Exploring Followership with Elizabeth Ireland: Insights for Nonprofit Success

Jan 19, 2024

Elizabeth Ireland | Assoc Director of Training

Elizabeth Ireland, Director of Training at the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, discusses the crucial yet often overlooked concept of followership in nonprofit organizations in her interview with KC Cares. She explains the evolution of followership, distinguishing between role-based and social process perspectives. Ireland highlights key traits of effective followers, including autonomy, high standards, and a purpose-driven approach, which are vital for nonprofit success. She also delves into the interplay between leadership and followership, emphasizing how effective followership contributes to positive organizational dynamics. This interview provides valuable insights for nonprofits looking to strengthen their team dynamics and achieve greater mission impact by recognizing and nurturing effective followership.

visit them here: https://info.umkc.edu/centers/mcnl/

 

What Nonprofit Questions Are Answered?

1. What is followership and why is it important in nonprofits?
Ans:- The interview answers this by defining followership and its significance in shaping organizational success, particularly in the nonprofit sector.

2. How has the concept of followership evolved over time?
Ans:- Elizabeth Ireland explains the historical context and evolution of followership in leadership studies.

3. What are the characteristics of an effective follower in a nonprofit organization?
Ans:- The discussion focuses on key traits such as autonomy, high standards, and purpose-driven nature.

4. How does followership impact leadership and organizational dynamics?
Ans:- The interview explores the relationship between leadership and followership, highlighting its impact on organizational outcomes.

5. Can understanding followership improve nonprofit management and team dynamics?
Ans:- Insights from the interview suggest how embracing followership can enhance management and team dynamics in nonprofits.

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Transcript:

00:00:02:21 – 00:00:17:15
Ruth
Welcome to KC Cares, Kansas City’s nonprofit voice. We’re telling the stories of Kansas City nonprofits and the people behind them. Casey Cares is that intersection of the nonprofit and profit communities making Kansas City a better place to live, work and play?

00:00:17:18 – 00:00:44:12
Ruth
This KC Cares segment is brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. www dot Kauffman dot org. I’m Ruth Baum Bigus leadership is the ability of an individual or a group of people to influence and guide followers or members of an organization, society or team. Well, that sounds so simple. Yet there are so many things involved with leadership on this.

00:00:44:12 – 00:01:06:01
Ruth
Ask the expert episode. We’re exploring the concept involving leadership that may be new to some of us. It’s called followership. Here to explore followership is someone who has been studying it for some time. We welcome Elizabeth Ireland, who is the director of training at the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership at the Henry Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

00:01:06:03 – 00:01:15:06
Ruth
Elizabeth recently presented a session on this topic as part of the center’s Leadership Conference. Well, welcome, Elizabeth. I feel we’re ready to dive into followership.

00:01:15:08 – 00:01:18:15
Elizabeth
Thank you for having me. I’m very excited.

00:01:18:17 – 00:01:28:19
Ruth
All right. We got to start at a base, right? So what is followership? And when did this term arise?

00:01:28:22 – 00:01:50:03
Elizabeth
Yeah. So I think it’s really a good spot to start at, like defining how we generally think about followership or how it’s been relayed to us in the literature. And so there tend to be two different camps that followership falls into. And the first is a role based, and that one emerged first. And then the second one is this social process.

00:01:50:03 – 00:02:20:17
Elizabeth
Camp And so role based really is this idea that individuals enact their followership based on having a formal or even an informal role or position. In this case, we talk about organizations, but it could really be in various different aspects of their social life. The other side is a social process camp and that says that it’s socially constructed and that it’s more relational between leaders and followers.

00:02:20:19 – 00:02:33:12
Elizabeth
And there tends to be a little bit more flexibility in who is considered the leader and who is considered the follower. And they’re able to kind of switch back and forth based on the context.

00:02:33:15 – 00:02:45:25
Ruth
How did this a science, this this new area of thought under the umbrella of leadership even come into being? How did folks just kind of dive into this?

00:02:46:02 – 00:03:15:29
Elizabeth
Yeah, because we’re so heavily focused on leadership all the time. That’s a really great question. So as you know, for much of our leadership studies, it’s really been focused on the leader themselves, right? Their traits, their behaviors, their characteristics. Are they charismatic? Are they intelligent? Are they tall? Believe it or not, that was one. But then as it shifted forward, there was always some conversation of followers inside the literature.

00:03:16:02 – 00:03:53:07
Elizabeth
So they were regarded differently depending on the perspective. So somewhere around the mid eighties, towards the end of the eighties, Robert Kelley put out a article called In Praise of Followers in the Harvard Business Review. And that really sparked this emergence of followership and talking about what it means to be a follower, what it means to be an effective follower inside organization, and really began to say, Hey, we have been thinking about followers for weight or leaders for way too long, and it’s time that we actually start giving some attention to followers and giving them the credit that they deserve.

00:03:53:07 – 00:04:17:03
Elizabeth
Because more often than not, we’re going to serve and a follower role rather than in a leadership role. And so we really do need to focus on followers. It’s also a role based approach. His approach is model and then moving forward into the mid-nineties, Eric, Caleb said, Hey, this is a really great idea. And he kind of built that out a little further, though he looks at it slightly different.

00:04:17:05 – 00:04:44:05
Elizabeth
He looks at whether or not followers are supportive of leaders and of their organizations, but also this idea that they need to be really courageous, which means they need to stand up for their leaders, but they also need to be able to stand up to their leaders. We move a little bit forward. We have Barbara Kellerman in 2008 and she actually kind of says, hey, let’s pare this way back and just look at one dimension of being a follower.

00:04:44:05 – 00:05:09:08
Elizabeth
And so she looks at just that engagement piece, and she says that followers really are individuals that don’t necessarily have power or influence. So they may have some degree of authority. Beyond that, we start shifting into those more social process perspectives, which says, you know, this really is a process where leaders and followers are agreeing to be that identity, right?

00:05:09:08 – 00:05:29:20
Elizabeth
In some instances, I’m a leader and in some instances I’m a follower. And if I choose to be a follower, then that means I’m granting you the ability to be the leader. And we have this more code constructed or co-produced. Look at what it means to be a leader and what it means to be a follower.

00:05:29:22 – 00:05:31:17
Ruth
That’s a lot to unpack.

00:05:31:19 – 00:05:32:29
Elizabeth
If you know, where.

00:05:32:29 – 00:06:03:10
Ruth
Do we start? So I like that you had mentioned, I think sometimes people feel if I’m a follower, you know, the Chiefs, the Indians and the Indians are just slogging through the mud. You know, Carrie hitting the packages while the leader is upfront. Charismatic. Yeah, but as you describe this, the father really has a very important role to play in organizations.

00:06:03:16 – 00:06:13:23
Ruth
Let’s talk about that a little bit. What are those characteristics or what are those commonality that followers should have to be? Good followers, I guess.

00:06:13:25 – 00:06:34:22
Elizabeth
That’s a really great place to start. So I tend to, when I’m explaining this or I’m talking to individuals for the first time, because first off, most people are like, what is followership and why are we talking about followers? I tend to have them start with those role based approaches, and Robert Kelly’s is usually the first one I introduce just because it is familiar.

00:06:34:22 – 00:06:55:15
Elizabeth
Whether or not we realize it, we understand what these follower types are because we’ve seen them in organizations, we’ve seen them in our social lives, we’ve seen them on movies and TV, right? So they are kind of familiar to us. And so he looks at followership in terms of whether or not there is engagement and whether or not there’s critical thinking.

