Unleashing Social Change

Episode 32: Kas Guillozet, "The Complexity of Living in Right Relationship with People and the Earth"

The wildfires that are devastating the West Coast are all the evidence we need that we cannot continue as we have been. Ecosystems cannot recover on their own without human beings seriously changing course. Listen in as Kas Guillozet, Program Director of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, shares her inner thoughts and her life's work with Becky and together they explore how complex it can be to strive to live in 'right relationship' with people and the earth.

Highlights:

• The intersection of trauma and harm to the environment

• The history of racism and sexism within the environmental field

• Being in right relationship

• When do you need to be willing to fight?

• Beyond the Green New Deal, the many ways we can support initiatives

• Avoiding overly simplistic solutions and virtue signaling by embracing complexity

• How "Promise the Pod" just might save Southern Resident Orca Whales from extinction

Links:

www.promisethepod.org

http://www.b-e-f.org/

Documentary: The Biggest Little Farm

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In this episode, we sit down with Katie Hong for a candid conversation about money, power and identity. Having worked in philanthropy for over 15 years, Katie knows the sector can be a significant catalyst for social change. She reflects on how essential it is for those working on the grant-making side of things to face into their own relationship to power and money. Katie and Becky also discuss what people working in philanthropy can do to be most helpful to non-profits in these times. Listen in to learn how those working to give away other people's money can more effectively show up and partner with others in advancing a more just and equitable world.

Katie Hong, Raikes Foundation, Director of Special Initiatives

Show Highlights:

• Katie's honest reflections on what she's learned as a White House Fellow and working for the Gates and Raikes Foundations

• What it's like to have a job that is about giving away other people's money

• How being an immigrant and a woman of color has shaped her and her world-view

• Challenging paternalistic assumptions that sometimes arise in her field

• Philanthropy as risk capital that can either help or harm

• Getting over solution-itis and looking at what happens after

• "We don't have a knowledge problem, we have a power problem."

• The difference between positional power and personal power

Links:

[email protected]

Forbes article, "What is Power, Really?"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickmiller/2018/10/25/what-is-power-really/#357362ef42a7

Books:

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas

Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How it Can Do Better by Rob Reich

Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva

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Join us for an important and eye-opening conversation with Vera Institute Executive Vice President and Special Counsel, Kevin Keenan, as we peel the onion of mass incarceration - and learn what Vera is doing about it.

Highlights:

• The extraordinary harm caused by our system of mass incarceration
• Facing into brutality and racism of our criminal justice system
• The importance of treating everybody with dignity
• The importance of proximity for really being able to tackle complex social problems
• What Vera Institute is doing to create a more just society

Links:

• https://www.vera.org/
• Twitter: @verainstitute @kevinkeenan
• Justin's Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PUPQrF5Qlk
• Bar Chart from PPI: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2018.html
• JustLeadership USA/ Glenn Martin Quote, "Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, but furthest from resources and power.": https://jlusa.org/our-goal/
• On Movement Ecology, AYNI Institute: https://ayni.institute/movementecology/

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Recorded shortly after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Michelle Molitor, Founder of the Equity Lab, joins Becky for a vulnerable and raw conversation about the double whammy of racism and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Little did we know that soon after we recorded this interview, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's murders at the hands of police would spark one of the largest social movements in US history. Michelle reminds us that even through our grief - if we are brave enough - now is the time for us to transform the world forever. How we show up in this moment matters.

Show highlights:

Michelle Molitor - Executive Director, The Equity Lab

• Why we must seed disruption

• The link between personal and organizational and societal transformation

• The importance of decolonizing our spaces and creating equity of voice in every space

• We need to slow down and create space to grieve

• How allowing ourselves to grieve creates the possibility for connection with others

Links:

The Nexus Fellowship: https://www.theequitylab.org/nexus

The Equity Lab blog: https://www.theequitylab.org/blog

Why Everyone Loses When We Don't Talk About Race and Equity: Q&A with Michelle Molitor

https://www.educationpioneers.org/blog/why-everyone-loses-when-we-dont-talk-about-race-and-equity-qa-michelle-molitor

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If you are fortunate enough to live a long life, it is all too likely that you will experience ageism. Sadly, older adults are sometimes viewed as a liability versus the tremendous asset they are. In this episode, Eunice and Becky discuss the importance and power of intergenerational work and Encore's bold reimagining of what it means to be an older adult.

Show Highlights:

• How Eunice's identity as an Asian American woman shapes her work
• How the Gen2Gen project is mobilizing 1 million older adults to show up for kids
• Why innovation is not just for the young
• The wisdom that can come from living through dark times
• Why you shouldn't say, "Ok, Boomer."
• Why young people need older people in their lives.

Links:

https://encore.org/

www.iamgen2gen.org

Eunice's twitter handle: @eunicelnichols

Nuns and Nones: https://www.nunsandnones.org/

Adam Horowitz Poem, "To Our Elders"

http://www.adamhorowitz.org/writing/2020/4/12/whats-your-star-news-a-few-poems-amidst-pandemic

Experience Corps: https://www.aarp.org/experience-corps/

EnCorps STEM Teachers Program: https://www.encorps.org/

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In this episode, listen in on an intimate conversation between Billions Institute Co-founders Becky Margiotta and Joe McCannon as they talk about the adventures along the way of their 11 year friendship.

Joe will discuss his perspective on large-scale change and the power of inviting people to be part of something bigger than themselves. Becky and Joe will also talk about how non-profits can be more innovative and create environments that are exhilarating to work in.

Imagine what kind of world can we create together when we believe we can share power and bring solutions to everyone who can possibly benefit. In this episode, we'll hear about what it takes to build a "fear free army" that can lead change.

