EPISODE 15: KATIE CARTER

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to “Gathering Ground,” where with each new episode a special guest and I explore what it looks like to survive and, more importantly, to thrive in the nonprofit landscape. I'm Mary Morten, president of Morten Group, LLC. Morten Group is a national consulting firm that operates in Chicago and works with clients from coast to coast and everywhere in between. Our work is carried out through organizational development, research, executive placements, diversity, racial equity, and inclusion.

Before we get started with our interview, I want to remind you that “Gathering Ground” can now be found on Apple Podcasts in addition to anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Just search “Gathering Ground” on iTunes to find us. Be sure to rate and subscribe to get a notification whenever there’s a new episode.

I’m thrilled to welcome someone with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with for several years, the CEO of Pride Foundation, Katie Carter.

Katie Carter has been working for social justice as a nonprofit professional for almost 15 years, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ issues and gender justice. Originally from the Midwest, she moved to Portland, Oregon in 2008 to contribute her passion for social change with her skills in organizational development, fundraising, communications, and strategy.

In 2019, she relocated to Seattle to become the CEO of Pride Foundation after being on staff for five years. In her role as CEO, Katie supports the foundation’s efforts by building community and institutional partnerships, developing creative communications strategies, and mobilizing resources to effect change in the Northwest. Prior to her current role, Katie was the Director of Strategic Priorities and, before that, the Regional Philanthropy Officer in Oregon. Katie believes deeply in community involvement and the importance of volunteering. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Grantmakers of Oregon and Southwest Washington. She was also a co-founder of a restorative justice group that facilitates a gender and sexuality seminar for people who are incarcerated.

Katie earned a Master of Arts in Philosophy of Science from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Philosophy from DePaul University. She enjoys crafting, watercolor, writing, everything having to do with cats, and all bodies of water, especially the Oregon coast.

Please welcome Katie Carter to “Gathering Ground.”

Hi, Katie!

Katie Carter: Hi, Mary.

MM: So good to speak with you and to have this opportunity to catch up with you on “Gathering Ground.”

KC: Likewise. I am so honored and excited to be here, even though here is virtual right now.

MM: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. But we have a lot to talk about, and so what we always like to do is to start by giving our listeners a little bit of background about our guest, because I think it absolutely ties to the work that you’re doing now. So can you set a context for your life in the Midwest and how you got out to the Pacific Northwest?

KC: I would love to. It’s kind of an unusual story. It’s one of those that I usually don’t like to share with people on the very first time of meeting them because, you know, it’s just sort of not necessarily who I am or who I identify as a person. But I grew up in the Midwest, which is important to me. My whole family is there, Rockford, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. So it was a really — I lived around that area and in a little teeny, tiny rural community called Monroe Center outside of Rockford for much of my childhood. And then I went to school in Chicago. So I moved to Chicago when I was 18, which was fantastic. I love that city. I do not love the winters, which is part of the reason I’m no longer there, but I adore Chicago beyond comparison.

And then I ended up in Southern Indiana for graduate school, and I’ll just say, I lived a whole other life before I ended up in this world as a — I was studying cognitive behavior and animal behavior and philosophy, and so my graduate work was in history and philosophy of science, and I was really interested in that — how we know the world, how we come to know the world, how scientific knowledge is a very particular way of understanding the world in a way that it’s infused with bias and perception in a very particular framework of understanding that’s rooted, you know, in a very specific set of frameworks.

So that was my background. And this is the part that always feels a little bit out of character, but I was in a Fulbright Ph.D. program and realized that I was not living in my purpose. I was not living the life that I thought I was supposed to be living. I was not working in service to the communities that I wanted to be with and to work on behalf of, and I thought this path would get me there, but I realized that the path that I was on would likely land me in a room writing papers that maybe two other people on the planet would read, and it wasn’t going to make the kind of impact that I wanted to have. And my mother always tells me to not say I dropped out but that I quit with my master’s. But I very much — I left that program and packed up a little van, sold everything that I had, bought this little van, and drove to Portland, Oregon with my partner at the time, sight unseen. I’d never been to Portland before. I didn’t have a job lined up there. We had housing for a month. And it was 2008, so the unemployment rate — (laughs) — in Oregon was 10 percent. And my mother, who is a big influence on my life, thought that I had completely, like, gone off the deep end, so to speak, and really couldn’t understand why I was picking up and moving and leaving the Midwest for this place — the way she says it is “OreGON” — and, you know, didn’t know what I was doing out there. And all I knew is that I wanted to work in service with community and that that was really what my calling was. And I had a feeling, I just had a deep — and this is the part that maybe is really true to me is that I had a deep, intuitive sense that I was supposed to be in Portland, and I didn’t know why and I didn’t know why it was calling me that much, but I knew that that was where I was supposed to be. And the day after I moved there there was a job posting that I ended up getting the job, and then that sort of launched my foray into the nonprofit world.

MM: That makes so much sense. I mean, I guess hearing about that part of the story — because I knew about some of that, of course. However, you are certainly a risk-taker in a way that I don’t think I realized for you to just —

KC: (Laughs.)