00:06:55:22 – 00:07:23:05
Elizabeth
And so to Robert Kelly, he says that, you know, really effective followers, which is what we should all strive to be, are individuals who are able to manage themselves well so they’re able to do their work with a high degree of autonomy. And in fact, they absolutely need that in order to do their best work. They’re also individuals that have really high standards, and so they’re not necessarily looking to get the job done quickly with a lower quality product.

00:07:23:05 – 00:07:47:16
Elizabeth
So they’re going to really have those high standards and strive to do the absolute best for the organization. They’re also individuals who are purpose driven, and so they have this strong need to have to support someone other than themselves, which makes it a really natural fit for the nonprofit context. Because, you know, we all seem to be purpose driven in this work.

00:07:47:16 – 00:08:09:15
Elizabeth
And so it’s just a really good connector because we’re already kind of bought into that piece. Initially, individuals who are effective followers also really work on building their confidence. So they’re going to be those lifetime learners. If they don’t know something, they’re going to go out and be self-motivated and want to learn it, because again, they have really high standards and they want to do what’s best for the organization.

00:08:09:17 – 00:08:30:24
Elizabeth
And they’re also going to focus their efforts for maximum impact, which means that they know what their strengths are and they play to their strengths. Although there are certainly opportunities to grow in the areas that we’re less strong in, they know how to make the most impact inside their organization. And then finally, they are individuals that are courageous, right?

00:08:30:24 – 00:08:54:22
Elizabeth
So they’re willing to stand up to their leader when they need to. And we use leader loosely there. Right. So it could be all kinds of different individuals, especially in the nonprofit context. They’re also really honest. Right. So they’re going to be authentic and they’re going to kind of tell you like it is, although they’re definitely tactful and because they are honest and because they are authentic, they are viewed as being more credible.

00:08:54:24 – 00:09:01:06
Elizabeth
And so they tend to be experts inside their organizations or inside their field.

00:09:01:08 – 00:09:04:22
Ruth
And you be a bad follower. Yeah. Yeah.

00:09:04:23 – 00:09:29:10
Elizabeth
You can definitely be a bad follower. And that kind of brings us into this idea of, you know, how do we think about ourselves as a follower? How do we think of others as followers and these ideas and sort of conceptions of what it means to be a follower are things that we started early in our life, and we’ve kind of just built them as we got it, and now we’re bringing them into our organizations.

00:09:29:10 – 00:09:49:07
Elizabeth
So for some, you know, being a bad follower means that they’re really passive, so they’re not engaged in the work. They just come in, they do the bare minimum and, you know, they get their paycheck and they’re just really not looking to make any waves. But they’re also not making any great impact because, you know, again, they’re very passive.

00:09:49:09 – 00:10:10:05
Elizabeth
Others might be alienated followers. And so the interesting piece there is that you could actually be a really effective follower. But if there’s a miss or a misalignment between leaders and followers, and that could also include how leaders think individuals should follow, because for some leaders, they have this more hierarchical view. And so they think that you should be passive, right?

00:10:10:05 – 00:10:32:10
Elizabeth
You should be obedient. And we definitely don’t want that inside organizations because that’s not how we grow and thrive. So if you were an effective follower, there’s that miss that you might actually slip into being alienated, which just means that you’re really critical of the leader, but it also means that you’re more likely to look at looking for another job.

00:10:32:10 – 00:11:06:20
Elizabeth
And so that turnover and tension grows within you. But there are also just individuals that refuse to follow, and that’s just kind of their conception of it. And they they just want to be a leader and so they will not follow anyone. So yes, there are bad followers, but I hope with more education and more intentionality behind strengthening who we are as followers, but also as leaders strengthening who others are as followers and letting them have more leadership opportunities, We can kind of help resolve some of that.

00:11:06:23 – 00:11:36:05
Ruth
I remember sitting in your presentation, which was so interesting and such a diverse group of people in the room. So when we did group work, it was interesting. You could kind of tell what kinds of organizations and what role people played and if it was working well in terms of leaders and followers. At any rate, how much does personality and who you are playing to, what kind of a follower you may be?

00:11:36:07 – 00:11:39:00
Ruth
Yeah, that’s absolutely fair.

00:11:39:02 – 00:12:03:23
Elizabeth
So it’s kind of a multi pronged approach, right? So we need to understand what is our quote unquote native follower style, although it’s a spectrum and we shift in that. But we also have to compare that with, you know, are we an introvert or are we an extrovert also? How do you what are those implicit feelings that we have towards leadership and who leaders should be and what makes a good leader?

00:12:03:25 – 00:12:24:08
Elizabeth
All of that, our willingness to speak up, but also providing opportunities for people to speak up. It all plays a part in to creating a more effective followers, but personality is definitely an aspect to it, just as it is with leadership.

00:12:24:10 – 00:12:48:17
Ruth
Okay, you get that that Debbie Downer or David Downer in there, Is there is there a way to ask the leader, let’s say work with those followers to raise up and try to mitigate that, maybe how they learn to be a follower?

00:12:48:19 – 00:13:26:09
Elizabeth
Yes. And they need a lot of support from you as a leader. They also need a lot of peer modeling. And so for person, they may have that perspective because they’ve had other leaders in the past that have said, you need to be obedient and you need to be passive because that’s the conception that they had. And so you may actually just need to show them a different way, but it does take a lot of time because you’re going to have to build that trust first, to create that safe space for them to be able to challenge or to even get them engaged enough to the point where they’re wanting to take on more challenging

00:13:26:09 – 00:13:48:16
Elizabeth
task and kind of grow that sense of autonomy. So yes, you can improve them. It just takes a lot of work. But there are also other perspectives that look at it that are kind of more from that engagement piece. And they say, you know, this is how you more strategically move individuals along that follower spectrum. And a lot of that means you have to get important to the purpose of the organization.

00:13:48:18 – 00:14:08:15
Elizabeth
You had to build those relationships among peers and then also with the leaders and just model the way for them so that they know that they can kind of grow in this way. And hopefully it improves, although again, there are some of those individuals that are just never going to follow. And so we don’t always need people to challenge.

00:14:08:15 – 00:14:29:25
Elizabeth
Sometimes we just have people to come in and do the work. And so that’s fine when they get more disruptive or they’re constantly challenging a leader or they’re really confrontational, that’s where you kind of have to start working those more performance management pieces to either help them get them on board or get them to a different opportunity, if you will.

00:14:29:28 – 00:14:59:29
Ruth
You mentioned a big five letter word, I think trust. Yeah. Sounds like that is absolutely key in in being a follower and being the leader in being a follower, is trust something that can be challenged or inspired, perhaps so that you play the game, as it were?

00:15:00:01 – 00:15:25:10
Elizabeth
Yeah, I think you could definitely look at it from your perspective. So first off, trust underpins everything that we do in that organization. So individuals have followers, if you will, who trust their leader, are going to have higher performance, they’re going to have less turnover and hence they’re going to have greater satisfaction and commitment to the organization. So there’s all of these really great benefits that come from building trust.

00:15:25:13 – 00:15:51:29
Elizabeth
But if you are an effective follower and you’re willing to challenge a leader and you have a leader who maybe is less than ethical or maybe you see that the organization is going in a direction that they shouldn’t go in and the follower in the leader shut you down on that. That is going to erode your sense of trust that might actually propel you from going from effectiveness, like being an effective follower to being an alienated follower.

00:15:52:02 – 00:16:08:04
Elizabeth
And then you’re going to start again looking at that turnover intent or having a higher sense of burnout, whereas you have that drive to kind of push through. Now things are kind of you’re feeling the effects of it more because the relationship between the leader and you is strained.

00:16:08:06 – 00:16:19:10
Ruth
You’ve been studying this a while and when you look at leadership, do leaders need to have been followers?

