Beth McCaw and LeAnne Moss on Whiteness and Embodiment

In this episode, Beth McCaw (Founding Funder of Threshold) and LeAnne Moss (Executive Director of Renton Regional Community Foundation) share honest reflections of their personal journeys as white women in anti-racist work.

Together they dig into the process of embodiment – of moving racial equity from an intellectual exercise in your head with reports, data points, and understandings of history to a commitment you feel in your heart and whole body with emotions like guilt, shame, discomfort and joy. And they talk about why this can be particularly difficult for white-bodied people. 

They share the importance of boards being willing to make mistakes and interrogate what they do and why, and they acknowledge that all of the work - both personal and organizational - is messy. Amid the messiness, leaders need to remember to take care of themselves. (And yes, even for those of you who think self-care sounds “woo-woo”). “Sometimes it's hard to be the bird at the front or the bug on the windshield,” Beth acknowledges. 

Transcript

LeAnne  

This podcast is not about here seven steps to get your board to do XYZ. It's about awareness. It's about nuance. It's about flow and being in community together and in the long haul.

Nancy (Host) 

From the Giving Practice at Philanthropy Northwest, this is Can We Talk About...? a project to normalize the messiness of leading for racial equity and philanthropy and reflect on what it takes to create lasting transformation. In our pilot season, leaders across philanthropy reflect with one another on their experiences working to advance racial equity at the governance level. We're asking leaders to explore sticky topics, look for learning, practice vulnerability and give themselves and each other permission to speak in first draft. And what we ask of you is to do the same. In this episode, we're joined by Beth Macaw and LeAnne Moss, two leaders who have been in relationship with one another along their personal and organizational racial equity journeys for nearly 10 years now. Here they are introducing themselves.

Beth  

Hi, I'm Beth McCall, founding funder of Threshold Philanthropy use she/her pronouns and I identify as a white woman.

LeAnne  

Hi, my name is Leanne Moss. I'm the executive director of Renton Regional Community Foundation, I use she/her pronouns, and I am a white body woman who is cisgender.

Nancy (Host) 

Beth and LeAnne share honest reflections of their personal journeys as white women in anti racist work, inviting their white peers to join them in leaning into the hard conversations and emotions, and acknowledging the importance of collective healing throughout the process.

Beth  

Hi, Leanne, it's great to see today,

LeAnne  

It's good to see you.

Beth  

Thanks for being willing to have a conversation about some of our past experiences with me today.

LeAnne  

Yeah, I'm excited, kind of nervous, excited too.

Beth  

Me, too, I can feel it in my body, I'm a little nervous. Well, that's, you know, part of what brings us together is leaning into conversations that bring in a little bit of nerves, a little bit of moving into our learning edge and our growth zone. Things that I've learned from you, you and I have been in a relationship doing anti-racist work as white bodied women for a long time, and have crossed paths in that work in a variety of ways. So I think, you know, it's going to be fun this afternoon, kind of delving into that topic a little bit more and sharing with others what some of our experiences have been, especially as we both had the opportunity to work inside nonprofit organizations, as staff, as CEOs, as an also been managing and working with boards that are really trying to lean into this work. So that, you know, you want to kind of reflect on how this journey started for the two of us together.

LeAnne  

Yeah, and, I was thinking about this and taking myself back to even before you and I met when I was the executive director of the Women's Funding Alliance and it was really that experience, where I saw at a deeper level, the impact of racism on communities of color, particularly women of color, as we worked with women's organizations, and kept coming up against that, and really needed to ask myself why. Why is all of this happening? And, and doing my own reflection and deep dive into my upbringing and how I was, like a lot of white people separated from this reality. And so I think as we talk about boards, that personal piece of it is, for me the first step because I can't work with my board unless I've done some of my own personal reflection, and then jumping into the YWCA where you and I met and have more of a relationship and where there was some intentional work with the board. It just helped take that. That deeper, and then continuing our relationship after that. You, Beth, has have been such a great colleague in that journey of when I was thinking of starting this cohort and you are my dream buddy, and encourager and cheerleader. And so that happened because of this partnership. So at a high level that's what comes to mind for me in terms of the trajectory of the personnel and then our interaction and then how that set us up for working with our boards.

