Ep 216: Just Fund Me! (with Iara Peng)

Summary

Nonprofits Are Messy: Lessons in Leadership | Fundraising | Board Development | Communications

Episode 216: Just Fund Me! (with Yada Peng) Release Date: November 23, 2024

In Episode 216 of "Nonprofits Are Messy," host Joan Garry engages in a profound conversation with Yada Peng, a serial entrepreneur dedicated to building critical social justice infrastructure. Peng is the founder and CEO of Just Fund, an innovative nonprofit revolutionizing the way funding is distributed to historically excluded communities. This detailed summary captures the essence of their discussion, highlighting key insights, lessons, and inspiring stories that underscore the importance of power, trust, and strategic funding in the nonprofit sector.

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1. Introduction and Background

Joan Garry introduces Yada Peng by highlighting her extensive experience in advocating for marginalized communities. Peng’s work focuses on understanding and redistributing power to historically excluded groups. With over 25 years of building organizations that address systemic injustices, Peng’s entrepreneurial spirit is evident in her ventures, including Prism, an independent newsroom led by journalists of color, and her current project, Just Fund.

Joan Garry [00:00]: "Her guest today thinks a lot about power, where it lives, how to access it, and how to move it to historically excluded communities."

2. Early Life and Motivation

Peng shares her personal journey, rooted in experiences of invisibility and discrimination. As the daughter of a Chinese father and a Brazilian mother, growing up in the U.S. South exposed her to profound injustices, shaping her commitment to social justice.

Yada Peng [04:20]: "I remember, you know, being four years old and walking down the street holding my dad's hand in Florence, Alabama and having people throw rocks at my dad."

3. Transition to Entrepreneurship

Peng discusses the transition from working within organizations to founding her own nonprofits. She credits mentorship and the supportive network of women from the Philanthropist Workshop for empowering her to identify and address systemic problems through entrepreneurship.

Yada Peng [06:01]: "It was just around, hey, here's a problem. How can I address it?"

4. Common Theme: Power and Equity

A recurring theme in Peng’s work is the redistribution of power to empower frontline organizations. She emphasizes the importance of funding those closest to the issues to foster systemic change.

Yada Peng [12:48]: "The theme is really around improving conditions for people, you know, making sure that communities can thrive."

5. Experience at Solidaire

Peng reflects on her tenure at Solidaire, a network aiming to move money in solidarity with social movements. This experience was pivotal, highlighting the gaps in philanthropic practices and inspiring the creation of Prism and Just Fund.

Yada Peng [14:36]: "What I saw there was really eye-opening... organizations like Southerners Organizing on a New Ground... needed the money to do incredible work, but no one knew about them."

6. Creating Just Fund: Origin and Vision

Just Fund emerged from the realization that existing philanthropic systems were inefficient in distributing resources to deserving organizations. Peng collaborated with other funds to create a common application platform that streamlines funding processes, enhancing trust, transparency, and accountability.

Yada Peng [18:14]: "How do we make it easier for groups like that to get funding?... we spent a lot of time rolling up our sleeves around what could this Common app look like?"

7. How Just Fund Works

Just Fund operates as a common grant application platform, allowing nonprofits to apply to multiple funders simultaneously. This approach saves time and resources, enabling funders to track funding gaps and allocate resources more strategically.

Yada Peng [23:04]: "We set out to solve a specific problem in front of us... and then pivot and see what works."

8. Funding and Sustainability

Currently, Just Fund is partially self-sustaining, with 51% of its operating budget derived from fees paid by foundations and funders using its platform. Peng envisions reaching full sustainability by increasing operational revenue while continuing to scale its impact.

Yada Peng [21:43]: "51% of our operating budget comes from fees... foundations pay us to run their grant cycles on Just Fund."

9. Marketing and Adoption

Just Fund relies heavily on word-of-mouth marketing, with existing users recommending the platform to others. This grassroots approach fosters a community-driven growth model, emphasizing trust and proven efficacy.

Yada Peng [24:30]: "It's been a lot of word of mouth... existing funders referring other funders into us."

10. Notable Success Stories

Peng highlights several success stories from Just Fund users, notably Emergent Fund, which has distributed $12 million through 12,000 grants. These examples demonstrate the platform’s ability to facilitate rapid and effective resource distribution.

Yada Peng [28:44]: "Emergent Fund... moved $12 million in just a few years through 12,000 grants."

11. Trust-Based Philanthropy and Power Dynamics

A significant portion of the discussion centers on trust-based philanthropy. Peng argues that moving money quickly and building trust-filled relationships between funders and grantees are essential for empowering communities and fostering sustained social change.

Yada Peng [33:45]: "Moving money at the speed of trust means you and I have to be in trust-filled relationships to move money."

12. Advice and Key Takeaways

Peng offers valuable advice to nonprofit leaders and funders. She emphasizes the importance of trusting oneself, building supportive communities, and embracing risk and failure as pathways to innovative solutions.

Yada Peng [41:29]: "Trust yourself... Surrounding yourself with people who believe in you is so important."

Yada Peng [43:57]: "Take risk... The faster we fail, the faster we're going to get to that winning solution."