00:16:19:13 – 00:16:22:15
Elizabeth
Yes, Yes, absolutely. Be the.

00:16:22:15 – 00:16:22:26
Ruth
Best.

00:16:22:26 – 00:16:43:09
Elizabeth
Leaders are individuals who are really effective followers. And it’s funny because if you look at the different traits and characteristics and behaviors of followers, they mirror that of leadership. It’s just that you look at it from more of a partnership perspective or like we’re working together. And in this instance, I’m the leader. And in that instance I’m the follower.

00:16:43:12 – 00:16:59:29
Elizabeth
Instead of this like command and control style that says I’m always the leader, you need to be passive and obedient and just be a yes person and do your job. And so, yes, the really great leaders are also really great followers.

00:17:00:01 – 00:17:22:13
Ruth
We had a colleague of yours on the show a few months ago, Tom Van Saki, talking about Founder’s Syndrome. So I’m wondering, you know, in that founder’s syndrome, do they have a missing gap of followership where maybe they you know, they’ve never been the follower? You know, they’ve always been the leader.

00:17:22:15 – 00:17:42:16
Elizabeth
Yeah. And then, you know, it’s a very complicated issue there. There’s a lot of emotions and feelings around that. But if they are the type of leader that doesn’t like, again, to be challenged, right, that sort of wants to have everything rubber stamped by the board or rubber stamped by the staff, they’re going to be really used to that.

00:17:42:16 – 00:18:02:04
Elizabeth
And that’s going to be hard to let go and to kind of look at leadership from a different perspective and kind of say, hey, I’m going to bring this person on in order to have a succession plan. But we’re really we’re going to be partners letting go of that leadership piece, if that’s a really strong piece of their identity, is going to be really hard for them.

00:18:02:06 – 00:18:16:25
Ruth
You mentioned a few moments ago to another word that kind of stuck out with me is that’s partnership is is that key to be a good follower in the whole dynamic, you know, of an organization?

00:18:16:27 – 00:18:42:06
Elizabeth
Yeah, I would say that there’s a time and place, right? There’s a context and situation for both leading and following, but that the most effective forms tend to be those that are more of a partnership where they’re treated more not necessarily as equals, right? Their supervisors and their subordinates, even though we don’t love that word, followers. So there is a hierarchy there.

00:18:42:06 – 00:18:59:00
Elizabeth
But from that social process angle, they’re partners, right? They’re creating leadership and followership together because it’s what’s in the best interest of the organization, and it helps them achieve their mission in a more effective way.

00:18:59:02 – 00:19:23:01
Ruth
We’re talking with Elizabeth Ireland. She’s the associate director of training at the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, and she is the guru on followership. Our organization’s talking about this. Is this something now that nonprofits, when they, you know, take time to to look at how they’re run? Are folks talking about this and are they embracing it?

00:19:23:03 – 00:19:45:13
Elizabeth
I think that they are talking about issues related to followership and followers. So they may not be looking at it from an academic followership lens. Right. They may not actually know that’s what they’re doing, but they’re certainly talking about the issues at hand. One of the things that we need to do a little bit better as an academic community is include followership.

00:19:45:13 – 00:20:13:03
Elizabeth
And with our leadership coursework, I have been through or leadership classes than I can count. And I think I only heard the word followership once in all of that time, although I certainly use for all of my projects and every speech I did in class. But within organizations, we just need to start talking about it a little bit more, in particular with the nonprofit organization and nonprofit sector.

00:20:13:05 – 00:20:46:09
Elizabeth
So in general, Followership Lags Leadership studies, right? We go to Barnes and Noble or another bookstore. We’re going to see far more books on leadership than we are on followership. And if we look even, we kind of select out even more and look at just the nonprofit sector. We’re going to find far less information out there about what it means to be an effective follower inside nonprofit organizations, which is the reason why I’m specifically looking at that with my dissertation, because there’s a need to have a sense of what it means to be a follower.

00:20:46:09 – 00:20:57:26
Elizabeth
And followership looks like, and all of those behaviors, expressions and characteristics. But that’s grounded inside the unique context of nonprofit organizations.

00:20:57:28 – 00:21:23:12
Ruth
It would seem to me if you don’t have followers, then you’re not going to move the needle forward towards your mission and I know that sounds very basic, but and I think there’s something unique I’d love to hear you address as a nonprofit. Hopefully has staff or whatever followers that are part of it. But then you have volunteers and you’re driven by boards.

00:21:23:12 – 00:21:33:13
Ruth
So how does followership play into that and how do you infiltrate in a good sense to get those folks on board?

00:21:33:16 – 00:22:02:05
Elizabeth
Yeah, So it’s not actually that basic a place to start because while we tend to think that we fix some of those issues with, you know, command and control and authoritative leadership, right? They pop up in organizations of all types and of all sizes because we’re just humans and we bring with us what we think of leadership should look like in terms of looking at specifically like segmenting out what it looks like with your staff.

00:22:02:08 – 00:22:18:09
Elizabeth
Again, you would start with Robert Kelly, Eric Taylor and just kind of look through and assess what kinds of followers you have amongst your staff. How do they naturally lean? What do they think of being a follower? You can just ask them, what does it mean to be a leader and what does it mean to be a follower?

00:22:18:11 – 00:22:39:12
Elizabeth
And that gives you a really good idea at how they approach leadership and how they approach followership. But when we look at how we have relationships with board members, there really is a need to have that sense of shared leadership. And so for that, we really need to lean and heavily towards those social process approaches that says, you know, we’re in this together.

00:22:39:15 – 00:23:05:01
Elizabeth
And again, we’re claiming the role of or the identity of leader or we’re claiming the role of our identity a follower and we’re, you know, working together towards that common purpose or that common goal. If we look at volunteer management, we are we may not need our volunteers to do a ton of critical thinking. We may not need them to challenge the leadership or, you know, challenge others inside the organization.

00:23:05:01 – 00:23:26:16
Elizabeth
We may just need them to show up and be engaged in the work that we do and be, you know, a supportive element inside our organizations. And so for that, I tend to recommend individuals look towards Barbara Kellerman’s model of followership so that they can just look at that engagement piece, right? How do we move people from that very beginning?

00:23:26:16 – 00:23:53:05
Elizabeth
Like I’m not even necessarily familiar with the organization to where they’re an activist or a diehard for the organization, although diehards can go either way, right? They could be resolved through organization or they could just you know, they could be yes. People because they’re so bought into it that they they can’t necessarily see the impact of what they’re doing if it’s not necessarily ethical or beneficial to the organization.

00:23:53:08 – 00:24:16:18
Ruth
How do you keep followers from that tipping point, as you mentioned, of being so gung ho that they think they can run it all that and I guess sabotage leadership? That’s a pretty hard word. But how do you navigate it? What is what does it say in the literature and academic circles?

00:24:16:21 – 00:24:35:18
Elizabeth
I think it’s more like the gut level of what you do there. And it’s it’s you got to look at them as a human being and just say, you know what? What are the quality of interactions that I’m having with this person? Right? Do I have positive interactions? Are they always or mostly negative interactions? How do I build the relationship again?

00:24:35:18 – 00:25:02:11
Elizabeth
So they have to be really mindful and intentional of how they respond to you as a leader and how supportive they are of you. But it also means that you may need to think about what your own conceptualization of followers are, because if you’re having a lot of individuals that are, you know, pushing back constantly, it may be that you have a different view of what follower should be than what they do.

00:25:02:19 – 00:25:27:04
Elizabeth
And so the more we can educate individuals on, first off, what followership is and all of the different types and models and ways in which you can use that to your benefit, the more we’re able to say have those tools and resources that we need when we have individuals that we may need to move, you know, advance them in that followership spectrum so that they’re more effective for the organization.