Beth  

And in some ways finds that opposite. I guess it's interesting that you framed it in that way because it was when I was on the board of the YWCA of Seattle King and Snohomish counties, and YWCA USA changed our mission statement to eliminating racism and empowerment of women. And I thought, I looked around the room and it looked like we're a bunch of white lady board members, and we all kind of looked at each other and said, what's this eliminating racism piece, and then diving in to do exactly what you said, you know, looking at where the YWCA worked, and it worked at the intersection of race and gender, most of the women that we were serving in the community were women of color. And so knowing that you can't empower women without eliminating racism at the same time, it made total sense, but it's crazy that it, you know, it took a change, an exterior change to really open my eyes. And at that point is when I started doing the personal work to understand, you know, what, what my role is the member of a board of an organization that was seeking to become an anti racist institution itself, and to eliminate racism broadly. And so if I hadn't had some really amazing mentors and guides, both women of color on the board, and folks like you working on staff who could help, you know, kind of provide a path for me to, to do that own personal reflection, I'm not sure that I would have, I would have come to it at the time that I did. And now that's been, what, close to 15 plus years ago.

LeAnne  

Yeah, and it gets to the bigger point, I think of how we'll just fermet the question of how change happens. And whether it's like an external driver that is kind of that wake up call. And then also what I hear what you're saying, the need for community to be doing that together, I mean, as the collective board and kind of waking up together as the white women on the board and needing to do that as part of your commitment of being the board member, you've also I know, have had experience as an executive director, like me accountable to a board, and as well as sitting on board. So in looking at kind of both of those roles. If we were to take a step back, if if you know, I want to ask you what are some of the critical elements to advancing this work? At the board level from you know, you've done you were on the YWCA board, but then you did have done amazing work in your role as CEO of The Washington Women's Foundation. And I know, that wasn't easy in there. You know, it's kind of like two steps forward, one step back. So in reflecting on that, what do you what do you think are the were some of the critical elements?

Beth  

I think, like you said, if I hadn't done the personal work myself, that I wouldn't have been able to lead the work at the Washington Women's Foundation, even leading it from a CEO position. And I think, you know, backing up the opportunity to participate in the cohort of white women of wealth that you gather together, I mean, that learning in that community of support really provided me a strong foundation from which to help move an organization into an interrogation of what it may have done in the name of philanthropy, that was harmful to black and brown communities, and then figure out a path forward to repairing that harm. But if it hadn't been for the sisterhood, I don't think that I would have had, I would have had the capability on many levels to do that work with the board at Washington Women's Foundation. So I mean, I don't know if you want to explain what the cohort was because it was really

LeAnne  

Probably the listeners might not know, do you want to take a crack at that? Or do you want?

Beth  

No, yeah, I think it's really your idea. So

LeAnne  

Well, it's a collect. You know, I believe that. I don't know if anyone ever has an idea on their own right. We're always bouncing off of each other. And so for for the listeners, the cohort is started in 2017. And it was a group of white wealthy women who came together after I had a conversation with a donor of a retreat that I had co-facilitated. And she had been sponsoring scholarships for that it was a retreat around race. And in that conversation, I was telling her about this retreat. And she said, Well, I've never thought about race. And we talked about how we don't have to do that as white women. And so after that, I thought there are probably other white women, especially Trump that just been elected who, who had similar experiences. So that's where our conversations Beth are really critical. It was a time when I was leaving the YWCA in my role. And so, you know, bounce this idea off of you sent an email to a lot of people. And then a couple of months later, we started in this cohort, looking at what does it mean to be white, whiteness, white supremacy and wealth to have wealth privilege. And you and I both have mentioned this two words of personal work. And maybe we need to break that down for the listeners too. Because the way that I structured this cohort, as you know, was a combination of the internal work meaning, looking at our own biases or triggers are bringing in embodiment exercises, breath, meditation, as well as the head things of what systemic racism and all of those things. And we need the combination of both of those to really do this work at a deep level. So again, for the listeners, that cohort that started in the fall of 2017, ended up six of those women ended up forming a sisterhood with six, six black women in January of 2019, that is all about relational repair, and deepening our commitment to each other and healing, collective healing. And Beth is an important part of that. So all of this to say is that this is not a checklist, I think you and I can agree that, you know, this, this podcast is not about here are seven steps to get your board to do XYZ. It's about awareness. It's about nuance, it's about flow and being in community together and, and the long haul. And so I appreciate your being a part of that first step of starting that cohort. And I'm, I'm glad it was helpful in your work with Washington Women's Foundation, because, you know, maybe you can talk a little bit about that journey with the Washington Women's Foundation. You know, I went to sessions that you were leading on what you were learning, I mean, you your organization did things and in my experience, when you were not afraid to say, this is what we're trying tell us where we're wrong, or this is what we learn. And you know, so what was that like? I mean, you, you were having the support of the cohort, but you were also putting yourself out there.

