 So today, as you can see from our title slide here, we are talking about inclusive fundraising for nonprofits, and we have Elena Joy Thurston joining us today. So Elena will be here talking to us about this topic, and we are so thrilled to have you really dive into the inclusive fundraising. And of course, thanks to our presenting sponsors, they join us each and every morning, and they also join you each and every day to help you support your mission-driven goals and to support the communities in which you serve. Please do check them out. I think we all have a great responsibility to do more good in our world, and we all know that we can really use it. So please do check out our sponsors. Thanks to Julia Patrick for creating this wonderful platform and asking me to serve alongside you. We are thrilled to be here today. And again, to have Elena with us. So Elena, welcome, and thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here, and especially to be really digging into the nonprofit side of things, because this is awesome. This is where we get to make really incredible impact. Well, you are a woman who's, I can tell, has already made an impact, continues to make an impact. Talk about the Pride and Joy Foundation. Absolutely. So we are a fairly young 501c3 nonprofit. We're actually a COVID baby. I was going all around the country speaking at different venues, talking about inclusion, specifically LGBTQ inclusion, and then COVID hit, right? March of 2020, the world shut down. I had eight speaking engagements on my books, and they all canceled within 24 hours. And so what wasn't canceled was the need. What really happened is I started hearing from these college students who had just gone to college, just come out for the first time in their lives, and were starting to experience that authenticity when COVID shut down their university experience, and they were sent home to families that weren't always affirming or didn't always know. And all of a sudden they weren't just there with their families, they were quarantined with their families, right? There was no going out to the coffee shops or finding your community or finding your people that didn't exist. So they were really reaching out and saying, I need help. I need to come out to my parents. I need to help them find some security in this journey, and I don't know what to do. And so that's where the nonprofit came from. Pride and Joy was born. Our mission is to reduce the rate of suicide and homelessness in the LGBTQ community, and we're doing it. It's pretty incredible. That's for you. I love, love, love. I mean, your story is so powerful because it really speaks to the issue of finding a new environment and switching it up, realizing that the need didn't go away. Yeah, it really did. I'm super inspired by that. Okay, but more importantly, I'm fascinated that you have a specific journey about fundraising. And if you don't mind, let's have you share that with us because it's a really interesting topic. I mean, fundraising, we think, oh, fundraising's fundraising. We all need money. We all need money. No money, no mission. Not so. Absolutely. Yeah, so we started to develop a two-day summit, a virtual summit where we could bring together the LGBTQ families from all around the world and come together for support and connection and education. We had one entire track that was just for parents and allies. And so that was a really great way to further our mission and raise funds, right? And it went well. In the end, it went very well, but I learned so much. Now, let me tell you a little bit about my background. I'm middle class, white woman, and I also didn't come out until I was 38. I was in a very conservative religion and community. I really didn't understand myself or I was really trying to fit a box, right? And then life happens. And the realizations are made. And so here I am, I'm now 42. I was 41 when we were organizing the summit and I had only been out three, four years, like not very long. So I myself am very new to this community, right? But also knowing that in my journey, I had struggled with suicidal ideation. And when I was able to come out of that and really heal from that, my eyes were open to the fact that the community struggles with that in a huge, massive way. And it wasn't okay with me that we have so many LGBTQ youth babies. I have four kids of my own. These are babies who are also struggling with suicide. So hence we started everything, right? And so here I am thinking, we're all on the same team, we're all one of the letters and we're all on the same team, right? And then to realize, oh no, like you can really tokenize each other even when you're on the same team and you can really trigger trauma, especially when you're on the same team. And tokenizing really, really happens and it especially happens when you think that you're being very inclusive and you're not. And luckily I had incredible people that were willing to call me on it. And luckily I was able to learn a lot and I realized I needed to take that learning and bring it to the community at large, the nonprofit community and other foundations that are trying to be really inclusive, especially with their fundraising, but aren't aware of what they aren't aware of, right? Just like I was six months ago and I'm