00:25:27:07 – 00:25:47:01
Elizabeth
But it’s also knowing that if we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve tried all of these things and we’ve tried to build that relationship and it’s just not working, how do we leverage those performance management tools or how do we encourage them to maybe find something that’s more fulfilling for them so that they’re less likely to be alienated.

00:25:47:03 – 00:26:01:24
Ruth
Or be a roadblock or any number of things that can cause trouble? In your studies, have you seen is corporate America embracing this versus nonprofit? Is it about the same that everybody’s getting to the this is worth looking at?

00:26:01:26 – 00:26:30:25
Elizabeth
Yeah, I would say that they’ve probably been using followership and just the different models more heavily in corporate America just because they tend to also embrace those leadership model quicker. Right? With there’s more literature about them. If you go and look at the academic literature, there’s far more out there about corporate leadership in corporate leadership, although I will say that followership in general has been looked at, you know, within military because of that position and rank.

00:26:30:25 – 00:26:55:20
Elizabeth
And everyone kind of knows what that looks like. But there’s also that need to be somewhat obedient because you need to follow orders. But then also having the ability to know, hey, we’re going in the wrong direction and I need to speak up now. It also tends to be look at followership does in areas where there are a higher percentage of female staff members or female workers.

00:26:55:22 – 00:27:29:25
Elizabeth
And so you’ll see a lot of research out there about nurses, which also kind of speaks to this. You know, there are leaders, right? Or there are those that consider themselves leaders in that environment. But really the work is done by nurses and they are actually enacting both leadership and followership in their work. And then it’s also looked at a lot in academic institutions, in particular in higher education, although we’re starting to see it kind of trickle down into K through 12 and also pre-K, there’s a strong need for it to be there.

00:27:29:28 – 00:27:52:11
Elizabeth
But again, there’s a definite need for it to be explored more inside nonprofit organizations because we have so much a greater need for shared leadership. And so we really do need to look at how do we embrace followers and how do we strengthen them so that we can leverage the most from our individuals. So we can achieve our missions?

00:27:52:13 – 00:28:11:11
Ruth
Elizabeth, this has been fascinating followership. She’s provided us with some great resources. So dig into this. It’s something that’s really important for organizations and let’s let the nonprofit sector be the leader, right? And then follow the great things that you can do as a follower. So thank you again.

00:28:11:13 – 00:28:15:18
Elizabeth
And thank you so much for having me. I have enjoyed this.

00:28:15:20 – 00:28:37:14
Ruth
Thank you for joining us for KC Cares. We’re Kansas City’s nonprofit voice, and we’re produced by Charitable communications, also a nonprofit. This KC Cares segment was brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. WW W Kauffman talk if you’d like to be a guest on KC Cares or underwriting opportunities, go to our Web site, KC Cares online dot org and spread the love.

00:28:37:14 – 00:28:54:17
Ruth
You’ll find us on Facebook and Twitter at KC Cares Radio and on Instagram at KC Cares online. And don’t forget, you can catch us Saturday mornings at 8 a.m. on ESPN, 15:10 a.m. and 94.5 FM. Thanks for joining us on KC Cares.

00:36:15:01 – 00:36:25:02

Previous Episodes!

Empowering Communities through Strategic Philanthropy

Jan 15, 2024

Empowering Communities through Strategic Philanthropy: Lessons from the Kauffman Foundation

Imagine a world where every community thrives, where opportunities are equitable, and where every individual has the chance to succeed. This isn’t just a dream; it’s the vision being realized at the Kauffman Foundation under the leadership of Dr. DeAngela Burns-Wallace. 

In the realm of philanthropy, the focus has traditionally been on monetary donations. But today, the Kauffman Foundation is redefining this concept. It’s no longer just about writing checks; it’s about strategic philanthropy – a method that combines generous giving with a tactical approach to solve societal issues effectively.

Empowerment and Impact

At the heart of the Foundation’s work is empowerment. This isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a commitment to enabling communities to flourish on their own terms. How? By focusing on education and entrepreneurship – the two pillars that Dr. Burns-Wallace believes can propel communities towards sustainable prosperity.

But empowerment isn’t just about providing resources; it’s about breaking down barriers. Many communities face systemic challenges that hinder their progress. The Kauffman Foundation is actively working to dismantle these barriers, ensuring that opportunities are not just available, but also accessible to everyone.

Involving Communities in Strategic Planning

The Kauffman Foundation understands that real change cannot occur in a vacuum. That’s why they’re deeply involving communities in their strategic planning process. This approach ensures that the solutions devised are not only practical but also resonate with the actual needs of the people they’re meant to serve. By bringing diverse voices to the table, the Foundation is ensuring that their strategies are inclusive and effective.

The Legacy and the Future

Ewing Marion Kauffman, the founder, left behind a legacy of innovation and community focus. Dr. Burns-Wallace is building on this legacy, steering the Foundation towards a future where their impact can be even more profound. The strategic planning phase, while rooted in the Foundation’s history, is a stepping stone towards a future where the Foundation’s work is more aligned with the evolving needs of communities.

Equitable Opportunities for Underrepresented Communities

A significant aspect of the Kauffman Foundation’s work under Dr. Burns-Wallace is creating equitable opportunities for underrepresented communities. Recognizing that certain groups have historically been marginalized, the Foundation is investing in these communities to level the playing field. This means not just providing resources but also ensuring that these groups have the support and tools they need to succeed.

The Influence of a Diverse Background

Dr. Burns-Wallace’s diverse background in public service, education, and diplomacy brings a unique perspective to the Foundation’s work. Her experience helps her understand the complex tapestry of societal issues and the multifaceted solutions they require. This experience is invaluable in guiding the Foundation’s strategies and ensuring that their work is not just impactful but also culturally sensitive and globally informed.

Conclusion

As we explore the journey of the Kauffman Foundation, we see a powerful example of how philanthropy can evolve to meet the challenges of the modern world. Under Dr. Burns-Wallace’s leadership, the Foundation is not just a benefactor but a beacon of hope and a catalyst for change. It’s a testament to the power of strategic philanthropy – a blend of generosity, vision, and tactical acumen – in creating a world where every community has the power to thrive.

By focusing on empowerment, community involvement, and equitable opportunities, the Kauffman Foundation is not just changing lives; it’s changing the very fabric of how we approach philanthropy. And that, dear reader, is a journey worth following.

Engaging Donors Effectively: Strategies for Nonprofits in a Changing Landscape

Jul 21, 2023

Engaging Donors Effectively: Strategies for Nonprofits in a Changing Landscape

Listen up, folks! If you’re in the nonprofit world, you know that engaging donors isn’t just about asking for money. It’s about building relationships, creating trust, and telling a story that resonates. And let me tell you, in this ever-changing landscape, your old playbook might not cut it anymore.

The Giving USA report, the philanthropic bible, has just dropped some truth bombs. Corporate and foundation giving? Up. Individual giving? Not so much. The donor base is diversifying, and the economy is doing the cha-cha. So, what’s a nonprofit to do?

First off, don’t panic. Change is not a disaster; it’s an opportunity. It’s a chance to shake things up, to innovate, and to connect with your donors in ways you haven’t before.

Meet Donors Where They Are

Your donors aren’t just ATMs. They’re people, with passions, interests, and values that align with your mission. So, engage them on that level. Understand their motivations, their preferred communication channels, and their giving capacity. Personalize your approach. A one-size-fits-all strategy? That’s so last decade.

