 I'm Glenn Gamboa. I'm the philanthropy editor at the Associated Press, and I'm excited to welcome you all to this great conversation. It's part of a partnership that we at the AP have with the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the conversation to help the public better understand how philanthropy works and what it achieves. So thanks to the Lilly Endowment for providing support for this effort and for enabling us to do more discussions just like this one. First, a little housekeeping. We'd love to hear what all of you have as questions for this great panel. So if you could please type them in the Q&A section and we'll leave time to get to as many as we can. Okay, so today we're here for time, talent, and voice, what you can give to make a difference. It's a not-so-subtle reminder that everyone can be a philanthropist and that philanthropy isn't just about big-bunny donations. It's my honor to introduce our panelists today. Bridget Kolder Cheadle is an interior designer, an entrepreneur, an actress, and a philanthropist who founded the Blackbird Collective, a physical and digital co-working space focused on supporting women of color and their allies. Kimberly Jeffries Leonard is the president and CEO at Envision Consulting and she has a lifelong commitment to public service and an expertise in developing public health and behavioral health programs. She's also the president of the Lynx, one of the nation's largest volunteer service organizations, as well as the Lynx Foundation. And our moderator today is Tyrone McKinley Freeman. He's the Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and he's the author of Madame C.J. Walker's Gospel of Giving, Black Women's Philanthropy Touring Jim Crow. Tyrone, I know we're all eager to talk about what's happening today, but with you here I can't resist asking about how today's non-monetary giving is connected to Madame Walker. All right, well thank you very much and good afternoon everyone. Yeah, I'm very excited to be here today with this panel. You know, Madame Walker's story is one that's familiar to many people and people will generally know that she became a millionaire at the height of Jim Crow at the turn of the 20th century by starting a beauty culture company. But people don't often realize is that her philanthropy is not something that started with that wealth and that's something that I think is important for this conversation today. She was born on a cotton plantation in 1867 right after emancipation and she died nearly 52 years later in her own mansion in Irvington, New York. But the story of philanthropy in her life wasn't something that started in the mansion at the end of life. It actually goes back to this idea that she did not wait, that she actually began giving when she was in her early 20s as a poor orphan widowed struggling young mother who was desperately trying to take care of her young daughter. And she was embraced by a local black church community in the city of St. Louis that made a big difference for her. And so we see her beginning to give and fundraise and gather food and clothing and items for indigent neighbors and then philanthropy becomes something that grows from there with her. She gave along the way. So she started with what she had and gave more as she acquired more, which is a very different model of philanthropy than we tend to think about. The second thing I would raise up is that she gave more than money. We tend to focus on her monetary gifts and she made some very consequential gifts to organizations like the NAACP and to many historically black colleges to advance education. But that's not all she gave. And in fact, one of the reasons I organized my book around five chapters named for each kind of gift is I wanted to highlight this diversity of giving because only one of those chapters is about money. She used her business as a platform for providing economic opportunity for black women as they were locked out of Jim Crow's discriminatory economy. She used her network of schools to provide beauty education and allow women to get education again in the midst of severe constraints through Jim Crow on black access to education. She also was very much an activist, which is a gift in this tradition of black philanthropy. She was on the front lines of the anti-lynching movement, the women's voting rights movement. She was even a voice for black soldiers during World War One. So she was very cognizant of the many resources she brought to bear in the fight and struggle for freedom. And of course she constructed a legacy surrounding her estate to perpetuate those gifts after she died. And the last thing I would say that's very important for this conversation is that her giving was nurtured through networks of other generous black women. And so she was a washer woman before she started her company. And it turns out that black washer women were very community-oriented, engaged in mutual aid strategies, very connected and invested in their communities. She was a part of a church, as I mentioned earlier. So a church woman in that traditional sense involved with many different auxiliaries and committees that were doing work in the community. She was a club woman, which is important for our conversation. The links are a great extension of this great history of black women's club work. And of course she was in networks with other black entrepreneurs, especially Booker T. Washington's national network of black business leaders. And so it's important that her story gives us lots of fodder for challenging limited definitions of philanthropy and being more broad and seeing philanthropy across many different patterns and behaviors. The reality is that philanthropy is part of our common collective human heritage. It doesn't belong to one group. It's something that we all can connect with and give. Her story amplifies that. And it's important because gifts beyond money have been a vital part of the ongoing struggle for freedom. And so that's why I'm excited to be in conversation today with these two dynamite panelists because they and their organizations embody this rich tradition and history of the ways in which black women have across our history invested themselves and their communities in the struggle for freedom. And so it's an honor to kick things off today. And so I want to say to Dr. Jeffries Leonard and to Bridget Coulter Chair, welcome and thank you so much for being here. I want to start by asking you, let's start with you, Kim, if I may, would you share with us a brief story of giving from your upbringing that's important to you? Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. I'm excited to be here with you. I'm excited to be here with my co-panelist Bridget. I'm excited to be able to talk about philanthropy in all of the ways that you just laid out. I think it's a great roadmap for our conversation. I grew up in the south. I grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I was born in Germany. My parents were military. They brought me back when we came back over to North Carolina where my dad retired. And I was lucky because we lived close to my grandparents, my maternal grandparents. And so one of the things that I saw early on, I saw my grandmother and my mother give it. My grandmother was what you call the consummate volunteer. She volunteered at the, she was a Red Cross volunteer. She volunteered at the hospital in Fort Bragg. She volunteered with her, her wives club, meals for homeless. My mother did the same thing. We grew up in the church and you know, in the black church at that time, you know, you were in church a lot. And so as a part of that, you know, we were charged to give back. We had service projects in church. We had service projects in school. And so it just really was a part of my fabric because of the way that we were raised. We watched our parents support food shelters. We watched our parents support clothing drives. We watched our parents support scholarships for young children, for children who didn't have scholarships to be able to go to school. It just was something that we, we did all the time. If there was a catastrophe, if you will, or if there was a family in need, then, then, you know, we rallied around, the community rallied around to be able to provide support, close different things for a family in need in case there was a fire or disaster. I remember early on, you know, how as little children, you always want the toy of the day. And our parents would say, well, you might get if you're a good girl. And I do remember there was a one of those disasters. And the toy of the day was purchased for this child who did not have anything. And I do remember, you know, as little children do, why am I getting this toy? And I'm not getting this toy. And I remember that what has stuck with me throughout, my mother used to say, what don't you have? She said to me, what don't you have? And why would you not want someone to have something that they would want? And then she said too much is given, much is required. And that is something that has, you know, you know, when you swing, care these things very early on, they stay with you and they become the foundation upon which you grow. And so a lot of those things that my parents and my grandparents said to me, my children say, you know, we know, we know, because they continue on. And I think that that those those early experiences I had in Fayetteville really resonated and stayed with me and helped to build the legacy that I hope I've built in my children to be able to do that. Wonderful. To whom much is given much is required, right? There's certainly a diversity of gifts wrapped up in those wonderful stories you share. Thank you, Bridgette. And would you share with us an important story of giving from your upbringing? Yeah, I think I share a similar experience. First of all, yes, I want to reiterate how honored I am to be on this panel and such a fan of yours Kimberly and the work that you do and resonate and that, you know, those the people that are doing the work really inspire you to take those brave steps sometimes it takes to do something like, okay, I can make this happen. And Tyrone, obviously, we had the opportunity to be in conversation and I your book really inspired me. Even as I read it and thinking about Blackbird, how many alignments there were, it was really interesting to watch that. And for me, there's so many stories. I actually have the working class, poor family I grew up in, everyone always pulled together to make things work, you know, if we didn't have enough in one area, we had enough in another area. But it was always part of watching my grandmother and my aunties and my uncles and everyone just made it happen for each other. So we didn't have them a lot individually, but we had a lot together. And I always that always stuck with me. And I remember going off to college. And also about my grandmother, she would give the shirt, literal shirt off her back. It just be like, you don't have any, oh, here you go, baby. It's like, what about your shirt grandma? She's like, no, no, no, baby need a shirt. So it was just, you know, they're from the South to Louisiana and there was just a giving culture. And it always stuck with me that, like, everyone together unified, I had this sense of community. There was music in our house. So there was giving of love, giving of community, giving of sound. And it never was one thing. It was kind of this joy that came from everyone being together. And it was loud. And it was a crazy house. But I remember going away to college and everyone scrapped together to give me a $200 typewriter, you know, it was like a typewriter that automatically was like a fancy to say the art. So I have dated myself, y'all. But that was, it took a lot. And some one person who maybe gave $5 for that typewriter, that $5 meant a lot to them. None of them might have been able to give $50 and other people too. Like it took a whole family to send me off to UCLA with a typewriter in my car. And like, I knew how much that, ma'am, aunt's crying, but she would cry is a lot of things because my sweetheart. But it was a moment that resonated with me. And I knew that I had an obligation to always go out to my community, any community in my family, extended family, and be that person who gave what mattered. And I think that's what always stuck with me is how much, how little we had, you know, on a financial, but how much we gave, which amplified things. Yeah, your examples are sharing this idea of giving from your substance, not just the surplus. And it speaks to the different ways people have showed up, literally the shirt off their back, right, to invest in others. And service is a big gift as a part of this tradition. And so Ken, would you please tell us about this tremendous history of the Lynx Incorporated, their mission and membership and many things that you're doing today? I am so excited to be able to, I mean, I'm just pleased to be here. But this is a really special time for the Lynx Incorporated. We are, as we were introduced, one of the oldest black volunteer women's organizations. We are an organization that is literally male celebrating our 75th year in existence. We were founded in November of 1946 by two young women who were sitting around and saying, we need to do some things in our community. We need to help the children. We need to bring culture. We need to bring education. We need to give back. They brought seven of their friends together, and they formed the Philadelphia Club and the Lynx was born. And they brought their friends and their relatives all up and down the Eastern Seaboard to say, do you want to have a club? Do you want to have a club? And then we became the Lynx Incorporated. And now today, we're an organization of over 16,000 women in 292 chapters, 41 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the United Kingdom. And we've had chapters in South Africa. We've had chapters in Germany. And we are founded on two tenants, two