 So, hey folks, my name is Jasmine Malone, I am the equity inclusion diversity and culture intern at TechSoup. And today, I'm very, very, very honored to introduce you all to this webinar titled Black LGBTQ plus nonprofit leadership. Today, we are featuring two very amazing nonprofits based here in the United States. The first will be Black trans advocacy coalition, and the second will be Oklahomans for equality. And I just want to go over the best ways for you all to engage since this is a webinar today, you will see three options at the bottom of your screen. You will see the chat option, the raise hand option in the Q&A please please please put your questions into the Q&A section, and make sure to, and make sure to put your questions in there throughout the webinar so that we can reach so that we can address them at the end. And also, please shout out in the chat, if you like what you're hearing, or if you want to know more and learn more. Also be aware of the chat, I will be dropping some links throughout the presentation. And if you are, if you would like close captions they are available at the bottom of your screen, you can turn on CC option in the zoom menu. And now, I'm going to pass it over to today's facilitator, Aaron Ford. Hey folks, welcome. And so glad you are all able to make it and welcome to our panelists today. I want to start just by kind of calling out what the purpose of our event is today. So the goal of this events to highlight the black and LGBTQ plus voices of tech super nonprofit members, and to educate our tech super communities about the histories of Juneteenth and pride, and the people that exist at the intersection of these identities. And I do want to mention just to folks that we did get a little bit of feedback when we originally posted our event that some people thought that we were equating Juneteenth liberation with LGBTQ plus liberation. And I want to just explicitly state that that's not our intention. We don't want to equate the histories of these two groups. It's not that we want to really give voice to identities that exist at the intersection of those two identity categories and to sort of bring some attention to specifically what what the title of the webinar is now black queer nonprofit leadership. So that's what we'd like to do really emphasize that we're really trying to give voice to that specific kind of intersection. And I want to just give a really brief introduction to the two kinds of events that we're commemorating today one of the first is Juneteenth. Juneteenth commemorates the date in which enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were formally notified at the end of slavery in 1865 two years after the missing patient population. And that observance recognizes black liberation that celebrates freedom and calls attention to current issues based by the black and African American communities. And the holiday as I think most of us know in 2021. And that's one of the reasons we're, we're focusing on our event near Juneteenth, which of course was on a Sunday today. The other event that we're commemorating today is pride month, which is generally considered to come out of the gate liberation marches, which started in 1970 in New York. So we're a direct response to riots and LGBTQ plus spaces, most famously the Stonewall Riot in New York. And today of course we have hundreds of LGBTQ plus pride celebrations around the world, and many of those are held within June, although not exclusively. I want to also just give a really brief shout out to the two groups that sponsor this event. We have two affinity groups at TechSoup that organized this thing. Black allies, which is an affinity group for black employees at TechSoup, but it was founded in December of 2021. Their mission is to ensure the visibility development and inclusion of black and African voices within the organization of TechSoup within our network and also the communities that we serve. Another group that is sponsoring this event is alphabet soup. It's an LGBTQ plus affinity group at TechSoup. It's formed by LGBTQ plus employees at TechSoup in July 2020. And our mission is to support inclusion and diversity and sexuality and gender within TechSoup and our greater community at the spotlight intersectionality with other identities while creating alliances. The fun fact is alphabet soup is also the name of the youth group of one of the organizations that we're working with today. And that organizations, Oklahomans for equality, so the youth group is also called alphabet soup. I'm going to briefly just introduce our panelists, although they're going to give much deeper introductions themselves of who they are. We have National Black Trans-African Coalition. We have two folks. We have Carter Brown, who of course is the executive director, and also Celine Butler, who is an employment access specialist. He's really working on the jobs program that they have. We also have Kao Morris from Oklahomans for equality. And so that's the organizations that are going to be kind of speaking today. What we'll have is we'll have each of the two organizations speak, and then we'll have some time for Q&A and more of a dialogue and conversation at the end of the webinar. So I'm going to pass it over now to Carter and Celine, who we're going to discuss at the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition. Hello, hello and greetings everyone. Again, my name is Carter Brown. My pronouns are he and him. And I serve as the founder and currently the executive director of the National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition. We are a national nonprofit organization headquartered here in Dallas, Texas. And our core programs and advocacy is around social advocacy and bringing empowerment for Black transgender and non-binary individuals. We are very, very excited to be here. Happy Pride Month to you all. And we're very excited to be presenting again with Kao here. So we'll get into it so that we'll have plenty of time for questions. Today we want to open conversation on the intersectionality of specifically Black