 Thanks for joining executive director's chat with TechSoup. We call this ED Chat. And I love this platform because I get to see your faces. I love this. So I hope you bought notes. You can screenshot the chat room. But I hope you bought pen and paper to take notes. Today's topic is employee resource groups. Now, this was new to me. It may be new to many of you. But I'm hoping you're going to get some takeaways and get some ideas for your community engagement, business needs, social networking, and professional development as it pertains to your nonprofit. My name is Aretha Simons. I'm the webinar producer here at TechSoup. And this is being recorded. And everyone will get the replay within 48 hours. We try to get it to you right away. So look for that in your email. If this is your first time here and on Zoom meetings, here's how you can gauge so that everyone can participate. We would love for you to keep your microphone on mute for the quality of the recording. If you'd like, you can keep your video on. And so that everyone is not speaking over each other. If you have a question, please use the reaction button over there on the side and use the raise your hand option. If you need the CC button, the closed caption is available. All you have to do is click on that closed caption button right here in the Zoom options. So I got a couple of announcements that I'm so excited. I rarely get to do announcements, so bear with me. We are inviting everyone here. I know there are people who have different topics that they are experts in. I would love for you to become a feature speaker here at TechSoup. Email me at asymonds at TechSoup.org. When I say at TechSoup, excuse me, on ED Chat or a faith-based chat. And if you are having an event and you would like someone from TechSoup to come and talk about the TechSoup offers, please email Felipe Reyes at techsoup.org. I got one more quick announcement. We have some exciting news about a new course here. I looked at this course, and I'm gonna take this course because I think I need it because I'm always talking about funding. It's called Accidental Techie Director, excuse me, Development Director, got it. A lot of tongue twisters. But this course is designed for nonprofit development directors or fundraising staff. So I'm gonna put the link in the chat. If you click on the link, it'll just open up a different window. You won't leave this session. And I would like to introduce Quad to you. This is something new and exciting here at TechSoup. We launched a new part of TechSoup. It's a members-only community. And I saw Aaron in the chat room. So maybe he'll tell us a little bit later. So we're gonna do a deep dive into organization that provides food security. So we'll focus on organizations that provide meals, food pantry, food banks, and all type of food service to the nonprofit community. And with Quad, you can get access to community discussion forms, members-only events, articles, free courses, and so much more. I'm gonna put the link in the chat room and you can click on that and it'll open up a separate window and you'll find out more about Quad. Also reach out to us if you want a 101 conversation with Aaron about Quad. So now, getting into today's discussion, employee resource group. Before I do that, put in the chat room if you are a part of employee research group or an affinity group or if you don't even know what I'm talking about. Put a one in the chat room if you're part of employee resource group or you know about it. Put a two in the chat room if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Today, we have Jasmine Malone. She is the EIDC intern here at TechSoup. And I wanna give a shout out to Jasmine and Lashika Philip because they came to me with this topic. They said, you know, this is something we wanna talk about and let's do it on EID chat. I was like, let's go. And then Laura Ross Perry, she's a program manager, development manager for our global network and she's gonna share with us about affinity groups. And then I met a young lady called Mariah Butler in a separate meeting. She is a global talent analyst with AIG and she's gonna tell us about employee resource group as relates to AIG. So I'm gonna turn it over to Jasmine and you and Lori can bounce back together and share with us about affinity groups and you can let me know when you want me to share the screen. So over to you, Laura. So thank you so much for having us and hi to everybody from all over the country and perhaps all over the world. I saw Australia there in the chat somewhere. It seems really early for you. So really happy to have you here too. So as Aretha said, my name is Laura Ross Perry. I have been working at TechSoup for about two and a half years now. I'm a program development manager and I work with our global network of nonprofits. So these are nonprofits that help to deliver our discounted and donated technology programs and support and training to other nonprofits all over the world. So a little bit about how employee resource groups started at TechSoup. So I will just, I'll start talking a little bit about the background of affinity groups or employee resource groups and how those started at TechSoup. And I think the most important thing for me when I think about our journey is that it was incredibly organic. So we didn't have a diversity, equity, inclusion program whatsoever at TechSoup. We didn't have anybody who was officially in a position there either in our people and culture team or otherwise. So Lashika Phillips who is on the call here as well. She is now the director of our equity, inclusion, diversity and culture program. But back in October, 2019, we didn't have that program at all. She held a completely different role at TechSoup and she took it upon herself to for TechSoup to run a diversity month in a global