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Concluding Thoughts

Yada Peng’s insights in this episode underscore the transformative potential of strategic funding and trust-based relationships in the nonprofit sector. By simplifying the funding process and prioritizing trust, Just Fund empowers organizations to thrive and drive meaningful social change. Joan Garry and Yada Peng's conversation serves as an inspiring guide for nonprofit leaders aiming to navigate the complexities of funding, leadership, and community empowerment.

For more information on Just Fund and to explore opportunities, visit Just Fund.

Transcript

[Joan Gary]

So I know quite a bit about marginalized communities. Feeling Invisible My decade of leadership at GLAAD was my way of advocating for the power that comes with visibility, using the media as a critical platform to amplify visibility. My guest today thinks a lot about power, where it lives, how to access it, and how to move it to historically excluded communities. This has led her to spend the last 25 years building things that weren't there. She's a serial entrepreneur. One of her early endeavors was an organization called prism, an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of color. She understood, as we did at glaad, that visibility and storytelling is actually a form of power. Her current adventure is called Just Fund, and we'll talk a lot about its origin, the growth of collaborative funds, and about unlocking capital so communities can thrive. We'll also talk about the problematic premise that you can only have power when you have resources. Let's be real, no one can afford to sit around and wait to be saved by someone handing them resources or power. And one last tease. Our guest today believes that money moves at the speed of trust, so we'll unpack that one too. You'll be really glad you took time to listen to this conversation. It's conversations like these that make me really lucky to be a podcast host. Greetings and welcome to Nonprofits Are Messy. I'm your host, Joan Gary, founder of the Nonprofit Leadership Lab, where we help smaller nonprofits thrive. I'm also a strategic advisor for executive directors and boards of larger nonprofits. I'm a frequent keynote speaker, a blogger, and an author on all things leadership and management. You can learn [e-mail] I think of myself as a woman with a mission to fuel the leadership of the nonprofit sector. My goal with each episode is to dig deep into an issue I know that nonprofit leaders are grappling with by finding just the right person to offer you advice and insights. Today is no exception. Yada Peng is a serial entrepreneur dedicated to building critical social justice infrastructure to achieve a more just, equitable and reflective democracy. She is the founder and CEO of Just Fund, an innovative nonprofit that connects funders directly to organizations to help move resources more quickly while facilitating greater trust, transparency, and accountability in philanthropy. Just Fund is also the nation's first common application platform, which has moved over $280 million to historically excluded and chronically underfunded communities around the country while saving applicants over 38 years of time. She's the founder and board chair of Democracy Democratizing Philanthropy Project, a nonprofit that shifts power to frontline organizations by helping them build long term, reliable small donor revenue. As I mentioned earlier, she also founded prism, a nonprofit organization that challenges dominant, toxic national narratives by centering people who are close closest to the issues and amplifying their ideas, experiences and solutions. In addition to building critical infrastructure to advance social and racial justice, Yara serves on a number of boards, including board chair of the East Bay Community Foundation. She's also on the executive committee of the Donors of Color Network. And in her spare time, she raises three children with her husband at the Bay Area. I love reading these bios, but yours in particular says so much about your determination, your creativity and your values. So I just wanted to say thank you very much for your quarter century of work in this space and for joining us today.

[Yada Peng]

I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Joan Gary]

Pleasure. So you've essentially spent your entire professional career as this kind of serial entrepreneur in this space. I had a guest on a while back who was driving campaigns for social justice when he was like 11. Is that who you were at 11 or did you have an aha moment at some later point? I always like to hear about how people find themselves on the journey.

[Yada Peng]

What a great story from your other guest. Now, when I was 11, I wasn't building those campaigns, but I was experiencing injustices and trying to make sense of them. You know, I'm the first family member born in the United States. I'm a daughter to a Chinese father and to a Brazilian mom. And I grew up in the US South. So I was, you know, born in Atlanta, Georgia, grew up in Florence, Alabama, lived in Lakeland, Florida. And I remember, you know, being four years old and walking down the street holding my dad's hand in Florence, Alabama and having people throw rocks at my dad. You know, so early on in my life I had this feeling of being othered without having the that language or that framework, but just really knowing that I didn't belong, you know. And later on when I was 16 is when I was exposed to Christianity and I feel like I finally found a home in that space where I felt included and I promptly, you know, just dove into service and doing everything I could to help others. And that kind of identity gave me a real purpose in my early, you know, teenage life. And in after college, I I got exposed to this concept of participatory democracy. I don't know if you've heard of the Kettering foundation or National Issues Forums, but this idea that you can deliberate, you know, and really talk about issues to understand how people think about different issues facing our country and what they're willing to do about them. So I really got excited about finding my own purpose and. And starting to take action myself around these systemic problems that I was experiencing myself, but also seeing.

[Joan Gary]

And how did you move from working with other organizations to starting your own? That's because that's a leap, right?

[Yada Peng]

You know, I think it. It for sure, it can be. It's a leap for me. It's around. It started around identifying problems. You know, I didn't set out to say, I'm going to build all of these organizations. I'm going to build 10, you know, nonprofit organizations. It was just around, hey, here's a problem. How can I address it? And really, there was a. There was a group of women from the philanthropist workshop who wanted to start a collaborative fund 25 years ago called the Youth Justice Funding Collaborative. And I remember my friend Annie Borja was like, hey, you should apply for this. And I thought, I don't have any business being a founding executive director of a collaborative fund, but, okay, I'll apply. And they hired me, you know, and it was in that network full of these amazing, supportive women where I learned how to build infrastructure. You know, I remember they said to me in the in after they hired me, we want you to put policies and procedures in place.