trans identity and nonprofit leadership for Black liberation. So I'd like to share with you all just a bit of a background of how we came to be as the National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition and some of the work that we do in respect of the effort to achieve Black liberation for ourselves in our community. Next slide. Okay, so the National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition, we were founded in 2011. And I was compelled to start the organization just based on my own experiences as a Black transgender male. In my walk or my transition, a very long time ago. And at that time, we didn't have the amount of resources or visibility or even just support of allies that we do now for transgender people. The thing to do at that time that we knew community-wide was that you embark on your transition and you sort of go under the radar, not disclose that you're trans. In my experience, there was no pride in being trans per se. However, there was a perceived level of liberation in being to being able to live in the gender that you identified as. And so that's what I did. I transitioned to live in the gender that I identified as, and then I went into hiding as such quote unquote. I changed jobs, changed my name, changed where I live, and I didn't disclose to anybody that I was transgender. And actually I was very happy at this point in my life as I started to advance in my career, now that I was being received as fully male. I received lots of promotions in a job that I loved. I got along well with coworkers. And I was able to build a family and really feel that I was living what I always understood to be a normal life until the day that I went into work and someone disclosed, or I was informed that someone had disclosed that I was transgender. And the, the, the complete turn and contrast of the relationships that I built were very devastating to my mental health. My social, my social life was completely destroyed and I was embarrassed I was heard I was destroyed to see that people that I'd build relationship with and that respecting me as a person no longer felt that way about me, because of my transgender identity. And needless to say I was eventually fired for being transgender from that place. And in that moment I knew that that would change my life forever I had to decide in that moment if I would deny or embrace the life that I've chosen to live for myself this life that I that I thought would would liberate me was now confining me to a place that didn't feel well at all. And so that is what compelled me to start the organization in an effort to advocate for all of the social economic needs that black transgender people specifically at the intersect intersecting identities of being black and trans, and I wanted to ensure that not only advocate for myself but others who are simply trying to have access to a livelihood and work and be graded on their on their actual career and work and not be able and not be discriminated against for being trans. So that's a brief background of us my wife SP she has business development degree, and she serves currently as the business development officer of the organization. More about us the black trans advocacy coalition again we're a national social justice organization and we work to overcome violence and injustice in the world to the power value and love of all people. And I actually I really love this. This statement of who we are because it acknowledges that it takes the value love and power of all people in order for us to truly reach the liberation of us all. To become the change that we want to see in the world and indeed we have been very successful in becoming the change, because our leadership is comprised of black trans people. And that keeps us in tune with all the key issues that our community and the people that we serve that we're fighting for. Next slide. Again, our mission is to help improve the black transgender human experience by overcoming violence and injustice through the world, through the power and love of all people. So who is in the coalition, the black trans advocacy coalition in our effort to ensure that we are having more of a holistic approach to our advocacy and our support systems. Within the coalition, there are gender specific and identity specific groups. So for example, we have black trans men, Inc, which focuses on the unique needs of black transgender men, and then black transgender women focuses on the needs of black transgender women. The next is for our non binary group. And then we've also created a pathway system which is the only the first and only trans specific passage system for those in entertainment, so that we can bring advocacy into the entertainment realm as well. Our anchors is for the spouses and relatives, family and friends of black transgender people with the understanding that often the transition includes our family members as they transition with us in getting to know who we are as we blossom into our identity. Golden flames is for transgender people who are 55 and up. Thank you. Next slide. And as I stated our leadership, we are completely black trans led organization. And this is very, very important that our leadership also gives representation. The service that we give to our community comes from black trans leadership and I think this is pivotal. When we talk about black liberation because as you know, before the trans, the transition I was black after the transition I'm black, and in any place that I occupy. There's no disclosed enough transgender it's simply known that I am black. And so for our black liberation we have to. It's necessary that we're able to connect with our community and our black community but often because of the transgender identity. We are ostracized, even from our black families are black communities are we push further into the margins to receive access to things that are black brethren in communities can receive. And so, you know that's why it's important that our leadership is for black is by black trans people because it's a unique journey and experience that we