diversity month in October of 2019. So we put she, you know, got together a couple of different staff members and we put together a couple of different programs. And that was actually my very first month at TechSoup ever. So that was a great time for me to start. Since that global diversity month, they're garnered some more interest from different people at TechSoup, all not working in equity, inclusion, diversity, but all passionate about that type of work, passionate about bringing in different voices, highlighting different communities within TechSoup and within our nonprofit network and bringing that into TechSoup and having more of a program. So from there, we kind of formalize what we now consider a diversity council at TechSoup called BRIDGE. And our diversity council stands for belonging, respect, inclusion, diversity and global equity. So from that kind of large diversity council, we started running different events, highlighting different communities, bringing different speakers on, but organically from that, we kind of grew a need to focus on different areas. So there was parts of the diversity council that were really focused and interested in issues that relate to the LGBTQ community, some that were really interested in issues that relate to racial justice and anti-discrimination work and so on. So actually I am a member of the racial justice allyship group, but I can tell you a little bit more about how that started. It actually didn't start as a racial justice allyship group. We broke off initially from BRIDGE to be just an allyship group. So that was our first kind of affinity group there. We wrote a mission statement and we decided that we were going to be a group that focused on being allies. As we kind of went on and as the months progressed, we realized that that was also too large for us. That was also not focused enough for the interests of the particular people in the group. And so we kind of got together and we said, okay, we can be allies for many different things, but how can we be most useful? How can we bring most visibility to a specific community, both within the nonprofits that we work with and within our own organization? And we decided to focus specifically on racial justice, especially after the George Floyd murders and every murder and everything that came after that, we thought that highlighting racial justice within TechSoup as well as within the network was the most important thing for us right now in our priority. So that's kind of the genesis of the racial justice allyship group, which is one of four groups that we have at TechSoup right now. And I'll just give another, a couple of examples of what our group does. So we really wanna focus on racial justice and anti-discrimination, not only within TechSoup internally, but externally. I've mentioned that several times, but for TechSoup, it's really important for us to think about how we can integrate affinity groups in this type of work into our internal programming, our internal culture, our retention rates, our diverse recruitment, things like that, but also to take it externally and think about the communities that we work with, think about the funders that we work with, the nonprofits that we serve. So it's really an internal and external thing at the same time. So for the racial justice allyship group, one of the things that we did was to work with our people and culture team to update a document that we have called Help Me Hire. It's a document that was developed probably back in 2014, 2015 and hadn't really been updated since and it's meant to guide hiring managers through the hiring process, through writing job descriptions, posting on different sites, holding interviews and such, but there wasn't enough information in there focused on embedding equity, embedding diversity, inclusion and culture elements into all steps of the recruitment process and the retention process. So the people and culture team actually reached out to the racial justice allyship group and a couple other affinity groups to say we want to update this document and you are valued resources that will be able to help us do this in an equitable way. So for the past few months, we've been holding several different meetings and we have finally gotten to the point where we have an updated document that really embeds elements of EIDC, which is what we call our program, EIDC into that whole process and so then we're gonna be rolling that out to hiring managers. So that's one example of how we are working with our people and culture team and how affinity groups are integrated into potentially changing the culture within TechSoup. And then externally, we have also been doing direct outreach to nonprofits that are focused on racial justice and focused on anti-discrimination. We've been inviting them to come and speak at TechSoup. We've been asking if there's volunteer opportunities that our staff can come and support. We've also been asking about their technology needs because that's what TechSoup does and thinking about ways that we can support them more and also considering a larger kind of cohort and funding model where we fund specifically nonprofits that are focused on this work so we can really help raise their voices and help create more impact for the work that they're doing. So with that, I'm gonna pass it over to Jasmine to talk a little bit about how I mentioned that this is all kind of grown organically at TechSoup but in the past few months and really spearheaded by Jasmine, we've been able to operationalize some of our affinity group work. So Jasmine, take it away. Thanks, Laura and thank you, Aretha. And then again, a huge shout out to my supervisor, my boss, Alicia Phillips who runs the Equity Inclusion Diversity and Culture Program. Hello, everyone, I'm Jasmine, my pronouns are she