 Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Engaging Ideas, the Parsons TKO podcast where we'd like to bring leaders and luminaries from across the mission-driven sector to share ideas and experiences with you so you can get some insights, have some kindred spirits out there you might be able to relate to and not feel so alone and all that great work you're doing out there to make a difference in the world every day. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Kerry Jones Waring, who's currently serving as Vice President for Communications at the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York. Welcome, Kerry. Thanks so much for having me, Joni. I'm so glad to be here. I am delighted to dive into this episode with you. As everyone knows, we've got a few questions we're going to get started with. I'm going to be taking copious notes so we can run down any of those rabbit holes that pop up during this conversation. Kerry, can you tell us about what your team looks like and what your primary objectives are in terms of outreach and audience engagement at the Foundation? Sure. The Health Foundation for Western and Central New York is a grant-making organization that serves the Buffalo and Syracuse areas in the surrounding counties. We serve 16 counties in New York. We have a focus on improving the health of young children under five who have their lives impacted by poverty. We serve organizations that are improving the lives of older adults, and we also work to build community health capacity, so building that strong network of community organizations in our area that serve the people whose lives we want to improve. We do all of this through a lens of health equity. A lot of organizations exercise. We're a small but mighty communications team. We have a total staff of 12 at the Health Foundation. We have a two-person communications team. So it's myself and our communications content manager who really works with me on developing a lot of the content that we use on our website and our social media channels, and we're kind of just a two-person team that really is working together to tackle some of these communications objectives. We are, in terms of outreach, we're in a really interesting place with our organization right now because in early 2020, before the pandemic, we made a commitment to conducting our work through a lens of health equity specifically. So we've kind of always been in these areas. We have served the community for 20 years, and it was kind of like we were doing this work but we weren't specifically calling out how racial and socioeconomic health disparities have an impact on health outcomes. So we made the decision as an organization to develop a new strategic plan and a new vision statement that specifically centered our work in health equity. So from a communications standpoint, that really gave us an opportunity to take a close look at how are we reaching people? What is the public image that we're projecting? And does it align with that vision? And does it align with our goals and equity? Philanthropy can be a little bit of an ivory tower. It has been traditionally where being in the position to distribute money is a very specific power balance, right? And it was a power imbalance that I don't think was really recognized too explicitly by this sector for a long time. But like a lot of foundations now we're starting to realize sort of the role that we play in the community and how the work that we do either reinforces inequity or gives us the opportunity to kind of turn those things on its head and actually advance racial health equity in the community. So we've been taking a really close look at our communications over the last couple of years and saying, you know, are we reaching the communities that we want to reach? Are we kind of using our position to undo some of those power dynamics and put ourselves in a position to be able to work with maybe grassroots organizations that serve the community that haven't had the opportunity to access philanthropic funds before? It's been a really interesting learning experience. And you said you started this work at the beginning of 2020. And yes, amen and all your thoughts there about philanthropy. I know there's just been a massive amount of talks more so this year than I've heard in other years about what role philanthropy really does have to play and what changes they might need to make in getting to this equitable world we're all trying to achieve here. What's it been like in the two years of your practice then going through this? And because one thing I've been in conversations with and I hear about is how much of it was lip service and who's backsliding and how do we keep philanthropy and other organizations accountable for this work that they've committed to, to making sure they're moving forward rather than just slipping back into old ways. Yes, what's your what's your experience been like over the last two years? It's such a great question. And we started this work as you can imagine at a really interesting time to start it. It was we actually voted on this vision March 11 2020. So literally before the pandemic really came to the US and things started to change. And of course just a few months before the racial justice reckoning that happened in this or that started to happen in this country in May 2020. So we were really cognizant of the fact that this could easily look like lip service. It could easily become lip service. And what we did was we started as an organization by having some really candid conversations with some folks in the community that we trusted who specialized in this kind of work and said, you know, what's the door into this? Like how do you even start this work? Because it feels so overwhelming. And they said, look within don't do anything until you look within this organization and make sure that your day to day work is not reinforced in some of these social structures and some of this inequity. So we started a really detailed process of reviewing everything we do as an organization. We looked at our application, our grant application. We looked at our reporting processes. And when I say looked at, we are looking at this is ongoing work. It's really slow. It can feel slow because it's so important you feel this urgency. So it can feel very slow, but every incremental step is really important. So we've been looking at the way we interact with our grantees and the communications aspect is really interesting because I think a lot of us in the field probably feel like I'm doing a pretty good job with this, you