sure there's still many things I'm not aware of and I'm not aware that I'm not aware of, but I've been able to realize and be really intentional. I need to surround myself with the team that will call me on it, that will see it and that will call me on it and I need to be willing to learn. I commend you wholeheartedly and I would love to say like, I stand beside you in this because I too have this open invitation to my friends, my peers, my colleagues and honestly anyone to call me on it because oftentimes whatever it is, right? To call me on it, whatever it is, is really that I don't know what I don't know and I am a human being and to Irish human, but I have leaned into these conversations. I was even one of those that, I don't wanna say one of those, but again, as I continue to watch what I say, I didn't know that anti-racism was a thing. I thought like not being racist was the bar, you know? And so for me, I have really leaned into that and I shared before we opened the digital doors about how I curated my little free library with all things anti-racism and I feel like, whether it's that conversation on anti-racism or inclusivity for all beings, all persons, it's really, you know, to take that and what you've done, Elena is really amazing into this inclusive fundraising because I do think that we have practices that we can just slightly change. One of the things I remember when I started as probably a baby fundraiser, you know, was doing same-sex salutations in our donor database and that was a big thing because there were databases that didn't offer that. And now I wanna say most, if not all of them do. So I'm looking forward to learning more, you know, from this episode with you and I just again commend you and thank you for the road that you were on this journey. Thank you, thank you. I don't ever wanna repeat some of those really humiliating experiences and I know that I really take in a lesson when I'm also able to teach it to someone else, right? So I'll do this interview all day long to make sure I don't have to repeat history for myself. So let me get, let's talk about this in a little different piece and that is, how did you or how do you reconcile your own shortcomings or, you know, I think we all like to think, well, we're good people and how could you say that about me because you don't know me and yet on top of all this, you're trying to run a nonprofit. Right. So how do you temper that emotional situation, lesson, change, whatever you wanna call it to your work that you're ultimately trying to do? Right. So I'll answer that with an example. So our leadership team for this summit, there were five of us and while I was really proud of the fact that we had a variety of genders, including non-binary and gender fluid and we had definitely a variety of sexual orientations represented including trans, which was really important to me and to the team at large. What we didn't have was a single person of color. All five people on the leadership team were all white. And so, and yet this leadership team wanted to accomplish something huge. We had four keynote spots in this two-day summit and we wanted to make sure every single one of those spots was gonna be filled by a person of color and we had no budget. So we were literally going to these keynote speakers and saying, hi, we really want you not only because you're a great speaker but also because you're a person of color and we can't pay you. Yeah. Like talking about setting it up for tokenizing. Like that was not a good situation and I didn't realize that. I had not done my own study of what tokenism truly is. All I knew was that I was creating a platform and I was handing the mic over and Pat's on the back for me, right? So that didn't work out too well. And the biggest thing I think I learned from that right off the bat was I have not intentionally curated my network. I haven't made sure, I know lots of people of color that are speakers, professional speakers that I would hand the mic to any day. I did not know many people of color that were professional speakers that were in the LGBTQ space. And that was part of the reason why we wanted to do it. It's, again, it goes back to like, you know those CEOs that say there's no talent out there people of color that we can recruit, right? We all know that's total BS and poor Wells Fargo for even putting that out there. But it was, I haven't found them and I need to find them so that I can pass the mic along in an authentic way with an authentic relationship. So I now know before we ever do that summit again I'm gonna have 20 plus relationships already established that are going to be people of color that are also in the LGBTQ space that are also incredible speakers or incredible up and coming speakers. So if I had started the planning process and started in January, we were booking speakers in March in January if I had started building those relationships that would have gone a long way, right? So when I got to my third ask, I think for the keynote speaker and that person went on TikTok on social media publicly and called me out and called me a racist for tokenizing then it was obviously a lot of defensive reaction, right? A lot of ego, ego, ego, I'm trying to do the right thing. How can you do this to me? I know I'm not racist. The