and her. I am the Equity Inclusion Diversity and Culture Intern at TechSoup and I have been at TechSoup since June of 2021 and so I've been doing this work since then. And what I want to highlight here is before we go before I go into a little more descriptions about alphabet super LGBTQ plus affinity group, junior professionals and black allies, I saw that some folks said that you don't have an affinity group or you don't have an ERG and you're not really sure what that is. There was a link shared in the chat that goes to an article that we posted earlier this year that kind of defines and goes over the history of what an affinity group is but for folks to know when you're talking about affinity groups, we're talking about affinity as in folks who identify within a certain part of their identity, right? So we're talking about junior professionals. Early career professionals, mid-career professionals who are doing professional development work together. We're talking black allies. It's folks who identify as black, identify as African or part of the diaspora who are coming together with our allies, with our accomplices to focus on issues or initiatives that help heighten the voices of black folks across our organization and our network and the communities that we serve. And the same thing for LGBTQ plus, for alphabet soup, to talking about folks who identify within that as well as those allies to come together and educate the community of tech soup and externally to highlight other issues and observances and tell these stories in different ways and to bring positive effect as Laura mentioned with racial justice allyship to these communities and directly help them with the resources and programs that tech soup has available. So I'm thinking about affinity groups in that way and employee resource groups, how taking that the idea of affinity group, how can these resource groups be resources to the organization? And that is what I want to highlight just before I get into these notes. Actually, let me do this first so that we can get rid of the slides before our conversation. So going back a little bit, as Laura mentioned, talking about bridge in the Beverly City Council and then alphabet soup, which is again the LGBTQ plus affinity group was kind of the first one to grow organically out of the bridge. And then after that came racial justice allyship and we've heard about those two a little bit. And alphabet soup within our organization from what I've seen for being here since June has posted, provided slide deck resources about pride and the history of pride has hosted events educating us about what LGBTQ issues and advocacy looks like within the United States and within other parts of the world and continuing to be a resource to us to make sure that we are not, and we are including those voices within the work that we do. So moving on to junior professionals that started actually, we're about to back. So I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about how we formalize the program. And by formalizing it, what do we mean here is just creating a more formal way of creating affinity groups at TechSoup. Yes, and also Erin is here. So Erin, a huge shout out and thank you for the work that you do with this affinity group and all of the other work that you've been doing at TechSoup. So what it means to when we're talking about formalizing the program was creating an affinity group policy. And what that policy highlights is the purpose of affinity groups at TechSoup, the procedure for forming an affinity group which I'll talk about in a second but mostly is submitting or request form. And then we recommend meeting with the equity inclusion, diversity and culture team for ways of gaining support. And then we also include the discrimination and harassment policies within TechSoup and the resources that TechSoup will allocate to affinity groups, which at this time is virtual tools, our meeting softwares, things like that. And then it also talks about the details of what activities affinity groups, what are activities that we can approve for affinity groups which would be internal networking, internal or and external events, being a resource for business needs and then community engagement. So with that, we've also created a affinity group request form and that form identifies who the founding members are, what the mission statement is for the affinity group and its intended activities, again, which would be internal networking, internal, external events, business needs and community engagement. And that form is reviewed by the equity inclusion diversity and culture team, the EIDC team and some folks with people in culture. So with that, going back now to talk about junior professionals, junior professionals came about and was the first group to use this process formally. And again, that group is for folks who identify as early or mid-career professionals and one of the big events that they hosted was a brown bag event that talked about career growth which is a professional development opportunity that we were able to have within TechSoup for these junior professionals as well as hosting some networking opportunities throughout the year. And then lastly, talking about Black Allies. Some of the, this really came about because we want to again highlight these voices of Black folks, African folks and the different folks within the diaspora and our allies to work on funding research and opportunities to build programs for Black led nonprofits. And we're also working on a cross collaborative event with AlphabetSoup for June that highlights both June team and crime. And we're very excited about that because we want to acknowledge the intersection of this identity and give voice to it as well. So with that, and if you have questions for me for anyone who's spoken