know, I think I'm using the right terminology and I'm staying up to date on what, you know, inclusive language looks like. And when you start to really dig into it, we had a lot that we could have been doing differently. We have been sort of reviewing all of our practices and communications. And you start by saying, well, we got to make sure we're using the right words and is, you know, we're using alt text in our images. And that's all important stuff to you. But then you really start to think about how are we framing the issues that we're talking about? How are we bringing to the community what it is that we're trying to do in a way that is respectful and recognizes the dignity and the vanity of the people that we're serving. So it's really been requiring kind of a holistic audit of everything that we were doing and the way we talk about our work. One aspect that's been really important to us is the concept of asset framing, which is a concept developed by Travian Shorters, who is a really just amazing speaker. And I think he refers to himself as a social entrepreneur, which is such a cool way of putting it. And he developed this idea of asset framing, which is so people are worth more than the challenges that surround them. So it's the idea that another way that I've heard it put is people have worth and dignity even before the nonprofit shows up. So talking about your work in a way that recognizes the humanity and the dignity of the people that you're serving. And another concept that we've really been that has been sort of the center of the work that we've done in communications over the last couple of years is a systemic lens to every single thing that we do. So for example, we have this amazing Dula program that we fund in Central New York and in Western New York. And what that does is provide Dulas, a birthing Dulas for people who are having babies at no cost. And normally a Dula is extremely expensive. You know, someone like myself with some financial privilege when I had my kids, I couldn't afford a Dula. It was wild how much they cost. So and with good reason because they provide a really incredible service. And Dulas have been shown to reduce the likelihood of complications during birth and after birth for both the mother and the child. So it's a really incredible service. But when we talk about our Dula program, just using that as an example, we need to talk about the amazing work those Dulas are doing and that the organization is doing. But we also need to talk about the fact of why they exist. Why does that program have to exist? Because we have a healthcare system that doesn't serve everybody equally. Because we have a for profit healthcare system in this country and some people have access to super high quality services and some people don't. So these Dulas are doing amazing work in this small space. But really the bigger issue is the systems level change that has to happen. So that's sort of been our guiding light over the last couple of years is reframing the way we talk about our work and pointing toward those systemic issues that the health foundation might not be able to change on our own. But if we keep calling attention to them, it's going to have a cumulative effect. Thank you for that. And just with some of the things you were saying there, the feel slow part, it's like, it's got to take the time it's going to take as long as action is being made. It's almost like I think we have to change something in the thinking in the nonprofit sector, maybe just society, everyone just got so used to this super fast instant, everything's going to be on. Oh, look, I flipped the switch, this app works, and I've got a thousand followers type of mentality. And this is work that has to take the time it's going to take, but it has to keep happening. And I love that where you're at too, is we have to start how do we start. And we find that in a lot of our work, whether it's helping people on technology road mapping or the data work, it's like, there's just so many places you could dive in. And there's so much to it where to start and helping people figure out that starting point always feels like the right approach. Like, don't want to get back in shape. I really want to run this race, but I haven't been off the couch in months and just take a walk, just take a walk and just get to have a bit of the walk. It feels like that's just to reinforce that for everyone. This isn't going to happen overnight. This isn't going to happen. But you have to start. That's right. One of the folks that we've been working with in our DEI kind of training calls it urgent lifelong work. So you feel that urgency because you want to help people immediately. But it's lifelong work. And part of that is maybe the systems that we work in are very results oriented. It's a very for profit kind of mindset in a lot of nonprofits. What are the deliverables, that kind of thing. You can't have that mindset with this work because there's never a finish line. There's just never a finish line. You're going to be continuing to work on this stuff as long as you're in this space. So once you realize that, you can come down a little bit and really start working on it. Well, it makes itself so open. If you really just think in terms of processes like coming out of software development years ago, but the agile methodologies where there isn't a finish line, but you need marks and points in time to see how well you did and then to be able to adjust. Like it's also not a three year throughput plan. You have a three year trajectory of where you want to go and you know the first six months because they're right in front of you. You don't know the last six months of that three and you're going to get there eventually, but you want to adapt along the way, not just stick to what was written on a word doc in the boardroom. I'm curious, when you started this work and then you were signing off on it, March 11th, 2020, right before everything really started to change globally. Where did the idea for it stem from? Was it just a realization of the work you were doing locally and that's something felt off? Or was there a specific board member or staff person who brought it up? Yeah, so it was driven by our board and so every five years we go through a strategic planning process and so it was time for that process to begin and we had some really incredible dynamic board members, trustees who started to talk about if we're doing this work, we've always been in this space, but until we call out the fact that race and socioeconomic status have an impact on your health and we need to