← Nonprofits Are Messy: Lessons in Leadership | Fundraising | Board Development | Communications
Nonprofits Are Messy: Lessons in Leadership | Fundraising | Board Development | Communications
Ep 221: Building Organizational Capacity For Rapid Response (with Deepa Iyer)
00:48:04
From the Atlanta spa shootings to ongoing challenges, Deepa Iyer highlights the critical need for infrastructure, relationship-building, and centering the voices of affected communities in times of crisis.
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- [00:00]
Joan Gary
I speak often about crisis management, and typically what I'm referring to is something that happens inside an organization, from layoffs to scandals. The kind of crises that jeopardize the reputation of an organization and in the worst circumstance can get traction in the media. That's not the kind of crisis we're talking about today. All right, you're thinking, oh, yippee, Joan, there are other kinds of crises. Are you kidding me right now? Yes. And you know about them all too well. They're the external kind, the ones that happen in our world with greater and greater frequency, so much so that they overlap. You know what I'm talking about. September 11th, October 7th, January 6th, mass shootings targeting marginalized communities. This is the world we live in today. Hoping a crisis of this nature will not impact you is pure folly. And most nonprofits do not have the infrastructure or a process in place to contend with them. And so our sector far too often plays that arcade game called Whack a Mole, a reactive approach that's just never going to be as effective as getting out in front. You might be wondering how you could possibly be ready for the vast array, the diversity of these kinds of crises, or how you would be able to afford infrastructure or the time necessary for planning. You see, I know you all. That's where the Building Movement Project comes in. And our guest today, Deepa Iyer, senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, has thought deeply about the need for infrastructure for this kind of rapid response, and she works with nonprofits to be ready and with movements to navigate these situations as they unfold. I wish Deepa was not as busy as she is in this arena, but after our conversation, you will be grateful beyond measure that she and the Building Movement Project have identified this work as a priority. 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 non nonprofits. I'm a frequent keynote speaker, a blogger, and an author on all things leadership and management. You can learn more@joengarry.com 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. Deepa Iyer is the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Building Movement Project, a national nonprofit organization that catalyzes social change through research, partnerships and resources for movement leaders and nonprofits. At bmp, Deepa shapes and leads programs on solidarity and social movements. She conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the Solidarity Is this Podcast link in show notes and facilitates solidarity strategies for cohorts and networks. And I promise by the end of this podcast you'll know what that means. She is the author of three books, including a new picture book for kids on social change called We Are the Builders. You want to read it, right? I do. Deepa, it is a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [03:36]
Deepa Iyer
Thank you so much, Joan. I appreciate you inviting me on. I have been a fan of yours for many years.
- [03:43]
Joan Gary
When we were talking and in your longer bio, I think, which is also in the show notes, my friends, you use these descriptors, which I just love. Weaver, frontline responder, storyteller, and guide. And you use them in reference to your support of movements. Now I believe that you found your way into this area of expertise, which is clearly a very specific area of expertise, and really understanding the critical nature of it, when you were a frontline responder during the World Trade center attacks on September 11, but you were not that kind of first responder. We think about when we think about 9, 11. So tell our listeners about the work you did then and the path that has led you to sort of center this rapid response work.
- [04:34]
Deepa Iyer
Yes, absolutely. So it is hard to believe that it has been 23 years since the horrible attacks of September 11th in New York City and Washington, D.C. i at the time was actually not working at a nonprofit. I was working for the federal government and was an attorney in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. And the frontline response that I ended up getting involved with was really related to the backlash that we started to see almost immediately after that day, the backlash that targeted Muslim, Arab, South Asian and Sikh immigrants in this country through hate violence, bullying in schools, through discrimination at airports. Right. I think we all remember this right. As well as the state policies around racial and religious profiling. A lot of names, honestly, that folks might not remember anymore, like special registration and the Absconder initiative and all of these different policies.
- [05:37]
Joan Gary
Wow.