already, please put that in the chat. Thank you all for letting us talk about what it looks like at TechSoup and I'll pass it back to you. That was amazing. And I love that you stopped into the town to explain what affinity, because a lot of people said they didn't know why they were here, they're just here to learn. And I love that you all are here to learn because as you can see, you can start affinity groups in your nonprofit to find out what your community need. Oftentimes we as organizers or founders, we're busy doing the work, but we have to bring the people from the outside in so they can tell us what they need as well. So with that being said, I wanted to introduce Mariah Butler. I was in a meeting, a separate meeting from TechSoup with Mariah present and she works for a for-profit company, but she can tell you more about it. Mariah, go ahead and unmute yourself and you tell the story about how you started Employee Resource Group at your company. So my name is Mariah Butler. I am a Global Talent Analyst at AIG and one of the things I was able to start while I was at the company is another, as Jasmine said, could be called Affinity Group, could be called Employee Resource Group. There's many names, could be called Employee Business Group. There's a lot of names, but I was able to start an Employee Resource Group called an Interfaith or Faith-Based Employee Resource Group. And I'll just talk a little bit about what it is first. Faith is obviously something that's not naturally talked about necessarily in the workplace and so I'll kind of break it down a little bit and then if there are any questions I'll be happy to take any questions. So first and foremost, what is a Faith-Based or what is the Faith-Based Employee Resource Group at AIG? It's an Interfaith Employee Resource Group and really our main pillars. So our mission is on the left-hand side really about building a culture of inclusion and serving as an internal resource to our employees whether whatever faith you're coming from, whatever background you're coming from. And really we have four essential pillars or building blocks. They build on top of each other and what they are is to inform people of the foundations and the basics and experiences of their neighbor's faith to develop a greater understanding and really where that came from is, I don't know if anyone remembers back in I believe 2019 there was like a bombing on a mosque in New Zealand and I remember sitting in my desk and I was just really heartbroken by it but I felt like I really couldn't really talk about it, right? You don't really talk about faith in the workplace and certain news maybe you don't talk about in the workplace and so I felt a little bit, one, I couldn't talk about it but also I felt for my Muslim colleagues, maybe they didn't feel like they could talk about it either and so I started kind of just writing things down about what I can do to help bring faith and to help people who wanna talk about faith bring it to work. So first, informing people about the foundations like I said, basics experiences. So really thinking about how you experience work as a person of faith, whether you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, et cetera and again, how you can bring that to work. So informing people of your neighbor's faith, that's the key. So learning about someone else, whether that be in your faith but they practice it a little bit differently or completely outside of your faith. Secondly, we're hoping as a building block that as you begin to inform people about faith about your neighbor's faith that begins to mitigate any religious bias or discrimination within the workplace and encourage intellectual curiosity. The next building block is to empower folks and empower employees to be able to discuss their ideas and beliefs about faith. So really when it comes to these identities within any kind of diversity dimension, you really want people to be able to bring their whole selves to work, whatever that is and as appropriate of course but really being able to have people talk about things that they do in their daily lives. So when you're kind of at the water cooler and I know we're in the remote workforce but when people do get back to work, when you're at the water cooler or when you're talking to someone, being able to say, hey, what did you do this weekend? Maybe you went to the synagogue, maybe you went to church. Maybe you did a faith-based activity. So empowering people to have those kinds of discussions and then next, which I think will be helpful for those on the call is connecting faith and work together and we've been able to kind of impact the business in this way. So one way to connect faith and work is one for employees to be empowered by bringing kind of those good faith principles that are similar among the faiths to be able to have an engaged and purpose-driven workforce, right? And that could be applicable to your nonprofit, right? How can people to be more engaged? Secondly, from a for-profit business, being able to connect faith and business together. So what that may look like. So just tangibly, one, within AIG, it may mean that maybe because we're not talking about faith, we are not thinking of opportunities in the faith-based market. So ensuring faith-related organizations, connecting with faith-related organizations or faith-based markets, maybe we're just completely missing that because faith is sort of a taboo in the workplace. And so that's one aspect. Another aspect that I think some of you will be interested in as well is one of the things that we got to do is what some for-profit companies do is they are able to match a two-to-one match, provide a matching grant to any nonprofit that one of their employees give to. And so one of the things that we were able to influence is a policy that