closest people to me know I'm not racist, but wait, do I know I'm not racist? Have I done that work yet? And so luckily my leadership team is there to back me up to say, yes, we know you're not racist but how you handled this situation was not good. You reached out to total strangers with a total cold call and you didn't explain to them the fundraising that you've been trying to do so that you could pay them because that was in the works but I didn't give it that context because I hadn't been able to secure that funding yet. So there were a lot of things that I was understanding I needed to do differently. So then it came back to I went public as well and said, this is what happened. This is what I did and now I've learned from it. I've taken a week. I didn't respond right immediately to that TikTok calling me a racist. I took the week and I learned and I asked and I listened and I humbled myself. Then I was able- I had to be a long week. I think that was a real long week. And then I was able to respond publicly and say, this is what I did wrong. And it was when I heard from other nonprofit leaders that I was able to realize, okay, I'm never gonna have to relearn this lesson because I'm gonna continuously teach this to others as well. But this is how we actually create inclusive fundraising and not exclusive fundraising. So one of the big takeaways I learned or heard you say and I learned from this conversation and this experience you just shared with us, Elena is to intentionally curate your own network. And when I hear you say that, I'm thinking that is an actionable step. That is something we can all take. And I think, because I coach my client often about intentionally curating their board of directors, right, but are we doing that kind of our own self-reflection within our own network for those professionals in which we also kind of like do business with. So that was a big a-ha for me when you said that. What are some other very tangible action items that we can walk away from today's discussion and say, okay, I want to intentionally curate my network. What are some other ones? Well, one of the biggest things I recommend for both for-profits and non-profits are two things. One is on your website, you're always gonna have a board of directors or leadership page with the picture in this short little bio, right? Make sure you've included gender pronouns on that page. That's really important. I know that when I'm looking at different organizations that I want to collaborate with, if they haven't taken that one small step that costs zero money, then I know that they're probably not an organization that I want to vibe with. So that would be, that's the very first thing that costs no money, takes very little time. And it's a very blatant way of saying we see you, we recognize you, and we respect who you are, just by putting your leadership's pronouns out there. And of course, having pronouns in their email signatures as well and on their screen avatars. And the other part- I just wanna state, LinkedIn has that option now, which is very simple and it almost prompts you. I believe it prompts you to fill that in, which I thought was really cool, but I love that. So the gender pronouns on the website and on the email signature. Absolutely. And then I think that there are ways to, again, there are more little things. For example, you talked about earlier in your letters, being able to have same gender, it's not pronounced identifiers, right? Mr, Mrs, Mrs. Like valuations or whatnot. So the next step that we can go from that, where many, many organizations in Europe and Australia have already gone, is just ditching the Mr, Mrs, Mrs and using Mx instead for mix, right? It's kind of like that next step in progression. And I think the last thing that I would say as far as like intentionally curating your leadership and such is for me, the biggest thing in tokenizing is getting that one person, right? So like when you have that one black person or you have that one trans person, right? And yet you have to start somewhere. And that's always the reaction, right? Is you do have to start somewhere. Now I'll be blatantly clear, on our current board of directors, we do not have any people of color yet. Yet, because I'm not ready to just put one on there and have them be the token person of color on our leadership board. Like to me, that's not fair to them, that's setting them up. And so our leadership board, we're definitely going through more training, more inclusion training of our own. And that's hysterical because that's what we teach. That's a huge part of our business as we go into corporations and teach that inclusion, right? But we're doing that specifically around race in our board of directors. Because we want to make sure that when we are able to invite more people of color onto our leadership team that we're ready, that we've done our work, right? And that we've processed all of our own internalized racism because we all have it, right? And that way we can confidently reach out to those members of our network that we've curated and say, this is who we are, this is the work that we've done and we would be honored if you would join us in the work. Instead of saying, we need you to teach us how to not be racist. Okay, so talk to me about that and drill