Beth  

Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, it was interesting, because when I took on that role, people weren't talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, the way they're talking about it now. However, I inherited a strategic plan that was almost at the end of its five years, everybody's got their five year strategic plan. And so when I did a assessment of where the organization was to plan during my first year as president and CEO, we had met or exceeded goal in every category except for one and that was diversifying the membership. Washington Women's Foundation is a collective giving organization that member donors contribute and manage all aspects of the grantmaking. And there it had been founded by a group of wealthy white women over 25 years ago, and they had been wanting to be more diverse. But when what I noticed about the plan is it didn't tell me diversity, in what way socio economic diversity, age diversity, race. Of course, when I asked the board they said all of the above and I said well, do you want to 10% more diverse 20% more diverse and if this is actually been a goal for for 10 years, two strategic plans like what has kept the organization from accomplishing that. And so the board had to take a really deep look at, you know, why why was there no movement, like, and so that was really, that's when that's when you get to the, the, I guess the inclusion piece of the diversity because they have very much been approaching diversity. As tokenism. Like if we get one young woman on the board, one woman of color, two women of color, you know, we're doing really well. But it wasn't really an interrogation of what the culture of the organization was, and also, who we were funding. And when we looked at a history, 20 plus years, we had not been funding, any organizations that were led by people of color or working even predominantly in communities of color. And so you know, when you ask, why are more diverse women racially diverse women participating in our work, it was we weren't funding anything that mattered to women of color. And so then we took a pause and said, okay, then what will it really do to shift our culture to be a place where there is a true sense of everyone belonging, and that was the one that meant we had to change some norms, we had to change values, we had to change history. And that was hard, because people hate change. But to their credit, you know, our board said, this is really important to us. And we're willing to look at how we've, what, you know, patterns in our past have, you know, continued on to today that have continued to keep us very homogenous. We're willing to do things differently, we're willing to listen to community, we're willing to let community lead us in some respects and we're willing to make mistakes. And that's a huge thing, I think, for our board. And maybe it was because it was women, I don't know that they were said, you know, when we created this organization, we were taking a risk. And people said that we would fail because women don't give at the same level as men. And so they were willing to say, okay, we knew that was wrong. So what else might be going on, that we are completely unaware of? Because we can be in our white privilege, that is getting us to the same place over and over again. But I think then to what you said, Leanne, is that willing to do the work and think about how do we make this an anti-racist foundation? How do we center race and gender equity in our grantmaking also required not just an intellectual understanding of institutional and systemic racism, but to actually say, like, how, as a white person, do I keep it from just sitting in my head as an intellectual exercise to actually embodying it, to feeling it. And my personal history is I, I am so not woowoo you know, that about me, every time we was it was a grounding exercise, I was ready to ground my way right out the door. Could, could not think of anything worse than that. But I think about my own history, I grew up in North Carolina, my family has been in the United States since colonial times. And so we have directly benefited from stolen land and stolen labor. And I assume that my ancestors were exposed to things that were just too horrible to stand, if you did not disassociate from those things, so I feel like as a white person, I am not in contact with my body. And it's probably a, a generational learned response to protect myself. And so this work was really hard with you and the cohort, because I just did not want to be in touch with my feelings. I did not want to feel things in my heart. Because, of course, as a white person, I went through the layers of guilt and shame, which do nobody any good when I first started feeling things in my body. And I saw that too, with our board. You know, once things started getting into their bodies, that was when it was hard. That was when it was scary. That was when it was your fight, flight, freeze mechanism completely kicks in. And so again, that community of support, like, I know, this is hard for you today. But we just will take a breath. We'll take a pause. But then we need to be prepared to lean back in so that that being willing to pause I think was important. That willingness to say yeah, I know you're feeling this somewhere in your body. And so we've got to really move it though from your head to your heart and then to your hands like is all of those feelings motivating you to do something differently? Because that's where the real change happens.