tenants only, friendship and service. So we're friends who serve. And in this service, we have evolved to provide service and programs in five different areas, which we call facets, the arts, services to youth, national trends and services, international trends and services, and health and human services. And very often, you'll see the work we do is not only in these five areas, but across these five areas. So so many things really do interconnect. But we're one of the few organizations that we're required to do a certain number of service hours every year. And so collectively as an organization, we log a million hours a year, a million service hours a year. So when you come to the Lynx table, you come knowing that boots on the ground, hands on work, we want, you know, it costs money to provide services and it costs money to do work, but it also needs hands. We have to have working hands. So we're a working organization. And we have implemented programs across the board. We provide what we call legacy grants. We're on our sixth one now, we'll talk about that later, but you know, to deserving organization, million dollar grants, we put money in communities, we put work hard work in communities. And we are the organization that we say we are friends who serve. And it is our pleasure to do so. Wow. So from friends who serve to entrepreneurs who are deeply invested in community Bridget, would you please tell us the origin story of Blackbird? Why did you start it? When did you start it? And then what are the things that you're involved in? Absolutely. Yeah, Blackbird started originally in 2018 with an idea. I had reached a level in my interior design career where, you know, I had a really burgeoning career at a design build company and was really looking around and looking for my community. Where were the people that looked like me? There's only 2% Black women in interior design. That is a staggeringly low number in a career that has so much opportunity and potential and gives you so much freedom. And I ended up joining some other guilds. There's a really wonderful guilds out there doing incredible work that I started to find over the years. But at the time that I was transitioning my design studio to a new location, I found myself in need of an office quickly, short story longer. I ended up in co-working spaces was drawn to the ones for women. And I realized working in these co-working collectives, there was this shared community that you got immediately from being around the water cooler, looking at other entrepreneurs and people inspired, but that a lot of people didn't look like me there either. So I got this audacious idea, what if it was our space? What if it was centered on women of color and a space where we could network and grow and collect together? So Blackbird is this life work and wellness community for professional, ambitious women of color and allies to create positive social economic change, to network, to grow together, to celebrate creativity, promote wellness, productivity, and advocacy. So we really are here to support our peers, to find each other, to amplify each other. And it's in a physical and digital location. And it's a really beautiful thing because we do a lot through programming, education, we're doing some cutting edge work with blockchain and NFTs, because I don't want us left out of web three. And it's a luxury space. And I audaciously call it a space of luxury at the intersection of inclusivity and accessibility, because we don't normally see those intersecting. You think if it's inclusive and accessible, it shouldn't be luxurious. And I want to shift that narrative as well. And we're also a for profit corporation, but we're a public benefit corporation. And being a PBC was really important to me because we could balance the mission with the finite fiduciary responsibilities to our shareholders, because I felt both were important. And I come from a lot of nonprofit work. I've been an education nonprofit. I really believe in it. And I have a sister nonprofit to it. And that's a really important part. But like you're saying, like, if we are giving with our talents, and we're giving the opportunity to level up, we're giving fishing poles, then we can all fish together, level up all of those, you know, beautiful sayings that are said, like, I wanted to see what that actually could look like. So it's an experiment in group network and growth. And it's really a beautiful space with incredible people that are coming in as we reopen. Yeah. Thank you for that. So Bridget just shared some of the ways in which members come together. Being a public benefit corporation is this experimentation in different forms. And Madam Marker was doing that right 100 years ago. But Kim, the links are as a 501c3 organization. But you also have an affiliated foundation and a 501c4 that allows for some more expanded political engagement. So talk to us about that structure and how that facilitates the ways your members bring their talents and their voices to the table and to their communities. Well, you know, we have members who are in every walk of life. I mean, we have women who are truly amazing. I mean, it is a group of 16,000 absolutely phenomenal women. And when you talk about bringing their talents and treasures to the table, you're looking at women who have a collective of politicians. Of course, the Vice President of the United States of America is an honorary link. We have congressional members. We have positions. We have CEOs. We have people in education, construction. I mean, doing everything. We're doing everything. But you're right. Our links incorporated is a 501c4 and the links foundation is a 501c3. And what that does, it does allow us to be able to step out a little bit politically, putting the weight of our 16,000 members behind very critical social justice issues. So one of the things that, you know, the links, we didn't just start being a social justice entity, our founders were very much in this space. I mean, you think about 1946, the time in which we were founded, one of the things that they did early on is to ensure that members were members of the NAACP, because it was just that important. And so we're not new to social justice work. But one of the things that we know past as prologue, we have a lot to do now. And so because of the platform that we have, it allows our members to be able to, from a local level, because, you know, all politics is local. We are very much nonpartisan, but we know that there are policies that are good for our communities. We know that there are policies that are not good for our communities. And there are policies that in order for us to actually fulfill our purpose and our mission to ensure that we're making our communities better, we certainly have a legislative component to get behind policies that either drive our programs or our programs drive our policies. And so we've been very, very vocal in this space about the importance of voting rights. We've been very vocal