- [05:38]
Deepa Iyer
So it was a time of tremendous fear in many of these communities. I myself am of South Asian background. And so for me, watching my community members, friends, family members go through that time of real fear, grief and hardship and discrimination kind of propelled and catalyzed me to think about how I could step in and support. So the frontline response I did was twofold One was through actually my government job. I have to say that even under the Ashcroft Department of Justice, A number of U.S. civil rights lawyers were able to put together an initiative to support communities, to make sure they knew where to file complaints of discrimination, to do outreach or know your rights. So that is a part of Frontline Response, that sort of immediate support for communities who need information. And then I was also involved with a nonprofit that was starting at the time, which was focused on South Asian communities, particularly to make sure that they had information about what was going on. You know, a lot of times we were reading about policies like in the paper, right? This was pre Facebook, pre Twitter, pre social media. So folks needed information in their languages. They needed to know what was happening. They needed to know if it was safe for them to go to a mosque, a gurdwara, to pray. Right. They needed to know if they could open their small businesses every day. So there was a lot of work happening also from an advocacy lens and an organizing lens in community. So those are the two ways that I learned about Frontline Response, using whatever role I was in to see how communities could get access to information services, basic rights, and advocacy as they needed it.
- [07:33]
Joan Gary
And you learned at that time that these folks were completely unprepared. Right. They did not have what they needed.
- [07:41]
Deepa Iyer
Absolutely. I think that most of the times when we are faced with these sorts of crises, whether it is an act of senseless violence, whether it is a climate disaster, you know, we're in the midst of that right now as we're speaking, whether it is, you know, you mentioned some dates like October 7, January 6. We are usually not prepared. And part of what we're trying to do with the building movement project is actually to change that a little bit, to recognize that it is really not anymore a question of if an emergency might occur in the United States, but when. We know what happens usually when crises occur because we have gone through them. And so how do we set up the infrastructure in order to be able to address them and prepare for them in a much better way than our communities were? As you said, post 9 11, kind.
- [08:37]
Joan Gary
Of a quick 411 for folks. How did you wind where to after lawyer, Department of Justice, to where you are today? So did you jump ship from the government into the nonprofit sector? And was this kind of this eye opening experience for you, part of the catalyst?
- [08:59]
Deepa Iyer
Well, so I actually started off in the nonprofit sector and then went to government. So I left government, to be honest with you, because of a personal. It was hard for me to reconcile doing civil rights work when the government was also profiling and surveilling the communities I was supporting. And I couldn't reconcile that anymore. So I did leave and I went to a couple of nonprofits. I ended up spending most of that my time as the head of the South Asian organization I had mentioned earlier, so spent a decade as the executive director there during a time of constant crisis. So we're talking about not just the post 911 moment, but we're also talking about the massacre at the Oak Creek Gurdwara, a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that happened in 2014, and so on and so forth.
- [09:49]
Joan Gary
Yes. Right. Sadly, your list could go on.
- [09:53]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah. And so there were a lot of different ways in which we were tending to crisis. And part of this realization that I think many of us have had over the years is that we can't continue to stay in perpetual crisis as nonprofits or as leaders or staff, because we're really not able to serve our communities effectively and we're not able to sustain ourselves.
- [10:15]
Joan Gary
Indeed. So I want to dig into that. I want to be sure that people have an understanding of the Building Movement Project before we div into crisis and getting out in front of these things, which is possible. Can you give the quick four one, one on the Building Movement project? Because I think you all do remarkable work and I want people to know about it.
- [10:37]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah. So the Building Movement Project is a national nonprofit. We were started about 20 years ago. And we focus on catalyzing social change, equity, inclusion by nonprofit organizations, by networks. We do that in three ways. We create and develop research on the nonprofit sector. So we look at, for example, the way in which people of color are able to sustain leadership in nonprofits. Or we look at the impact of, say, the pandemic on people of color led nonprofits. Right. So we do research on that. The other thing we do is we create a lot of resources and tools. We'll be talking about some of those today that can support nonprofit leaders in doing their work more effectively. And then we also have an emphasis on relationship building. So what does that look like in terms of supporting cohorts and networks and tables of different organizations? I run a program called Solidarity Is, which I brought to the organization in late 2019, and it's really focused on providing sort of the building blocks of solidarity practice through education workshops, trainings. We also do narrative work through our podcast and writing. And then finally, we work with a lot of nonprofits who are thinking about solidarity strategy. Like how do we come together in moments of Crisis and beyond. So a lot of what I'm talking about today is the collaborative effort of my team members, Adaku Utta, Wingti Tranmiri and Preethi Namani. So I'm representing all of us here on your podcast.