LeAnne  

Yeah, that's so powerful Beth and you know, so many things there because we can as white people, sometimes we're our own worst enemy with each other. White people don't like to be with other white people or we can shame each other for even like feeling guilt and shame. And if we can normalize it, so we can move through it. There's a wonderful national trainer know if you know, Heather Hackman, and she calls whiteness super whitey. So the super whitey inside me loves guilt and shame because it freezes us. So guilt and shame makes white supremacy when and so creating an environment like it sounds like you did in that in in the board where it's like, okay, super whitey, you know, it's coming up, the shame and guilt is coming up. It's okay, let's move through it. And let's not let it win, let's not let it freeze us from moving forward to our collective commitment. And I'm wondering, you know, that's a big move from having this list of DEI and that kind of the tokenism or, you know, to a board that was really open to learning from mistakes. Was there any in between place? Or were there any I mean, when I think of what some of the critical elements are for advancing work at the board level, I'm thinking, you need to have strong board leadership commit, you know, you need to have, I think there's a tipping point about where, how much you need for change to happen, like third or 34% of the room. So did you have I assume not everyone was on board on the same at the same time with this. So did you have like, a tipping point of certain people that were like, okay, Beth, we're going to be the board leadership with you on this and then gradually helped other people come along.

Beth  

I think that was why it was easier to move and that organization than perhaps in some others, because in some ways, it was grassroots from our member donors, like some of them were, you know, really asking those questions. And so it wasn't a top down me telling the board or me, managing up to the board telling them we needed to it was more of they were hearing it from grantees or organizations we hadn't funded that they had built relationships with they were hearing it from member donors. So yes, there was a lot of peer pressure, I think. And it was important that it wasn't just me that it was really an institutional priority that was shared between the CEO and the board, because otherwise, donors or other board members who weren't so on board with it could just say, oh, well, we'll wait until Beth retires, or someone fires or like if we, if this is just Beth's agenda, all we have to do is wait till she's gone. And then we can go back to doing things the way we've always done them. And so having a board chair, having board leadership, having some major donors who all came along, said no, we're we are co-owning this commitment. And it's going to be an institutional commitment and institutional priority, was really key. And that was true at the YWCA as well, and, and there were certainly some board members who said, I've, I've done some of this training, I've been in these board meetings, I hear what you're saying, and I just can't go there personally. And I have to say that, you know, it's a blessing release situation, you know, but I felt like, at least at the YWCA, we were able to do that with a lot of integrity so that as people left and felt like, I'm not the person to do this work, or this is not necessarily the work that I can lean into at this stage of my life, that we were able to, they were able to leave the board, they were still able to be supportive of the YWCA and I'd still see them at board alum event. So I think it's true, you're probably never going to get everyone on board. I think it's the typical, you know, you have your early adopters, you have the ones that come along, and then you have the people that just will be forever resistant to change. And I think that knowing when you have that right composition, and I think you and I have also talked about when you think about recruiting a board it kind of to do this work, it's fundamentally changed the way I think about recruiting board members because it's not so much we need someone with an accounting background or we need someone with an HR background, we need a major donor. It's almost these soft characteristics because this is just it's messy. It's not linear. So having board members that are really comfortable with ambiguity, who are not risk averse. And that's a lot of people who govern well as fiduciaries are very, I'm a lawyer by training, very risk averse, you know, I see the red flags and I run, but having board members that have some of these different skills, as well, as a commitment, I think that's what changed at Washington Women's Foundation too is, you know, now the board, job description talks about a commitment to having done work at an individual level, to being willing to come on board and do more work as a collective to advance learning in these areas. You know, I would never have seen that on a board job description two or three years ago. And I wouldn't have thought about some of these characteristics of board members the same way two or three years ago. So I think it fundamentally changes not just how the board governs and operates, but how you think about recruiting for the board, how you think about the ongoing education of the board, how how you think about the board, also policing the board, you know, because if somebody was acting our line, it wasn't my job. It's not your job, right? We need our board chair to help bring other people along. So I think yeah, yeah, just that leadership competence level at the board. And that complete buy in by leadership at the board level is so key. So I don't know, I know, you've had experience at Renton Regional Community Foundation with that as well.