about the importance of ensuring that mothers have the right kind of policies that will allow, you know, if you look at Black women, you know, in terms of maternal mortality and maternal issues in this country, we are literally where countries that you would not, you know, we're below other countries that you would be expecting to be at that level. So we put our weight behind policies around maternal issues. We put our weight behind fair wage. Why should we, as women, women of African descent, be paid a lower wage for the same job? I mean, you know, we put our weight behind things just as basic as how we wear our hair to work. And so when you talk about things like the Crown Act, when you talk about working to ensure that our historically Black colleges and universities have what they need to sustain themselves, when you talk about ensuring that a student from an HBCU has a foot in the door and is not judged in a different way when their resume is looked at from, you know, against someone from a predominantly white institution, all of these things, you know, we talk about clean water for children, not only in the diaspora, but right here in the United States. All of these things are the way that we use our voices. One thing that we do do is while we have overarching at areas of focus for our organization, everyone's needs is not the same in their community. So we do actually work through what we call a service delivery model, which is a logic model. And it allows us to be able to determine what is our community's needs. And because of our community's needs, we're able to work within a framework, but to move our community's needs. So we have voices on the local level. We have voices on, we're divided into four areas on the area level. And then we have, we're a national voice. And we really take those roles very seriously. And all of that requires the talent, the collective talent, from where our members sit to be able to bring that to the table. When and where I enter is what, it's really what we believe, you know, we come where we are to be able to move the needle in the ways that we can. Yeah. Thank you for that. You know, you mentioned the ways in which you're staying relevant and on the front lines of many of the same issues that were present in 1946. You know, 1946 was a horrible year for lynchings. Black soldiers have returned from World War II thinking that their patriotic sacrifice would open up citizenship for them at home. It didn't. And so now we see black women leading the political fights today, the political activism in the streets. And so I'm wondering for both of your organizations, Bridget will start with you, because you mentioned also NFTs and blockchain. How have you pivoted during the pandemic to still be able to address these issues that are still at the forefront and important today? Yeah, absolutely. And yes, it is, it is heartbreaking to me that we're still in these issues. And I think it's a reason that we have to continue to exist, even with the legacy of the links that continues and is relevant today. And we are a baby organization, you know, a few years in taking on the similar mantles with a lot of alignment. And for us, coming from seeing all of the possibilities and knowing just from an entrepreneurial standpoint, black women, women of color in general, create more businesses than any other demographic. We get the least amount of funding. It's criminal. It was like .0001%. And now it's gone up to 2%. And I think that's still terrible because, you know, you need funds, you need fuel to be able to sustain a business through the ups and downs. So for me, the NFTs, the blockchain, the training, thinking about Web 3, it is the future. It is a wild, wild west. But if we don't put ourselves right at that forefront and educate on those issues, then we will be left behind again. And because of the decentralized nature of this blockchain, I think there's so much excitement and ownership that each person can have their own IP. And similar to what Kimberly was saying, we are across multiple industries. None of us are a monolith. And everyone has multiple talents. Very few come in and say, this is what I do. And everyone is like, I do this and I also do that. So it's really interesting to see, like, where does the energy go? Where do we flow it? And our pillars are definitely for very distinct pillars. But our North Star is balance. It's harmony. How do we get the support we need? And well-being is at that core. So for us, the space is part of it. But it's the people, the energy, the network, the positive influence that we want. I was so struck by your book, Tyrone, and the fact that Madam C.J. Walker was a millionaire. She was the epitome of success. Had 20,000 agents across the country who were all, she was also creating these avenues for an education and a certification program. And she passed away at 52, I think. And that broke my heart because I knew even at the level I was at, we burn our candles at all ends. And we forget that essential well-being is so important. So shifting that narrative, I've watched it pivot over the pandemic. There's the rest, the NAC ministry, there's some incredible work going on going, rest this, like, take it easy. You can only do, we do not have to continue to be these superwomen. Mental health is essential. I'm watching young children lose their lives for no reason because they could get the help we get. You know, a lot changed. So I'm so passionate about well-being in all the aspects. So our pivot was really just taking the work that we started. We'd only got to operate for about seven months before the pandemic shut us down. And we immediately went to service. We started health updates. We did testing. And in March 2020, it was impossible to get a test unless you waited in a four-hour line or you had a concierge doctor. But what if you don't have a car? What if you didn't walk? What if you had public transport or bike? So you could walk up to ours. You could bike up. You could drive up. It was just very open. We did it with Dr. Nano, who's one of our entrepreneurs, and thought about community. So I think another aspect of the pivot was doing it in the way that we communicate, the way that we need, the way we might need to receive something, because I don't think they're always thinking about it. Even the test that just went out, if you're houseless, you can't put your address in and get a free test. That is criminal to me. The people who need it on the streets, and I have family members who've been houseless, I have personally in college and between things out of sleep on couches, like if you do not have an address, you can't get these vital tests, which help the whole society. So there's just so many layers of it. But our pivot was, to get back to the point, our pivot was really taking that digital abilities, turning into going into Instagram, and then building our platform from there, and creating this dialogue that we can hear. We can immediately, what does the community