Tell Authentic Stories

People don’t give to organizations; they give to people and causes. So, tell your story. And not just any story, but an authentic one. Show the impact of their donations. Highlight the lives changed, the communities transformed. Make your donors the heroes of your story.

Adapt and Innovate

The world is changing, and so should your strategies. Explore digital fundraising. Leverage social media. Host virtual events. The pandemic has shown us that physical distance doesn’t have to mean disconnection.

Build Long-term Relationships

Donor engagement isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s a long-term commitment. So, nurture those relationships. Show appreciation. Communicate regularly. And remember, it’s not always about the ask. Sometimes, it’s just about saying thank you.

In the end, engaging donors effectively is about more than just surviving; it’s about thriving. It’s about building a community of supporters who are as passionate about your cause as you are. And let me tell you, there’s no better foundation for success than that.

So, go ahead. Embrace the change. Innovate. Engage. And watch as your nonprofit reaches new heights. Because, my friends, the future of philanthropy is here. And it’s looking brighter than ever.

​

Topics Discussed: Philanthropic Trends, Nonprofit Strategy

Starlight Theatre Kansas City Intereview

Jul 21, 2023

Lindsey Rood-Clifford | Executive Director

KC Cares presents an in-depth interview with Starlight Theater, Kansas City’s oldest performing arts organization. Learn about Starlight’s evolution from an outdoor amphitheater to a year-round venue for Broadway shows and live music. Hear from Lindsay Rood-Clifford, the first female CEO in Starlight’s 75-year history, about her vision for making the theater more accessible and relevant. Discover how Starlight survived financial hardship through community support and innovation, and how it continues to engage the community through diverse programming and educational initiatives. This interview is a must-watch for anyone interested in the performing arts, nonprofit management, and community engagement.

visit them here: kcstarlight.com

 

What Nonprofit Questions are Answered?

  1. What is the history of Starlight Theater in Kansas City?
  2. How does Starlight Theater contribute to the Kansas City community?
  3. What challenges has Starlight Theater faced and how did it overcome them?
  4. What is the vision of Lindsay Rood-Clifford, the first female CEO of Starlight Theater?
  5. What community engagement and educational programs does Starlight Theater offer?

Find us on

Facebook:@ Kccaresradio

Twitter: @kccaresradio

Instagram: @Kccaresonline

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Also available on

Itunes || Spotify || Stitcher || Soundcloud || Youtube 

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KC Cares, Kansas City’s nonprofit voice, tells the stories of Kansas City nonprofits and connects them with the community.  

Produced by Charitable Communications 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

In partnership with: 

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Take risks. Own success. Be Uncommon.

TW: @kauffmanfdn FB: @kauffmanfdn IG: @kauffmanfdn

Transcript:

00:00:15:43 – 00:00:37:30
Ruth Baum Bigus
Welcome to KC Cares. We’re Kansas City’s nonprofit voice. We’re telling the stories of Kansas City nonprofits and the people behind them. KC Cares is the intersection of the nonprofit and profit communities in making Kansas City a better place to live, work and play. This KC Cares segment is brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, www.kauffman.org.

00:00:37:35 – 00:01:04:01
Ruth Baum Bigus
I’m Ruth Baum Bigus. It’s one of Kansas City’s most iconic places and the largest and oldest performing arts organization in the Metro. This place has been a favorite for generations who have come to enjoy live entertainment under the stars and make wonderful memories. It’s Starlight Theater, where audiences have enjoyed everything from Broadway musicals to concerts featuring pop, classical, rock and roll alternative and much more.

00:01:04:06 – 00:01:30:48
Ruth Baum Bigus
Located in beautiful Swope Park, Starlight has expanded its offerings to year round now, and it has been doing that for quite some time. And for the first time in the venue’s more than 70 year history. Starlight has a woman at its helm. It’s Lindsay Rood-Clifford, who was named president and CEO in May. And while this year of this role, Lindsay is no stranger to starlight but will let her share that story as we welcome her to KC Cares.

00:01:30:50 – 00:01:32:24
Ruth Baum Bigus
Good morning.

00:01:32:29 – 00:01:35:03
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Good morning. Happy to be here with you.

00:01:35:07 – 00:01:45:47
Ruth Baum Bigus
It’s so great to have you. I don’t know that we’ve ever had Starlight on KC Cares, which is remiss on our part. So it’s about time. So it’s so great to have you.

00:01:45:52 – 00:01:49:14
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Well, it’s a year of firsts. So happy for this to be one of them.

00:01:49:19 – 00:01:58:37
Ruth Baum Bigus
Oh, great, great, great. All right. Well, so if there’s somebody who might have had their head in the sand. Share with us what starlight is.

00:01:58:42 – 00:02:28:48
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Well, starlight is an almost 75 year old 8000 seat outdoor amphitheater. The neat history of it is, is that when Starlight was built, it was actually built as Kansas City’s centennial birthday present to itself. So it is modeled actually after an amphitheater in Saint Louis called the Muni, which is 100 years old now. But when they built it, it was built to do live productions and musicals, which is what it did for most of its first 50 years.

00:02:28:48 – 00:02:56:06
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And in the last better part of 30 years, we’ve also added the live music component, which has really grown for us to where now half of what we do is Broadway musical theater, and half of what we do is some pretty incredible live music as well. So we welcome folks out in the summertime, or really busy then. But as you mentioned, in the winter, about ten years ago now, we also started leveraging our really large indoor stage house to use as a theater space as well.

00:02:56:07 – 00:03:08:19
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So now we do smaller 500 seats, approximately 500 hundred seat winter theatrical programing as well, in addition to events and other sort of set rentals and community space opportunities.

00:03:08:24 – 00:03:21:38
Ruth Baum Bigus
What I want to make sure our audience knows is Starlight is now a nonprofit. Can you share with us a little bit the journey of of the theater organizationally? I mean, it’s had quite its steps on the way.

00:03:21:43 – 00:03:44:25
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So Starlight actually has always been a nonprofit. It was it’s owned. The theater itself is owned by the city of Kansas City or city owned assets. But the Starlight Theater Association itself, the Fiber one C3, was established in 1951, so operated by a nonprofit for all of its history and certainly some ups and downs in that history as sort of the theater industry and music changed.

00:03:44:25 – 00:04:07:55
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And we’re a really big place for live theater. I often remind people that when you’re thinking about Broadway theaters in New York, we are four times as big as the largest Broadway theater. And we were actually twice as big as any other regional house that presents Broadway theaters that were. We’re really big, which is a great thing. I often say that’s sort of one of our competitive advantages.

00:04:07:55 – 00:04:39:37
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And also how we’re able to create access to the arts. But in the eighties, Starlight actually almost closed. We went through a real period of financial hardship. Those that have lived in the city for a long time remember that there were periods where what was happening on our stage was either happening through partnership with other arts organizations, but there were some real financial challenges and it was really due to some big names in the city, like Anita Forman and Jack Steadman and Shirley Helzberg and Bob Bernstein that we were able to kind of turn the business model around.

00:04:39:50 – 00:05:06:16
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And part of that was by expanding what we offered on our stage. So that’s really where live music came in, where we ended up in closing the stage house. It was an open air theater to start much like the Muni in St Louis. And so we enclosed that stage house so that we could present nationally touring Broadway. So that sort of innovation I think has been one of the biggest stories of Starlite history to say this is how we continue to stay relevant and welcome new people to a really important Kansas City tradition.

00:05:06:21 – 00:05:31:13
Ruth Baum Bigus
Well, I remember I’ve been fortunate enough to be on that stage and old stage, but I can remember the big back opening back stage, which if you’ve never had the opportunity to tour, I guess you wouldn’t you wouldn’t have been aware of that and how that changed with the theater. I believe it was millions of dollars put into that big stage house that’s now air conditioned for performers.