[Joan Gary]

And I was like, procedures?

[Yada Peng]

I ran down the market and I.

[Joan Gary]

Did you find, like, Non Profits for Dummies or policies and procedures 101 or something?

[Yada Peng]

I was like, is there a section on policies and procedures? And I went and bought all these little books around, you know, setting up policies and procedures. I'm not kidding.

[Joan Gary]

And.

[Yada Peng]

And learned. Very supportive. And I, you know, I have a master's in nonprofit management, but that didn't really help me as much as those little books did.

[Joan Gary]

Good to know. Good to know if you're thinking about getting that master's degree.

[Yada Peng]

Exactly. Well, the master's degree helped in some ways, but those little books helped me, you know, to learn how to build something that could sustain over time. And that collaborative fund is still in existence. And it was those women who took a chance on me, mentored me, believed in me, and allowed me to really learn how to build. And it was through Youth Justice Funding Collaborative that I got the bug to build. And I realized I was really, you know, good at it. You kind of find something that you're passionate about, that you're good at, and, you know, that's where you want to stay. And that was the beginning of, you know, Youth Justice Funding Collaborative, Young People for Young Elected Officials Network and so many others. Prism Democratizing philanthropy. Just fund really understanding and knowing how to build different pieces of infrastructure based on what you see is needed.

[Joan Gary]

I always thought, because I came from the private sector and I was part of the management team that launched mtv, which is hardly a social justice work, but nonetheless, I got the startup bug right. And I do think that what's interesting about your journey and all of these startups is that I do think that there's a real alignment with a really thriving nonprofit and being a really strong startup, like, you're constantly in that mode of trying something new. Under resourced, a sense of urgency. When I went into the public sector, I didn't realize how similar some things were going to feel. I also didn't realize how different some things are going to feel. But that's a podcast for another day. But I do think this have. If you have startups, the startup bug in your DNA, it serves you really, really well in the sector, don't you think?

[Yada Peng]

I do. And I think, you know, it was surprising to me. Of course, the first thing, you and I probably did the same thing. You know, you do that market mapping of like, what exists when there's something that you want to build. And it's so. It was so interesting to me in this space of social and racial justice, how little infrastructure there was. You know, so like, I remember wanting to help young people, you know, to generate ideas to solve problems in their communities and give them the resources to do it to solve those problems. And we. That's how Young People 4 was born. But I thought for sure there has to be some kind of intersectional, you know, program to support young social justice leaders. And there. There wasn't. And so along career, even with prism, I thought for sure there are national news organizations that are going to change whose stories we tell and who tells stories so that, you know, our experiences can be centered. And, you know, it's just surprising to me over the course of the 25 years that I've been building, how little infrastructure there is to really support people on the front lines of social change.

[Joan Gary]

It is. It is actually pretty stunning. So you just rattled off all of these different organizations. What, what's the common thread? What's the theme? I mean, it's really become your life's work, right? How would you articulate the theme that runs through this life's work?

[Yada Peng]

I mean, the theme is really around improving conditions for people, you know, making sure that communities can thrive. And originally, I Thought, well, you've got to put, you know, people in leadership positions to be able to, who look like us, who've experienced challenges the way that we have to be able to inform policy and you know, lead. And that was, you know, Young Elected Officials Network, young people for. But you know, even that, that common thread of really supporting people and leaders who will advance social and racial justice has been the common thread. But it wasn't always this like I'm going to, you know, build this thousand person network. It was, you know, six young people who came to me after we had launched the very first young people. 4 After all of this work to bring together 125 leaders from 8 states, 40 college campuses and we're exhausted, you know, so excited, but also like super exhausted after doing all this. Six of them came and sat down with me. And at that time, Andrew Gillum, who you might remember was, you know, a city commissioner in Tallahassee, Florida when he was 25 and then, you know, ran for governor of course later on in his career. But it was Andrew and I who were building young people for and Young Elected Officials Network. And these six folks came to us and said, we want to learn how to run for office. If you don't teach us, we're going to figure this out ourselves. You need to help us. It was meeting an immediate need that was identified and experimenting with that failing fast to get to what these six young people needed to then be able to build a program that would support thousands and thousands of young people to run and win. A lot of this comes from the idea of advancing social and racial justice for sure, but also a deep understanding of the importance of failure. You know, I was a competitive gymnast growing up. I was Missouri state champion back when I was 13. And what I really learned from that experience was the importance of failure. I mean, every time you finished a routine, you'd not focus on the things you did well. You'd look at all the things that you didn't do well and like correct them. And this is like built into my DNA around failure later in life. Actually through my, my master's degree I learned about the importance of, of agile business planning and failing fast. But it was just already part of what we did. Let's try something, experiment, figure out what works and what doesn't and keep going.