understand. And that often many of us are going through as well. And so with our leadership as a part of our effort to, to liberate our people. We've identified the negative influences of white supremacy in the workplace. And so, for our, for our staff, we put into practice. Things that are affirming and nurturing that, you know, that create meaningful communication and relationships among our staff affirming that we're forming us all in our identities as well. And so I'd like to share now a bit more specifically about the programs that we do, and so I'll be happy to get off to Mr Salim. Yeah, happy pride everybody. Yeah, so I've been connected with the organization since 2012. When it first started off as just like an online group. I was also early on in my transition so it was great to connect to people with similar experiences who are also black and trans, but because resources and visibility was scarce. I think this platform was a little lifesaver. I went on to work in workforce development within the LGBT community. And early on, I saw gaps within employment services that really need to be addressed. Most of the young people that came to me identified as trans and gender non conforming. They needed more than just employment services, they were dealing with things like being homeless, not having access to food, dealing with disabilities immigration status. You know, as it related to, you know, trying to get employed. And as we can see from the stats 20% of black trans people experience unemployment, 34 experience poor health care, and 42 which is almost half have experienced homelessness. So these were things that needed to be addressed to even get people to be able to sustain the employment services that we were offered. When I seen the opportunity you can go to the next slide. So when I see the opportunity to work at BTAC I jumped at the chance because I knew that BTAC was their primary focus was on health housing and employment. So with an employment, we offer our clients help with resume prep, you know, job readiness, as far as like interview prep as well. And one of the most important things that we do is we connect them to trans friendly employers. We're offering our employee partners, diversity, equity and inclusion training to make sure that the clients that we connect to them are going into a safe working environment. Additionally, we provide free HRT care financial assistance with surgeries. We offer link linkages to trans friendly public and private shelters, wherever they're living. And as well as we offer emergency assistance to people that need immediate resources. So one thing I love about the organization is that we are focused on healing the whole person, because we know that one of these programs standing alone won't do it. They all intersect to be able to sustain trans black trans people. To me, you know, black liberation is about showing up as your whole self, and all your transness your culture, your fluidity, and even in your trauma, knowing that there are resources and community that can support you as a whole person. So that we go from not just surviving not just barely making it, but to thriving and all that we are. Back over the party. Thank you very much, Sonny. Yeah, and you're absolutely right just showing up as your whole self is something that I didn't have the experience of just being a black trans person as I stated, you know, the happiest that I could be was to not let anyone know that I was trans. And again to create to take that trauma and create be a part of creating something that affirms a work environment that truly does invite and encourage people to show up as as their full self has been very, very rewarding and very liberating for myself and those who are part of the team, and those who experienced any of our programs or events. I really love this quote here it says if you've come here to help me, you're wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with my than let us work together. It's a very, very powerful quote for, you know, the reasons that you perceive it to be as well for me because it outlines that our intersectionalities give us the opportunity to find those commonalities of our humanity. And that's where we find how to become allies, or how to give more when you really see that your liberation is tied with mine. As a black person or your liberation is tied with mine as someone who's celebrating pride today as someone who's celebrating Juneteenth this week as someone who believes in having equality in the workplace, etc. So once we start exploring those intersectionalities is where we find true our true humanity and and allyship. And that's why I really appreciate events like these today. And I just wanted to share a couple of other things that we do towards the healing and empowerment of ourselves in the communities that we serve is that we do. We do a lot of training such as what we're doing now and as well as trans competency training. Also, discussions on racial and gender justice. We do these conversations with several corporations businesses schools medical providers, anywhere where transgender people will be. We try to ensure that it is created to be an affirming space or transitions to be an affirming space. And lastly, our biggest and annually been is our conference on the black trans advocacy conference will be happening here in Dallas, Texas in 2023 April 25 through the 30th. The biggest event for our community because it is the first and only and largest event that truly centers black trans people in the programming in the entertainment and in the environment as a whole. So we have hundreds of people come from all around for this full week of just to be in community. In this space, we also provide leadership training and opportunities for community building, as well as entertainment. There's also sponsorship opportunities and opportunities for vendors if you are, you provide a service or you just want to be a community or you want to support. You can find out how to do all these things at be tech dot black trans dot board. And then a nutshell that is who we