- [12:16]
Joan Gary
Excellent. And when you talk about solidarity, you're talking within movements, across organizations and across multiple movements, Right?
- [12:25]
Deepa Iyer
All of that and across communities.
- [12:27]
Joan Gary
Yeah, there you go. Okay. Yeah. Okay, perfect. So when we talk about external crisis, how do you define that? Deepa?
- [12:34]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah, and I really appreciate it in the beginning, when you talked about when people think about nonprofit crises, there might be thinking about internal issues that occur. Those do occur, obviously, all the time. But we're also moving through a time when we're navigating a lot of overlapping external crises. So that means basically issues that come up that are sometimes unanticipated, that are really changing and affecting communities. So just some examples. We've talked about some. The pandemic, right, is an external crisis. And many of us are very familiar with. Now, we did not necessarily anticipate it, and we did not necessarily have the adequate pre or resources to meet the demands of our community members. Now we're living at a time where it's just not one at a time. One every year. We're in an environment of cyclical and compounding crises, which means that many nonprofits are continually operating in emergency mode. So that's really what those external crises are. And when you add those and the internal ones that you mentioned, you can sort of imagine the pressure cooker environment that a lot of leaders and staff and organizations are in.
- [13:46]
Joan Gary
That's really helpful, Deepa. So, Deepa, what does a nonprofit organization need to do to be ready? You've talked about the necessary infrastructure. Can you walk us through that?
- [13:59]
Deepa Iyer
Yes. Obviously, every crisis is different. And so you have to think about having infrastructure that you will have to adapt. Right. To different crises. But there are some foundational pieces of infrastructure that we've learned that nonprofits need. And when I say that we've learned part of that is work of doing frontline response. Right. But also listening to and engaging with organizations who are in it. And so this comes from that kind of work of not just observation, but, you know, doing the work and also listening to, deeply listening to organizations that are in it. So what are those kinds of foundational building blocks for rapid response infrastructure? So that includes, and I'll just run through a little bit of a list and we can dig into whatever you, you would like to sounds one of the key pieces of Robust rapid response is actually being able to share information in a timely manner. There's usually a lot of disinformation or lack of information. And so how can organizations have a communications infrastructure that enables them to synthesize information and then provide it to their community members so that they understand what's going on?
- [15:14]
Joan Gary
So that's. So it's getting the word out externally.
- [15:19]
Deepa Iyer
Yes, in a quick and timely manner, in an effective and accurate manner. Right. So that's one. The second piece is to actually work with other local frontline responders who might be providing social services, mental health care, legal support and the like. So how can nonprofits make sure that either they're doing that work? Because some are social service groups that are doing that work, and if not, that they have a bank of trusted local frontline responders whom they can immediately reach out to and say, you know what? Our community needs these lawyers. Our community needs access to mental health providers who can provide services in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner. So setting up those connections, a local bank of frontline responders is important. So that's the second piece. So that we're not doing it after the act, after some things happen. Right. We already have those relationships built in. A third piece that is important for rapid response is to actually document what's going on. Tracking data, documenting information. These are the needs in my community after the hurricane hit. We need to make sure that we uplift those community needs. We know many times that organizations that work with people of color, low income communities, limited English proficient communities, the needs of those folks are rarely met. They don't get. They don't get the attention, they don't get the care. So the ability to document what's happening in our communities and then uplift that quickly is important. Two more, a fourth piece is connections to stakeholders. So people who are decision makers in our communities, that could be our local elected officials, it could be government agencies, it could be other nonprofits. How are we in touch with them in a trusted manner such that we can represent our community's needs? Right. And then I would say the last, or not the last, but another piece that is vitally important is the ability to care for our communities. So whether that means healing circles or providing support to communities that might not be directly affected, but are still affected in some way, this happens a lot with say, targeted violence where communities will accept experience vicariously what the hate violence was, even if they weren't the direct recipients of it. Right? Not recipients, the folks who were attacked. So those are just a Few ways in which we can think about infrastructure ahead of time and set it up so that we can be ready when a crisis occurs.
