invited into spaces where there are questions or conversations about race as it pertains to philanthropic work.

Be the voice to speak up, to share some of the highlights that are shared here today. We’re not talking about equality, we’re talking about equity. And because so many of our communities that have been pushed out to the margins of society are not starting in the same place, then we have the responsibility, we have the ownership, we have the opportunity to sow into or give into these areas, such that we are leveling the playing field and uplifting on those folks who have often been pushed to the margins of society.

Before moving onto the subject of allies and allyship, Dr. Rousseau took a few questions from the audience on what had been discussed so far. 

Dr. Aisha Rousseau: I want to jump right back in, and actually Kelsey, you don’t have to share a slide cuz it’s not on there. It’s actually going to be more so on the one page that I’m sharing with you all. And it’s identifying when we talk about strategies, some of the ways in which we can strategize as allies.

We often use this term, of being an ally or allyship, but there are all different types of allies. There are sponsors. Those are people who vocally support the work of colleagues who are often underrepresented. There may be circles and or community groups of color that represent the work, that are from underrepresented or marginalized communities, and the sponsor can either be a vocal supporter of that work saying, “Hey, you know what? I am lifting them, uplifting them in this space, giving them an opportunity, giving them a platform in this particular space.”

Champions are similar, another type of ally, and champions are similar to sponsors except they tend to do this type of uplifting in more public venues.

So as we were talking about partnering with your colleagues and your giving circles, that might be more of a sponsor. That might be sitting down having drinks and charcuterie with a couple of your giving circle friends. That could be a sponsor. But then a champion might be using that platform in a more public way to uplift the work that some of these other organizations are doing.

Another type of ally that’s common is an amplifier. An amplifier ensures that marginalized voices are heard. So for the folks who identify, “Hey, you know what, we think that this equity work is bunk.” Sometimes that amplifier may have a relationship, whether they realize it or not, or sit in a similar seat of power where they can identify and have a conversation, or maybe even just in their own right, amplify marginalized voices such that they are heard and respected.

One example being how I was sharing, earlier, about inviting folks with disabilities to the table. I appreciate that folks respect my voice and respect that this is my research area in the area of professionalism. And so because of that, I ensure that I am highlighting and amplifying the voices of folks with disabilities who may not have an opportunity to serve in these particular roles.

And then [there is] an advocate. An advocate uses their power and influence to bring other peers from underrepresented groups into highly exclusive circles. We all know someone who’s brought us into a space or we’ve brought them into spaces that were able to use our sphere of power and influence.

We talked a lot about power and influence being around gender or about race, but there are a myriad of circles or areas or arenas of power and influence that oftentimes we don’t think about. I recognize that, as a person, not identifying as a person with disability or [identifying as] an able-bodied person, that there is a level of privilege that I have with that in the United States.

Using that power and influence to ensure that peers are able to operate and be brought into exclusive circles that maybe they wouldn’t normally have been invited into.

The scholar, I imagine some of you, many of you in this room might be the ally that’s a scholar. That’s the person that seeks to learn as much as they can about the challenges and the prejudice faced by marginalized communities.

And then, they’re not inserting their own opinions or experiences, but instead they are using their learning opportunity to listen. And to learn. And then they may use that coupled with other areas where they are amplifying, but not over the marginalized communities, but as a way to uplift

And then one of the last two is an upstander. They act as the opposite of a bystander, right? So you think of a bystander, they’re just standing by kind of watching what’s happening. Yeah, I’m taking in the information, but child, I’m not going to be able to comment on that. That just is what it is. An upstander is the polar opposite. The upstander is when you go in the airport and you see the signs for human trafficking and they’re like, when you see something, say something.

That’s the upstander. That’s the person that my husband jokes about sometimes. He says, “Sometimes you don’t think to take your cape off. You just like, stop and help anybody. You jump in. You don’t even think about it.” Maybe I might be putting harm in the way. I’m like, yeah. I’m like, I think that everybody thinks like that.

And he’s like, “No, love. Everybody does not think like that.” That’s the upstander, right? Like, there’s just no way it’s going down on my watch. You gotta speak up, you gotta stand up, you gotta say something cuz when you know better, you cannot stay silent. That’s an upstander, that’s a form of an ally.