[Joan Gary]

Yes, I totally love that. And I will say that as organizations mature, they get less agile, they get less nimble and their boards become more risk averse. And I think that's a huge problem in our sector. I just want to name that. I also think that one of the themes that runs through your life's work is about power, isn't it? Is about. Is where is it? And how do I. How do we. How do we move it fast? How do I. How do I empower myself to go find it? How do. Right. But fundamentally, I see a lot of the work about power and where you find it. Right. The elected officials, the media. Right. You're going to talk about just fund in a minute. But fundamentally, it feels like it's about how you serve those communities and how you look at injustice and you look at it through the lens of power. That's at least, that's my take on it.

[Yada Peng]

Yeah. I mean, I fundamentally believe if we want to solve any systemic issue that we care about in this country and in this world, you have to fund people who are closest to the issues because they're closest to the solutions. You have to invest in and amplify and elevate people who have direct lived experience because they know what their communities need. And I feel like that's where we go wrong, you know, with philanthropy, with research, with all of this. Like, we need to be strategically investing in and lifting up people who have that direct lived experience, who are closest to the issues. And that's when we're going to solve. When we do that, that's when we're going to solve systemic issues. And that's all about shifting power. You know, who makes decisions, who leads, who has the resources. When we make that shift, we're going to start to see a big change.

[Joan Gary]

I agree with that. In your path. You. One of your stops was at Solidaire, and when you and I talked earlier, it felt to me like there was something rather formative about your experience at Solidaire and some of the lessons that you got there. So maybe just a quick 4, 1, 1 on what it was and what you're taking, what you took with it with you from it.

[Yada Peng]

Yeah, I mean, Solidaire is a network of institutions and individuals moving money in solidarity with social movements. And when I connected with it 10 years ago, you know, it was a group of maybe 40 young people who had inherited wealth who wanted to move those resources differently. Right. Who wanted to really get that money in the hands of people who. Who needed it. Frontline organizations, really responsible for. For making progress on the issues that we care about. And I. That was really important to me because I had, you know, I had three kids and I took time off. I have one child with multiple disabilities, and when he was Born, I kind of. I quit everything for a couple of boards, and I. I went all in to helping him and making sure that he had, like, a really good foundation for his life. Right. My first job back was at Solidaire. So for me, it was a really important part of my life and my career because I had taken seven years off. And here I am coming back. Right. This beauty. Yeah, yeah. Lucky kid. Lucky, lucky mom, you know, and. But to. To come back into this space of people who were really trying to change a system. I was really lucky to land at Solidaire and get to work with those folks. And what I saw there was really eye opening, you know, because this was a group moving money in solidarity, solidarity with social movements. But our practices didn't really align with our values. And we were very, you know, aware of that and concerned about it. For example, you know, we would do an open call for applications. We'd get in 300. We'd end up funding 15, which meant that, you know, 285 would go on the trash can of those groups. And we just. I had this idea that, you know, if we could just get these groups in front of our members, someone else would find a match, we could move more money. But our system processes and our procedures didn't enable us to do that. And we weren't alone, you know, we weren't alone in that very common practice. And so that whole experience at Solider really got me thinking about how we improve our systems. It also got me thinking because we would learn about these incredible organizations on the front lines, usually in the US south, doing incredible work. I'm talking about organizations like Southerners organizing on a new ground, generating Black Mamas Bailout Day. These organizations, they just need the money to do this incredible work. And no one knew about them. They didn't. You know, no one even knew, really knew they existed. So that's when Prism, all of this started to happen in my. In my heart, you know, of like, we gotta change who tells stories and whose stories we tell. We've gotta validate these groups in a way of, like, if a donor is learning about this group, you could Google it, and some stories would come up, you know, because mainstream, you know, all of that work started to bubble up. And I watched a lot, I learned a lot. I absorbed a lot for some really extraordinary donor leaders across the country and started to build, you know, the next chapter. The PRISM Democratizing Philanthropy Project and just Fund that was born out of Solidaire.

[Joan Gary]

So clearly, lots came out of Solidaire that led you to these Places. And now you are in the throes of another startup called Just Fund. And clearly I think some seeds were planted in your brain at Solidaire. But the origin story and your. What is it? And your aspiration for what you're building.

[Yada Peng]