- [18:07]
Joan Gary
Okay, so I was taking notes while you were talking, and let me play them back to you, because I probably have questions about each of them, but we might not have time for all my questions. So the first one is sort of aligning around accurate messaging and getting that out externally as quickly as possible to communities. The second one was what you called sort of adjacent. What I called kind of adjacent organizations, mental health organizations, and having a bank of relationships in that area so that you can immediately sort of tap in. The third one, and this is one I have questions about, is documenting and tracking needs, but I'll come back to that. And the fourth one was connections to different kinds of stakeholders, like government elected officials, those folks. Right. And the fifth one was having the ability to care for the community, even if they are not sort of the actual folks that are affected. So, for example, people who work at LGBT organizations in Florida, when there is. Don't say gay legislation, don't feel safe coming to work. That is an example, right?
- [19:24]
Deepa Iyer
Yes.
- [19:25]
Joan Gary
Okay. Know that through my work with Equality Florida. So let me ask my question about documenting needs first. Are you suggesting here that communities document their sort of universal needs that are at the ready when something happens? That was the one I didn't quite understand. Can you tease that out for me?
- [19:45]
Deepa Iyer
Sure. I think that what I'm meaning is what is happening in real time. So understanding, for example, if we are dealing with. When we were dealing with the pandemic and communities still are, of course, many organizations were able to say, okay, we work with rural communities and they don't have access to WI fi, or they don't have the ability to understand what's going on because they don't have digital access. Right. So they have certain types of needs. So recognizing that different. Different communities will have different needs in a crisis. But the key here is to have the infrastructure to capture that and to document that and then to synthesize it and put it out there to those stakeholders who might be making decisions. A lot of times there are lots of decision makers. Right. In any community, ranging from, like I mentioned earlier, like government agencies to the mayor's office to city council members to the governor's office, and maybe even at the federal level. They're all getting involved. They're all getting mobilized in a crisis. That's their job. And yet sometimes they're making decisions about what communities need without talking to community leaders. And so our Ability to have some infrastructure in place where we can quickly document and track and then we can convey that information in a timely manner to those stakeholders is really important. And that requires infrastructure which is like, we need staff, we need people who have relationships to the community right on the ground who can say, what's going on? How can I help? What do you need? We need folks who can then have the communications infrastructure to put it out. Maybe it's a short report, maybe it is a blog post, maybe it is our website, maybe it is a live stream, whatever it is. But we need that infrastructure as well. So those are just some examples of that. Real time documentation.
- [21:42]
Joan Gary
Perfect. What this all presumes, all of the things that you've talked about for the most part, presumes that I as a nonprofit leader, prioritize building relationships in and outside of my community. Doesn't does.
- [22:00]
Deepa Iyer
And I think that not every organization is a frontline responder. Right. We need to understand that too. Like not every organization is, sees itself as a crisis responder. But I will say that when we survey organizations, we talk to organizations over and over again. Regardless if you're a social service provider or you're in the advocacy space, folks have to pay attention to the crises, right? What are you advocating about? You're likely advocating about how immigrant communities are facing deportation. So you have to understand how to respond to that crisis, even in an advocacy sense. So yes, it is absolutely vital to have those relationships with stakeholders, whether they're decision makers or their other nonprofit partners. And I think a lot of times we just don't have the capacity as nonprofits to build those relationships.
- [22:54]
Joan Gary
Right.