MM: — drive across country to Portland, of all places — right? — which is a beautiful place, beautiful city, and just start your life fresh. That speaks volumes, though, about what I do know about you for sure —

KC: (Laughs.)

MM: — our work at the Pride Foundation.

So let’s fast-forward to coming to the Pride Foundation. How did you get to your role as Director of Strategic Priorities?

KC: Well, it’s actually — I mean, I’ll try to tell this in as brief a way as possible, but it’s connected to my time at that job that I first got when I moved to Portland. So, as I mentioned, it was 2008, height of the recession. I started working what I thought was going to be my dream job, you know, helping to run this organization. And we went through a financial crisis. We ran out of money. Amazon was becoming — our main source of revenue was book sales. Amazon was increasingly popular, and all of our donations went down because of the recession, and we had to raise a whole bunch of money really fast in order to keep our doors open. And so there’s — we launched this whole fundraising campaign. Kim Klein’s Fundraising For Social Change and —

MM: That’s who I learned from, Kim Klein. Love her! Love her!

KC: (Laughs.) I mean, it’s a great book. I read her book one weekend and, you know, I was just like OK, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to figure this out. And that whole campaign was very formative. Maybe we can talk about it at a different time. But one of the things that we ended up doing is we started writing grants for the first time. And so the first grant I ever wrote was to the Pride Foundation.

MM: Of course.

KC: And it was for — (laughs) — I think it was for like $2,500 or something like that, and it was for this one specific program that we had called Dirty Queer, which was an X-rated open-mic night for LGBTQ community, and it was our most popular event. And what we needed were better chairs to help make the space actually accessible to all people who were coming into the event, which we had more than a hundred people once a month come in and attend this open-mic night — and fans, because we had no — in the summertime it got hot. We had no air conditioning and so we got these big industrial fans that helped cool the space off and it was funded through this really generous grant from the Pride Foundation. And back then the organization was in a little bit different of a — (inaudible) — place and they had staff who would travel to different parts of the five-state region that we serve. And one of them reached out to me and I didn’t quite — they had asked to hold an event at In other Words at the community center that I was running, and so I did what I did for any event: You know, I got food donated, I got beverages donated, I created all the, you know, media for the event, and things like that. And they said it was the best turnout that they’d had at an event in Portland, and I think I got flagged in their system as sort of a volunteer key contact. Then when they put a regional staff person in each of the states, I joined the Community Advisory Council that was for Oregon —

MM: For Pride Foundation.

KC: — of Pride Foundation, yeah, that was helping to inform their work in Oregon where I did grant reviews, scholarship review, other kinds of volunteer support. And then when that position, their regional organizer position for Oregon came open in 20 — I should know the year — 2014? Sounds about right. Yeah, 2014. I applied for it and it took a couple months, but I ended up getting the job. And actually, I think my anniversary — my six-year anniversary is April 3rd, so it’s a couple days from when we’re recording this. So it’s coming up. And — so I started in the regional organizers job. I was in that job for a couple years. Helped facilitate a merger with another LGBTQ foundation that was here in Oregon and started doing a lot more work in philanthropy and sort of organizing within philanthropy, and so that’s where the Director of Strategic Priorities role came from and that’s how I ended up there.

MM: All right.

KC: Long story but —

MM: No, no, but an important one. And so, for our listeners who are not familiar with the Pride Foundation, give us the sort of 30-second overview. We’re going to continue to talk about it throughout, but at least give some context for it.

KC: Sure. So we’re an LGBTQ community foundation. We’re based in the Northwest, so we serve Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska. Our headquarters is in Seattle. We were founded in 1985 at the — you know, in the midst of the AIDS epidemic where folks were dying and they wanted to leave their estates to their community and leave the resources that they had to make sure that our communities were supported and at the same time as LGBTQ organizations were starting to emerge in Seattle and across the Northwest who were in need of support, who weren’t getting support from mainstream philanthropy. And so Pride Foundation grew out of that place where folks were able to leave their legacies to make sure that their communities were taken of and organizations and groups who were serving our communities had a source of reliable income.

MM: So let me just say, too, for our listeners that Morten Group worked with the Pride Foundation for almost 30 months between 2017 to 2019.

KC: Yeah.

MM: It was just really an incredible time, and we often talk about the Pride Foundation very fondly. We’re actually — of course Katie knows this, but for our listeners — working on a case study, if you will, about our work with the Pride Foundation because we had an opportunity to really work with you all in a very deep fashion around racial equity, and that’s one of the things I want to talk a little bit about now.

Of course we know that some of that work had started before you got to Pride Foundation, before the previous CEO, Kris Hermanns, came to the foundation and you have been just as champion of continuing that work, moving it forward. Give our listeners a sense of where you are with the racial equity work now. I will say that what we worked with Pride Foundation on were the things such as an assessment, helping with the development of the racial equity action plan. We then went on to do strategic planning and the search that brought you to this position. However, one of the things that I often talk about when I mention the Pride Foundation is that the process was so iterative that there’s so many things we didn’t know when we started working with the Pride Foundation. Kris said, you know, we definitely need an assessment. We definitely need help writing this racial equity action plan. And so that’s what we went in for. However, as the work developed, there were — you know, (stuff ?) like peeling back an onion. Right?