Yes. I mean, Southern is organizing on a new ground. Really lit a fire under me to change the way we give, you know, because this group really just spoke to my heart. You know, this is an organization that was paying $400 bail for black moms across the country on Mother's Day, you know, many of whom were incarcerated for parking tickets, you know, and this organization, I just thought, gosh, if more people knew about it, if we could make it easier to get them resources, you know, we could really change communities, entire communities. And that was one of hundreds, if not thousands of organizations we had access to at just at Solidaire. And that's what really led to Just Fund. Okay, how do we make it easier for groups like that to get funding? You know, when we, when you have a situation, which we do in the US where you've got like 486 billion moving a year and 5% is going to communities of color, you know, this isn't like a one off problem, this is a systemic, so what do you do about it? You know, and that's when three funds got together and said, hey, what if we took the Common app? What if we all shared one application, make it really easy for groups to apply for funding. And hey, we can track what we're each of us is funding so we can see where the existing gaps are. We can get more strategic about our resources. And so three of us, Emergent Fund Solidaire and defending the Dream Fund, which was a collaborative fund of multiple foundations, said yeah, let's do it. And we spent a lot of time rolling up our sleeves around what could this Common app look like? Because we've been trying to do it for 30 years and we landed on a model that worked for us where we have a common profile that we all took together and every fund could ask three specific questions and take up to three attachments. And that's the model that we've carried forward with Just Fund. And it's working. You know, we've had 180 funds opt into this Common app. And it's so important because it's, it saves us time, like you said, 30 years of time, which they can put, like we say, to the critical work, not the paperwork. It helps us as funders because our technology is streamlining the process for funders. Too. And I really am very serious about this because if we can give time back to our funders, what, what will they do? If we can take on the administrative and transactional, they get to do the transformative side of, you know, the relationship building, that's the stuff that moves money, you know, not, not the paperwork. So we started really innovating and experimenting with this technology. We're a nonprofit, right. So we are here building something by us, for us that's going to revolutionize the way we give. And we believe if we change the way we give, our communities will thrive. And we're starting to see it. Yeah, my dream is that, you know, we've moved. We just turned the corner actually to 300 million moved. So money's moving quickly. My dream is that we're unlocking a billion a year. You know, what's cool about this technology is there's so much you can build on top of this very strong foundation. So for example, you know, with this common app, organizations come in, they apply to one fund, they can apply to any for free, in perpetuity. All of those common app profiles are searchable in a database. So that means high net wealth donors, philanthropic wealth advisors, program officers can come in, just fund and search using multiple filters in the common app to find groups that they might want to resource. You know, we've got to get serious about moving money to communities who are on the front lines of every issue we care about. And just fund is a technology that I'm just so excited about pushing us in that direction.

[Joan Gary]

So I have a tactical question which is who funds you yada?

[Yada Peng]

Well, my dream is that we're self sustaining at some point, right. That we're generating enough income to be self sustainable. Right now, 51% of our operating budget comes from fees. So foundations pay us, funders pay us, you know, our clients pay us. Those 180 funds have paid us to run their grant cycles on just fund using our common app technology. So we have funds like Decolonizing wealth, we run all of Liberated Capital's funds. Emergent Fund, you know, Omidyar foundation runs some funds, the rest, Democracy Fund, Irvine Foundation, a lot of big foundations, community foundations like Silicon Valley Community Foundation, East Bay Community foundation, donor networks like Donors of Color Network, you know, and a lot of collaborative funds, which is kind of new, you know, 2020, I think we had the largest number of collaborative funds that were built. And majority of collaborative funds are run by people of color. Right. So these are folks who are raising money and distributing money. So these kinds of intermediating collaborative funds use just fund to run their application cycles and in some case to disperse their dollars.

[Joan Gary]

So entire nonprofit sector wants to know why it seems like such rocket science to develop a common application. And it doesn't seem like rocket science to you? Why was it not rocket science to you? And it still seems like rocket science to everyone else in the funding community.

[Yada Peng]

You know, I think it's about not trying, like not setting out to build like the nation's first common grant application platform. That wasn't what we set out to build. We set out to make it easy for the groups that we were funding and that were coming to us to apply for funding. We, we set out to see if we could track. I mean, thinking about song, we just didn't know what else they were getting in terms of other funding and if we still needed to resource them or if we could move our money to other groups. So we just set out to solve a specific problem in front of us. You know, young people not running for elective office, whatever, is that one problem in front of you, and then you kind of pivot and see you experiment, you fail forward, you fail fast, and you keep going. And to me, I felt like if three funds use just fund, just those three that started it, we're winning because we're saving thousands of organizations, even just among the three of us who were applying so much time and we were able to track. But lo and behold, other funders want to use it too. You know, and I think it's really exciting to have built a technology again, a nonprofit technology by us, for us, that allows funders who have values of equity, trust, transparency, to have a process and a platform that allows them to operationalize and live their values through their practice.

[Joan Gary]

So how have you been marketing this, both on the, on the grantee side and on the funder side?

[Yada Peng]

You know, we haven't really, you know, we're still in our early adopter period of a, of a tech company where we're building this together. We're still innovating on the product, still optimizing the product. It's been a lot of word of mouth, a lot of, you know, applicants, 15,000 of them in the platform, you know, telling us, you should reach out to this funder or that funder. A lot of our funders saying that you've changed our lives. You know, we want to make sure that other funders know how easy it can be to move money and distribute resources because there's, there's so much that goes into distributing Resources. I don't think we really fully appreciate how hard it is to move money. You know, you're raising the money to move it in many cases and then you have to have a process. You know, you're collecting applications, you're, you're making decisions. Sometimes a lot of folks are using participatory grant making processes, A lot of people weighing in, then deciding how you're going to distribute those resources, getting the money up. There are a lot of steps, you know, and if we can simplify that, we're winning, you know, we're helping make this process easier. So right now it's a word of mouth model. We have a lot of our existing funders referring other funders into us and the applicants themselves telling us, hey, you should reach out to this funder or my funder to use the platform. So we're growing slowly and steadily.

[Joan Gary]

Just to clarify, when I as a grantee, join just fund a potential grantee, Am I vetted in some fashion? Can you say no to me? Can justbone say no to me? No, you don't hit the following criteria, therefore you can't be part of this platform. Or is it agnostic in that way?