are and what we do and again we're very thankful for this time and opportunity to be a part of tech soups pride and Juneteenth celebration. And we'd love to hear more from you. Following this presentation. Thank you. Thank you so much Carter and Salim. That was really really wonderful and inspiring to hear the amazing different kind of programs that your organization is really working on it really tackling some some issues that as you've outlined are just really pervasive in the black trans community. It's really really powerful and inspiring work that you're doing. Now we have a presentation from, from chaos Morris who's going to talk about Oklahomans for equality. So welcome chaos and let's, let's start with hearing a little bit about your organization. Hello, thank you. Hello everyone thank you for having me. This is chaos Morris I'm the BIPOC program and digital media coordinator and to surprise director for Oklahoma for your quality. And I'm just going to tell you about what we do and insert my story. Next slide. Oklahoma for equality was founded in 1980. It was founded by a group of toasties who wanted to create a community who wanted to create a system of help for those who were needing it. So they were founded in 1980. They opened up their first center in 1996. They move around on a couple of occasions in town. Every time they bought a building or rented out a building. The neighbors were complaining that there was a gay community center in their backyard, or the owners got tired of building being being vandalized. So they came up with a plan to purchase the current building we have, we have downtown in 2005. They made renovations and opened it up in 2007 and it's an 18,000 square foot facility, a torpedo factory. And we host a health clinic, we have transport groups, we have legal services on every Tuesday you can come down to the center and ask for legal legal advice and we have a lawyer who will give that advice free of charge. We have a community business alliance, which is own businesses in and around Tulsa that are LGBTQ friendly and affirming. So you know that when you go to this business that this business is a business that will support you, and it won't have any problems. The art gallery and each month their art gallery changes out on to a different local artists to display their work, and that is to get to keep 90% of their proceeds of art that they sell. We have a computer lab we have a library we have a youth program called alphabet soup that meets every Saturday, and that program has about 80 kids, depending on on the day. We have behavioral health services. We are a shelter so in case of emergency weather you can come to the to the center and be safe. Right now is like 90 degrees outside in Oklahoma very humid and you and people who are unhoused or any a safe put a safe space. They are free to come to the center and hang out and get free water. We also have a high five cable so we can come and hang out and enjoy some time to yourself. We also have a history project room, which will be keep a collection of gay history, not only for the center but for the history of the state, which is available to access. We have an event space on that hosts numerous events pride being those are more color art exhibit where where we have over 1000 pieces submitted. We also have a lynn rick's theater, which is named after a gay church he playwright he wrote green girl is a lilac that got turned to the musical Oklahoma. So we have that in honor of him he struggled with being gay in an alcohol and living out in California. So we have that in honor of him, and we have tons of other programs that we have and do. And, and yet the organization is very wonderful we have several chapters across the state. We have five and in the state in eastern Oklahoma, and we plan to expand even more and to have a present in the lease of town of at least 10,000. Next slide please. So so many programs that I oversee on that kind of relates to what we're talking about today is on a core black voices are where we highlight queer black Oklahoma and to give them a space to tell their story. And, and, and because we all know that that being black and queer is not an amount of love we all have different backgrounds and stories is terrible. So, so what I think my job is or what I feel like my job is is to up left and give a platform to those who need to have this story told the more we can tell our stories the more we can progress and move forward. So clear black voices is is one of those programs that we do. We interview Marie Turner, which is one of the first non binary legislators in the US and one of the first Muslim elected represent representatives that we have in Oklahoma. And we also interviewed Mike, Michael Vaughn, who, who oversees a tech school for for youth learning how to code. We also interview Lincoln, who oversees our black Wall Street Alliance to tell the story of a black Wall Street and to make that connection of of entrepreneur self and to give this a voice to black people and quarterback people. Black people have been such a strong advocate in in in their own rights in their own journeys to own to rope in what they do will also being queer and letting people know that queer people exist here and they are part of the legacy of Tosa. What we also do in DC queer, which is a space created for queer and two spirit own own peoples, which is also very, very, very important because, um, as you celebrate zoom team, which was in 1865. In Oklahoma and being enslaved in black own own. The tribes had had their own sovereign government which was did participate in child slavery on black, black queer and distance people are black and business people weren't freed until the following gear in 1966, when they have signed a new treaty with the United States government. So, so while our black brothers and sisters were were celebrating freedom. There was still black people in Oklahoma still under living on the child's child's safe slavery. To the following gear, until this day, a lot of black free men's homes are still fighting with the tribe for their