KC: Yeah.

MM: You see that there’s some other things that are coming up that need to be addressed, and it was a very nimble, I would say, relationship, which we certainly like to think that we are very much those kinds of consultants. Also what was unique — because Kris kept referring to us as a unicorn — is that we had — among our team, we had nonprofit folks, people who have worked in nonprofit before, and we also had someone who had worked and led a foundation, and that was me. And so to have all of that together in addition to the racial equity work was unique, and in many cases, Kris said that we can find people that can do the training, but we can’t find people that can help us with the rest of it, in some cases. And so I think she said she’d been looking for a consulting group for about a year and a half when we were connected.

So tell us about the racial equity work and where it stands now at the Pride Foundation.

KC: Yeah, and I just want to sort of underscore what you were sharing. I think it was such an important partnership because where we were at with that work when we started with you all and where we are now I think has been directly impacted by the support that you all provided and some of the guidance that you all provided, because I think, you know, trainings were one thing. And I think there were certainly opportunities where our staff and our board, trainings were beneficial, like deepening our learning. Those were really important pieces. But especially working in philanthropy and thinking uniquely about what our role as a philanthropic institution is and what that means in terms of centering racial equity in our work was, you know, not necessarily something that we could look to the field of philanthropy and find great examples of, so the guidance that you all helped sort of formulate that into Pride Foundation through the racial equity action plan, through the strategic planning, and also through the other, you know, sort of other kinds of support that you all provided, you know, all around different pieces of the organization.

So I am happy to say that we have continued to deepen that work. I think from the beginning the goal that we set out to do was to center racial equity in everything that we do. And I believe that everything in life is a journey and that there’s always a way of deepening, increasing thinking more about how we can do our work better, more clearly in service to that goal. But I think that what — the way that I was describing what I was talking about about the case study that you all were doing is that I feel like it’s attached to our bones now in this way that there — it is absolutely part of the fiber of who Pride Foundation is. It is something we talk about at all of our board meetings. It’s integrated thoroughly into our strategic plan, but it’s also integrated into the consciousness of the organization. Right? Like, we aren’t having conversations without thinking about how racial justice is being impacted but how communities of color are being impacted by the decisions that are being made.

And our (staffing ?) sort of internal structure has shifted. Right? Our meeting structures and the way that we interact with one another has been continuing to shift over the course of the past couple years. And I know that the organizational culture pieces of the work that we did with you all was so transformative to that, you know, providing the structure to have caucusing within both our board and staff, all of which has continued. But also thinking really bringing into the forefront of our mind as we’re making decisions, as we’re interacting, how we are in relationship to each other, recognizing how race is infused with all of that, how the decisions that are being made are impacted by the different systems of oppression that exist in our society and how we are reliving white supremacy culture so many times in the ways that we structure our work, and being more conscientiousness of those and trying to think about what that means for not only the way we interact with one another within our organization but how that seeps out into our work and how we can help it not seep out and how we can actually change the way that we’re doing our work.

And so there’s lots of examples of this. I mean, I think one of the ones that might be the most tangible is thinking — which I think is really at the core of both philanthropy as well as conversations about racial equity is really talking about power. Right? And in philanthropy, one of the ways that power is most often wielded is through grant making and deciding where funds are allocated and what that looks like. And so if you look at Pride Foundation, where our investments are made, you will see over — you know, a continual increase in investments in LGBTQ communities of color and native and indigenous communities across the Northwest. And that is a great, important, measurable outcome of that. But also what we’re looking at now is the ways in which we can transform our grant making to be community-led and to be participatory so that Pride Foundation isn’t making determinations as an institution, as a foundation of where those are going, but really our communities, and especially communities who are closest to the issues that we’re working on are the ones in decision-making positions. And so that sort of then — where we’re at — you know, and talking about participatory grant making doesn’t always equate for people to our racial equity work, but for me, it’s actually, like, at the center of it because it’s about shifting where the power lies, how decisions are being made, and who is actually being able to help set the priorities of this institution that’s infused with so much wealth.

MM: Well, that I know was always really part of the goal, and when I started talking to folks at Pride about this work, unlike many other places that we, you know, may work with, it was very clear that the Pride Foundation wanted to center racial equity in their organization. And I think that is — that means something in a different way than when you’re saying you want something to have a racial equity lens or — it just means that you really wanted to put race at the center. And I think those of us who do this work and who don’t do this work actually understand that race is still the number one indicator of someone’s success in this country.

KC: That’s right.

MM: And so the idea that the Pride Foundation wanted to center that — and, you know, as you know, there’s often concerns about oh, if we center racial equity, what does that do to the rest of our mission statement? And what would you say if you had a donor — and I think you may have had donors who thought you’re centering racial equity, what does this mean for the mission of the Pride Foundation?