[Yada Peng]

We're not overlaying any of our, any values or systems to say a group come in or not. You can come in as nonprofit, as a fiscally sponsored project, as a C501C3, 501C4, as a company, as an other, you know, as a federally recognized tribe, as a state tribe. So there's a lot of different ways to come in the platform. The majority of groups coming into the platform are coming in to apply to an existing fund. And I really love that, Joan, because it allows us to tether a group to a fund. Right. So you're coming in to apply to Decolonizing wealth and you apply to emergent fund or a family foundation or some other fund too. So you can kind of see the chain of custody of how that group has come in and where they've gotten follow on funding. It's really important for the funders to be able to track that, you know, because usually there's a long tail to, to, to clients who use just fund. Right. So decolonizing wealth, they're doing their own funding, but wow, because they've used just funds technology, they've given their groups access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in other funding. And it's important for them to be able to track that influence and what they've managed to, to help move to their organization. But it's Also really important for the high net wealth donors, the philanthropic advisors program officers searching the database to be able to say, oh, Joan funded this group. I really love Joan. I respect Joan, you know, great. So maybe I don't have to do as much due diligence as I thought.

[Joan Gary]

I did because that is great. The Nonprofit Leadership Lab is led by Joan Gary and is the world's best online community for leaders of small nonprofits. Learn how to raise more money, build.

[Yada Peng]

The board of your dreams, grow a.

[Joan Gary]

Large audience of supporters, and so much more. To learn more and request an invitation to become a member, please go to nonprofitleadershiplab.com podcast. That's nonprofitleadershiplab dot com podcast. So we're having a conversation about moving power to historically excluded communities. We're talking with Yada Penguin, who is the founder of Just Fund. She is the founder of not just Just Fund, but has spent about a quarter of a century really identifying gaps and building critical social justice infrastructure to achieve a more equitable, just and reflective democracy. Tell me, bring this to life for me if you would tell us about a couple of organizations or funders, a couple of Just Fund stories so that listeners can really understand what the power opportunity here is.

[Yada Peng]

Yeah, there are so many stories to share. I think, you know, one of some of my favorite stories are about the funds who use Just Fund. I'm thinking about the Emergent Fund in particular, which is a queer woman of color led movement aligned philanthropy. And it was, you know, run by two women. Over the last six years, they've moved $12 million, 12,000 grants by using Just Funds technology.

[Joan Gary]

Why?

[Yada Peng]

Because, you know, make it simple and easy for them to do the administrative side so they can do the transformative side, build deep relationships with groups. But what I love about the Emergent Fund is they, they have an open call. Not a lot of philanthropy has open calls.

[Joan Gary]

Right.

[Yada Peng]

A lot of folks, invitation only. And I get it, like, it's hard to, to read through a lot of applications, but here are these two women reading through thousands of applications every cycle, right? And they just have an open loi on the platform. And the way they fund, the way they do their work is they're living their values. These two women are just making such a difference for communities who are vulnerable, who are being attacked. Right. Who are protecting their communities, and they just get money out quickly. $12 million, you know, in just a few years through 12,000, 1200 grants. It's really an impressive model and I love the work they're doing. They're doing rapid response you know, what they call emergent led organizing by frontline groups, Black indigenous, people of color led groups, you know, with no strings attached. So they're just such an incredible example of what can happen when philanthropy doesn't take what's been, you know, what they've inherited as a system and perpetuate it, but they just built something totally new. And I think about.

[Joan Gary]

No, I was just going to say, you're transforming both sides of the partnership.

[Yada Peng]

Yes. And, you know, and I love Emergent Fund because their. Their focus is really on, can we make it easier for our applicants.

[Joan Gary]

Right.

[Yada Peng]

They understand these groups are on the. They're sometimes they're, you know, on a reservation. They're in a. In, in, on, on. At a protest. They're incarcerated, whatever it is, wherever they are. It's not like you're thinking about h. How am I going to apply for funding? You've got to be able to do something on your phone, right. Fill out a very quick app and get that request out into the world. And for someone to be there to hear that call and to answer it just makes me emotional, you know, that these two women are doing such an incredible job moving such critical resources to critical organizations. And this idea that, you know, $5,000 can make a. Oh, my. Huge difference to an organization.

[Joan Gary]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I don't think people understand that. I was, I was writing a blog post the other day and talking about how to know exactly how much to ask for when you're doing a fundraising ask. And a person, a prospect over lunch, actually, I asked this gentleman to make a contribution of $10,000. And the man said to me, what can you do with only $10,000? I certainly learned. I asked him for too little money. That's one thing. Right. But there's just like a whole. That's a whole thing. There's like, thing there. Right.

[Yada Peng]

I mean, getting those resources out quickly to groups are going to put that. Those resources to work. It's just so important. And, and for, you know, Emergent Fund was one of the first funds in. And there are so many funds like that, you know, who are doing the really hard work of raising money to get money out because of their. The deep relationships and the deep trust they've built with organizations who trust them enough to apply for funding. That's really important, you know, and I know we'll talk about this later. But that trust is instrumental to Emergent Fund to be able to get groups to apply to them, you know, and share the information of the work they're doing feel safe applying to a funder and then getting that money out quickly with no strings attached. And we're seeing so much of that. I mean another fund that I think about, Vanessa Mason is someone who works in a mid yard network who started the cultivating repair fund and really working to figure out how, you know, reparations and how that works and did an open call on just fund 800 applications later, you know, was able to move the first million to really creative, innovative work around how we structure reparations in this country. You know, there's and Hawaii people's Fund. I think about, you know, Mickey Huihui in Hawaii who's doing work, you know, really funding communities. People who are, you know, where 5,000, $10,000 is going to be, you know, a game changer.