undo that, what are we doing here? It almost became an imperative. I'm going to be very frank without getting into, I can't share any proprietary information or anything, but there were some really complex conversations that had to happen and I will also give the disclaimer that I was, I joined the organization just as, I joined the organization in August 2019. So just a few months before they made the decision so they were already in the strategic planning process, but you know there were some really complicated conversations, hard conversations that had to happen because again going back to philanthropy as a white dominant sort of ivory tower situation for a lot of folks this was a new way of thinking and new information but everybody through those complex conversations came to the realization that yeah this is something that we have to do. So as part of that sort of five-year strategic planning they said it's an evolution not a revolution. So it's, we didn't completely flip everything that we were doing in terms of our work. It was more of a, let's put a finer focus on it to really use our platform to call out these disparities. That's wonderful, thank you. I mean I hope that for anyone who's working and trying to work through these things internally and hasn't really set out to start making progress on it, like here's some ideas on how to get started or what was the impetus or how to get yourself moving forward. Thanks for bringing up Trevi and Shorter's too, those work is incredible. We're definitely going to link to him and I had the great pleasure of being in a committee once for a conference with his wife, he attended Shorter's who also runs an incredible business. So we'll link to both of them in our show notes so everyone can check out all the great work that they're both doing in this world. So there's two of you in the team. So first of all just for everyone listening just to re-emphasize that. Two folks, a lot of work, lots happening and in the midst of change and absorbing all of it. I guess because we did touch a little bit on measurement just a second or two ago, but how do you deploy analytics or data in your work and how does that come to fruition? How do you use it? So great question. So on the communication side, we do our typical kind of analytics in terms of looking at our website visitors and our engagement on social. What we'd like to do going forward is more drawing the connections between the communications work and sort of the holistic overall organizational work to say, you know, the work that we're doing in communications is helping us reach new organizations who may have not found us before. There's something to be said for your feedback loop that you sometimes get to in communications where it's like you're reaching your network really effectively, but who is not in that network. So that's one of the things that we've been really looking at through this equity work is, you know, how do we identify the people that just aren't in those circles and how do we reach them and how do we create a sense of trust with folks who may not have been able to work with the lands of people before. So, you know, that's a hard line to draw. It's hard sometimes to make the connection between, oh, we, you know, we ran a PSA on a different radio station than we usually do. And so we've been able to reach X number of people. So a lot of work in philanthropy is nebulous to start with. And in communications, it can really be that way too. For our organization as a whole, there's a lot of imperative in philanthropy sometimes to get that ROI, right? We want to see, going back to the idea of like a business kind of mindset, we want to see return on our investment. And so our organization has been taking part in something called the equitable evaluation initiative, which is the national cohort of foundations who are working in these types of spaces to come together and have conversations about how our desire for return on investment or traditional approaches to evaluation may sometimes be reinforcing inequity. Because what is happening is you have this idea that, you know, you need to report on everything, every grant you give, you should be analyzing, you know, how many people did you reach? How many people did you serve? But what that often does is create an onus on the grant T partner, who is probably a tiny organization, a nonprofit that has a staff of three sometimes. And even the well-staffed, well-financed organizations, they don't have extra time, they don't have extra resources. They are living day to day trying to keep the doors open and keep people served. And here we come with a $25,000 grant and saying, I need quarterly reporting on all of these objectives, you know, that we need to start recognizing what we're doing to these organizations. So that doesn't mean you shouldn't evaluate your work, doesn't mean you shouldn't, you can't get an ROI measurement. It means what do those terms mean to you? And how can you as the person on one side of a power imbalance that has more resources, how can you take that onus off of the grantee? So that's kind of how we've been starting to learn as an organization about how the kinds of data that we collect you know, how we can do that differently. Had a podcast at least with Rachel Kimber, who's now at Smile Train and we were, she was talking a bit about the reporting side to grant making and alternative reporting and oral reporting as some new methods being looked at to really try to take some other burden off the grantee and then get that information that the grant maker still wants, but like ways you're with the last time getting invested by the grantee so they can get out there doing their work instead of sitting around just typing out reports and hoping it's the right thing and then being really nervous and all the things that goes with that, right? Exactly. You know, once you recognize that power dynamic, you start to see it happening everywhere, where you don't even think about, you know, the fact that a grantee is in a position where they're thinking, I need this funding to survive. I'll do whatever these folks need me to do. Well, then you're taking time away from what the work that they're actually trying to do. So we've been, we're in the very early stages of learning about this, but we recently, you know, added a field to our reporting process that allows for oral reports to be given like a voice reporting stories. One of the really important parts of the equitable evaluation initiative that we've been learning about is, you know, what do you consider data and