KC: I mean, what I would say: It is the mission of Pride Foundation. We can’t do our work without that perspective or without — I mean, it is — my opinion is it’s written into our mission now that our approach to justice and our — which is our ultimate goal — right? — is justice for LGBTQ folks. That is not achievable without racial justice. Right? That is not achievable without all of the different kinds of intersectional justice. That is actually who we are. That is part and parcel to it. And in terms of approach and strategy, we’re — we are going to be better at achieving our mission if we’re centering race in these conversations, because we know, like you said, that LGBTQ people of color have disproportionately been impacted across every single social indicator that you can look at. And if we center those folks in the way that we are trying to make our investments, in the way that we’re trying to support leaders in our communities, everybody — you know, it’s rising — I always get the analogy wrong: rising tides raises all ships. Is that right?

MM: No. I always screw that up, too. (Laughs.)

KC: And of course, I’m like, you know, referencing John Powell and targeted universalism within this. Right? Like it is an important strategy that —

MM: (Laughs.)

KC: — you know, I always try to get that analogy, and I swear, I used to have it on a sticky note in front of my computer because I always messed it up. Clearly I shouldn’t be using nautical analogies.

MM: (Laughs.)

KC: Something someone from the Midwest, it’s not necessarily — (laughs) — in my bones, so.

MM: No. And so when you think about philanthropy overall — right? — because this issue around — or the bringing forth, I should say, racial equity and putting it right there in center in philanthropy, there’s been a lot of conversation about it, a lot of talk about it. Last year we had Edgar Villanueva here in Chicago and I know you all read Decolonizing Wealth, as well. What do you think about the current state of philanthropy as it relates to racial equity? What do you think still has to be done? I mean, we know that the work is ongoing. So let me just say — (laughter) — let me just preface and say, the work is ongoing, but I guess I mean in a broader universal manner. The work is never going to be done. Right? We are always going to be on this journey. However, I think there are some indications of people being more open to the conversation. The question, in my mind, is where’s the action? Right? Because we can talk about it until we’re — we can talk about it all night and day. And a lot of that has happened and we certainly know some of our colleagues have written about that and how we need to really put some action to this.

Where do you think we are in the action-planning piece or the implementation piece, in some cases?

KC: Well, I mean, I think — and it’s hard to talk about philanthropy as a whole. Right? There’s a lot of —

MM: Just go ahead and make generalizations. (Laughs.)

KC: (Laughs.) I mean, I — you know, I love to — because I think there’s really fantastic examples of foundations who have been doing this work not because it’s additive but because it’s who they are. Right?

MM: Right. Right.

KC: Like, there are foundations that have been founded out of a racial justice mentality.

MM: Absolutely.

KC: And that is what they’re doing. And so I just — I want to always name that —

MM: Absolutely.

KC: — because I think sometimes that gets lost in conversations of white-led philanthropy — right? — and, like, white-centered philanthropy that has been the case for the past, you know, hundreds of years since the inception that has now discovered that, you know, diversity, equity, and inclusion is something that has become a trend. And I’m mindful that, you know, I’m not trying to be overly critical because I think part of that is — like, it has caught in this way that I don’t think it’s a trend that’s going anywhere. But I think that what to do with the learning or the equity statements that people have been establishing has not taken hold in the way that I would have liked to see it, to be honest with you, and I think a lot of that has to do with the question about power, and philanthropy is infused with power. Right? Like, there is — and this is where —

MM: It’s based on power. (Laughs.)

KC: Based on power. Right. Like, and this is where Edgar’s book was so transformative of, like, reminding us where the wealth that has — philanthropy has been created based on, where that comes from. It’s infused in the entire field and the institution that the money that we have, like he says, has been stolen twice. Right? It’s been stolen from native and indigenous lands and stolen from the exploited labor power of black people. And that has continued to this day in other kinds of exploitation that we’re seeing right now in real time constantly in this country. And so I think philanthropy hasn’t grappled — and this is where I’ll make my broad generalization — hasn’t grappled with the reality of what that means for how our work has to look different. Right? It’s not just about having an equity lens. It’s not just about making a few additional grants. It’s about shifting the entire way of doing work. And who gets to make decisions, who gets to set priorities, who gets to be in philanthropy — right? — and this is where, like, organizations like Groundswell Fund and Vanessa Daniel have been really vocal and powerful leaders of what philanthropy needs to be doing differently and how we need to be shifting the fundamental ways that do our work. Right? Not having, you know, 200-page applications for organizations, not requiring organizations that have been historically under-resourced serving marginalized communities go through this song and dance to get a small grant that has all sorts of strings attached and reporting attached and is only really going to be there if you have a connection to a program officer or if you are connected in some other kind of way. And it has really been full of barriers, and I think — you know, I’m thinking of foundations based here in the Northwest, like Group Health Foundation run by Nichole Maher who used to be at Northwest Health Foundation and has really transformed this — Group Health is a new foundation that was developed and — but is really infused with a lot of indigenized values of, like, the way that relationships are based with other organizations. And so looking to some of those examples of where philanthropy is being done really differently I think is where the broader field needs to go. And so I don’t know if that answers your question, but I could talk about this for hours, so.

MM: Of course. Of course, we both could.

KC: (Laughs.)

