Be authentic and creative. Don’t be afraid of the word “no.” Redistribute power. “I want people who are watching to write this down,” said Adriane Jefferson, director of cultural affairs for the City of New Haven, in a Wednesday afternoon conversation with Guy Fortt, president of the Stamford chapter of the NAACP, Pamela A. Lewis, president of Connect-Us, a Bridgeport-based youth-development program that covers the arts and business networking, and Anghy Idrovo, co-director of CT For A Dream, a nonprofit that works with undocumented students in public schools around the state.
The conversation — discussing how nonprofits can better attend to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion — was part of Voices and Actions, a three-day series of events hosted by INTEMPO, a Stamford-based music education nonprofit, done in partnership with the New Haven-based International Festival of Arts and Ideas and La Voz Hispana, among other organizations.
For INTEMPO, the events are a celebration of the organization’s 10th anniversary, culminating tomorrow in a performance by Las Cafeteras, a Chicano band from Los Angeles. For the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, it was a warmup for the full festival — which begins on May 14, with several artists participating in the festival’s Arts on Call program, and proceeds through the rest of May and all of June, ending on June 27 with a drag show on the New Haven Green (visit A&I’s website for the full schedule of events).
The Meaning of Diversity
On Wednesday, before a virtual audience of about 50, Jefferson began the conversation by asking the panelists how they defined diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“To me, it means to dive deep into each other, to give the gift that you possess,” Fortt said. Diversity and inclusion “are synonymous,” but equity was where the work started. “We all need to be on a fair playing ground,” he said, and once that’s established, we might see more equitable changes in public policy.
Lewis agreed. “I think diversity is an activity,” she said, focusing on the current fight for fair elections as “the larger fight for diversity…. We can’t pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act if we have voter suppression.” She mentioned that in a recent meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, participants had brought up sweeping ideas, such as getting rid of the electoral college and dismantling the filibuster. “We are talking about issues of democracy and justice.”
Adding to that, and returning it to the local, Idrovo emphasized that nonprofits needed to make sure that diversity extended to staffing. “But that’s just the beginning,” she said. “What really matters is insuring that diverse voices actually have decision-making power and can create change.”
Let Youth Lead
What role should nonprofits play in activism? Jefferson asked. And what was the role of younger people in that?
Young people “are the new trend, the new concepts,” Fortt said, reminding the audience that the NAACP was founded in 1909 as an interracial endeavor, always receptive to diverse ideas. Idrovo, who works at an organization that started as a “youth-led organization,” said that without advocacy, “we’re not gonna see the change we need.” Too often, youth were left out of the conversation because of a prevailing opinion among older folks that “young people don’t have the skills because they are young.”
Lewis spoke about Connect-US’s work in creating inroads in the business community to help foster the youth they work with into careers in the private sector. “Connecticut has one of the biggest wealth gaps in the country,” she said. “When you reach out to companies, they say, ‘it’s not our culture to work with teenagers.’” Her response has been that “you have to change your culture.” And 25 business partners, she said, have “leaned into this and said ‘yes.’”
In her experience working in after-school programs to “help develop young people’s identity,” in New Haven and elsewhere, Idrovo found that asking them questions about what needs their school and community had tapped into young people’s “desire for change…. They’re directly connected to the issue.”
“It is not new having young people at the forefront of change,” Jefferson said, citing the leaders of the civil rights movement and Black liberation of the 1960s and 1970s. But to her, bringing them to the forefront now was partially about shifting the culture to give them space to lead. “it is necessary and needed,” she said. “How are you shifting culture in your work?” she asked.
For Idrovo, it began with “having young people lead the organization.” In her team of 10 staff, the youngest was 19 and the oldest was 33. “We are changing the culture,” she said, by “making sure that, with our partners ... we’re visioning with our community members about how the organization will be in the next five to 10 years.”
“Transformation starts with a vision,” Fortt agreed. It “starts in your mind.” But then you have to figure out “how to implement that vision.” As an older organization, the NAACP had a long organizational history, and “it’s difficult sometimes to change the midset of bylaws. Those laws were put in place back in the 1960s when there were more threats on leadership at the time,” but “some of those rules and regulations are still standard today and it doesn’t necessarily work…. When you have rules and regulations that can hinder the movement,” it could be necessary to find ways to overcome them, or change them.
For Lewis, the barriers were social. In her work with previous nonprofits, she got tagged as “an angry Black women because of disagreements I had,” she said. “I always considered myself a team player” and “just wanted to have dialogue.”
Jefferson supported Lewis. “Definitely there’s a stigma around women. When you are a Black or Brown woman and you get angry you are stigmatized,” she said, citing “oppressive workplace culture.”
They returned then to the subject of equity and the work that needed to be done to achieve it. “When I contact administrators in schools” to work with Connect-US, Lewis said, she often found that school administrators wanted to steer her toward working with the “good kids” — students with good grades, who were excelling in school. But she wanted to talk to everybody.
“And then what young people tell me — that I feel really good about — is about getting them a chance to get their voices heard,” Lewis said. “They feel so great that this is a space where their voice can be amplified…. Young people feel this is a place where they can grow.” By that, she added, students said that “I learned that it’s OK to make a mistake. If you don’t take risks, you won’t make mistakes, and you won’t grow.”
Don’t Be Afraid Of No
Noting that many in the audience were in the nonprofit sector, Jefferson asked what advice the three panelists would give nonprofits looking to improve their effectiveness and work on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“You want to make sure it’s not all about the financial gain, but making sure the people — the end users of the nonprofit — are benefitting fairly and equitably,” Fortt said. He added that “it’s not always about struggle and fight. It’s about moving forward to make the change” through collaboration. And the key to understanding how to work most effectively was, in short, to be yourself. “See what fits your spirit in making change,” he said.
Lewis spoke as a longtime community organizer. “Don’t be afraid of ‘no,’” she said. “I have bad feet from all the door knocking I do,” but “that’s the work. That’s the work in fundraising, in outreach, in organization. If you don’t get ‘no’s you’re not out there working.” And in time, she added, “you’re going to get ‘yes’es.”
Idrovo asked nonprofits to look beyond simply having a diverse staff, and addressing the power structure in the organization to make sure that decision-making lay in more people’s hands. “How are you centering your communities? Are you really hearing them? How are you distributing your power?” she asked. It was about giving people real ability to make decisions in the organization, and beyond.