storytelling is data? So if you have the chance to hop on a Zoom with a grantee, they tell you about some of the work they've been doing, you bring that back to your board, that's data, you know, like that's showing the impact of your investment and their work. So, you know, we really, it's just about a mindset shift, like all of this work, it's a mindset shift to say, you know, how do we measure whether we're successful? So yeah, wholeheartedly, I mean, storytelling is data or data, storytelling, and it's, you know, the numbers alone mean nothing if there's no context around them. Exactly. And we've always emphasized quantitative matters, and you want to be able to collect that, but it's the qualitative side of those two that, that really makes the story shine. You know, we had 100 retweets, or we had one retweet by Michelle Obama. I mean, there's exactly that, that quantitatively, that one would be very sad, but qualitatively, the impact of that is huge. And I think we still obscure or miss the opportunities because we're just trying to churn out reports that were, it's so hard for nonprofits as a team of two to really take the time to sit there. Once you get through churning that report and say, what did we really see? How do I package this? How do I tell the story behind it? And just, if we could start to bring in a little bit of that, take a breath, it's not just the numbers, throw the story on it, and then, and see the throughput of your story over time. Like, once you get to chapter 10, what did chapter one look like that it really aligned as you went along? Exactly. And social is such a, that's such a great example because it can be so frustrating to look at your, first of all, some of the like back channel analytics that they give you on something like Facebook are just sort of burying. And sometimes it's just so hard to parse even, you know, what some of those numbers mean. And, but it's a great point where I think a lot of people have kind of an old school idea of like, what's successful on social. And, but you have to come to the understanding that maybe like you said, somebody really influential shares your post, that might have more of an impact than getting 1000 likes, you know, so it really, you have to be able to look at the numbers, but then say, what does this really mean in terms of how we're actually reaching people? Yeah, I've never run into the nonprofit yet who said our goal is lots of numbers. Exactly. Like bigger, bigger numbers. You know, it's all for creating affect in society or an impact or how to get there. And we just got to make sure we don't disconnect those along the way. So you've been at this for a little bit now, team two, working a good two years into your for solid two years. What issues of equity and inclusion have you run into with your outreach efforts? And also any of the data collection and reporting that we're just talking about, and how would you manage to address it if you did run into any any sort of issues along those lines? Yeah, and I think to go back to the social issue, you know, one thing that we've run into is it's difficult. It's really difficult to measure whether you are reaching the organizations and the communities that you want to reach if you're looking at something like social engagement, because oftentimes it's just a little bit, you just don't have that data on a more minute level to be able to make and come to those conclusions. And I think that that's something that is a problem with the industry as a whole. So we don't do a lot of research ourselves, but we will often partner with an organization to fund some research. And one thing that we run into frequently is the idea of disaggregated data and or the lack thereof back channel back mapping. That's what it's called back mapping, where you're actually so you have some numbers, but do those numbers actually mean anything if you can't kind of go back to maybe the previous step that led to those outcomes? So the idea of back mapping is looking at like, for example, if you look at maternal mortality numbers, they're abysmal across the board across all races, but especially if you look at black women and black people who are giving birth and saying, well, those numbers are atrocious. So back mapping would then take you just to lead you to the next step, which would be what led to that, the, you know, that more often than not, people of color are less insured, have less access to health care than white people. So when you start to do that back mapping, you actually get to the heart of those systemic issues that you're talking about. The problem is with any of this kind of level of data, a lot of folks don't have the resources and the time to actually dig in that further. And the foundational kind of data that we're pulling from, like, for example, data from the State Department of Health, it's not disaggregated by race. So you'll often have like, it isn't some points, but it largely this is an issue that across the board, we're dealing with where data is not disaggregated by race income. And so we're kind of starting from a point where we're trying to draw conclusions from data that isn't even telling the full story. So when you're able to look at data that is broken down by, for instance, race or ethnicity or by socioeconomic status, then you can start to draw some of those back mapping conclusions. That's sort of the bigger picture. And on a smaller scale, something that we're dealing with in communications as well, where it's like the data and the analytics that we're working with don't tell the full story. So that's our challenge for the coming year is to start to say, you know, how do we draw those connections between the kind of outreach that we're doing, you know, the news stations that we're pitching for stories? Is it all traditional media or is there some smaller community newspapers that we need to be reaching because those are where folks are getting their news? Social channels, are we, you know, in the right spaces for what we're trying to do? There's a lot of challenges and a lot of work that we still have to do in that area. Sounds to me a little bit like you're almost in a position where you have to start making your own unique data sets out of where you're able to compile from. Is that true? That is true. And I don't know that we have the ability or the resources that's a huge undertaking. I mean, that would be the ideal situation, right? But again, it's working with some of these organizations that are two person teams overall, you know, that just don't have a big team, don't have a lot of