need? What's happening? And when I put out NFT or blockchain, that is the over there. Everyone wants to understand what is this, what's happening, and we don't want it to frankly be the eight guys in a corner of a garage who create the internet and all that wealth, and everyone's left out. So I'm very concerned about the physical, but I think financial is an important part of health, and that financial sustainability is part of all of it. So there's a little bit of it. Yeah. I'm so glad you connected that with those issues, because you're right. I mean, this is labor. This is work. The great scholar, Leith Mullins, has written about black women's triple day, eight hours on the job, a full time of taking care of your family, and another shift in the community. This is what we're seeing. And so, Kim, if each member of the links has to do 48 hours at least per year of service, how did you pivot during the pandemic to help facilitate that? Because you guys didn't miss a beat. We didn't. But you know, I want to talk about that, but Bridget dropped so many pearls there that I was over here screaming in the corner like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. The whole issue around black women entrepreneurship, we actually have an area that we started focusing on before the pandemic. We call it links, economic empowerment platform. And what that is about is really looking within and supporting the entrepreneurs that we have within the links. Because as Bridget said, you know, so many black women are starting businesses. It's a huge piece. We have to support our sisters in this. And we partner with Goldman Sachs with their 100 billion. But if we found this when the pandemic came, not only had it impacted these, our entrepreneurs who started businesses, it impacted us when companies started kind of saying, well, do we really need you? Because we're having to change our model. We're having to figure out how we function. And we need to do some downsides. And so all of us who thought we were all that essential, we realized we weren't that essential at all. And so the pandemic became almost what we called a great equalizer in terms of understanding that some of these issues in terms of the economic that we thought we had kind of conquered. And so our job was to help other people conquer their economic issues. We really hadn't done that great a job in that. And so Bridget, I just want to applaud you for what you're doing in this space, because it is so important to us, especially as black women. She talked about mental health. She talked about health and wellness and the fact that we had to slow down and literally stop and watch George Floyd's murder play out in front of us. And all of these things impacted us in ways that we probably thought we had never, we were, we were beyond. And so we as an organization, we didn't panic, we pivoted. We knew that in order for us to be able to continue to serve our community, we had to be intact. We had to be whole. We had to be safe. We had to be healthy. So we really literally went to a virtual environment for the work that we were doing, our operations that we were, you know, our organizational operations, we put in place a protocol where the programming to our communities was virtual. We've been working with vaccines and pandemic to help keep our community safe. We put in place protocols where we're doing service in a way where we're social distancing. We're still, we're still at six or less social distance with masks on no matter how the country opens up, because we put a task force in place of sciences that scientists and experts in infectious disease and these kind of this field so that we were following the science and not getting caught up in some of the political things that happening around the pandemic and around vaccines so that so that that we could keep each other safe and continue to do the work that we needed to do to ensure that we were fulfilling our purpose. But these things are very real when you talk about the isolation, when you talk about somebody who is who is more gregarious and wants to be around people and then, you know, we're having to shut down. So it allowed us to be able to say, in addition to this work that we're doing, that we need to feed the community, and I say feed in a very holistic way through service and services, we got to feed ourselves. So we had to find ways to be able to engage in a virtual environment, check on our sisters, check on our older members, check on some of our so our younger members, everybody has a different perspective as we're just so we're not a homogeneous organization. We all have different ideas, we all have different beliefs, we all have different perspectives. But the ultimate goal is to ensure that we're able to be here tomorrow to continue the work that we do. And how do you do that? You've got to put a mask on, you've got to get vaccinated if you can, you've got to ensure that if you're exposed, you don't expose somebody else, everybody can't get vaccinated. So you and then we have to send this information. Let me finish that thought everybody can't get vaccinated. So it's our job for us who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated to protect those who can't. So we can continue to do what we're doing. And then get the information out to our communities and ourselves as a trusted voice or bringing those trusted voices so that we can move the needle and so that we can continue to support our communities. Bridget talked about the fact that we got four kids, but if you don't have an address to send it to, then where is it going to go? Same thing, if you're exposed, how am I quarantining if I have a house where I can't go anywhere to quarantine? And so some of those things became very, very real, even the concept of an essential worker. You know, we have to have things to keep us moving. Folks who work in the grocery stores are janitorial. These are the essential workers. These are the things that keep us moving. And so we have to do what we can to protect these folks, to protect our communities, to protect our people so that we are not on the end of the stick that are because to continue, you know, to stay healthy. We're the ones that are done. We're the ones that are having the adverse effects, the disparities and inequities that we're seeing are impacting us and our communities. So our job was to take care of ourselves, put our mask on first, so we could help someone put their mask on themselves. No answer on that. No, it's good stuff. Thank you very much. It just shows, again, you're affecting so many different areas of the community. And so it's important to adapt. As we prepare to close out and move into questions with the audience, I want to ask both of you. You mentioned earlier that, you know, there are members of the link were expected to be part of the NAACP. There are certainly entrepreneurs within your ranks. Between both of your networks, there are undoubtedly members of the historic Black Women's