down. How are you spreading the word? How are you going out into your community, into your other board members' communities and saying, we're underrepresented here, this is what we're looking for, what are you doing? So again, we haven't done that yet. So we're still doing our own work and there's a really incredible journal out there, journal publication that we're using as the basis of our work, which is different ways that white supremacy show up in organizational systems. And I'm gonna give you one example. I used to run our board in such a way that it was like, I have an idea, we're gonna implement, we're gonna go with it within 24 hours, right? Like it's go, go, go, go, go, go, right? Instead realizing through that article that we all study as a board, realizing that that kind of method of not slowing down and allowing for input is a huge way that white supremacy continues systematically in organizations. And there's probably 12 different points that we identified that we're guilty of, right? And so we're working through those 12 different points. So when we go to our curated networks and say, we don't have you represented, we want to have you represented. And these are the 12 points of work around white supremacy that we've already done and that we hope to continue. So it is our one little hope that by approaching people that way, we will, and inviting them to serve on our board that we will be communicating that this is not a tokenizing issue, that this is truly an inclusion issue. Cause those are almost different sides of the same coin, right? Wanting to include everyone, yet, can we get there without tokenizing? And first of all, I- Go ahead, Julia. Well, I would say that I struggle with this daily because I'm the only white person on a board that serves the discussion of race and democracy in America. And I find that, and so on 960, I'm probably on the younger side of age groups within this board. And I find that we have a lot of fear with our vocabulary, with our meeting, physically. And so we have to strip away, and it could be that it's our generations, but we as human beings are so shackled by these problems that to turn it back out to fundraising is like a concept. I mean, and it's really interesting because we're all trying to do the right thing. We're trying to support our community, the concept, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the core of it, as human beings, we have these, I don't wanna say issues or problems or situations or, you know, how do you navigate that? I mean, that to me is like the baseline question. How do we navigate the sensation around the words and the phrases and the communication that we're not totally confident in using? We practice it among the people that we feel safe around first. Like when I approached our closing keynote speaker who was a big deal and we were very lucky to get them. I practiced that conversation five different times with five different people, right? And asked for that feedback, right? This is who I'm approaching. Please role play with me, act like you're them and be sticky about it so that I can prepare and I can practice that. We name that sensation around that fear, like we name it. In this family, we talk about it, that's our phrase. In this family, we talk about the discomfort we have around certain vocabulary. So for example, I spent the first year being out really uncomfortable around trans issues and drag queen issues, right? And I felt so ashamed of it because I'm on the team. First letter of the team, like I should be okay with this. And I wasn't. And so I covered it up with a blanket in my head and didn't even address it. And it was finally when I was like seeing my red flags and I was working through my self-awareness. And I got to, I was able to work through it. I had to do it very intentionally, but I was able to get through it and only because I was willing to name it. So in this family, we name it, right? We don't hide it under a blanket of shame, even though it feels so shameful. We don't hide it under that blanket of shame. We do name it, we do practice around it. Yeah, does that answer your question? Well, it's really interesting. And I think the thing, you mean, Jared and I talked about this, you know, you don't know what you don't know. You said that almost same phrase in the very beginning. And Jared, I interrupted you. I'm sorry. No, it's fine. I got fully into this. And, you know, and I think for many of us, and again, I feel like I am brought into many boards and board discussion because I look like them. I maybe drive the same similar brand cars they drive, right? And so I am not, I like to say a Jedi master and I say that like with love because it's the justice, the equity, the diversity and the inclusion. That is not my wheelhouse of expertise, you know? But I do see my responsibility as I continue to lean into this conversation and to have that open call of invitation. Please call me out if there's something that I could still learn on, right? So I often use that opportunity to say, look left, look right. We all look the same, the parking lot all looks the same. Our kids wear the same uniform to school today, right? Like let's look at that. And then let's also look at the community in which we are serving. And that is misaligned. So