- [22:54]
Deepa Iyer
Because we're doing the work. But how can we. So that's why we suggest in many cases to set up task forces, local and regional task forces on specific issues before they occur. We can like a crisis task force. Right. And to be part of those in regional areas around the country. And many of those exist, they might sometimes be around particular communities or they might be on certain issues. But it's really important to get connected to some form of task force that you can plug into in case there is a crisis you're working on.
- [23:30]
Joan Gary
It requires a certain kind of mindset shift for some nonprofits, doesn't it, that we. Too often, I would say too often nonprofits think of themselves as an institution that needs to be cultivated and nurtured and grown. Right. And that is one of. That is a job. But actually you can't in fact do that work in isolation from your colleagues within a sector or within a community. And I, I really don't think that we pay enough attention to how important those relationships are. Even actually when there's, when, when it's not hitting the fan.
- [24:12]
Deepa Iyer
You're right, Absolutely. I think a lot of times we're just kind of focused internally. I, I know I did this when I was working, when I was working at a nonprofit that I was leading also, where, you know, you're just looking inward and internally because you can't look up. There's not enough capacity, there's not enough time, the needs are too many. And so how do we create some spaciousness for nonprofit staff and leaders to be able to engage in that work? And that also requires funding. Right. That requires funders to not just support rapid response, but to support rapid response infrastructure. And there is a difference.
- [24:52]
Joan Gary
And I think you are making that so very clear. And I hope lots of funders are listening. So how does an organizational leader get buy in on doing this work, on saying we need to invest in infrastructure, which by the way, is not a four letter word. I don't know how many letters it actually has, but it's not a four letter word. But how does the leader get buy in, especially from a board of directors? And I don't think we talk enough about boards of directors and the roles that they play, the value they could be bringing and how they can thwart this kind of work.
- [25:33]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah, that's a great point. So one of the first things I think is to actually decide if our organization is going to get engaged in rapid response or not. You might decide, no, this is not our thing at all. Right. But we've created a decision making tool at the building movement project for organizations that want to think about whether or not we want to actually do this work on rapid response that includes the first question is actually mission and relevance, which oftentimes we want board members to weigh in on. Right. We want to make sure that that's where we get their buy in. So how does being a rapid response organization or doing some rapid response align with our overall mission and values? How might engaging in rapid response actually build our long term power? So that's a question. Another question is capacity and resources. Do we have the necessary resources, whether that's financial or human or material to be able to respond effectively? And who is going to take that lead in coordinating rapid response? Right. That is infrastructure. We need staff. Infrastructure might be a big word, but it really is pretty simple to understand when you think about you need skilled staff, you need partnerships, you need the ability to nimbly and quickly move and adapt to changing circumstances. Right. And you need funding, you need money to be able to set it up. So there are a range of other questions, too, like, what are the impact and outcomes that we hope to achieve? Right. So these are all questions that we can talk with our staff and board about to get there. As you say, buy in. In terms of being an organization that engages in rapid response, we can also set some benchmarks and parameters because, as you said so accurately at the beginning, a lot of organizations do feel like they're playing whack a mole. But how do we actually say. How do we boundary our rapid response? Right. How do we say, like, we will work on these three things when they happen and take a lead. We will support other groups on these three other things when they happen, if they affect our communities. Right. So that's why we created this tool as a guide for organizations to decide when to mobilize the questions to ask themselves before they mobilize when there is a crisis.
- [27:54]
Joan Gary
So I heard two things. Well, I heard one thing that's really important is getting your board engaged in a conversation up front.
- [28:03]
Deepa Iyer
Yes.
- [28:06]
Joan Gary
And using that conversation to shape kind of guardrails of sorts. That a fair kind of. To play back on that?
