Welcome to episode 4 of Living For Purpose podcast – a show that is about creating wellness and balance while working for purpose as a frontline fundraiser.

Today’s guest is Tesha McCord Poe, Founder and CEO of Joy-Raising, a fundraising and diversity consultancy that is unafraid to have discussions about money and race in order to help organizations move forward and do great things.

In this conversation, we touch on her process of building Joy-Raising, and talk the impact Tesha wants to have on the Joy-Raising journey and about the importance of making our fundraising practices more inclusive.

Tune in and let’s unpack some practices on how your organization, and everyone in philanthropy, can create more inclusive philanthropy programs and make our work even better. 

The Birth of Joy-Raising

1:34

To give a brief background, Tesha has been involved in many diverse works – fundraising, development, consulting, equity inclusion etc. Tesha needed a name for her venture that could cover everything that she is passionate about. Tesha’s middle name is Joy. And in all that she does, it is rooted from doing things with joy. At the end of the day, all she wants to do is to help people to have more joy in their lives. And the “Raising” comes from fundraising. That’s how she coined her business’ name Joy-Raising.

2:55

According to Tesha, the dash in between joy and raising is intentional. It started with the simple fact that Joy-Raising without the dash was not available as a URL, but that with the dash, it reminded her of the poem, The Dash Poem. It talks about the importance of the “dash” that is written in between the date of a person’s birth and the date of their passing. The “dash” in the middle part is what we can actually control. It is the years in between those two significant dates that we need to focus on and that reminds us to live for today. 

3:33

Tesha’s Joy-Raising is a culmination of all the things that she is passionate about. She believes that we have a lot of choice in what we do every day. For Tesha, it's all about making the most of her dash.

Goals of Joy-Raising

4:23

Joy-Raising has two major goals. One is to have more people of color involved in philanthropy as professionals and as donors. Then the other is to have everyone who works in philanthropy to do that work more inclusively.

Advice to a Development Department that is Getting Started with this Work

5:20

It’s important to not think that your encompassing fundraising goals and working on inclusivity are at odds with each other. We can start by setting that thought aside. Being rooted in how we can live out our mission and values through the work that we do in philanthropy, and doing that inclusively, that's a really good start.

6:31

Also, start thinking about how you would want to be treated if you are a beneficiary of this work. Would you want to be characterized or portrayed in the ways that you are doing as a fundraising shop?

7:19

A communications audit might help you to build up those muscles so that you're using that lens more readily. Examining specific examples of things that you are doing. Use set of principles or values that you have and you can hold tight to in order to make choices are more aligned with your goals.

Ongoing Projects of Joy-Raising and Their Plans in the Pipeline

8:54

With the onset of the pandemic, being in a virtual space, Tesha realized that there...