citizenship and their rights, and something that the tribes are still fighting for our fighting against is on our queer two spirit as well. So, so we're very adamant and serene that these stories are being told about our poor and business people and to ensure that this is not hidden under the rug as as to try for trying to do. Next slide please. And also part part of what we do is supporting local organizations on supporting other black organizations, black organizations recently on black criticism who just started. This year, they had their first black pride in Tulsa, which was amazing. They had a ball, they had a pride in part and they had these different events, but supporting these other black organizations is key to progress. So, some of those organizations that we have here are Black Court Tulsa, Carefree Queer, and Oklahoma Center for Community Justice, and also expanding those chop spending our presence and what we do to the rest of the state, because Oklahoma is very red and we have to get some of our people on board to create the change that we need to see. So we're trying to replicate what we do in Tulsa to our smaller cities like Muskogee, like Telaquah, like Omagi, which is the capital for the Muskogee nation, and Telaquah which is the capital for the Telaquah nation. So we're trying to expand our presence and to ensure that programs that we have here are also programs that other people can access who don't live in the bigger city like Tulsa. Next slide please. And this is celebrating, and this conversation around being black and queer and a black co-liberation and what does that look like, and that to me that is celebrating yourself, celebrating who you are and being truthful with who you are. And if that means, and what that means is being yourself. So I dress very flamboyant, I wear a lot of heels, and it took me a long time to get to the point where I can truly be myself. And being yourself helps other queer youth who look like you feel visible and say, hey, I see you. And having them not be afraid to be themselves and knowing that they can be themselves, especially living in a place that really isn't allowing people to be themselves. So that's just, that was my quick presentation. And what we do here is just providing a safe space and resources for people who are struggling and needing that support. And that's my presentations. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Kayo. It was really powerful I think in particular for me to hear a little about how queer folk really fit into the sort of really important black historical sort of events in Tulsa and the history of Black Wall Street and also the discussion that you had of the black freedmen in their relation to the tribes in Oklahoma. So we're moving into our discussion portion where we're happy to take questions and for our panelists. I want to first address a question which was already answered in the chat, will the deck be shared with the recording and yes the deck will be shared with the recording. Additionally, within this deck there are quite a few hyperlinks. You've all seen that Jasmine has been very active in the chat of dropping some hyperlinks into the Zoom chat. The hyperlinks are also in the deck itself, so you'll be able to come to TechSoup's website and also be emailed out to the participants of this webinar, the deck itself with those links. So you will have that as a resource. Jasmine's also pushing for us to ask further questions in the chat. I do see that there is one question for TechSoup, which is specifically for African American led organizations, how are we providing services to that community. Well, we serve quite a few African American organizations and led organizations, folks that are led by African Americans and also that have tremendous impact that are part of our network. And in addition to African American, we also have Black organizations throughout the world that are part of our network. I will say that we had a specific digital resilience outreach to a bunch of folks that I think began two years ago during like a specific moment of racial reckoning. And so we got a lot of organizations, a lot of free services, which was great or reimbursement sometimes that services that they paid for at TechSoup, so specifically targeting African American led organizations and folks in that community. That's one way that we specifically done some outreach in that community and adjustment but I was wondering as a member of Black Allies, if you'd be able to speak a little bit more about what TechSoup does for the African American community. So just to talk a little bit about Black Allies and I know I really want to get to the questions that are directed at our panelists so I will be brief. But one of the reasons that Black Allies was started was to continue to uphold some of the promises that TechSoup made during back in 2020. So I'm just going to post a link in the chat here. This is a blog post that was posted back in 2020 by TechSoup. And it has some commitments in here that are directly related to the Black non-led non-profits in the United States and how we want to engage the Black community. And one of the ones that Black Allies focuses on as we started the affinity group was to not only amplify the messages of the Black League community organizations, that's just what we're doing today, but also specifically looking at the money to defray these costs and support the optimization and technology for Black League organizations and community groups. And since Black Allies is a newer affinity group at TechSoup, one of the ways that we're starting to do that right now is doing a lot of research and starting to do outreach with these Black League non-profits that are in our network as well as some newer folks so that we can fulfill these commitments that were posted in this blog post. So hopefully that answers that question. I'll pass it back to you, Erin. Thank you, Jasmine. So next I have a question I see from Allison, and she says this may be vague, but what is your day to day or week to week look like? And I think what she's trying to get