MM: I think part of it is, to your point, that it probably — I think we could say for sure moved more slowly than we would like because of the positional authority of foundations and the power piece that people will have to give up something to really make what will be considered a radical change. Something will be given up by the people that have been in charge for so long, and I think that is the piece that people are still grappling with. It really brings to mind Audrey Lorde’s quote about not being able to dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. And I think, you know, clearly progress has been made. I think it’s being made. And I think every time I see a column from Vu Le, I am always just reminded that there are groups of people, whether they’re, you know, still in nonprofits, whether they’re in foundations, somewhere in between who are pushing this message forward. And I think we just have to keep at it, as with anything. Right? We know that there will not be any real change unless there’s some discomfort, and that is what people are most afraid of, at the end of the day — right? — is I’m going to be uncomfortable. And that’s right: You are going to be uncomfortable, but it is definitely going to be for the greater good.

Where would you say right now — because I want to talk a little bit about your response to COVID-19 —

KC: Yeah.

MM: — and where would you say the work right now regarding racial equity is in Pride Foundation? What do you, you know — yeah, just give me sort of a brief state of the union, if you will, in terms of what you see coming down the road or things that you’re particularly proud of in the last six months that may have happened that I might not know about. (Laughs.)

KC: (Laughs.) Well, in — I want to come back to talking about the COVID-19 response of philanthropy as it relates to racial equity.

MM: OK. OK.

KC: So I’m just going to — I’m going to put a little reminder here; I would love to circle back because I think there is so much that has happened in the past two weeks that really just informs so much. But in terms of where Pride Foundation is — so a lot of the work that we started with Morten Group and with you all has continued to move forward. Right? We’re continuing to have caucus groups; we’re continuing to deepen our learnings around particular issues that I think are — one of the things that has happened that we’ve been doing more work with our board in particular are thinking about the issues that may or may not have seemed like our issues — and I’m using scare quotes right now — LGBTQ issues, so thinking of things like youth detention facilities, thinking of things like immigration detention facilities as being not just things that, you know, are impacting some parts of our community, some people in our community, but those are fundamentally the issues that we need to be working on. Right? So we’ve been doing a lot of work with our boards, deepening understanding around specific issues that are impacting LGBTQ communities, like thinking about criminalization, thinking about the criminal injustice system, thinking about immigration in particular and the ways in which all of the current world that we exist in has been impacting LGBTQ communities of color in particular and how we really need to be centering that work and those issues. So that’s been really incredible.

And I think the other piece of it is also thinking about the shifts in our grant making, which I referenced earlier, but those are — that’s a big part of where Pride Foundation is going in the future is thinking about how we do our grant making fundamentally differently and using racial justice as sort of a cornerstone for thinking about how decisions are made, who gets to wield power, where investments are being made, and how to fundamentally shift that. So that’s a big part of where it’s tangibly going when it comes to that.

Our public education and advocacy work transformed, which has really focused on doing messaging research and helping better — it came out of the anti-trans bills that emerged in Washington state a couple years ago in 2018, I think, 2017 and 2018, and was really focused on, you know, combating those bills. That work has transformed and is really focusing on black, indigenous, and people of color, non-binary and trans folks, figuring out how when we’re thinking about how to change cultural narratives around trans and non-binary people, how we can center black, indigenous, and people of color’s lived experiences within that research. So instead of basically — like, just to be super — to use a super-tangible example: Instead of saying, like, “Oh, here’s, you know, this happy, white binary-seeming trans family, like, yes, let’s accept them into the world but actually trying to shift culture by centering the experiences and stories of folks with a much wider diversity of lived experiences, reminding folks that non-binary and trans folks have existed from time immemorial — this isn’t a new trend that is emerging — and really developing messaging strategies for how we can shift culture across the five-state region, across the country that we’re working with that is being led and informed by communities in a different kind of way than most messaging research happens. And so that is this really — it’s this sort of like not widely publicized part of our work that I think is just so incredible, and when we think about the multiple levels on which we can be doing work, shifting culture in this way is such a critical piece of it and that public education works — we know can work both alongside legislation, alongside many of the advocacy initiatives that are happening across the five-state region but also can happen outside of those. Like, all of this work is happening outside of any particular ballot initiative right now, which is really incredible.

So those are some tangible examples of where we are at. So all of our strategic plan is infused with, you know, particular outcomes around what we’re looking for, but I actually — I think a lot of where our energy is focused right now is also shifting how we do work, how we’re in relationship to each other and really thinking about how white supremacy culture that has been infused in so much of philanthropy, so much of nonprofit culture, how we can be sort of uprooting that and combating it every step in terms of the how of what we do with our work.

MM: Oh, that’s incredible. Lots is happening always, and before we — (inaudible) — give some special shout-outs to a few folks on staff who received some recognitions and honors recently, including yourself, but we’ll save that for later.

Want to go back to COVID-19 —

KC: Yeah.

MM: — and racial equity before — because, believe it or not, we’re going to be moving into questions. It goes that fast. (Laughs.) So would love to hear about your response. I’ve seen a lot coming out from the foundation on how you can support the community. Let’s talk about that.