LeAnne  

Yeah we have, and a couple of things come to mind first, first of all, the whole risk averse thing, I'm sure you've experienced this too of, you know, we have some people on our board who are more, you know, because they their jobs were in, you know, managing risk. And so you can't lose that as your personality. And so, you know, oftentimes what I've seen in other organizations, too, is board members are concerned, if you're too out there with racial equity stuff, you're gonna lose some people and but our board moved through that, in terms of really being clear about the why we are doing this. And that's, you know, why is this critical part of our mission as a community foundation, especially in South King County, where black and brown people are disproportionately affected by COVID, by other things? This is part of our mission. And sometimes I think, for us starting out with why are we doing this in terms of some of the more intellectual here are the statistics and blah, blah, blah, who the racial wealth gap, and then moving into oh, the personnel or how I show up as a white person, and we had a situation you know, we've been working on training with the board on racial equity and things. But we had a really challenging conversation one time when we were coming down with talking about our, our foundational beliefs around this work. And there were some tension points. And what what came out of that was, okay, we need to have, we need to pause on this. And we need to create some shared agreements for how we, how we embark on these conversations. Because we, we want this to be a place where we can have these tough conversations. So we actually stopped running through those beliefs for a couple of months and went through the process through The Giving Practice of collectively creating shared agreements about how are we going to when this comes up, how are we going to stay in our commitment as a board together? How are we going to lean into the difficulty? And it was, you know, I had some hard conversations with a couple of board members who, especially when you have a board, where there's some people on the board who've been doing this work for a while, and for others, this is brand new. So you're bringing all these different experiences or non experiences together and managing that as you're trying to have conversations. That takes a lot of intentionality and skill and agreements. So that's one of the ways we we navigated that.

Beth  

Well and just to be clear, like we're talking about the white board members, obviously. 

LeAnne  

Yes, of course.

Beth  

And I think that was a real, I think a turning point for the white women on the board at Washington Women's Foundation was we were in a conversation and one of my black colleagues who was the first black woman to ever work at the Foundation said, if you're comfortable in this conversation, then just let me be clear how uncomfortable I am. And then other women of color in the room on the board are like, yeah, we've also been uncomfortable and so like centering whose comfort is centered and so I think if your white board is feeling really comfortable in a conversation about race, then there's probably every person of color in that room who is at a high level of discomfort. So I think that is, we're always moving way too slow for our colleagues of color, and way too fast for the white people in the room. But I think the courage and the willingness of my colleague to say that really shifted people's thinking and to be like, right, I am a woman of privilege. I'm a white woman of privilege. If I can't sit in discomfort in this conversation for 20 minutes, what is wrong with me? And so I think, you know, I've been really blessed and fortunate that in so many of these situations, that there have been courageous black women who have a lot more to lose than I do, or any other white women in the room that are willing to sit in it with us, and work through it. So I just wanted to make that clear.

LeAnne  

Yeah, and expend a lot of labor, you know, burn a lot of calories on that what you know, of sitting in those spaces, so. So yeah, definitely.

Beth  

So LeAnne, taking it down to a personal level, are there any moments or themes that stand out to you in terms of realities or challenges that you've personally faced, as a leader in this work?

LeAnne  

Well, all what we've talked about already. Part of, I think, my personal emotional regulation, sometimes during difficult conversations, or when I went when I want some of the white people, in certain circles to be farther along, and remembering that my relationship with with them, it's really important. So how do I respond in a way that continues to foster those relationships as well. I've been told, not by a board member, but by someone close to the organization that, you know, maybe, you know, you're just emphasizing too much, you know, the racial equity work or, and really had to be grounded in that conversation. And so, so all of that is a challenge, as well as I am white and white supremacy moves through me. So I have my biases, I have my whiteness that shows up. I do harm, you know, and so how do I, I have to manage that at the same time, both in terms of with board members of color, with community leaders, that I'm in relationship with, with vendors, who are black and brown people of just continually looking at myself, like when when do I not see what I'm doing? How whiteness is moving through me? So all of that balancing all of that is, is a continual challenge.

Beth  

I think all of that is very true and that I'm often you know, when things get tough for me, I have the, you know, privilege of kind of retreating into my bubble of whiteness to take a breath. And a lot of my colleagues, all of my colleagues of color don't have that same opportunity. And I know, like bleeding change work for any leader is really difficult, and I think a lot about in Edgar Villanova's, book Decolonizing Wealth, he talks about how the birds fly in formation, and that the bird and the lead is, you know, they're actually physically battered in that position as the lead bird and they're doing it for the benefit of all the birds in formation behind it and the birds take turns like at some point, it becomes enough and you're able to move back in formation and then another bird takes the lead and I just felt like sometimes at different organizations because I was board chair at the YWCA as well as president and CEO at Washington Women's Foundation, also served as board chair of YWCA USA, the national organization, also struggling with some of the same issues is that you know, you will take it and and as a white person I know my job is to bring other people white people along. My job is to be in community with them to support them in an anti racist journey. And sometimes it's hard to be the bird at the front, or the bug on the windshield, or whatever it is, that's getting repeatedly beaten. So yeah, I think it's important. I don't know what you do for self care. Isn't there a song now about self care, and it being a bad thing? Like, I'm sad to admit that I need it. It's another one. There's woowoo terms that I was not like what's self care. I've never I mean, I've just worked my whole life. But I mean, what are some things that you do to try to, you know, help you kind of reset, rest and recharge to lean back into the work?