at is, if you could tell us a little bit more about your daily activities. This could be a question for Carter, Salim, or Kayo, anybody who would want to jump in. So my day to day looks like I go in, open up the center, answer some phone, answer messages that people may have left overnight while someone was closed, and then I go from there. And then there may be people who come in looking to this call-off, and then maybe someone looking for some healthcare providers. So we have a list of those, not only in TOSA, but they may be from McAllister, which is about 80 miles away from TOSA. So we may have maybe one or two in McAllister that we can connect them with. They may be looking for mental health services or housing services, or any resources that we will try. If we can't provide those resources, we have community partners that we collaborate with, that we can then direct them to those resources. So if we have a group or some type of event, we would get that ready. So my day really varies depending on what's happening, what we have clanned. Yesterday, this past week, or this week, we're getting ready for our proud event this weekend. So yesterday, my day was full of our interface service, which is where we fly, and that's the flags that fly over the center, which is the Black Lives Matter flag, the Progress flag, the City of TOSA American flag, and the Muscogee Nation flag. And we also read the names of all of those we lost from last pride to this pride, and to honor them and to give their, and just to highlight and recognize them. So my day varies, but most of it is really just helping those in need and finding resources for those needing those resources. Thanks, Kayo. Go ahead, Salim. Yeah, for us, we're a national organization, so we mostly work remotely. So my day to day looks like logging in on our on our server, seeing who has emailed in for, you know, employment service because I'm the employment access specialist so that's specifically where I work within the organization. I usually have like client meetings scheduled. And so, you know, I do a lot of case management within my program and, you know, basically finding out what kind of employment needs. So that our clients have, whether that's, you know, like I said, held with resumes or, you know, looking for a specific job or maybe they're going through like a career shift. You know, out of, you know, whatever, you know, unsafe environment they've been in, you know, looking for more transfer me work environment so helping them navigate that and kind of having conversation, finding out, you know, what their traumas have been in the workforce and you know trying to figure out what resources that we have that can support them. And so, you know, additionally, we're in the process of developing a job board so I spend a lot of times like looking for employer partners. I've seen who we can outreach to that already have like safe work environments, or have like trans or queer friendly job opportunities to add to that job board. So yeah, that's, you know, basically what you know my day today looks like it's just like building up the program and also just working with clients to help them find employment opportunities. So next we have a couple of questions that I'd like to maybe combine a little bit so Laura burns asks, she works with a, an organization that works in food insecurity and the community that her organization has not been able to identify how to assist yet is the LGBTQ plus community, because they're less likely to have geographic boundary so she asks how the panelists would suggest beginning to identify ways to reach these people. Steve Berlin. It also works with an organization that provides direct resources, specifically to folks who are unhoused. And he asks, we speak, can you speak more about the intersection of black trans and black queer identity on the one hand, and the experience of homelessness on the other, and what resources should we be exploring to better serve these individuals. And we better engage those we serve from this lens. So I think a string that I can pull from both of those questions is, how can we really work to identify black queer folks and better serve them in direct services. Go ahead Carter. The services are already out there. We just need to give access to black trans and queer people to the services that everyone else is already getting and that just means, you know, introducing these sort of conversations are recognizing and recognizing bringing forward. Is there space for everyone here so if there's a community space, or a city sponsored space public space that you recognize that you don't see. Everyone's identities are all visible but if you don't know of any LGBTQ people in that facility speak up challenge them into opening up what is already created to be inclusive for everyone. I don't think there's a need to, you know, create entirely new spaces for resources, when there's a plethora of resources for everyone that's already out there it's just a matter of giving everyone equal access and opportunities to get to those things. I do feel it's important to have identity specific spaces when it comes to support or having community and people that can relate to your experience and walk of life. Because you have to know how to navigate those things are it's helpful to have a guide or someone who has experience in navigating a way of life that's not the common way. You need someone to show you how to access getting these resources that aren't freely giving to you. So that's why, you know, for us, our presence is very important to community as a staple for them to have a place that they can call home and they can just go and be in their full identity and know that whatever resources are available are fully available to them and not be challenged in that. However, we can't do everything, obviously, but through the love of do the love and help and allyship of us all. That's how we actually get to the equality and get to having full access for everyone, in my opinion. Yeah, just to piggyback on what Carlos said, it is really that the resources