KC: Yeah, so we know right now that there are a multitude of different response efforts emerging, and one of the things that Pride Foundation is trying to do is figure out how we can support our communities in all of the different ways that we can, so we have launched a crisis community care fund where we’re going to be providing grants to organizations that are serving communities who are being either especially impacted right now, who are having to completely shift the way they do their work in response to COVID-19, who are facing huge budgetary gaps as a result of it, who are in dire situations. I was actually working on the docket for that right before we got on this call. It’s been a really exciting process. We are doing it — it’s all trust-based grant making, so there’s no application. We are just moving resources to organizations that we have longstanding relationships with that we know are working with communities, and we know nobody has time to fill out applications right now, and so we’re just trying to move those resources out, so working with other philanthropic institutions to move more resources, working with our donors and our fund-holders to move resources to communities, but also thinking in addition to funding, which we know that’s a no-brainer right now, that this is what organizations are needing in order to keep their stores open, having to adapt to, you know, going all-virtual. We know that resources are needed, financial, no-strings-attached general-operating resources. So we’re working on that and also trying to build out what are the other things we can offer, so building out resource lists of other places to get funding beyond Pride Foundation’s very modest investments that we’re able to make in organizations. We’re trying to figure out what volunteer support we can offer to organizations, whether that’s in-kind support of our staff or whether we have volunteers in our networks who might be able to support them with, you know, pro bono legal assistance, pro bono website support, like all of the different things that we know organizations are needing right now, so that’s sort of the second phase of what we’re going to be building out over the next couple of weeks and months is figuring out how we can connect the people in our broader universe and network who we know have time, expertise to offer, how we can connect those two to organizations that are supporting communities right now who are being most impacted to make sure that those organizations continue to thrive and continue to be around in six months, frankly.

MM: Wonderful. That is really important and needed work. When we think about new initiatives other than what you’re doing around COVID-19, are there any other things on the horizon that we should know about that’s coming down the pike for Pride Foundation?

KC: I mean —

MM: That you can talk about! (Laughs.)

KC: Sure. (Laughs.) If I’m going to be super honest, if we had had this conversation two months ago, there would have probably been a different set of conversations, but right now our efforts are completely focused on the COVID response. And it’s my opinion that we’re in the middle of a big paradigm-shifting moment right now, and so everything that we planned before, you know, before the, you know, February of this year, we’re going to be re-evaluating it all when we get to whatever the new normal looks like. Right? And we know that we’re in — we know that we’re in a paradigm-shifting moment and that the work is going to look different on the other side of this. What is normal is going to look really different on the other side of this. And so while we had a whole slew of plans of what 2020 was going to hold for us, we’re actually going to intentionally pause and think about as we move through this moment how we respond after this. We don’t want to go about business as usual because there is going to be no “usual.” Right? And we actually want to use this as an opportunity to think about what normal looks like for us on the other side of it. What are the things that we can change? What have we learned from the, you know, physical distancing that we have been participating in? What have we learned about how communities can respond? Like, there’s so much that could be different. I mean, I think this comes back to the conversation that I put a pin in earlier, too, of wanting to talk about so much of philanthropy just did this — I mean, I wonder what Vu Le is thinking about all of this. Right? Like, all of the things that nonprofits have been asking for for years — unrestricted funding, fewer reports, you know, simpler applications — all of that just happened. So much of philanthropy just shifted in response to this crisis to say don’t worry about those reports that you have due to us. What do you actually need? You know, super-simple applications or no applications at all — we can move resources to you.

I think our field just learned so much about itself over the past two weeks that all of these things that we have been wringing our hands about how we can possibly do this and move the work forward just got answered, and you know, we can’t go back to that. Right? Like, we just figured out how easy it was to move resources to the community.

MM: Well, isn’t that —

KC: And hopefully we can keep that.

MM: Exactly. That is exactly right. Isn’t it amazing what you do when you have to? That’s exactly right, Katie. I think that’s such a good point, because all these things — I’ve talked to a number of funders who said, “Oh, we’re just going to re-grant to everyone who we granted to in this last cycle. Boom. Period. End of story.

KC: Boom, multiyear funding! There it is. (Laughs.)

MM: There we go! Right. But you know, before there was the huge barrier. Yes, it’s really amazing. And so that’s one of the, you know, glass half full, half empty kinds of activities and work that will really help nonprofits overall. I think there’s no question about it.

KC: Yeah.

MM: But it is amazing that when it had to happen, people rose to the occasion.

KC: That’s true.

MM: And I know for — you know, just like for Morten Group, a lot of the work that you do you do virtually, because you’re in five different states. And of course, a lot of work that we did with you is virtually, but of course, we were out there. I often tell people that, you know, we had a chance to go to all five states, and I took one for the team: I went to Alaska. Somebody had to go.

KC: (Laughs.) Somebody had to do it.

MM: Somebody had to do it. (Laughs.) And I’m a giver, so I said no, no, I’ll do it.

KC: (Laughs.) You’re so generous, Mary. (Laughs.)

MM: (Laughs.) But I just — that is absolutely the case, and I hope people understand that when you had to move and essentially turn on a dime, you did, and that we can continue to do that.