LeAnne  

Yeah, well, being outside is really important to me being in nature. And, you know, I often because I often say to myself, well, black and brown people don't get a break. But I was in conversation with with a black male friend of mine who said, LeAnne, we need you to be healthy. So don't feel guilty about that. But it's always in the back of my mind. Being outdoors. That's, that's a big one meditating, being with other people who are committed to this helps to refuel me. And so I think it is, you know, this isn't a cause or trend or a hobby, you know, we're, we're both this is a way of life. And so anything we do to to keep, keep our running shoes on is really important. So do you have you because Beth, I know, you are, you're committed. So sometimes it's hard. So what are you doing these days?

Beth  

I'm guilty, guilty, too. But I think just You're right, like being in relationship. And what I love so much about the sisterhood now is that we're a group of friends, like, I think, you know, the point of all of this is for us to be in real relationship with each other, to be friends, to heal our lineages. So you know, just being with a group like that, and drinking wine and dancing, and eating good food and cooking each in each other's kitchens. I mean, I just think relationships are what recharge me all the time. So I am grateful that we're not always just talking through podcasts or on Zoom calls today. It's really great to be back in person with people that you love and care about. So grateful for that opportunity. For sure.

LeAnne  

Yeah. So as we close out, guess the question, we are asking each other as what do we need to normalize or talk about more as a sector to advance racial equity work at the board level?

Beth  

I mean, I felt like you really touched on it with the discussion about your board really understanding that it's the essence, the why, of what you do. And I think you know, that same thing happened at YWCA. But then other folks have challenged me and said, well, especially when we think about reparations, or reparative work, especially in philanthropy, if you look at how Washington Women's Foundation funded, it was very, very broad. But we would never say like, until we changed our funding criteria, that it really centered race and gender equity, but we could still look back at our history, and see where we had are helping one community was at the expense of another. If you fund cancer research, breast cancer research that knowingly excludes black women from the research, then that's harm. If you fund our school system, which we know is failing, black and brown children, and the school to prison pipeline is real. That's harm. So I think for all of us, it's about interrogating what we do and why we do it. And looking to our past, I think every every institution, every organization, every foundation, every company, we all have an origin story, like where did our wealth come from? Why do we do this work? What is the need? And so I think if we all took a moment to look at our past, to understand where we've come from and how we've gotten here, we will see that we all have a responsibility to lean into racial justice work, because of the society that we live in and because we've gotten to where we've gotten on the basis of racial inequity, so for me, I don't think there's any, any company, any family, any organization, any foundation that doesn't have a reason to to look to the past and make repair for where harm has been committed where benefit, unjust benefit has been obtained, I think it's just, we will all find some responsibility in the struggle.

LeAnne  

I think that's great. I think that's really powerful. And, and connected to that I would just add on that the realization that racism hurts all of us, white supremacy hurts all of us as white people too how have we been harmed by being disconnected from black and brown people from being disconnected from our emotions, from our history and that we all need healing from that together? Collective liberation, collective healing, so there's a responsibility out, and then there's a responsibility in for ourselves and coming together.

Beth  

I agree. That's a beautiful way to say it. And maybe the perfect ending to our conversation today.

LeAnne  

Yeah.

Beth  

Well it's always good to talk with you reflect on the work that we've done, and think ahead to the work that is yet to do but it's great to be able to be in community and in partnership with someone like you. Thank you for being so courageous and amazing LeAnne.

LeAnne  

Thank you bad for your partnership for the vision that you have for the inspiring work. I mean, we didn't even talk about what Threshold is doing but you are modeling a new way of being in relational repair and so, so grateful for that.

Beth  

All right. Take care. 

LeAnne  

You too. Bye. 

Nancy (Host) 

Thank you, Beth and LeAnne for naming and normalizing the need to acknowledge harm and move towards repair together and modeling that very process throughout this conversation. You can find more information on this episode, including guest bios, show notes and additional resources at the givingpractice.org and if you have a topic that you think philanthropy should be talking about more, let us know by emailing hello@thegivingpractice.org. This podcast was written and produced by Aya Tsuruta and Emily Daman with audio engineering and editing support by Podfly and graphic design by Asha Hossain. A special thanks to our Philanthropy Northwest and Giving Practice teams for their thought partnership and the Ford Foundation for making this project possible. I'm Nancy Sanabria, and we'll see you next time.