Show Highlights:

• The history of Becky and Joe's friendship including the 100,000 Lives an 100,000 Homes campaigns that brought them together

• How to take what you do and make it work in a lot of different environments

• Why an outsized experience can be addictive

• How do shift your mindset from a bad question to a good question

• What it really takes for large-scale change to happen

• Why the size of a soccer team might be the optimal size for a work team, too

• Creating a joyful and unambivalent work environment

• How to transcend the struggle for organizational survival and double-down on your purpose

• The root of many of the world's problems: fear, ignorance, greed and inequity

• What it means to create a "movement of movements"

• How to keep optimism alive in 2020

Links:

• Follow Joe on Twitter: @cjmccannon

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Episode 26: Susan X Jane, "During These Pandemic Times, What Wants to be Unveiled?"

Susan X Jane, Principal of Navigators Consulting

In this fascinating episode, DEI expert and Billions Institute Coach Susan X. Jane shares her insights with Becky about the pandemics given her background in media, culture and apocalyptic studies.

Apocalypse is often misconstrued as "end times" but is really about "unveiling." All apocalyptic movies invite us to question, "What kind of person would you be in that situation?" So in times like today, given our dual pandemic crisis, Susan asks us the same question: who are we, and who do we hope to be, and what do we want to change before the natural tendency to revert to the "way things were." What things can we genuinely change during the pause and collective grieving?

All this and more will be explored as we listen in on Becky and Susan's enlightening conversation. There may never have been a more opportune time to think as social leaders about what how we can re-imagine the world and then get started with taking the steps to make that happen.

Show highlights:

• How the dominant culture always asserts itself in the narratives we see in television and movies and all media we consume

• Recognizing the liberatory counter-narratives revealing themselves as well

• Key questions that arise in apocalyptic stories such as "How would we face an existential threat?" And "What is being currently revealed within us during the double pandemic of covid-19 and racism?"

• What is the post-apocalyptic world we can envision during these times?

• What are the questions we should be asking ourselves? Such as "Who is putting themselves at risk right now so I can be safely at home?"

• Shifting out of the dichotomy of "you and me" how do we get to a more harmonious place of both/and, "you AND me"?

Links:

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Susan's blog at smntks.com

Culturenavigators.com

Twitter: @susanjane19

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In this episode, Becky interviews her favorite person, her amazing wife Christine! They'll discuss everything from how they met 10 years ago (working on homelessness) to learning more about Christine's current work funding grassroots social justice efforts in Los Angeles. You'll hear how Christine's journey has led her to serve as the Executive Director of Social Venture Partners Los Angeles, where she is working on shifting philanthropy from a charity mindset to one deeply rooted in justice.

Over the years, Christine has been working deep on systems change while Becky has been working broad on spread and scale. This combination makes for an interesting conversation to eavesdrop! Listen to them discuss some of the key moments that have shaped Christine into the leader she is today and how she envisions all of us creating a more just and loving world.

Show Highlights:

• How Christine and Becky met working on homelessness
• Collective impact and how to bring philanthropy, business, non-profits, government and voters to tackle big problems together
• The importance of doing iterative and deep root cause analysis
• How to create a liberatory non-profit culture with your employees
• The moral dilemma of accepting funding from companies that are perpetuating harm
• How SVP Los Angeles is working to disrupt the field of philanthropy

Links: svpla.org

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How do we help balance the desire for our kids to know the truth and yet also wanting to shield them from the pain and horrors embedded in history? Dimitry Anselme from Facing History opens this episode's conversation with an interesting provocation that youth enter the conversation about history through moral and ethical terms. It is how we engage them in learning and help them locate themselves within the stories. When we start with, "Your ideas matter, your culture matters, whatever you are bringing into the classroom matters, and instead of trying to erase or assimilate it, we will build upon it," then we have them engaged.

Dimitry's own history of growing up in Kinshasa, where the teaching style was to see the teacher as a beacon of all knowledge and it was disrespectful to ask a question, to building a community of students around him now asking the tough questions is a beautiful journey we explore in today's episode. Our democracy is fragile and if we wish to protect it, we need to continue to nurture the critical thinking of our students.

Show Highlights:

• What is Facing History and Ourselves and their mission
• Dimitry's personal story for how he came to this work from teaching and could not find resources as a young Black teacher on how to help his students think critically and their place in history
• Expanding from Holocaust to emergence of racist thinking, the eugenics movement and race membership, Civil Rights movement and the Reconstruction Era
• Social Emotional Learning – more kids are now able to identify racism, homophobia, and are attuned to it happening
• Pedogogy of the Oppressed – valuing what you think. Your questions are valid is incredibly affirming.
• Practices we can adopt to become better teachers and the mindset shift to create lifelong learners which can be tough when emphasis is on numbers and grades and passing a test
• How do we bring equity in more fragile communities? Do the students feel like they are rightful contributors of society?
• Resources varying from one school to another - Brown vs. Brown was not about segregation and integration, it was about equal access to resources, textbooks, etc.
• The idea is it is always a march towards progress – teaching history is really teaching how we've taken five steps forward, 2 steps back
• Re-dedicating yourself to the mission of building the society you hope to have
• Navigating organizational change over time. What is the rationale for changing something that is going well? Why do we want to work at a particular scale?
• Diffusion of Innovation Curve. Slowing down and letting early adopters teach you and get it right so that it is easier to get to the late adopters because concerns and tests have been addressed prior.
• The scaling plan of Facing History developed during two Skid Row Schools to now 100,000 educators
• Willingness and tolerance for failure and changing the culture for this
• Building tolerance for "I don't know if this is going to work"
• You can build up a system where you will know fast if it is not working
• In leadership, imagining who will be and where we will be in 20-30 years requires steady discipline

Links:

Facinghistory.org

Diffusion of Innovation Curve

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