And then the last one that I’ll highlight is the confidant. That’s the person, I imagine many of you are also those, a confidant ally in this space. Those are individuals who create a safe space for members of underrepresented communities to express their fears, their frustrations, their needs.

It can be, let me just be a sounding board. We had a racial incident that happened earlier today, and I appreciate one of my Latina colleagues who I was able to call immediately and just say, what do you think about this? Like, I have some jumbled thoughts and I need to think this through. We got on the phone with another girlfriend of ours who is an immigrant, and we tossed this idea around to say different perspectives, different thoughts.

It was a safe space where we could bring it all to the table and have a conversation such that when we all walked away, we could appreciate that we all have a sphere of influence and then we all have a perspective. But we can be safe enough with each other to have these conversations, to challenge our thoughts, and also encourage us not to be bystanders, but to speak up. When we see something, we say something.

And so I challenge you, with these seven perspectives of being an ally. We’ll share this in the one pager that’s being distributed.The sponsor, the champion, the amplifier, the advocate, the scholar. the upstander, the confidant. Find yourself in one of these as an ally and determine what you have the ability to do.

That may look different for every one of us here. My husband says I’m an upstander. That is definitely not him, but he is a confidant for sure. You can come into a conversation and it’s a no judgment zone for him to be able to ask questions. He’s going to ask a million questions, to ask questions and help unpack someone’s thinking about something.

We all have these gifts and these talents and these skills inside of us. I think about superheroes, right? Like we use our power for good. Oh, I love that. And I just want to know too, I think a lot of folks, particularly over the last 2, 3, 5 years, they expect that everybody needs to be, let’s see, I want to remember the upstander, right?

But we, every single person in that list, are critical to get this work done and transform the world and build a future. We want to have a few minutes left, but I want to invite Shani to just offer some last bit of wisdom and insight.

Shani Hilliard: Thank you. Thank you Dr. Aisha and Kelsey. I appreciate, again, this opportunity. One quick share I wanted to just leave you guys with, again, I’m always reflecting on legacy and where we’re headed and just kind of thinking back on a few years ago. SPIN was discussing our balance strategy and sisterhood, and we were looking at what we were reflecting in society.

And one of the things that we talked about was strategy and innovation and/or innovation strategy, I should say. So as you know, strategy is about making choices between a number of feasible options, right? To have the best chance at winning. And innovation is just one of the things or one of the means to achieve our strategic goal.

And so one of the things that I would want to part with you guys to think about is, what is your innovation strategy? Because to me, innovation strategy is creating a new value, right? With people who are willing to use and we hope, pay for. Whereas strategy is the plan for it to harness the example, the work, in achieving that giving goal.

Since that’s the top topic right now. So it’s not about tactics, right? It’s not a challenge. It’s about mapping out what your organization’s mission is. And I think that’s something, and Dr. Aisha, I think you can attest to this. When we do our yearly retreat, we always talk about what are the barriers to the work that we do, right?

Because we never want to operate in any sort of fear. And we also want to think about, what are our basic needs? So, I know that we had explored Maslow’s Law or rule, which is think about what you hear, think about where you’re speaking from. Think about your core purpose when bringing on members, or what your top criteria is as an organization.

So I think why we’ve been so influential and critical in the giving work that we do is because we know what our social power is. So as allies, those of you interested in combining your work with people of color, think about that operation system and what your power base is.

Our consultant was talking about the difference between legitimate power, expert power, reverent power, reward power, and coercive power. So if that makes sense, if that resonates with any of you, I think that that’s what’s helped us champion and avoid organizational burnout because as we all know, in giving circles, we get tired and it gets hard sometimes.

You know, as women it gets hard sometimes I feel like we carry so much in all of the areas of our world. So I just wanted to give you some parting words, to think about and maybe, a couple questions of, what do I need to engage people and things like that.

So, I know Dr. Aisha gave a great deck. I’m always enamored to hear her speak about her journey and the roots that she comes from, but I just wanted to give you all some giving love, if you will, to part with, so thank you for that.