00:05:31:15 – 00:05:32:10
Ruth Baum Bigus
That’s great.

00:05:32:15 – 00:05:51:36
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
I was going to say, for most of our history, with a lot harder to work out here in the summer because we didn’t have enclosed rehearsals. You know, artists used to rehearse big musical theater numbers in an open air pavilion behind the open air stage. And then when it rained, too, it meant the show stopped. So it was a it was a huge advantage for us to have that enclosed.

00:05:51:41 – 00:06:01:00
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So now we get a little bit of rain while the audience might get a little wet for a short amount of time, the show can always go on, which is sort of forward to what it is to do to be in the theater business.

00:06:01:04 – 00:06:17:28
Ruth Baum Bigus
Absolutely. You had alluded a couple of minutes ago about how the 1980s were this time of financial struggle. What was it that some of these leaders brought to the table that turned it around, if it was pretty serious, whether it was starlight was going to make it?

00:06:17:33 – 00:06:41:52
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
It was. And I think a lot of what they brought was a spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation and saying even though the the Starlight tradition had been one thing for much of its history, that there was an openness to changing how we operated and not saying, hey, just because we’re a nonprofit, that we can’t think like a business and we can’t figure out how to how to add new revenue streams and expand programing.

00:06:41:52 – 00:07:03:55
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And I think it was really that that spirit of business leaders that cared a lot about what starlight meant to this city, that created some opportunities and some new ideas and some new models that really led to things like closing the stage house to go, Hey, is open air theater going to be what works? At one time, there were as many as 40 outdoor theaters that were presenting Broadway series, and now there’s just two in the whole country.

00:07:03:55 – 00:07:12:04
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So Starlight wasn’t alone in that financial hardship. But we are now closer to a loan and are successful sort of continuing.

00:07:12:09 – 00:07:26:08
Ruth Baum Bigus
You mentioned that there’s the Muni in Saint Louis, that that is the other producing outdoor big partner. Is there collaboration between Starlight and Muni in what’s presented? Do you do any sharing of productions?

00:07:26:13 – 00:07:43:46
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So there certainly has been over the years and actually through the pandemic, as we all came out of that period, there was a lot more collaboration as we were all trying to get back on our feet. And so we did do a co-production with the Muni in 2021. They did On your feet there and then on your feet came here.

00:07:43:51 – 00:07:56:46
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So I think there’s a lot more openness to that, just as everyone in the theater industry is still kind of in a recovery period of going, how do we all make sure that we’re putting the shows on the stage that are going to get as many people into the seats as possible.

00:07:56:51 – 00:07:58:55
Ruth Baum Bigus
As they say, butts in seats, right?

00:07:59:00 – 00:08:02:28
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Button seats. That’s the name of the game.

00:08:02:33 – 00:08:09:36
Ruth Baum Bigus
I alluded in the introduction, you’ve been connected with Starlight for quite a while. Share with us your journey with that starlight.

00:08:09:41 – 00:08:30:07
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Well, I feel like my whole life has had a little bit of starlight in it. I often refer to myself as a recovering theater kid because I grew up doing theater and music, but I also grew up coming to Starlight and many of my childhood memories are with my family coming out here to shows. My first show coming out here was in 1989 to a production of Annie.

00:08:30:12 – 00:08:49:57
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
As you might imagine, if you’re a little red headed kid, you do a lot of productions of any kind of music. So I vividly remember coming out for that. And then as I got older, when we started to establish and expand what our community engagement programs were, one of those programs, which is a high school musical theater recognition program.

00:08:50:02 – 00:09:22:39
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
I was actually in high school at the time that that program was founded. So our Blue Star Awards, which now sees almost 54. There are 54 high schools that participated in that program this year. The very first year, when it was a much smaller program, my school was one of the early participants in the Blue Star Awards. And then I also like to share that we have a very robust third longest running education program is actually a paid arts administration internship program where you get to work 40 hours a week out here and all the various positions that make a theater run.

00:09:22:51 – 00:09:45:06
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
That started in the eighties, but I started here as a paid summer intern. I was working in event management my very first summer before being hired on full time. So not quite 20 years later. It’s it’s been quite the journey and a little bit of a pinch me. Sometimes I feel like I’m living a dream to now be in this role and to be able to restore the Starlight legacy forward.

00:09:45:10 – 00:09:58:37
Ruth Baum Bigus
And it’s so interesting that Starlight finally has a woman at the helm. Now, you would have thought theater was that progressive entity, and you’re the first. How does it feel? What’s it like?

00:09:58:42 – 00:10:21:36
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
You know, I. I will say that there is there is certainly a little bit of pressure and honor to being the first of anything. I also think in the theater industry across the country, there’s a lot of firsts right now. So there’s just a lot of change happening with the sort of traditional leadership of a theater’s were and what they are now.

00:10:21:36 – 00:10:56:08
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And I think part of that is when you think about who the primary demographic for a theater audience is at Starlight, it’s it’s middle aged women. So having someone, I think at the helm that understands sort of that core audience, but also for me is very interested in how we extend the Starlight traditions and new audiences. It’s been it’s been an honor and I feel very lucky that I had a board of directors and frankly, a staff that has been nothing but supportive and confident to where I would say being a woman is clearly not the most important qualifier for the job.

00:10:56:13 – 00:11:05:46
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But I certainly think about what it means for future women to think about what it is to be in leadership. So I carry that responsibility pretty seriously.

00:11:05:51 – 00:11:19:25
Ruth Baum Bigus
Your predecessor had been there nine years. I think in that position, and the person before that had been an even longer tenured individual, if I’m remembering correct, I know Barbara was there for a long time.

00:11:19:30 – 00:11:27:40
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Barbara was there was though Bob was the CEO when I started, and he’d been there for almost 30 years. Right. And we actually had a CEO between him and my.

00:11:27:45 – 00:11:29:03
Ruth Baum Bigus
Okay.

00:11:29:07 – 00:11:52:14
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But that but Bob was here and he’s actually who I remember as being a lot of the inspiration for how I look to to run the theater today. And he also was with the theater through that period of hardship in the eighties and really was a turnaround leader who really believed and could tell the story of Starlight in a way that resonated and brought the community together.

00:11:52:19 – 00:12:16:34
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And that’s what I think for me is the biggest priority is to say, you know, when you say someone who hasn’t been on this program before from Starlight, I think that’s one of the things I want to make sure we’re doing at Starlight is that we’re a really active part of this community so that we’re not just waiting for people to come to us, but we’re out there inviting people and telling them why it’s so important for them to come out to experience theater and music here.

00:12:16:39 – 00:12:38:32
Ruth Baum Bigus
Transition. It was a time of leadership transition. I guess my point I was driving is you had somebody driving the bus, so to speak, for nine years at least, you had been on board. Can you share with us a little bit what that transition was like and maybe some tips for other organizations that go through a leadership change?

00:12:38:33 – 00:12:41:19
Ruth Baum Bigus
It’s not always so smooth and easy.

00:12:41:24 – 00:13:01:55
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
It’s not. And I feel fortunate that I knew a year and a half, almost before our official transition, our board had met to decide that this was kind of the path we were on. So we had a good amount of time and I was fortunate that my predecessor was supportive in both understanding that we were not the same people.

00:13:01:55 – 00:13:15:27
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So that didn’t mean that I was going to do things the same way that he did things. But and he would often say not how I would do it, but he would disagree and say, but it’s going to be it’s going to be your call and your organization. And I support whatever you decide. I’m just here to counsel you.