resources, but, you know, are mission driven and are moving in the right direction. But, you know, how do we tackle these huge data issues? Yeah, I mean, data normalization, being able to pull it in. And then if you were to create this data set and it was secured anonymous enough and there wasn't any PII or any of the things we've got to think about with any of the health requirements to on records, do we just, you know, HIPAA, can you get it back out then? I know, is there a way to share these once they're created? Does that become useful for other organizations to be able to build off of? Yeah, I don't know. I got very frustrated in the probably maybe like a lot of people during COVID and just continuing to watch that the numbers couldn't get reported accurately out of any area, let alone the Fed doing nothing to step in to try to start normalizing it and saying, let's create a common data set. Exactly. That idea of a common data set is across the board, something we need to be moving toward. We find it a lot with the smaller community organizations we work with, they're collecting some data that's probably really valuable to other organizations, but they have no way of sharing it. So we have organizations like 211 locally who are doing amazing work in terms of that normalization of the data loop, like a community information exchange. So it's like, if you're part of this community information exchange, you can share your like obviously disidentified data about, you know, someone comes to you for your services, but they also need WIC. They also could really benefit from being in touch with social services or the food pantry. You can make those referral loops. There are a lot of people that have the right idea about it, but it's in the really early stages of moving that way. In those examples, just really locally to where you're at in the Buffalo area in Western New York, you know, there is still a lot of fear from certain groups about what happens if their data is collected. And a lot of times that people won't give data for those reasons. And then if a smaller organization is collecting it, how are they treating it and handling it, making sure it's secure? Has there been any conversations where you're at just in the community about, hey, this is what we could be doing or this is how we're doing it, anything you've heard? To kind of overcome those trust issues? Probably the trust issues one and then two, just how people are handling data or securing it or whether. Oh, yeah, security. I think people have really, they have good reason for it, for being just trustable of sharing their information, understandably. Absolutely. And I think that that's probably also part of, you know, our entire landscape and our entire world right now where you're always wondering like, who is taking my data? Because there are a lot of bad actors. There's a lot of companies that are in the business of selling your data. So it's understandable that people would feel that way. So in terms of, you know, health outcomes, there definitely needs to be really clear communication around the fact that, you know, this is for a greater good and that information is totally anonymized and disidentified and moving that way. I don't know of any specific organizations that are working on that aspect specifically. I think probably just because so much of this work is in that really critical early stage of just getting organizations to sign on. And there's also like some competitiveness among nonprofits, you know, to say like, no, you shouldn't be going to them, you should come and ask for help. And so there's a reluctance, I think sometimes for our folks to be part of the same network, because ultimately they unfortunately feel this sense of competition, which goes back to the idea of like, why are we even putting organizations in this position, the first place, who are providing these incredible services. So there's a there's interesting politics involved. Oh, yeah, I mean, the I'm thinking with the phrase that are co-operative, competitive, but cooperative in the nonprofit space and everybody's trying to get a little bit advantage because everyone to earlier points is just worried about that bit of money to make sure they can keep an existence and keep working. There's another podcast episode we did with Jenna Slotin, who works on data values a lot in the international development space. And one thing she talked about was with data collection practices is also communicating back to the communities where the data has been collected, you know, the feedbacks. And this is how it's been used. And look, this is what we did with it. And have you seen anything like that emerging around you? Definitely a lot of conversations around that. And that's been a topic frequently in the equitable evaluation cohort that we're part of is building that trust and recognizing as an organization that when someone does give you that feedback or data or information about their lives, that is a value that they are providing to you as an organization. And you need to recognize that you definitely need to share back with the community what they found you need to recognize that ultimately the community owns that information. This is not something this is not your IP, right? This is the community's information. And one thing that we've been moving toward and a lot of other organizations are is compensating people for their time and their information. So if so, I mean, the idea is not new to give someone 50 bucks for purchase of meeting in a focus group. But where it gets a little trickier is, you know, having a grantee come and speak to your board or to the community, that's time out of their day. They provide a really valuable service in general, but also in that situation. And so you should assign a value to that as the person on the other side of that power imbalance, right? So we, we, this is our 20th anniversary this year. So we have been working on a video talking to some of our grantees. And for the first time, we compensated them for being interviewed for our video because yeah, we're partners and we have a great relationship with them. But at the end of the day, they took time out of their busy day serving the community to come and talk about us. So, you know, that's travel time, it's time out of their work schedule. And so we compensated them for that. And so I think that there definitely is a movement toward understanding that if you're going to build that trust, they need to, the community needs to see what you're doing with the information that they're giving you. An important reminder too about the compensation, taking people's time. I hope folks listening are here in that one too. And thank you for diving in on that with me. So one, one thing you had mentioned to me that I'd like to hear a little more about too is within your communications work and as you're taking a review of the equity and your communications, the equity style guide. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, absolutely. So that was a recommendation that came out of some of our internal, that internal review that we've been doing of the looking, looking within. And you know, you hear the term style guide and you might think of AP style guide. This is not that this isn't your standard style guide. What this is is really a formalization of our commitment to equity in our communications. So we're basically giving an on paper. You know, these are our principles when we talk about communications in our work. These are some foundational kinds of ideas that will influence how we talk about our work. And so this was something that my colleague and our communications team and I sat down and put together over the course of a couple of months, we talked to our team members, we talked to some of our grantees, and we put together the basic it's probably 10 pages. And what it does is, you know, formalizes our communications strategy with a lens of equity. So there are a lot of different components to it. There's, you know, word choices, terminology that we choose to use because there's a lot of complex conversations happening around how you talk about, you know, racial issues, gender and trans issues, and more specifically about health equity issues. You know, there's a, how do you define health equity? If you ask five people on the street, they might give you five different definitions. So we wanted to get it on paper so we could all come to agreement as an organization, not just the communications team, but the whole staff and the trustees to say, you know, we agree on this. And understanding that there's, you know, communications is an ever-evolving thing, and that things might change within the style guide, but some basic core principles about how we frame our work, that idea of asset framing, that idea of drawing attention to systemic issues, we really wanted to get that on paper so we could all come to agreement around it. And one aspect of it that I really, as we were developing it, didn't realize, and Jame, on me, made me burn out doing so, how important it will be as the idea around accessibility in our communications. So, I mean, it's huge, and I don't think most people have even, I think, like I said earlier, everyone thinks they're doing a great job with it. And then when you start to dig into it, you're like, oh my gosh, there's so much more that we could be doing, you know, always using alt text with your images, always using at least captions on your videos and your webinars. You know, we've had a couple of real life examples where someone could not access our content because we didn't have captions turned on, and it was mortified, and I felt terrible for that person. And I'll never do that again. And I've been learning a lot about the different, like the value of captions versus an ASL interpreter, and how an ASL interpreter is way more valuable for a deaf person in terms of getting context about what people are talking about, in terms of accuracy, it's way more valuable. So, you know, that's something that we kind of formalized that we're always going to at least provide captions if not an ASL interpreter. You know, it's really, it's been a really eye-opening experience. And a lot of our staff said the same, they said, I didn't even know we were supposed to be doing this. So, that's kind of what the style guide is. It's really just almost a policy document that says this is our approach, this is really our strategy and communications. So, this is some of my follow-up questions. So, it's stored as a PDF or document and... Right now, it's a Google doc. Okay. And we did that on purpose because we wanted it to be sort of a living document and to understand that things might shift and things evolve. We might change our mind about things. So, it's fully accessible for the whole staff, and it's a living document. So, that was some of my next questions, was how often, I don't know how old, or how long the document's been around, but how often would it be revisited and checked, you know, audited? Like, where are we at? Is it still resonating? How often, yeah, has that happened or is that in the works? It's not pretty new. We released it for the staff a couple of months ago, and we do want to also share it publicly. We're not quite there yet. We've got to make a couple of revisions just in case any other organizations, you know, did any use out of it. So, we're kind of still in the stage of putting a fine point on it. So, there's actually some revisions that are happening right now. But I think it's something that we should be revisiting once a year at least, but really kind of always keeping in mind, you know, the idea that we should be listening to the community and revising it as needed, depending on how things evolve. There's been, we've had some really great conversations around, you know, the cultural context for a lot of word choices and a lot of terminology, and that, you know, our standard has always been to refer to older adults as older adults versus something like seniors. But there's a lot of communities, the black community and indigenous people who really value referring to older people as their elders, and that is a really meaningful term. And so, we, one of the components of the style guide is the idea that any of this could change based on, you know, cultural context of what you need. The most important thing that you can do is to listen to the people that you're serving and be, you know, be mindful of their cultural context and how you might be more respectful of those ideas. So, it's, that's kind of the core principle in it is listen to the people you're serving. I said more questions about this. The first time I've heard of it, I'm really excited and I hope everyone listening is getting excited too. I was going to ask if you could share it. So, it sounds like that's coming soon. And whenever you're ready, we'd love to post it up and get it out there for others to look at. So, you had said it's open to all staff. Anyone can go in and edit because I can hear some of the audience right now like, I know. Well, that's a great point. And I know that every organization is different. We are really privileged to have a