One other question that I want to ask you before we move into our — we’ll take a short break and move into our questions is: If you had an opportunity to talk to other foundations who were nervous — and I think this is not overstating it. Some people are nervous about really working on and incorporating, centering racial equity into their organization. What would you tell them?

KC: Do it anyways. Be nervous and do it anyways. Be uncomfortable and do it anyways. It has to happen. We’re not going to achieve any of the things that we say as foundations, the social change that we say we want to have, we’re not going to achieve that if we don’t understand that racial justice has to be at the center of what we’re doing. And if you don’t want that, I think you need to re-evaluate what you’re actually trying to achieve.

MM: And let me — one other question; I have so many I could ask you.

KC: You can!

MM: But what about your work as a white woman in this work? What has that — what has that experience been like? Have people been surprised that you care so deeply about this work and are so involved in it, or what kind of reaction have you received?

KC: You know, I don’t know that people have been surprised. I mean, I think that — I think people sometimes don’t realize what my radical ideology is until we actually start talking. And I’m here for that, and maybe that’s, you know, one of my secret little superpowers. And you know, I believe my work is to move other white people forward in this. Right? Like, that is what my job is in this moment, both as a person in the world and as the CEO of Pride Foundation. It is my job to be in conversations with people who don’t understand why we’re doing this work or don’t understand why this is so important to me and to Pride Foundation. And I’m here for that. And so, you know, I don’t know what people’s reactions have been exactly, but I think most people are ready to think about that and have those conversations. I’m certainly ready to hold people to those conversations and to hold people, other white people in those spaces in trying to move folks forward because it has to happen now. We have waited far too long to be having some of the conversations that are only just now starting to surface. And 2020 is travesty and there is urgency beyond belief behind this, and so there’s no waiting. I’m very here for people being on their journeys and going through growth periods, and I need those journeys to be sprinted marathons right now. Right? Like, people need to catch up real quickly, so.

MM: Let’s get to work. We have some work to do.

KC: That’s right.

MM: Let’s get to work.

OK, so before we move into questions, and we’re going to take a brief break, I just want to do a couple of totally just personal shout-outs to some folks on the team who I see — some of my favorite people. I love everyone at the Pride Foundation, but these two people in particular who have been recognized: Tylene and Isyss —

KC: Yeah.

MM: — recently you just sent out a notice about them because, you know, I keep in contact with everything that’s happening. I think — was it last season that I was on the Grants Review Committee?

KC: Thank you for your supporting that, too. Yeah.

MM: So tell us just quickly what’s happening with Tylene and Isyss, and then, I’ll just talk about yours. You’re going to be a member of the Rockwood Leadership Institute cohort, and I love Darlene; she’s been on the podcast already, and that’s going to to be very exciting for you as well.

KC: That’s absolutely — yeah, so it’s super-exciting. Isyss Honnen, who is the project director for TRANSform Washington to — in the public education-messaging (record ?) that I was talking about before, Isyss does incredible, amazing things in so many different components of community. She’s on the board of UTOPIA. She helped start the Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network. And she was recently elected co-chair of the new Washington state LGBTQ Commission Executive Committee, which is fantastic.

MM: Yay! Great.

KC: We’re so excited to see her in that role.

And Tylene Carnell, who is our regional officer for Eastern and Central Washington, just got Central Washington University’s 2020 President’s Diversity Award, which is absolutely fantastic.

MM: So wonderful. So wonderful, and I love that you sent that out for everyone to see. So that was just a point of personal privilege. I just wanted to give them a shout-out because I miss —

KC: Sure thing.

MM: — so much.

KC: They’re fantastic. We miss you, too. Come back.

MM: (Laughs.)

KC: Come hang out once we’re over the social distancing.

MM: Once we’re this — yeah, and we have a client right now in the Pacific Northwest there in Seattle. As you can imagine, we’re not going to see them — (laughs) — any time soon, but we will be back. We’ll be back.

So everyone, you’ve been listening to Katie Carter, who is the CEO of the Pride Foundation. They’re based in Seattle. And we’re going to be right back. You’re listening to “Gathering Ground.”

Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me on “Gathering Ground.” We want to hear from you. If you have any questions about your work in nonprofits or any of the topics that we’ve covered here on “Gathering Ground,” send them on in. Send them to mary@gatheringgroundpodcast.com. That’s mary@gatheringgroundpodcast — all one word — dot com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Hi, everyone. You’re listening to “Gathering Ground.” I’m Mary Morten and we’re talking with Katie Carter, who’s the CEO of the Pride Foundation. And we’re going to move right to our question and answer period. These are questions from our listeners.

So the first question, Katie, is from Alisha, and she says: Like many people, we’ve been working from home for a couple weeks. Unfortunately, we are a direct service organization and one of our grantors has yet to give us guidance around the required deliverables for our grant. We’ve reached out a couple of times to find out whether we’ll still be required to meet our Quarter 1 deliverables. Haven’t heard and are coming up on reporting time. How persistent should we be? What if they tell us we are losing funding because we didn’t meet deliverables? If we wanted to contest it, would we be able to really put forward an argument on how we would go about it?