Sororities, the clubs, the groups. So I'm wondering about this interconnectedness and these multiple memberships, these simultaneous memberships, participating in these networks and the ways in which your members are leveraging their influence and their relationships and the advantages that they have to serve their communities. Also Bridget, your family brings a combined celebrity to many of the causes that you're addressed to. So you've talked to us about the notion of influence and advantage as a gift or as a resource to use to help others. Yeah, and I can start with that. You know, we've kind of made a declaration of interdependence. I just think that we all stand and it's all so important and there's room for everyone. I have this odd, like non-competitive, I just don't see competition. I think we all have this place that we need to serve and there's so many that need the service and I love that of the links we had. Our first event was with Vice President, your honorary member, Vice President of the United States, when she was a candidate. So I feel super aligned on that. But I think that the idea of using your influence, whatever level it is, you know, I have a very low level of influence, but the community that I gather, there is like a heart to it and a reason and a mission. And I think more of it is taking your mission for humanity, for equality, for a shared economy, all of those things and for mental health. All of those things, I think when you speak your authentic truth and you follow your passion, anyone out there who's got an organization and you are on your path and you're on your passion, you will start to draw and attract the people who need that and then you build up. And I think for me, it's all for the people. It's really, we are nothing, we can be Blackbird, but without the incredible Blackbird members, friends and allies and the people who come in to make this happen, that is where the work continues. The networking happens, the collective well-being happens, the education, the groups. So with my little bit of influence, I do use them in political campaigns if we can speak for a candidate that is really going to something that's sometimes against us. Because, you know, if you're, if you want tax breaks and, you know, I just, I'm like, if it's better for the people, that's better for everyone. And I don't, I'm not one of those people with all the billionaire who pay no taxes like that is just criminal to me. But if you are voting for things that help the people and that it is spread out more, it's better. So if when we can support a candidate or support a cause or go out of March for something we believe in, I think those are little steps that all of us can take. And then using your thought leadership to write when you can, talk about the environment. Environment, we're in a crisis right now with the environment. And it's such a level in that the, the journalistic narrative about it seems to just keep getting big. They put the stories out, but people are now just, it feels like we're all over the environment because there's so many causes, so many things happening right now. But I think focusing, we try to focus on the environment, education, and women's rights in our family. So you find the things that you're passionate about, you focus on those, and you try to move forward with that. We give our money, we give our time and our talents to do those things. There's great groups like Solutions Project and other groups that we're part of that are doing the incredible on-the-ground work. So we try to find those. And Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams' group, there's just so much like, okay, how do we help all the, who's our list? We make the list of what we can do because we're two people. We're a small group, but every person who does that, it amplifies. Similarly, it's not sure what Kimberly has with the links. If you have 16,000 and all of them are giving 48 hours, that is just an incredible compounding of influence that one can have. But for our point, we just try to put it towards things that we care about, that we believe in, and Blackbird is a mission. So I think somebody asked about our sister. Our sister is Blackbird Alliance, which came from me really watching young people come in and interview, and there were tears. There would be people who walked and they saw a group of Black and Brown women interviewing them. And I don't think they've ever had a job interview with people that looked like them. And they would fall out in tears and we go, what's going on, sis? What's going on? And they just felt overwhelmed because they felt like they weren't going to be judged for anything other than their talent. And so the Alliance started out of that in 2020, just for the idea of like, how do we mentor and train them to go into these job interviews to have that early career support to elevate, to level up from those positions. So so many things, once you're doing the work, so many things start to feed into it. I see Kimberly, but every time I'm listening to Kimberly, I was like, we just got to keep talking because there's so much alignment and so much I can learn from what y'all are doing. So we're just, you know, fall in our face where we can and standing up where we can. Wonderful. What would you briefly say to this idea of influence as a gift? No, I feel the same way as Brigitte does. The beauty of the links incorporated and the members of the links incorporated is we come from everywhere. We have members who I think are in every organization on the face of this earth. And we have members who are not in any organizations at all. But when we come together, we literally are the links, members of the links incorporated, and we are friends who serve. And that is the key thing that keeps us together. That is the key reason that we're here. And so we have women in the links incorporated. Brigitte mentioned Stacey Abrams. She's a link. We have other members in the links incorporated. We have members in Congress. We have, I mean, I just, if I start, then somebody's going to be watching the image of my name. And so, but the thing is, as she said, as Brigitte said, you got to use your influence where you can. But the thing is, we are stronger when we're together. So when you look at all of the organizations, when you look at what Blackbird is doing, when you look at what our sororities are doing, when you look at what the links are doing, when you look at national cares mentoring, which is a partner, Susan Taylor, we are all moving for this. We're working to the same goal, the betterment of our communities. We are looking at policies, as we said, that are moving our community. So our goal in this pandemic and this social justice space, we came together with 12 other Black women organizations. We called ourselves Sisters United for Reform because we're fighting for the same thing. And we all sat there, all of us as leaders sat there and watched George Floyd. And we said, we have to do something because