we had at our company. And that particular policy, it was a little confusing in terms of could we, as an employee, if I gave to a church or a synagogue or a mosque or what have you, could I ask for a two-to-one matching grant? So can I go to the company and ask for that matching grant? And so the policy was a little bit confusing as to whether we can do that or not. And so we worked with the company and we were actually able to change the policy and make it clear that employees can actually, if I were to give $2,000 to XYZ nonprofit, the company can then match that $4,000. And so that was nice to do. And one of the things that we're accomplishing and moving forward with. And so I'll pause there. I'm sure that there are questions and I'm sure I'm happy to answer any. Well, and I know we're in the tech space. So I don't know if this is actually something that is done in tech areas as well. So there are some companies that have it. Let's go to that slide really quick. I'm sure you're probably thinking who has this. There are companies that do have faith-based Employee Resource Group. And it is a growing area. So I'll pause it here. Wow, that was awesome. Thank you, Mariah. So we wanna open it up to everyone. If you have a question, go ahead and use the raise your hand option. You can ask Mariah. I saw Erin in the chat room, Jasmine. Mariah, would you stop sharing your screen? And also Laura, she's only gonna be here for a few more minutes. So you have a question of either one of them. Or if you just wanna say, hey, I just learned something new today because I certainly did. Feel free to unmute yourself. I actually use the raise your hand option so everybody don't unmute at the same time. Okay, Terry, Terry, Alrid. Hi, everybody. So I run a nonprofit consortium in Rochester, Minnesota. And we have about 90 members. And many of our nonprofits are so small that they can't actually sustain affinity groups within them. And so the consortium has been talking about the possibility of setting up some affinity groups that would be cross-organizational. So that way, I mean, it's all within the nonprofit ecosystem, but it would be for the community as opposed to any individual nonprofit. And we, as the consortium could resource those groups. But I just am wondering, do y'all have any thoughts about that? Any things we should be considering prior to setting up any just words of wisdom in that scenario? Excellent question. I would like all three of you to answer. Laura, if you have Mariah and Jasmine, we'll start with Laura, if you have any comments for Terry. I mean, my initial reaction is that that sounds like a great solution to the issue of not having enough staff at each nonprofit to maybe make up a substantial affinity group or ERG. And I do know, I haven't experienced it personally, but I do know there are some larger tech companies where, for instance, the women affinity group at Facebook partners with the women's affinity group at Google or something like that. So I know that that is something that happens cross company or cross-organizational in the tech space. So I don't have any personal experience, but my initial reaction is I think that it is a solution that seems like it could work. Well, I think the important thing would just be to make sure that what the people who are part of that affinity group at one nonprofit bring back to their nonprofit is relevant, specifically, like that they get value out of it, specifically for the culture and community and staff that they work with at the nonprofit. So making sure that all of those voices are heard and that there's value in it for everybody because all, you know, the nonprofit ecosystem is similar in a lot of ways, but all nonprofits are very different as well. So that would just be my one thought, but I'd be interested to hear what anybody else has to say. Well, I thought, go ahead, Jasmine. I was just going to say quickly to Laura's point and also with being so small, one thing that could be beneficial is to start out with something like what we have as bridges of diversity council where folks from the different affidavits can come together and then have DEI specific or equity specific goals that can be embedded into the work that is being done with your nonprofit. That may be a good place to start as you continue to grow. Mm-hmm. Thank you. I should have mentioned, we host a city-wide commitment to racial justice that has a bunch of programming already involved. And so all these nonprofits are already involved with this umbrella project, the commitment to racial justice for our city. Yes, that's good. Thank you for sharing that. I saw someone else raise their hand, but they put it down when I called on Terry. I don't wanna miss you because every question is important. Okay, while you're still thinking about whether you wanna ask that question, I do have a question and this is for anybody, Jasmine Mariah could answer this. What's the best way to start an ERG or an infinity group? Jasmine, you gave some highlights, but what's the best way to start one? For everybody here to say, hmm, I just learned something new today. I think I'll do that. What's the best way to start? For my experience, I'd say find someone who is really passionate and can sell why the affinity group or ERG, whatever, your organization wants to call it, why it's important to the organization and can share that with other people and can do so pretty rapidly, depending on your timeline, but I would say that definitely from my experience, I think bottom up is key. Although top sponsorship from the top and the house is important as well, I think personally it's important for folks to have kind of that fire on the bottom, the leaders and the members to have a lot of energy to get it going. Well, I think you answered the second question I was gonna