"I don't know if we're going to win, but we got our best people working on it."

Darren Isom grew up as part of "Generation Integration" in New Orleans, the only generation between legal segregation and white flight. Now, he's helping philanthropy understand that it's not the strategist. It's the servant.

This conversation will change how you think about courage, joy, and who gets to build the future.

In this episode of Funding Bravely, host Marvin Smith sits down with Darren Isom, partner at Bridgespan Group and host of Dreaming in Color, to explore what courage looks like when you realize the world you normalized was actually radical.

Darren takes us back to 1980s New Orleans, where his parents met integrating a white high school (his mom is the same age as Ruby Bridges). He grew up singing the Beatles with Ms. Ziegler, a Black teacher with an afro "too late to be wearing one," in a school that was one-third Black, one-third white, one-third other, a world built on the belief that integration, not assimilation, was possible.

That upbringing shaped everything about how he works today.

This conversation unpacks:

• Why joy and optimism are acts of resistance, especially for Black Americans
• The moment funders realize: "You thought you were Gryffindor, but you might be a Death Eater"
• Why private sector rules don't transfer to nonprofit work (and never did)
• How younger generations are asking: How do we repair the harm our wealth created?
• Why this moment mirrors post-Reconstruction—and what the Harlem Renaissance teaches us about planting seeds
• The shift from funders as strategists to funders as servants with proximity to impact
• Why Black genius, when given space to create (not just navigate broken things), creates beautiful things

Darren reminds us: "Our torchbearers are most important when it's dark out."

This isn't about protecting systems. It's about building new ones.

 TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 - Joy and optimism as acts of resistance
• 4:00 - Growing up as "Generation Integration" in New Orleans
• 8:00 - His parents met integrating a white high school (mom is Ruby Bridges' age)
• 12:00 - The Willow School: Singing Beatles, normalizing Black excellence
• 16:00 - How naming shapes power in philanthropy
• 20:00 - The shift: Funders as servants, not strategists
• 24:00 - "You might be a Death Eater": When funders realize their wealth caused harm
• 28:00 - A billion dollars is 1,000 millions—so why are we fighting over $100K grants?
• 32:00 - "This is what winning looks like" (Irvishie Vait's wisdom)
• 36:00 - Bright spots: High-network donors spending down, not hoarding
• 40:00 - Post-Reconstruction parallels: Planting seeds we won't see grow
• 44:00 - Where Darren finds community and why Black Americans seek beauty
• 48:00 - "Torchbearers shine when it's dark out"

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Dreaming in Color podcast (5 seasons available)

• Sherrilyn Ifill's piece on post-Reconstruction parallels

• Donors of Color Network