00:13:15:27 – 00:13:34:51
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So I think for leadership transition, that’s maybe the most important part, is that you have a supportive person off ramping who can respect that, that the new person is not going to be a clone of them. And so I think that’s part of what made things very effective for us. And he actually so he came from Saint Louis before.

00:13:34:51 – 00:13:59:47
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So he ran Fox Theater in Saint Louis for almost 15 years and was there almost 30 years. So he brought a lot of expertise in presenting Broadway and touring Broadway. And so he’s actually stayed on as a consultant for us in that space as we need him over the next couple of years. So that’s also been really helpful to know you got a phone call away if you’ve got questions or want to understand the history before.

00:13:59:47 – 00:14:02:28
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So you’re making a really informed decision.

00:14:02:33 – 00:14:28:37
Ruth Baum Bigus
That’s great that it’s been a positive rather than in some organizations someone is leaving not maybe of their own volition or just is uncomfortable. It’s great that you’ve got that kind of organizational support to move things forward. We’re talking with Lindsay Rood Clifford. She is the president CEO, Starlight Theater, continuing on with our conversation. I think people would like to know a peek behind the curtain.

00:14:28:37 – 00:14:41:28
Ruth Baum Bigus
How does Starlight decide what’s going to be on that stage? Sure, the people that helped make that decision And what do you look at when you’re choosing your 12 month season?

00:14:41:33 – 00:15:03:56
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So that’s a great question because it’s changing right now. So I would say historically, really what has gone on the stage has been chosen by the person in my seat. And so especially where Broadway is concerned, we also, as we’ve added live music, we have a someone that oversees the concert programing. So he really works with our concert promoter partner on the concert side of things.

00:15:04:01 – 00:15:24:54
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But as we look ahead, I’m a much more collaborative leader. So I we’ve started sort of been talking about how do we change up how we make those decisions so that we’re really thinking about it. And the term that I use over and over that my team could probably repeat is I’m really interested in how we broadly accessible content on this stage.

00:15:24:59 – 00:15:44:12
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So that still means diverse, but it means we’ve got a lot of seats. So how are we doing our part in the sort of arts ecosystem to say, what is the kind of content that is going to reach the most people? Knowing that I believe there is a place for all theater, but not all theater is for everybody.

00:15:44:17 – 00:16:04:39
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But when you have almost 8000 seats, I think our our place in the world is as they happen, we get as many people out here. So we now are talking about it. I’ve got both our folks that oversee Broadway and our folks that oversee concerts and our community engagement. Vice president and that I’d say as a change to say, how are we also thinking about all content through that lens as well?

00:16:04:51 – 00:16:28:21
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Where can we engage partners? How can we have impact on student population? How can we have value added educational programing? And so those are a big piece of how we’re going to be making the decisions moving forward. Ultimately, my call, but I think a much bigger team effort now to hopefully make the right decisions in a in a very different landscape for theater and music than it was a few years ago.

00:16:28:26 – 00:16:46:00
Ruth Baum Bigus
The Starlight look to the community in any way for input. I know years ago when we used to go see a show, it almost immediately after or at the theater when it was only on paper, you know, there’d be a survey. What do you want to see? What did you like, what didn’t you like, etc..

00:16:46:05 – 00:17:05:49
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So we still have a very strong survey culture here. So we are often after almost every single show, surveys still go out. So we’re always asking the people that are here what their experience is, how we can improve it. And those that have been coming a long time are also well conditioned to send direct emails to our to know what they see.

00:17:05:50 – 00:17:36:38
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And I often say the difference in that is those emails and that input comes with so much care for this organization, even when it is critical. It comes from a place of deep care and investment. So I would take that any day of the week over. Nothing more silence. I think one of the things that we’re trying to figure out now is how are we again out in community to ask those that maybe haven’t been here yet what they want to see and what would get them to come through these gates and feel like they belong?

00:17:36:43 – 00:17:49:30
Ruth Baum Bigus
I would be remiss if I didn’t let you do a deep dive into, you know, your community engagement, your education, your your youth initiatives. When you share with us a little bit all the robust things you’re doing.

00:17:49:35 – 00:18:08:03
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
I would be so happy to, because I think it is one of the most important things we do that really sets us apart from a lot of places that you see theater music as. It is certainly about the amazing things that happen on our stage. But these programs are what give Starlight its heart. They are really centered around a couple of things, which is access to the arts.

00:18:08:08 – 00:18:32:35
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So programs like our Community Ticket program, we give away 364 tickets to every single Broadway show we do. So that could be upwards of 12 to 15000 tickets each summer that go out to this year, over 150 nonprofit partners. And so that’s a huge access initiative for us that does exactly what I was saying is one of our priorities, which gets people that otherwise wouldn’t come out here, out here to experience theater.

00:18:32:40 – 00:18:53:06
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And in the future, we’re looking to expand on that so that everything we do has sort of that free component for access. We also have some great education programs, and I always caveat that our education is not necessarily just about training artists, although we certainly have programs that are training singers and dancers, but really that are focused on on the business of theater and music.

00:18:53:06 – 00:19:22:14
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So that’s where that internship program comes into play. We have a wonderful scholarship program that was founded and dedicated to funding performing arts training for Bipoc Middle School students. So a very specific demographic. The founders felt like middle school is one of the toughest time in your life. So that is the perfect time. If someone has an interest in the arts to give them that vote of confidence and the resources to pursue that.

00:19:22:19 – 00:19:43:23
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So those are all around access and then sort of workforce development, which I think is a little bit of a differentiator as we look to the future. We’re looking to expand those programs to really looking at access from an audience development standpoint, how do we reach more young people to get them into theater and music? We have amazing theaters like The Coterie in the City where you can sit cross-legged for the first time.

00:19:43:23 – 00:20:02:14
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But how can we help make their next step up to what theater is? Because this environment is very accessible for a lot of people, because you’re not in that black box theater environment, you’re outside. It’s a little more casual. So it’s really a great first experience for young people and young families to come out for theater and music.

00:20:02:18 – 00:20:26:15
Ruth Baum Bigus
Well, kudos to you all for doing that. I mean, of course I’m biased because I’m a theater goer, a theater performer, theater supporter and interested in it. But I think it becomes for a lot of people, kind of a level playing field when you have that experience of art that you may have seen a bazillion times or maybe it’s your first time and to be out under the stars is really kind of a cool thing.

00:20:26:20 – 00:20:47:31
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Very memorable. We talk a lot about there’s research that supports that when you’re outside because you’re in nature. What that combination of nature and music and storytelling, it creates these very visceral memories for people. And often they’re the funny ones were what they remember is the show they got rained on or that it was so hot they were sliding out of their seats.

00:20:47:45 – 00:21:05:27
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But they remember those shows, those days, those memories with such clarity that it’s really remarkable. And a lot of people have that memory of, Oh, that was the first place I saw a concert, or that was the first place I saw theater. I remember exactly what I saw and where I was sitting. I mean, the memories are pretty remarkable in that regard.

00:21:05:27 – 00:21:08:05
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And I think that’s what makes it special.

00:21:08:09 – 00:21:23:32
Ruth Baum Bigus
Give us another sneak peek. How many people are working with you? Added starlight and let’s talk all told. Let’s talk everybody from painting the set, moving the trash cans, working in concessions to sitting in executive meetings with you.

00:21:23:36 – 00:21:48:16
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But we have a full time year round staff of 52, and that expands in the summer time to include another 250 seasonal employees. And so seasonal employees that are working in concessions and parking and security artists on our stage when we produce the show. So 250 and then another 200 to 200 plus volunteers that also are sort of critical to our operation as well.

00:21:48:16 – 00:21:52:12
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So I include them as part of the team because we couldn’t do without them.