KC: I think that I would hope that all funders in this moment are being incredibly understanding that the plans that we made, that all us made three months ago, six months ago aren’t the plans that we currently have right now and that everything just changed and circumstances have completely prevented us from doing work in the way that we would. I hope and believe — and, you know, if you need another person in philanthropy to call your funder, I’d be more than happy to call and let them know. I know for us, for Pride Foundation, we are not even going to be requiring any of our organizational grantees to provide reports because we know that all of the work just changed and that that is not something that they can any longer be expected to hold what they said in last year, everything looks different, and I hope that all funders convert their grants to general operating and remove reporting requirements.

MM: OK. Our next question is from Teresa, and it says: We are currently reviewing intern applications, and with the way the process is set up, one of our senior staff is a — I’m using air quotes here — “gate keeper” of sorts. As I was reviewing his rejection pile, or decline pile, I noticed that a lot of the “no’s” had accents on their last name or had names that were clearly not white/American. Of course, I have no proof that he is being biased; it could be unconscious, to be completely fair. I am the intern coordinator and there are at least four people between us and the senior staff person. What should I do, if anything?

KC: Well, what I would do —

MM: Hard.

KC: Yeah. I think you should do something because unconscious bias enters into all kinds of hiring. There’s lots of research to show that it’s very prevalent and it happens often. And I think what you could request is for someone other — a more representative hiring committee for this internship position to review those resumes or those applications and see if there are anybody who he put in the reject pile who actually could be a potential candidate. And I would hope that that — the hiring person in that role would be interested to make sure that they’re not missing incredibly qualified candidates because of some latent assumptions they might be making.

MM: Absolutely. No, I agree with that, and that is a way to deal with unconscious or just the implicit bias that exists is to have more than one person part of the process. That is absolutely a way that you can hopefully get that addressed. But no, I love that response.

And then here’s our last question, from Taylor. And this I know you’re going to have tons of ideas about: Do you have any tips for working remotely? I have a whole workstation set up, a bulletin board, everything, and I’ve still got a bad case of cabin fever — which, you know, I hate to say is probably going to happen no matter what. However, what kinds of tools have you — at the Pride Foundation, again, you’ve been working virtually for quite some time. However, it is different when you must work virtually or that is the only way, in most cases, you can work with your team. Any ideas that you would want to share?

KC: Well, I would say, too, and especially if this question is happening right now during the COVID-19 crisis that we are not working from home right now. We are working at home in the midst of a crisis trying to get work done.

MM: Right.

KC: And I saw that on a meme, where I’m getting so much of my information these days. But I think just reminding ourselves that I worked from home for six years and it has never felt like it feels right now. It’s never been as isolating. And so what I would recommend is make sure that you are connecting with people on your team throughout the day. So we’re using Zoom. We’re using phone calls. We are trying to make sure that we are connecting with others more than we typically would. It helps keep us focused. It helps keep us connected. We’re trying to improve as much communication as we can, so using, you know, Slack or Microsoft Teams or whatever the programs that you like to use are, staying in regular communication, and I also think right now especially, you know, making sure that we’re not working too much is actually a really important part. We are in a marathon of a situation and so taking walks, not staying at our desks, doing projects in other rooms, you know — things like that I think are going to be really great ways of helping to stay focused, helping to get things done, and keeping, you know, the work dynamic during these times, but really connecting is the most important.

MM: I absolutely agree. I think there’s a need to really over-communicate with everyone on your team and to make sure that people are — I keep trying to tell my team members to like — in the middle of the day, really, please, get up and go out for a walk. It happens to be very sunny here today and unlike in Seattle —

KC: Here too.

MM: OK.

KC: No, it’s beautiful. We’ve had beautiful weather.

MM: OK, I just mean you get better weather than we do overall. (Laughs.)

KC: Oh, it’s true.

MM: So we’re happy to have some sun on April 1st, because it doesn’t always work that way. You know, it will snow here probably in a couple weeks. Sorry to say that. (Laughs.) However, over-communicating, really connecting in a way that you might connect — if you were in the office. To your point, this is not necessarily new and that you’re working at home because you work at home. It’s not working from — it’s not working and replacing, you know, time in the office necessarily. For so many people it is different, and I know so many people that I have to say are struggling with it, and I think my sort of issue is not working too much, because in some ways I feel as though I am working more than I did.

So, anyway, great ideas, Katie.

KC: Thank you.

MM: Thank you so much. There’s so much more we could talk about.

KC: Absolutely.

MM: We’ll have to do this again. Thank you, Katie, for joining us today on “Gathering Ground.” Katie Carter is the CEO of the Pride Foundation, and you can find them at pridefoundation.org. Check out all of their innovative and unique work. They really are changing how philanthropy responds to grantees and really centering racial equity. And we are so proud of the time that we’ve had to work with you.

Don’t forget that you can send us your questions to mary@gatheringgroundpodcast.com. Again, that’s mary@gatheringgroundpodcast.com. And we look forward to seeing you next time.

We are so pleased to let you know that you can now find “Gathering Ground” on iTunes, in addition to SoundCloud, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, and Radio Public, and at gatheringgroundpodcast.com. I’m Mary Morten, and this has been another episode of “Gathering Ground.”