ask, how do you get the executive to support you in that you said start from the bottom and have that fire going, so that was really good. I do have a question, because that was posted in the chat room about, from Molly, do you pay staff where their time spent in affinity groups and that's how do you balance that staff work versus your paid job? Anyone can answer that question, Jasmine, Mariah, Laura. Laura, I see you went into more detail in the chat about what we're talking about if you wanna chat about that just a little more. Yeah, absolutely, so Jasmine mentioned that we don't currently compensate affinity groups, although I do know that the larger that affinity groups get and especially in non-non-profits, but in for-profit companies where they have larger budgets, they do really focus on compensating affinity groups. So I think that that is kind of the gold standard and is where, if there is budget for that is where we should all be trying to get to because it's something that the people who are part of these groups are passionate about but it's also work that's in addition to the full-time job that they already have. So we don't currently do it but it is something that is definitely top of mind for us and one of the things that we are starting to do to help us get to that point is for affinity group members to track their time. So how much time are you spending in meetings? How much time are you spending on projects? How much time are you spending collaborating with different teams all focused on affinity group work? That will help us understand, okay, this is how much staff time is spent in these affinity groups. Here's how much value these groups are adding to the organization and to staff retention and staff culture and then from there we can figure out, okay, how much do we need to budget within our EIDC program? How much do we go to the executive team and request? How much do we need to fundraise for because we're a nonprofit? So that type of thing. And from my perspective, oh, go ahead, Jeff, I'm sorry. Usually, and from what I've seen, folks who run affinity groups from resource groups are generally not paid. It's something that you do of your own time and I see another question is kind of why would you do it? What is the motivation? Especially if you're not getting paid to do it? One, it can help you if you wanna lead a team and influence the business. It's a way to do it and kind of show people within the company higher up that you can do that. So it's something that you can put in your goals. We are encouraged to put it in our goals, although it's not paid for specifically or we're paid to do it. But I think also just hearing Jasmine and how they got started at TechSoup, it's something that's personally fulfilling as well. You see a need and you wanna fulfill it and so it's helpful for folks who are in that position to push the company forward because it's better for everyone. Thanks, Mariah. And I'm going to go ahead and read the next question here from Annie Marie. And it says, what is the motivation for the employee to be a part of this versus the organization's commitment or for the org's diversity? Diversity equals a good thing for the employee to be heard. Is there any other factors that commonly arise and expectations of the group, for instance? And I'm gonna try to answer this as best I can to make sure that I understand the question. But to start off with that first part, what is the motivation for the employee to be part of this versus the organization's commitment to diversity? From my perspective, and it kind of speaks to what Mariah was just saying as well, from my perspective, the two are not mutually exclusive. They can exist together. The organization can have a commitment to diversity and an employee can have a desire to have a space that is created that allows them to bring more of themselves to work, if that makes sense. And in an organization supporting that, and as we talked about executive sponsorship or at least executive involvement and appreciation for the kind of ideas and how the different employees show up to work, that should align with what the org plans to do in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion. So as an employee, and for myself, because I am one of the founders of Black Allies, to start an affinity group and my motivation for being a part of it, what I've seen from other folks, newer employees who have reached out to me and said, I just heard about this, I just got here, I wanna be a part of it. These initiatives sound great. Let me help out is to, again, it is the person who identifies with the affinity, bringing themselves to work holistically and that applying to the work that the organization is already doing or already plans to do. And I hope that that answers your question, but Mariah, if you also wanna tackle this question, please do. Yeah, I think influences, it really doesn't set it. Someone comes to the company and they reach right directly to you, Black Allies. Hey, I saw that you have this affinity group. I wanna join. Influences is a big thing. Obviously influence is a big thing whether it be within the company or just generally speaking, you hear of influencers. You can influence the company and when you can influence the company for good, that's a plus, right? And so I think Jasmine hit it on the nail. Awesome, anyone else have any questions? Please use raise your hand option or comments. I have a question actually for Mariah. I know you talked a little bit about the two to one matching that the Interfaith ERG has the policy that the Interfaith ERG has helped create an AIG. But I'm curious about if your ERG has a budget or funding and what that looks like and how that's applied to the work that you are doing. Yeah, so thankfully we do. I think this is obviously dependent