are out there, and it's really just collaborating with those other resources to ensure that, hey, maybe you didn't think about this but this is where this is something that you should think about. We have a number of housing shelters and house shelters for people who are experiencing homelessness. And we work with one of our, one of our partners and we was like, hey, you know, there are trans people who are well in house and would like to have a safe space. And we ended up working with the Tulsa Day Center and they ended up creating a space for our trans community who was in house to feel safe and to know that they won't have to worry about sleeping at night and they will have a safe space to sleep. So it really is about collaborating with your community partners to ensuring that they understand that there is a need for this community and to ensure that they can do within their power, creating a space for that community. And Carter both thank you for kind of explaining that I think that really is inspiring to think about collaboration and really working with different organizations to from in the in the planning level. Really can can help get operations targeted in in some really interesting ways. So if you ask what volunteer opportunities do you have with an audience here. If you could use some volunteers. What, what, what ability to folks have to volunteer with either of the organizations. Volunteer, we're always looking for volunteers at the center. It makes my job is a little bit less stressful. But to volunteer at the center all we ask is, is you to this pick on any day of the week, open Monday to Sunday, 99 we only ask for three hours of your time. And it's really just a wonderful way to give back the simplest thing you can do is just volunteer and and and to get back to your community where where that is answering phone calls or volunteering at Pride or volunteering at any of our events that we may have done and this and just giving back to to that community is very impactful and and it goes a long way a lot of people don't realize how how volunteering at any organization can make it can make a true difference for that community. Thank you care go ahead Carter. Absolutely. Well said K definitely agree. We need all those things. But yeah, we have lots of volunteer opportunities all year long, especially around the time of the conference we need as many hands on deck, as possible for things like, you know, actually setting up on on on site. As well as coordinating programming. Throughout the year, we need volunteers for all of our programs as saline highlighted we have a very robust employment program we could use volunteers to help us with perhaps facilitating or orchestrating some of the job operating as workshops. If that is your skill set. Also, we could use volunteers to help with, you know, our social media and content creation, you know, everything that any nonprofit needs to run. We need volunteers for it's often the things that we maybe have not identified that we need that you can identify that you have. That's the missing puzzle to really get us to the next level. So for example, if you have a skill set or if you have, you know, a passion that you love to do. And although you may not see it as one of our programs, but if that's something you can offer up by all means we welcome that as well. Again, you can log on to our website if you want to sign up to volunteer and we'll definitely match you with an opportunity that both satisfies our needs and your passion to help. Thank you Carter. Okay, since you're Tulsa based and very your operation very much in Tulsa I'm assuming that volunteering at the Center is for folks in Tulsa Carter I'm assuming also that since your organization is nationally based that you can kind of handle some volunteer work coming from a lot of different places. Yes, yes, absolutely we can do everything remotely. Or if you're in the Dallas area, you can come to our office, I would love to have some hands on deck here as well. Yes, so just sign up and we'll definitely match you with an opportunity. And another, I think, way that we stick advantage of some folks in the room is some has a question about fundraising, and he would like to pose the question what are some of the challenges and opportunities you face in terms of accessing grant funding. There's quite a few challenges for black black lead organizations are nonprofits overall face with securing funding for us, it has been because we started as a grassroots organization we didn't have the funding or capacity to hire a grant writer, or to write the grant ourselves in a satisfactory way to win the grant. And that was a really big challenge for us, even though we were doing the work. You know that doesn't satisfy a grant or so it was a challenge over time just learning to write grants learning to find grants for trans specific work because that's an even smaller pool of grants. And, you know, this is, if there's a grant pool for black people. We're probably not going to get anything. And if it's a grant pool for LGBTQ, then there's a fraction that's for trans people that's not going to go to the black ones. And then if it's a trans specific grant, then usually it's more so given to to fund whatever that initiative is highly unlikely it's going to be HIV, or something that the government is tied behind or is highlighting as this is what the issue is versus something that's going to support what we're saying the issues are such as we need jobs, we need housing, we need access to transfer to gender affirming healthcare. There aren't grants for those things, specifically which is why we work so hard to fill the gap with the capacity and the knowledge and the resources that we have as an organization, and then collaborate with others who already have the, the resources that we need we just need access to them. So, those are a few of the challenges in accessing grant funding for trans black trans specific work. I'll try to answer this as best I can. So, so the quality center on prior to COVID. We, what was funded privately are by individual donors