[Joan Gary]

Right. So in order for Emergent Fund to, to take an application from a potential grantee that's a common app, that's, that doesn't have pages and pages and pages and pages of whatever it is you're supposed to give them. Pages and pages and pages of Emergent Fund has to take a leap of faith, has to actually trust that this, this is what trust based philanthropy is. Right. And this goes to your comment about money moving at the speed of trust. So talk just a little bit about that and the implications for how we do what it takes to ensure that our communities thrive.

[Yada Peng]

Yeah, I mean, and I'll say trust based philanthropy is an incredible movement founded by women of color. You know, it's much more than just how we give. There's so much more to. I couldn't even do justice to it. But I do love their philanthropy. Trust based philanthropy in 4D where it's talking about four dimensions of trust based philanthropy. It's not just our practice, but it's who we are, how we lead so much more structures, systems. There's a lot to that work. I use trust in a different way, you know, where it's really around. Moving money at the speed of trust means you and I have to be in trust filled relationships to move money. You know, it's less this bigger wrapping paper of trust based philanthropy which is so important. And again, I can't do just the work they've done. But it's like what happens when you and I have time to be in relationship with each other, Joan? You know, it's like, yes, they can ask that funder for $10,000, but when we spend time together, we're going to get to know the other things I really need. Right. Well beyond the grant. And we can start to move beyond the grant into real relationship building and the connective tissue that's required to really build movements. Right. So I think, you know, if we are spending time, and I saw this at Solidaire, where there took one and a half of us to run these grant cycles that took nine months. Very intentionally and beautifully designed. But our time was spent on the administrative side, collecting the applications, organizing the applications, building the scoring rubrics, managing the advisory councils, all of this work. We didn't have time to actually connect to the groups we wanted to be resourcing. Right. And when we free up people's time and we do the transactional really well, that creates a foundation and trust to actually get to the transformative, which is what's really going to move money. But when you have a really strong process that's transferring transparent with groups, you tell them when you're going to move the money, you actually move the money at that time. You know, you're giving them access. There's trust that's building that's going to allow you to get to that next stage, that deeper relationship that ultimately is going to allow us to really build sustained movements.

[Joan Gary]

So I don't know which, which use of the word trust is at play here. We live in a world where we don't trust the people that, that we, we don't often trust the people who are proximate to the problem. Right. You said that at the very beginning. Right. Is that we need the people who are closest to the problems to identify the solutions. And yet, and yet we don't entirely. There's not. That relationship is not built on trust. So can you talk a little bit about, a little bit about that? You said, you know, why the water is still undrinkable in Flint is because we're not trusting the people who are proximate to the problem. And I really would love to hear your thoughts about that.

[Yada Peng]

Part of philanthropy is exclusionary. You know, we fund who we know, we fund who we're comfortable with. Well, because most of philanthropy is white. You know, people who look like us, we've people who look like us. That's not it. It's just true. How do we fund people who don't look like us? How do we build that trust with people? And gosh, you know, when I was growing up in this movement and building things, I took it really personally when I would be sitting in a room with funders with, you know, two of my. I remember this moment where I was pitching in front of a big Group of funders next to two of my white male counterparts. And I was getting all these questions about my budget, like, tell us yada on, like, line 71, what's this $750amount? And these guys were getting no questions about their budget. I was the only one with a master's from Columbia University in nonprofit management, right? And. And I'm getting all these questions. It was just. I took it personally. But when you take it back, it's not. There's not. It's not personal. It's what you and I talked about at the beginning. It's systemic, right? There's racism built into every facet of our society, and philanthropy is no different. But art is to dismantle that, right? So part of that is the more we see the groups, the more we can start to build trust. So that was where Prism, to me, was really important. And news and media is so important to actually see ourselves in the news, right? To see ourselves in positions of leadership, to start to see these groups. And it's all of that is critical.

[Joan Gary]

To building trust or to hear the stories of what organizations like Song are doing and have. Have people be able to say, I didn't. I didn't understand that to be the root cause. Like, you've enriched me. And in so doing, like, I want to know more from you. I want to be in relationship with you because I want to understand what's happening here, because I truly want to be part of the solution. And that doesn't just mean writing a check.

[Yada Peng]

Totally. I mean, you know, I. Like, as I mentioned before, I have a son with multiple disabilities. And originally I would have. I started a foundation to support families of children with disabilities, like my son, who has trisomy 21. And I didn't know much about it because I was a new mom, right? And so I started funding in the way that I know how to fund. You know, just like, having people submit applications and I, you know, fun. And as I got to know myself and other moms, I started to realize, oh, you know, what people need is nothing like what I thought they need. Like, actual grants for oral motor therapy and, like, tools for their kids that are really expensive. So if we could just have like, a. A system where everybody gets $500 to spend how they need for their kids, that would be much more efficient and much more effective at empowering these parents and helping them get their. Their child what they need in that moment, you know, but you don't know that until. Unless you're. You have a deep connection to the community. And, you know, instead of funding the. You know, I'm not saying research and data is important. I love research and data, but we've got to get money to people who have that direct lived experience because they know exactly what their community.