it could be your child. It could be your husband. It could be your brother. It could be anybody. And when we came together for this particular issue, there was a laundry list of other issues that almost tie into this. When you talk about mental health issues, you talk about homelessness, you talk about economic issues that are truly impacting our community. So the influence that we bring to the table collectively and individually, as our members, the goal is to move the needle. The goal is to make a change. The goal is to be a change agent. And so, as Bridgette said, you use it where you can. You sit where you are and you use your influence where you are. And I don't have a lot, but we have members who are truly powerful to be able to get us to where we need to be. And I think that's the beauty and that's the treasure. And that's why we are here with our time and our talent to be able to make just a little difference to continue to help move our communities forward. Thank you. And before we turn it over to Glam, let me ask you both maybe give you about 30 seconds to reply. Do you consider yourselves philanthropists? And if so, what does that identity allow you to claim for yourself or express about yourself? Bridgette, why don't you start? I do now. We talked about it. So my 30-second thing is I have done nonprofit work forever. I have given what I could as long as I'm always thinking about bringing the next person up. And I really love the shift in considering myself a philanthropist because I think it's important to represent and to understand that the type of giving doesn't just have to be a million dollars. It can definitely be a million dollars worth of heart, energy, time and talent. And I love that, giving that to us, giving that to people who maybe have less but give more than maybe a person who has a billion dollars, who gives 100 million, the quantity of what you're giving is so much more. So I want that because it's a prestigious thing to think of yourself as a philanthropist. And I want more of us to think of that and to understand it. And I think it makes you move forward in a way with pride about what you're doing and how much you know how much it matters, you know how good it feels to give to others. But when you add that layer, you know your service is being recognized and recognition is important. Thank you, Kim. Yes, absolutely I do. And I love what you said, Tyrone, about Madam C.J. Walker when she had a little, she gave a little, when she had more, she gave more. And I think that that's critically important. And I put it also in the context of our time. We have a little time, we give a little time. We have more time, we give more time. We got a little talent, we give whatever we can. And so when you take this three, this trifecta of T's, time, talent, treasure, and you put it together to, for the betterment of others, for the betterment of your community, it is magic and it is important. And so I absolutely do feel that on the philanthropist, I'm so glad that through your book and others that we learned that it doesn't just have to be money and be these, it's important to be these other pieces. And I think that as we start to get this out to more of our members of our community, we'll see Black philanthropy change even more and be even more powerful and impactful. Wow. Thank you for that. My heart is full. This has been wonderful. So thank you so much for your insights and sharing of yourselves and giving us the gift of your stories and the impact that you're having. I'll turn it over to Glenn to facilitate some of the audience questions. Oh, great. Thanks, Tyrone. Bridget, Kimberly, thank you so much. That was fantastic. The first question that we have is kind of builds off of your idea of philanthropy. It comes from Dio Riley. She wants to know, what tools does one need to start one's own organization that is on a small scale, especially if you don't have a lot of experience? What would you recommend first steps be? Bridget, you want to? I think the first steps probably is get your group together, gather your people who will do it with you because any undertaking is very difficult alone and get your ideas. What is it that you want to do? I think it's helpful to join another group that's already doing it because there's a lot of groups doing a lot of work. But if you have something very, very specific, I would just start kind of you kind of start with a business plan when you're doing it and gather the people who are going to help you, who are the people you want to help and sort of ideate it out and maybe even test it with another organization that's already doing similar work. Great. We have a lot of questions about how to join your groups, especially the links incorporated. And one question that I thought we should bring up is, are people who are not women of color able to join or help out in your work? So the links incorporated is an organization that, as I said, is friends who serve. And so a friend has to invite you to be a part of the links incorporated. I'm sure all of many of our participants watching, you have a friend who's a link. It is an organization made up of women of African ancestry. And that was the basis of our organization. That was the founding of our organization by these women of African descent. And for Blackbird, we are for women of color. We are centered on women of color. That's really our focus. But we do have a stake in the ground for allies, our kind of move forward moment. We're about 80% women of color, 20% allies, which are men and non-women of color. And I think it's an important conversation that there are important conversations that happen from that. And I think that it is definitely an interesting place to be right now. But I do think that for us, most of our programming and everything is centered on women of color, but the allies bring in an important voice. And also, I love the listening, the allies coming in to listen to then share it in the community. Because we know that without this unification of what our messages are going out and being translated, it can be difficult. So you can join. You could be in that 20%. It's how people can support. We have programming that we work with all kind of partners. So thank you, Bridget, for reminding me of that aspect of the question that I didn't answer. But we have partners in all aspects. And so it's very easy to partner with a chapter or an area we partner with like-minded organizations to move our mission, which is to really enhance and work for our communities. And so we very much are aligned with certain partners and looking to bring on more partners. Oh, great. We have a question about partnering from DA Morrow, who asks, are there partnering activities with these wonderful women of color organizations with the 100 Black men of America or similar organizations for men of color? And if so, what are you working with? We've worked with 100 Black men of America. We've worked with the fraternities. We have a wonderful