are family foundations. So, so we're lucky enough to not really depend on grants. But this past year, we did finally hire a grant coordinator. So that has been life changing. And my quarter said, I'm writing those grants are are is very difficult and because you're doing the work doesn't mean that you already get to grant grant writing is very difficult and we're so lucky to have on Donna Matthews who came from Davis, who are now working with us to write our grants, and let me tell you that is a lot of work and a live information that you need and just because you're doing the work that's not mean you're going to get that funding. And like, and like Carter said, a lot of it is tied behind what the, what the federal government is promoting and pushing. But, but, but we have been lucky to really not have to really rely on grants on prior to COVID. But the grant writing is something serious and fundraising has been difficult, especially on post COVID or our post COVID outbreak. Thank you, Carol. Thank you both for highlighting I think some of the real difficulties in, you know, kind of qualifying for the grants the right way of getting the grants, when you're really at the intersection of these different issues, I think it can be challenging I do want to mention that both organizations you can donate to the organization directly from their web pages. So we're running close to time I do have one more question that I want to tackle pretty briefly this one's more for tech sleep and the organizers and why did you combine Juneteenth and pride is the question. I think what we really wanted to do was have a collaboration between our two affinity groups so black allies approached alphabet soup saying hey, we think that this could be a good moment because these two events that were commemorating happened near the same time in terms of the time of year, it could be a great way to show some of the important work that's being done at the intersection of these two identities. So it's really to do that to really spotlight folks that are right there where those two identities kind of converge and Jasmine. You were one of the organizers as well as I was the other two folks I'll just call them out. Who worked on this webinar were Kevin Mulhall of black allies Bruce Ackley of alphabet soup, as well as the whole other best of the communities back to step two. But those two folks I did want to call out but Jasmine do you have anything to add there. Thank you so thank you Aaron for that and also thank you for asking that question I think it is a very important one I know that we addressed it briefly at the top of this webinar as well. Really wanting to highlight the folks who exist at the intersection of these identities but also in thinking about Juneteenth, and the history behind that and slavery. While also talking about pride at the same time, wanting to really acknowledge and Carter mentioned this, speaking about his own experience with his own identity and workplace and transitioning, but black people have always existed within this intersection, there have always been black queer people. And we're talking about this throughout time, and it taking the moment now to acknowledge both of these things. Again, was pride and with Juneteenth talking about how best to to highlight these folks, how best to engage this community and to help them work through the issues that have been mentioned today that are still affecting them. So it was really important to us to make sure that we made time for that to, to highlight both of these very very important observances, and to talk about how tech soup can help to these black lead nonprofits these black queer focused nonprofits as well, and how we can reach these communities and how we can also help our, allow these communities and these non profit leaders to educate our tech soup greater community in addressing how best to provide the resources. That was very well said. So I appreciate I want to call out Kale Carter and something who took some time during the session to talk to us and before the session to prepare some content, work with us really closely and I really want to appreciate your time and thank you. And I want to just read also this really quick quote from Rebecca that Rebecca our CEO attack soup through into our chat. And this really resonates with me this is how I feel also thank you for sharing your stories, and for the important work you are doing, both of your organizations are impressive and vital to your communities, your resiliency and creativity is to be really really well said and I totally agree. Carter Salim and came any last minute things that you want to say, just as we close. I will just say thank you again tech soup for giving you a platform for our voices and our experiences to be heard. And hopefully we'll get a chance to hear from some of you all, following this meeting as volunteers or see you at BTAC 2023. Yes, thank you for having me. And thank you for putting this together. All in just together and in only way, only way to progress only way for it is as to collaborate and move together, and we're all human and we all deserve love, and I was nothing for the best for the world, and I just wish everyone a happy pride. And again, thank you for having us. You know, thank you for letting us share where these are as organization. And I look forward to connecting with you on the future. Thank you. Thank you so much thank you everybody for attending and taking some time on a Tuesday to hang out with us. Look out for an email with a recording of this event, as well as the slide deck which will also be posted on our website. And if you have any techniques, email Kevin, as he threw in the chat. And if you want to check in with any of us, or just have some comments, there will be ways to do so. There's also a survey that Rita, or Jasmine, or maybe both even I have been monitoring the chat as much put in the chat. And that will also go out with the email so we would love to hear from you about our programming and how we can serve you all. Thank you so much. And everybody have a wonderful Tuesday.