- [28:18]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
- [28:21]
Joan Gary
But I also think, and this leads me to my next question, I believe we do not do a good enough job educating our board members about why things are important. Like, either it's inside our heads because we're leaders and we know it, and we actually think other people should know it. I think Dan and Chip Heath have a book called Made to Stick, and they call that the curse of knowledge, that once you know something, it's actually impossible for you to imagine not knowing it. And so I think we don't do a great job of bringing board members into conversations so that they see what we see. And so in that context, because I love it when I hear from folks who listen to this podcast that they shared the podcast with their board before a meeting where something's on the agenda that is relevant to this podcast. So do keep that in mind. Mind as you're listening. I found your description when we talk when we first met about the Atlanta spa shootings to be a very valuable case study of impact on community and what rapid response looks like, and also the role of BMP in that as well. So can you sort of walk us through that?
- [29:41]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah, absolutely. So for a couple of years, I would say starting in like. Like late 2020 or so, BMP was supporting a table called the National Asian American Leaders Table, which is hosted by the Asian Law Caucus, which is a nonprofit out in the Bay Area. And so they brought together a lot of national and local Asian American leaders to respond to the increase in bigotry that we were seeing that were targeting Asian Americans during the pandemic. And we supported that table. So this work that you're talking about that's related to the Atlanta spa shootings is embedded in the work that this table has been doing. And folks, I think probably will recall that the Atlanta spa shootings happened in March 2021, where there were murders occurring at three different places of business. And of the eight people who lost their lives, six were Asian migrant women who worked at the spas that were targeted. So there was an immediate response on the ground, right, with Asian American organizations that were trying to figure out what has happened, what is the information that we need? How do we bring community members together? How do we address the immediate needs of survivors and families, from attending funerals to connecting survivors with financial resources? How do we also lift up, you know, because it wasn't. It happened in Atlanta, but it had national resonance.
- [31:19]
Joan Gary
That's actually. If I could just jump in. I think that's the thing that's really important to remember. It didn't just happen in Atlanta in the same way that any shooting does not just happen in that community. But I do think that's a big. That's a big and important headline here, that when a community is targeted in a city, there is on the ground in that city. But we cannot forget that the community as a whole is reeling and needs help, support, education, care, all of the things you're talking about. So anyway, I just felt compelled to jump in and say that.
- [32:03]
Deepa Iyer
No, no, you're absolutely right. And that's where for the. You know, so I'll talk about a couple of infrastructure. So because we had this national Asian American leaders table that had already been set up due to the vision of Arti Kohli, the executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, back in March of 2021 or before that, sorry, in 2020, we were actually. We had some infrastructure to bring the Atlanta leaders to this table to brief us, brief people from around the country who were also, as you say, reeling. And those leaders could tell us, these are the immediate needs we have. These are the messages that we want you to lift up. Right? These are the talking points and the narratives, because people all over the country, Asian American leaders all over the country were being asked to weigh in, in terms of Media, local media in California, asking leaders, hey, what do you. What tell us what to do or what you're seeing in Atlanta, right. The Atlanta leaders couldn't be everywhere, but they needed to have a cohort of folks around the country who could amplify their messages. So even the infrastructure, and this is very nonprofit, right. Of having a table that had come together on this issue, was prepared and was supported by different organizations and staff, allowed us to mobilize in a different way. That's just one example. Other examples of infrastructure that were both somewhat in place but also had to be created included having that bank of interpreters and having a bank of mental health providers and lawyers who were able to support the survivors and the family members of the victims on the ground. A third thing I'll quickly say, and I remember this very well, which is that same week, for some reason, Congress was having a hearing on hate violence in the Asian American community. Right. It was happening two days after the Atlanta spa shootings. And I still remember Phi Nguyen, who was the executive director of an Atlanta based nonprofit. Right. Many of us were really clear that she had to speak in Congress, right, at this hearing. And so there was work that happened behind the scenes to make sure that she was able to offer some video remarks because it was vital she couldn't leave, but she needed to also have her voice there. So that's another example of being nimble and adaptable and quickly finding ways to intervene so that nationally we were hearing from the right local voices as well.
- [34:44]
Joan Gary
So this example presumes, as you describe it, and you talked about the table of leaders that had been meeting in the prior year. It presumes that there's a broader ecosystem with groups playing various roles. Can you talk a little bit about which ones are vital?