small team and be a team where there's a ton of mutual respect for our different roles. So, I have no qualms about leaving it open for editing because I trust every person on this team to do the right thing and to ultimately come to me with questions. Now, I feel like I'm really tuning my own horn here and I don't mean for it to sound like that, but I do feel like the organization has created an environment where we can trust each other on that level. I totally get that a larger organization may not be able to do that, but that I think that at least it should be something that's open for discussion, even if not, everybody has access to edit it. I mean, change moves at the speed of trust. And regardless the size of the organization, I mean, you have to find a way to democratize all of that, whether it's democratizing data for decision-making or across different units or it's democratizing, certainly the values of the organization out to the staff so everybody can internalize it and then be proponents of those values for the organization back to the communities we serve seems incredibly important. And yeah, two to A, two to your horn. This is your time. I think this is great. I mean, it is fantastic. And this is one of the reasons I really like doing the podcast is there's so many great ideas and so many examples all over. And the more we can share that into the community of traction can start to get gained and what you've built there could be applied in other places just unique to their own situation or how they would set it up or what they would do. I really love that idea, though, of that open document because even in a super large organization, anyone could then log in and see it and see what the effort is and see that there's action being made, not just talk and back to how we started the episode, right? How do we, if we're layers away in an organization from that central leadership group, see that something's happening and I feel like having that open document is one way to at least internally understand people are making intentions and movements and and trying their best. Exactly. It's very operationalized. It's, you know, it's not just talk. It's, um, how does this affect the way we actually do our day to day work? So I've already had folks who, you know, it's just been a couple of months where people will email me and say, can I see the document? You know, I was going to use this word, but I think I should do this instead. So it's really, it's been really helpful already. This is wonderful. I mean, this is a major highlight. I'm really glad we got in to talk about this. You know, we are, like I said in the beginning, we are here cresting to the end of 2022. And this will be coming out in early 2023. So with that in mind, in case anything drastically changes in the next three to six weeks, everyone is listening, take our thoughts here with a grain of salt about our future outlook. But as we look out to getting things started here in 2023, I mean, what are the three things you are focusing on or interested in learning about in the coming year, getting excited about? So definitely the continuation of our equity and communications work. So the style guy was kind of the first real concrete step for us. And the next step is doing a very specific audit of all of our assets. So looking at our website content, our social channels, our email copy, our media lists, you know, whom we're reaching out to and looking through it and looking through it with a lens of is this accomplishing what we want to in terms of equity? And is there anything that we could be doing differently? Should we be on a different social channel? You know, some folks are using WhatsApp. Some folks are using TikTok to get their messages out. And I don't know if that's right for us, but we need to be examining whether it is. So that's the next step is doing kind of an audit, maybe an update of some of our visual assets, brand assets, to make sure that we are projecting an image that reflects our commitment to equity. Something that I don't know, I'm not excited about this, but something that I think is really important in the coming years, speaking of social channels is kind of examining our place on social media. And the role that social media is playing in some of these issues that we're trying to correct. And I know that a lot of folks have had a reckoning on Twitter over the last couple of weeks and months. And we had similar feelings about Facebook during the election when there was a lot of misinformation that was being promoted via Facebook. And so, you know, I want to have some really hard conversations in terms of what's our role in that, you know, are we upholding something that we shouldn't be by having a presence on these channels? Can we accomplish our objectives without kind of playing a part in these systems that are kind of, you know, really problematic? So that's something that I want to be part of kind of that equity review and to say where should we be? Or can we use those platforms for good? And to undo some of that impact that social, you know, different social media channels are having to end on a brighter note than that. We had an in-person gathering last week and it was really our first event back since the pandemic started. And of course, you know, we have to continue to be safe. But it was so energizing to be with people in the community again. And I'm really looking forward to like really looking at how we can take what we've learned from the past two years in terms of events or convenience and kind of meld them. So you still have that energizing in-person event, but still using virtual aspects that might be more accessible for people who maybe have complications, still don't feel safe or are coming from different parts of the geography. You know, we serve 16 counties and we might have a convening in the city of Buffalo or the city of Syracuse and we serve organizations that exist two to three hours away from that by car. And those folks were excluded essentially from the before times style of an in-person event. So, you know, how can we continue to rethink the way that we deal community convenings and make sure they're accessible to everybody that we serve? Love it. I'm going to follow up on a couple of those too. So on the audit, it sounds like a little bit of a content audit, maybe a little bit of data in the audience like CRM type audit. Are you looking to do that internally or are you looking for someone to come in externally for that type of, you know, objective review coming in? Yeah, we're looking to work with someone