I think these conversations are very important. They make me very uncomfortable on occasion and that tells me, I think I'm doing it right. You know, still more work to do, yes. And that, you know, having, you know, it's that whole, and I've heard it, I forget if it was in one of the books that I filled in my library or what that it was like, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable, absolutely, absolutely. You know, it's such an interesting dialogue because I think, and we kind of started this out in the beginning with the framing up this conversation, Elena, and that we are so worried about, you know, chasing that dollar and trying to fund our organization so that we can do this amazing work in our communities that it's really hard. It's really hard to say, okay, well, we need to pull back and have some generative discussions so that we can be a better organization. You know, I think it takes a board, a lot of, I don't know, like lack of panic because most boards are so panicked to get on this money train, but to be able to pull back and to say, okay, if we're gonna be a good board, if we're gonna be a good organization, if we're gonna serve our communities, we need to step back and have some of these conversations. And I don't know, Jared, what you think, but it seems to me like a lot of our boards aren't even willing to go there. They're not even willing to address this. They're like, yeah, that's political. I agree, and that makes me sad. And I even had someone during the huge social injustice because I've been referring to the pandemics as plural because there's been multiple pandemics that we've all recently navigated. And the board literally said, that's not our place to make a statement, right? Well, clearly not making a statement is making a statement. Is making a statement. That's right, we can't afford. And that's probably the biggest theme that I saw come out of Pride Month, which was just a month ago. And it's just talk after talk and thought leaders after thought leaders. That's really when they're given the microphones, right? That's really when we can learn from them. So I love the education that comes out of Pride Month. And it also gives you a pulse on the community, right? And that pulse right now is really about you can't afford to not take a stand. Companies can't afford to not take a stand. Non-profits can't afford to not take a stand. We, and especially in the LGBTQ community, we have too much at risk to guess if you're an ally. That's a great comment. Yeah, like we have to know that who we are interacting with is safe for us, is mentally safe for us, emotionally, physically safe for us. If we don't know that, if we can't bank on it, if we can't go to your Google listing and scroll to the bottom and find the LGBTQ friendly posting on there, I'm probably not gonna go. And that was very clear just two weeks ago. My family and I went on a vacation. We were traveling through a small town on the way home. And it was, we pulled in eight o'clock at night. I've got three kids with me, we're starving. Where are we gonna go eat? There's only three places open in this tiny little town. We went to the one that had the rainbow flag, period. Because I was too exhausted. I could not be on edge making sure my kids weren't being harassed because they were there with two moms. Two moms, right, right? Right, we can't guess if you're an ally. There's too much at risk. Well, you know, this has been magical. I so appreciate your leadership, your thought leadership. I really appreciate your honest integrity to share, you know, your failings, your concerns and navigating that. Because for all of us, these things are, I believe personally, until the last breath we take. We're, hopefully we're always refining and we're always learning because the world is changing. And I think if Jared and I have learned anything in this last 18 months and 350 shows is that the world changes rapidly. And the corner, yeah, you gotta be honest. So you have been a joy as it says in your name to be with. And I think we have a lot of opportunity to learn from you and to hear more from you. I think it's really super cool. Wow, I'm super inspired. Here's Elena's information. You know, Jared and I, hopefully if you don't get to know us because we wanna know you. We also wanna thank all of our sponsors that you, these amazing conversations would not happen. And so we are very, very appreciative. Okay, Jared, I'm, I'm ramped up, sister. Oh, I know. I've got some homework to do because I'm ashamed to say I don't have my pronouns listed other than LinkedIn. And that's a pretty, pretty, as you said, free. That's a free, free thing to do. So it's been wonderful. Thank you so much, Elena. I'm really grateful to have you on and so glad to have all of you that have joined us live or watching this recording. It is archived and you can find it on many places included Fire TV, Amazon TV, you name it. You can almost just save a nonprofit show when we like show up on a hologram in your, in your room. That's, that's how glad we are. So glad to have all of you. And again, I hope you'll join us tomorrow. Until then, we end every episode just as we have all previous shows. Stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back tomorrow and thanks again, Elena.