- [35:04]
Deepa Iyer
Yes. I've actually done some work on this with this framework called the social change ecosystem. Different individuals and organizations often play roles in an ecosystem. So that could be a role as, say, a storyteller to do that documentation we talked about earlier and getting it out there. Or it could be the role of a frontline responder. We're a social service organization or we, we do legal support, right. We're litigators, that kind of frontline response. Other roles include weavers. So weavers are the groups that can make connections and bring, you know, folks from different geographies together because they understand, right. What you just talked about. It's not something that happens in one place. It affects everyone. And the role of disruptors, who are the folks who get into good trouble, like Representative Lewis asked us to do, who need to intervene, who need to make others uncomfortable a bit by speaking truth to power. All of these roles, and there are many others, there's 10 that that are in the framework that I've developed, are vital to an ecosystem. But it's not just about playing your role independently. You have to play it in concert with the others, right in the ecosystem. Which is why I really always talk about the importance of an ecosystem wide approach to social change, to crises, rather than in siloed, independent, individualized approach. It won't be effective and it won't be sustainable if we do it that way. And that's something I learned really in the hard way doing all that work post 9 11, where we had to do it with other communities. We could not just be siloed in our own community trying to address these large issues that we were unprepared for.
- [36:51]
Joan Gary
It's totally fascinating.
- [36:55]
C
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 the board of your dreams, grow a 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.
- [37:25]
Joan Gary
We are talking with Deepa Iyer, who is the senior director of Strategic initiatives at the Building Movement Project. And it is a national nonprofit that catalyzes social change through research, partnerships and resources for movement leaders and nonprofits. And if you do not know this organization, you need to go to buildingmovement.org and you need to float around. And I can tell you I floated around. I float around on that website quite frequently. And recently was speaking at Stanford at their nonprofit Management institute and grabbed from a number of their reports, particularly one about leaders of color that were beginning to lose their appetite for leadership. And because I was speaking about building a thriving, diverse, multi generational workplace and so I can't tell you how valuable you would find the materials at Building Movement Project. And that is also where you will find and we will link to it in the show notes. You will also find Deepa referenced a rapid response decision template, I believe is what you called it. Yes, and I have it right here and it is an enormously valuable way. It's a guide for you to have these conversations in your organization or and then ultimately in your ecosystem. So we've talked about all of these, this ecosystem thing, Deepa and I, I know that it demands Networking and coalition building. And I've already said I don't think that this is like nonprofit superpower all the time. Are you seeing movements embrace these concepts with greater enthusiasm, recognizing the essential nature of working together? Long ago, I ran a nonprofit in the LGBT space, and working together was not necessarily always our strongest suit.
- [39:33]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah. I mean, look, I don't think that it's always our fault that we don't, you know, lean into that. We. We are often competing with each other for funding. We have to constantly perform and produce. We live in a capitalist society that a lot of nonprofits have also integrated some of those practices around individualism and competition. So it is not, I personally think that it is in our DNA to work together and to collaborate because we understand that that's the only way that change will happen in community, and we understand that as people who work in nonprofits and movements. I also think we're pushing against a culture and a society that doesn't believe that. So we're really trying to disrupt so much as we're doing this work. It takes rigor, it takes practice. It takes repetition. It takes making mistakes. It takes trying. It takes heartbreak. Right. It takes all of it. But I do feel, yes. That I have seen, and especially since I run a program on solidarity, definitely seen a real interest and a leaning in. Of talking about our communities in a generous and loving way, compassionate way, not compromising each other's policy needs and priorities to get our own wins. Right. To understand and make connections between what is happening on, say, a climate issue and how that's connected to migration. Right. I think that we're doing that a lot more in terms of our analysis and our practices. But we need. We need. And I keep going back to this, we need funding, we need infrastructure, we need staffing. Like, it just doesn't happen because, oh, it's a good idea. Right. It takes actual building blocks to make it happen.