externally. We're going to be doing a lot of the internal work sort of stewarding it, but we, you know, you have to know your limitations too. And I really have been looking at different comms firms that specialize in equity. So I don't want to just work with a great public relations or branding firm that does great dazzling campaign. That's great. There are a lot of firms right here in Buffalo that are doing fantastic work, but I need someone who gets it. Like I need someone who really understands the ideas of equity and how that can be infused in communications. And so that's who I'd be looking to work with on something like that. Thank you. Yeah, I was just curious too, just for the listening audience, you know, how whether you take something like that on internally or externally, you know, you could audit because you could grab all your things internally, but then when you're sitting so far inside of it, it's, it's hard to see what you can't see anymore. Exactly. And then role of social. Yes. I've had so many conversations about this. It's such a sticky, slippery slope. Yeah, these, I mean, to all the points you made, there are a lot of, is it brand tarnishing? Are you promoting something you don't believe in? Are you continuing to add to these systemic problems by being there? But then it's also become the mass media channel because it's who watches channel five news at a certain time now because you've got everything's broken up by whatever app you're using through your TV and radio is not as popular. So it, it is a slippery slope. Do we see something coming? I don't know, I'm fully figured about one thing I've between what you had said about community in person. And then where I think some of these social channels are going is like the revival of online community as a separate aspect of social media where it's not just a blast out, like you're in this because you care about it. You care about this information. You might be silent, but you're really there for a reason. Maybe there's some type of gatekeeping to get into the community that's being curated and they could still be very big. You know, and I've seen studies that talk about on Facebook in particular, it's, it's those community groups that have really still been very successful for it. I've written slightly about it. I should, I should keep writing more. I just, I really think the moment of community is coming back and we have a chance to start shaping that now. And how do you do it in a non exclusive way? I guess that you're, you're getting all the right folks within the community, but then you guys, if there's fundraisers listening, I can imagine they're like, Oh my God, but I just need those eyeballs. There's more people out there. And if it's in the community, it's locked and they already know about me. So it's, it's, they've got us over a barrel. There's a lot going on there. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, how do you, how do you sell to your board? Oh, we're leaving social media, you know, like it's a hard, it's a hard sell because they, that is where people get their information, where you can do that community building in a very effective way. But you're always going to have this, this feeling of conflict. We completely stopped doing paid ads across social, but especially on Facebook after, after everything that's happened the last couple of years. The first of all, they made it very difficult for nonprofits to boost their ads because of the kinds of filters that they had to put on because of what was happening with the election. They had a lot of, they would pick up your content as being political and then they wouldn't be able to boost it. Even if it was just talking about, you know, food access or something like that, it would get flagged. But what the flip side to it is that they've created this algorithm where you have to pay to get it in front of anybody. So if you say, hey, we're only going to do organic, you might not reach anybody. So they really, they do have us in a really tough position, but I cannot, I really don't feel that it would be an ethical move for us to use foundation funds to pay Facebook for something. It's a really sticky situation. Yeah, I understand. I feel it for you on that one. It's, I think we need more conversations about that in 2023 in the nonprofit sector. I also really firmly believe a lot of the the work with data equity needs to start coming from the nonprofit sector too. It's the place where we need to lead because to your earlier point, the businesses are going to use all this data anyway they want to make an extra buck and market better to you. We have very different needs and we do care about vulnerable populations and we do want to do it right. And so I feel like we have to step up as a sector to find the ways to do this because it's not going to come from, I don't think it's going to come from the government. They didn't do much during the pandemic. I don't know where they're going to evolve anywhere else from there. Yeah, so these are things that I'm definitely looking at in 2023. Thank you so much for everything today. This has been an awesome episode. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. I've had a great time. I really appreciate the opportunity. Now, for everyone who has been a regular listener of the show, we do always end with the same question. And so today I'd like to know, Kari, what is your go-to song when you need a boost and why? It's such a great question. And I gave it a lot of thought because my kids monopolized my phone for songs. And so I opened my Google Music and the top Played album was the Minion Soundtracks. I had to give it some real thought because that wasn't going to work. But I always go back to Florence and the Machine, the song Shaken Out. It's just like, I know it's been around for a couple of years and it's a little cheesy, but I absolutely love it. And I guess it's just the idea that other times are coming. And that's been a really helpful message over the last couple of years. So that's my go-to. Thank you for sharing that. We're going to get that into the Spotify list. I do love Florence and the Machine, too, with everything coming up to the here and close. I hope it all goes smoothly for you and you're able to get some great times with your family and wish you all the best of good health, happiness, and continued success in the new year. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tony. You too. Well, thank you for sharing with us today. It was an absolute pleasure. And I'll talk to you again soon. Sounds great. Thank you. Goodbye now.