[Joan Gary]

So we just have time for a couple of more questions. And I wanted to go back to something that you and I talked about earlier and I mentioned in the open about. Right. It's not only moving the resources from the funders to the folks on the ground who need that funding and resources, whatever resources look like, but that thinking of that in a construct of let me wait and see if someone gives me power. So how do you think about this idea of the sort of balancing the. I need resources, but I'm just, I'm certainly not going to sit around and wait for them so that we don't. We don't build a structure that is systemically disempowering.

[Yada Peng]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, boy, it's really hard when you know what your community needs and you don't have the resources to help them. I mean, it's such a difficult place to be in, you know, And I think a lot of my work, you know, I would always say, how do you shift people? How do you shift power to the front lines? And my answer would be constantly be resources, you know, finance. And that's so important. But I think I think about even myself, you know, and trying to raise capital for Just Fund to build Just Fund. If I sit here and say, oh, man, people aren't investing in just Fund, they, you know, it puts me in a very, like, disempowering position versus what can I be doing, you know, for our communities? And so a lot of it comes from, I think, investing in leaders and their own confidence and their own leadership and their own power, you know, because when that happens, we're unstoppable, really, you know, stop me if you can. Once I understand my own power and I have confidence in what I can do, the rest is going to come.

[Joan Gary]

Yep. I think that, that, that is such a big takeaway here, that developing confident leader, developing leadership skills in these, in, in these folks enables us to have the confidence we need to be bold. Right. To really be out there. Any last lesson you want to leave either to someone who might be joining as a. Joining Just Fund as a nonprofit organization looking for funding or as a. As a funder advice or a lesson that you've learned that would kind of get them at hello.

[Yada Peng]

Oh, gosh. I mean, I think the number one thing, to me, I'd say two things and we've touched on both of them. But I would just say trust yourself, you know, really as a leader, really learning how to trust yourself and the work that you're doing. We can get so distracted by what other organizations are doing and other organizations are raising and I'm not good enough, you know, or I'm not, you know, people don't, don't see the work that I'm doing. Just really trusting in yourself. Surrounding yourself with people who believe in you is so important. Being in relationship with other people who are your champions, you know, this, it can, it can feel like such a competitive environment, like we're all, you know, fighting for resources. I believe in the power of abundance. I do believe in an abundant model. We have abundance here. And so surrounding yourself with people who believe in you and who can support you. I mean, I remember back in the early days, we built the generational alliance for young youth led work and we would just support each other, buoy each other, even pass grants to each other when we needed them, right? Building, build a community for the work that you're doing. Don't go at this alone. I would say is really, really important. Whether like very concretely. That's an advisory council, it's a coach, it's someone who you trust, really making sure you're surrounding yourself with people and that, that you trust and who, who, who support you. The second thing I would say is take risk. Like you talked about this at the beginning. You know, philanthropy is designed to be society's risk capital. We're the one place where you don't have to have a return on an investment. You know, we, we are the place where you can really experiment, fail and try again. Like we haven't solved major problems, you know, are in cancer. We have, but we keep on trying and innovating. We don't just say, you didn't do it, sorry, you can't get the grant again. You know, you keep on innovating and try and getting closer to your winning solution. The faster we fail, the faster we're going to get to that winning solution. And I would say, you know, I'll lift up this gentleman who founded one Coupons.com and I, I talked with him a while back, Michael Walsh, and he was telling me, oh, it took me five times, five tries before I got to the winning model. And I was so naive. I said, wow, Michael, how did you find new investors who would invest in you after you failed? And he just sort of laughed and said, no, no, no. The investors invest in me to fail because they know the faster I fail, the faster I get to the winning model. And I feel like we need to be more comfortable. Super hard. I'm not saying it's easy, especially as people of color, women of color, women, anyone. You know, it's hard to fail. It's hard to give yourself permission to fail. But the faster we fail, the faster we're going to get to where we need to go.

[Joan Gary]

I'm going to leave it right there. Really great advice. And if folks want to learn more about just fund, how do they do that? Yada?

[Yada Peng]

Come on and visit us at Just Fund Us. If you're an organization seeking funding, we have webinars regularly for you to understand how the platform works for you. And if you're a funder who really wants to reset philanthropy as we know it, come meet with me one on one and let's see if the platform can support you in your and we'll.

[Joan Gary]

Put all of that in the show notes as well. Yara, this was a really interesting, great conversation. Great insights, and again, your energy and determination just comes flying through and should be inspiring to everybody who is listening today. So thank you for that.

[Yada Peng]

Thanks so much.

[Joan Gary]

So for those of you who are listening, I hope you did find today's conversation insightful. I sure did. And thanks for taking time out of your day to listen to this podcast because I know time is a precious commodity for you. So thank you for investing your time with us, and in the meantime, stay well, take good care of yourself and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much for spending time with me today. I hope you found the conversation valuable as you navigate the messy world of nonprofits. Check out all my other [e-mail] hope you find them helpful too. Lastly, thank you for the work you do to repair the world in ways large and small. I'll see you next time.