- [41:27]
Joan Gary
I wonder if you have seen, Right. If you have not done this work as an organization in a particular sector, one of the phrases that I use is the biggest kid in the sandbox tends to take the lead, whether it is the largest funder in the repro health field or the largest organization in the LGBT community. And I just wonder if you have seen situations where they become a de facto leader and does that work? Can that work? It doesn't work. Okay.
- [42:12]
Deepa Iyer
No, it doesn't work. I mean, I think there's a lot of big footing that happens, and where you have organizations with maybe more resources or often they're Even disconnected from community. But they've got the contacts, so they're gatekeepers. Right. To funding and they will like parachute into communities and bigfoot the issue. That happens, of course, but that is why one of the central tenets of solidarity practice is called centering, which is centering the voices, perspectives and solutions of those who are most directly affected by an issue or a crisis. And so I think that part of the practice that we have to disrupt in ourselves is to ask, okay, are we just telling the stories of people who are marginalized or affected by an issue or we creating space for them to say what the solutions should be and to make decisions? Right. So I think it's about shifting that mindset. I don't think it's easy to do. I think again, a lot of this is repetition and practice, mindful practice that can enable us to make shifts every time that we're doing something that is rooted in community.
- [43:24]
Joan Gary
Yeah. And just to go back to something we talked about earlier is this big footing of the biggest kid in the sandbox. How many metaphors can I mix? Here is about taking down the walls of your institution and recognizing that you are in fact part of a movement. I love that. Right? Yeah. And it gives me a lot of hope to hear you say that. You see that more and more. And it should give us all both hope and motivate us to be thinking in this way. So we just have time really for one last question. Deepa and I've really enjoyed this convers and I am absolutely confident that you have opened a lot of eyes and helped to make a case for the kind of infrastructure that's needed, that this is not just a. We don't live in a one off world anymore. Any last pieces of advice? Right. You're talking to a lot of people who play whack a mole every day. You know how important planning is. You know how important it is to build a bank of trusted, you know, trusted colleagues across throughout your network. Right. All of those things you've talked about. And you've got a bunch of people that are playing whack a mole and I want you to leave them with some advice, something they, you know, something maybe bite sized they can do or some food for thought as we end today.
- [44:54]
Deepa Iyer
Yeah. Well, first I want to say I acknowledge the pressure cooker environment that folks are in. You know, I get it. I resonate with that very much. And I think that it is natural for us to feel like we're not hitting our goals. It's natural for us to Feel overwhelmed and like we're on the seesaw constantly. It is all natural to feel that way when we're doing this work, when we don't know when we open the doors of our nonprofit or open our computer to read the news, what issue we will be confronted with on a daily basis. So it is absolutely normal. The second piece, I would say is to understand where and when we want to respond. And that goes back to what you said about the guardrails. Right. We don't need to respond to everything, but we need to think about what our capacity and our skill sets are, what our appetite is. And so that's probably what I would say at the end of the day is to start by asking what issues do we believe we should be in rapid response mode for because we can't do all of them. And then once we answer that question, I do think the other pieces around how we prepare the nuts and bolts, who we reach out to, will become a little bit clearer.
- [46:12]
Joan Gary
I think that's really great advice. I was thinking that for our listeners, try not to think of this as one more thing I have to put on my plate. Please. Right. Is embed this into the DNA of your organization to be a collaborator, to be in relationship in your community. That's one piece. And then the second one is really start to educate your own organization, particularly your board, about why this matters and use a tool like this or tools@buildingmovement.org to really open people's eyes and hearts to the power and impact of having a plan to be ready for the work. That it's not an if, it's really a when. So, Deepa, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for the work that you're doing because it, it is one of those things that the work that you do is like something you toss into a pond and it's having ripple effects with people you will never meet, never know. And that's a pretty, it's a pretty powerful thing to think about. So thank you for that.
- [47:19]
Deepa Iyer
Thank you so much. It was wonderful to be in conversation with you.
- [47:24]
Joan Gary
Likewise. And for those of you listening, I hope you found this conversation valuable. Some food for thought. And until next we meet, please take good care, take 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 resources@joengarry.com. 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.