on where your company is at if they can provide budget for you, but we do have budget in terms of numbers. I won't get into details unless you really want to know but we do have budget. So if we want to bring in an external speaker or if we want to partner with, let's say a nonprofit which I think a lot of ERGs do because we're not getting paid for this so it's good to have these partnerships but we do have budget and that helps us to kind of move along with our programming and so it's super helpful. Excellent, that's a question from walking anew. Can you unpack, I think Jasmine you said it, the idea of having a passionate person, what if their passion can derail the efforts? Who vets that person? That's an interesting question because yeah, when talking about what does passion mean, what is motivation in terms of affinity group, right? And the kinds of things that get brought up and how that, you know, that is a really excellent point and I think what is good about the way in which the affinity groups are being flown now at TechSoup is just that we are starting off with a mission statement or starting off understanding what kinds of activities and how we want to engage the TechSoup community and how we want that to grow. So if even passionate folks or anyone who comes with an idea, all ideas are heard in value but we as a group decide what initiatives we want to be spending this extra time on. What initiatives is it that we want to bring to the greater organization that we want to reach out to our executive leadership about? And so it is, I wouldn't say that there is a vetting process because, but I would say that there is a way in which the community within the affinity group determines how that time is spent. And do you mind if I add on to that? Yes, and then Alicia will ask your question. Go ahead. Yeah, I think passion too, just I would say willing to execute and follow through. So I think anytime you try to bring something new to anything, organization or whether whatever it is someone who's willing to move forward and has enough energy to sustain them is how I would frame it as well. Thank you. Alicia? Alicia? Well, she kind of answered it in what I was going to rephrase myself. And in my opinion, the shortest way I can say this is like having a buddy system. And what I mean by that is you got somebody that when you do step into said meeting because I'm derail with you constantly I'm deemed a derailer. I'm constantly, I was hurt when I saw this question. But if you have a buddy system, that means that somebody that they can look to within said meeting and never like, oh, we're on the same page as far as ABC and D, let's get her done type of stuff. To kind of keep the meeting on rail on track. Would you like me to use that? Sentimental, sentimentology? Sentimentalogy? Just saying, yo. Now was that a comment or a question? More so to piggyback off of that last statement. If I had to answer the question, let me say that. If I had to answer the question. Okay, all right, excellent, excellent. So Jasmine, can you answer Terry's question here? Yes, for, so Terry, I see your question. And for those of you, I'll read it out loud. What is the role of racial justice allyship group and black allies at TechSoup in the overall organization's conversations and actions about racism, white supremacy, and other race, white supremacy culture or other initiatives for racial justice allyship. I cannot speak too much to that because I'm not a member of that group. What I will say from what I've seen is that a lot of their initiatives that I have seen, especially like working with the Help Me Higher Doc as Laura had mentioned at the top of this meeting and being a part, then that was actually cross group too. So members of junior professionals, like allies in AfBetSoup participated in that. But in terms of talking about racism and white supremacy culture, combating those things includes bringing in the mindset or bringing in the vision and the mission of the Equity Inclusion Everstand Culture Program. So if we're doing that by embedding that framework into the Help Me Higher Doc, for example, to give a guiding point for hiring managers at TechSoup to consider cultural belonging, consider implicit bias when they're participating in the hiring process, then that is going to speak to these things as well for Black allies because we are so new. One of the major ways that we would start having this conversation is by creating programming that is specifically designed and created for Black-led non-profits. But in terms of having, so that's how I would answer that question in terms of overall organizational conversations about what this looks like, but we have these conversations at TechSoup outside of these affinity groups as well. And in different ways that align with the work that we do, for example, we had a conversation during Global Diversity Awareness Month about data ethics, which can include this topic. Or we had a conversation about decolonizing humanitarian aid, which conveys this as well. So seeing how the members of these groups can definitely inform how we have these conversations at TechSoup, but the people at TechSoup inform how we have these conversations as well, whether or not they are members of these particular groups. And I hope that answers your question, Terri, but I'll also put my email in the chat if you want to follow up. And I'll also add that the Racist Justice Ally Group, we also identify organizations doing racial justice work for TechSoup's digital resilience program and other TechSoup offers as well. Hey, with that then, I'm gonna give you back your time and let you go out and save the world. Thank you for everything that you do in the community. We appreciate you. Come back to our other webinars. We're gonna send this email to you within 48 hours.