mentoring component to our services to youth programming. And that's one of the places where we bring in our male partner organizations also in the health areas because it's also very important when we talk about the health of ourselves and the health of our women. We also have to make sure that everybody is healthy. And so messaging and programming, you know, those things are important to be able to get to those men in our communities and to get the messages out. So we do partner with our Black men organizations in a number of areas. We certainly do that. I would also add, given our sponsors in philanthropy, in case there are fundraisers on the call, you know, there are groups like men of color and development, the African-American Development Officers Network, F3, Woke, women of color and fundraising that are all creating these spaces in the professional world of philanthropy to advance these goals that are important to look at too. Yeah, and we're developing different partners. Personally, our family has supported 100 Black men of America because I really believe that organization is important. And we have a very variety of partners. We're very, very new, but we definitely are building and developing specific partners that are aligned and understand the mission and that have, like Kimberly said, like-minded and want to advance in similar ways that we do. I think this is a question for all three of you. It's from Hallelujah. Overall, volunteerism has been declining in the US. What do you think can be done to motivate young people to give more of their time and their talent? Well, I have some people in my house. They're not so young anymore. In fact, my youngest just turned 21 two days ago. So I'm actually officially a parent of an adult. I think that we have to show that how it's, how it's, first of all, why it's important to volunteer. But I think we also need to make sure that we're looking at volunteerism in ways that they can relate to. You know, they, our young people are using different kinds of tools. They're using different kinds of applications. They are in the community and they walk in these spaces in very different ways. And so I think that, you know, I absolutely believe that you meet people where you are. And I think that the conversation should be about the importance. I think the conversation should be about how and in there, to be able to fit it into these schedules and to be able to do it in a way that they're able to do it. There are a lot of organizations and groups for young people to volunteer. There are a lot of incentives for young people to volunteer. And I think when we bring those things to the young people into the table and we have those influencers who buy in and understand it makes our job to continue to raise this next generation of volunteers a little bit easier. And I would say the research supports that too. My colleagues at the Indiana University, Lily family school philanthropy have done a lot of work looking at how do you enculcate values into children and philanthropic values into children. And one of the things that's so important is the act of talking to them about what you're doing. All too often we just write the check and don't say anything or we go off to the board meeting without explaining what it means to be a board member or why we go to the soup kitchen or the different things that we're doing. But the act of being very intentional and explaining these things to your children is shown to help produce that kind of connection and pro-social behaviors as social scientists will call it that will show up in their adult years. Yeah that would only add to that. That's the same thing I would say is walk the walk and tell and explain to them why you're doing it and then they follow. They will follow and also understanding what their issues are and what they're passionate about and letting them, giving them a sense that it will make a difference because I think a lot of times we do have this, it can be very discouraging when it feels like nothing changes from the work that you're doing. So watching and showing the successes of how that made a difference could also be helpful. Great. We have a question from Deb Fink who is talking about making a difference. She's wondering what your organizations are focusing on in terms of the midterm elections and if there's any candidates or groups that you're looking at helping out. We do a monthly political panel called movement into action and it is movement into policy. It started pre-election last year and we just basically host different candidates and different thought leaders behind and strategists behind candidates and talk about specific issues from a local community level to a national level depending on who the guest is. So we will be ramping up for this year for sure and we will also plan a couple of community drives in person. I do it with Vanessa Spencer who's my partner and co-host on that and it is really going to be amplified because there's a lot in terms of the candidates. I can't speak to them right now but you will see them kind of filtered through our programs over the next few months. For us our focus is really on ensuring that our members know what policies are important to our communities and what policies are going to be advantageous to our communities and so how you then from a local level, from a state level, from a national level then you map that to those candidates that are perhaps supporting those policies. So we're not supporting candidates per se but for us as a 501c3 on the foundation side of 501c4 which is intricately tied to our foundation. Our goal is to make sure that our members and our communities understand these are the policies that move the needle. But the other thing that we are focusing on, if you can't vote, if there are barriers to vote then it doesn't matter what candidate is focusing on the policy and so our goal is to ensure that every person in who is able to vote has an opportunity to do so without barriers and so we're supporting policies that move that along. We are really working very hard to put our weight behind why we should have these policies in place that John Lewis voting at. I mean we really feel as an organization that we've worked very hard to get to this point. We've worked very hard for the right to vote. We've worked very hard to not have barriers put in place and so we want to ensure that those are certain unalienable rights that our children in the next generation have without having to fight for it like we're fighting now and like John Lewis and so many others fought over 50 years ago and we feel like we're still in the same place. Well I'm sorry we've run out of time. I could go another hour I think. I want to thank Kimberly Bridget and Tyrone for such a great panel and thanks everyone for tuning in. We will be back soon in a couple months with another discussion. Thanks everyone and we will be sending you a replay of the event. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.