00:21:52:17 – 00:21:57:11
Ruth Baum Bigus
That’s a huge team in the summer particularly. Wow, that’s a lot of people to wrangle.

00:21:57:16 – 00:22:04:14
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Yeah, it is. It’s a it’s a big growth of sort of expanding and contracting every year.

00:22:04:19 – 00:22:32:44
Ruth Baum Bigus
And I know this summer went back to something that was really a core tradition, I think of Starlight probably in its mid history. More that I remember is local casting using local talent. So. So what’s the current philosophy and things moving forward? Will we see more of that? Is that part of now the mix of starlight to see our friends who are professional or just so incredibly talented?

00:22:32:49 – 00:22:55:12
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
So I’m glad you bring that up because it is actually one of the key differentiators about Starlight at this point for a theater of our size to not only present nationally, touring Broadway to presents live music, you know, tours and concerts from national headliners, but then also we’re a producer. And you’re right, that is the cornerstone to our history.

00:22:55:17 – 00:23:15:18
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And we’ve continued to do it through the years where we are the the organization that is casting and making sure their sets and hiring local musicians for the orchestra. And and we often feel that our secret weapon for the very reason that that’s part of how we are part of the community and part of the artistic community even though they’re big shows in a big house.

00:23:15:18 – 00:23:44:03
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
But this that this past summer we did a production of Legally Blond, which is the biggest show that we’ve done since before the pandemic. So big cast. And it combines Broadway stars and nationally touring artists with local talent. And that cast is actually it was 60% local and included a team chorus, which we’re able to do through a very special clause in our union agreement that allows us to have a community chorus.

00:23:44:08 – 00:24:11:06
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
As long as those students are connected with those community engagement programs I mentioned. So that’s a really neat thing where, you know, upwards of 20 students each year get to be a part of an ensemble working with Broadway stars on the Starlight Stage. So I think no matter what, that will be something that we are committed to doing, whether we’re producing it or whether we’re co-producing it with other regional theaters like the Muni, for example, or we work often with Pittsburgh, Cee-Lo and stuff like that, at least once a summer.

00:24:11:11 – 00:24:31:44
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
I think as we look ahead, it’s more about our how does the season come together to have those broadly accessible titles that I talked about? What’s out there from a touring standpoint? If a touring touring shows can help fulfill in great, but if not, then I’m personally very open to producing more because I know what it does for this community and I enjoyed it legally.

00:24:31:44 – 00:24:47:01
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Blond This summer, the laughter of the audiences and the parents of students and parents of now artists that travel and are on Broadway but are from Kansas City and all of their families getting to see them back home on our stage. So it’s a really important thing that we do.

00:24:47:06 – 00:25:04:52
Ruth Baum Bigus
Well, kudos to you for for loving it. And hopefully, maybe we’ll see more of it. Got a few minutes left. I would love to hear kind of your thoughts. Starlight moving forward, where do you see Starlight headed, though?

00:25:04:57 – 00:25:17:54
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Where starlight is headed in the short term is we’re going to be seeing some pretty big physical improvements to the venue in the next handful of years, and we’ll be sharing more about that publicly this fall.

00:25:17:54 – 00:25:20:06
Ruth Baum Bigus
So I’ll just say.

00:25:20:11 – 00:25:48:57
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
To say that the face of starlight is going to change, pretty significant in the next 3 to 4 years. You’re also going to see some programing expansions. I mentioned a lot of what we’re doing now with our programs, but as we look ahead, I would say our biggest focus is really between audience development. Are we getting new people to come out to Starlight, whether that’s in the summertime or whether that’s through other programing at our winter setup, and then also what their experiences?

00:25:48:57 – 00:26:11:01
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Because I think one of our biggest differentiators out here, as I’ve said, is it’s not just about what’s on the stage that’s important, that’s why people come. But it is about that end to end experience of being at this place. We experience every summer. I’ve experienced this summer, people that come up that have never been here before, and they’re blown away by this little Castle theater in the park.

00:26:11:06 – 00:26:28:37
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
It’s a really unique asset that I think sometimes we take for granted. So I think a real focus on how we get it, get new people out here and how we continue to improve what that experience is and how we expand the programs that sort of support both of those through access and through and through that workforce development piece too.

00:26:28:39 – 00:26:34:50
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
How are we getting people interested in being a part of this wonderful, crazy business?

00:26:34:55 – 00:26:48:09
Ruth Baum Bigus
All right. You have a lot of stuff out in the summer. This summer has been hot, Summer has been cold. It’s been all over the place. Let’s deal with heat, because that’s a normal thing. How does starlight kind of help people in that regard?

00:26:48:14 – 00:27:10:39
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Well, about six years ago now, we put in some new big bands that are out here that if you haven’t been out in the last decade, I highly encourage coming out to see the impact that they have. They really they create a breeze out here. So on the hot nights where normally you’d feel that hot summer air sort of sitting upon you, they’re moving the air and keeping you cool.

00:27:10:39 – 00:27:26:00
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
And I think that has been a huge help on the heat side of things. As we know, the world is only getting hotter, so we know that that’s something we have to contend with. So I think those have really helped. And I think some of the physical improvements that I mentioned for the future are also going to be a huge help for that concern, too.

00:27:26:00 – 00:27:46:14
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
We know that what people want from Starlight is certainly to preserve that open air environment, but anything we can do to make them a little more comfortable is always welcome. So we’re always trying to balance those two things so that you can experience the magic of theater under the stars and outside, while also not being so sticky that you’re sliding off your seat.

00:27:46:19 – 00:28:03:58
Ruth Baum Bigus
Now. Lindsay, Thank you. We want to send everybody to KC Starlight dot com. You can learn about the history. You can learn about shows to see. You can learn about opportunities for youth all over the place. Just check it out. And we’re so grateful for you to take time and finally get to sit in that hot seat, as we call it.

00:28:03:58 – 00:28:07:02
Ruth Baum Bigus
That is, of course, we’re so glad you joined us.

00:28:07:07 – 00:28:10:29
Lindsey Rood-Clifford
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

00:28:10:34 – 00:28:34:52
Ruth Baum Bigus
Thank you for joining us for KC Cares, Kansas City’s nonprofit Voice. We’re produced by Charitable communications, also a nonprofit. This KC Care segment was brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, www.kauffman.org. If you’d like to be a guest on KC Cares, visit our Web site. KC Cares Online talk and spread the love. You’ll find us on Facebook and Twitter at KC Cares Radio and on Instagram.

00:28:34:57 – 00:28:46:01
Ruth Baum Bigus
KC Cares Online. Don’t forget, you can catch us on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m. on ESPN, 15, ten and 94.5 FM. Thank you for joining us on KC Cares.

 

 

Previous Episodes!

Black Community Fund Kansas City

Jul 14, 2023

NaTika Rowles | Executive Director

In this interview, Ruth Baum Bigus of KC Cares talks with NaTika Rowles, the executive director of the Black Community Fund (BCF). The BCF is a philanthropic organization that has been investing in the African-American community of Kansas City for over 40 years. The fund has provided more than $4.5 million to over 200 nonprofit organizations, focusing on areas such as education, human services, arts, culture, humanities, and faith organizations. NaTika discusses the fund’s shift in focus during the pandemic, its innovative grant-making strategies, and its commitment to supporting black-led, black-serving nonprofits.

visit them here: blackcommunityfund.org

 

What Nonprofit Questions are Answered?

  1. What is the Black Community Fund’s mission?
  2. How has the Black Community Fund adapted its strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic?
  3. What types of organizations does the Black Community Fund support?
  4. How does the Black Community Fund’s grant-making process work?
  5. How can individuals or organizations contribute to the Black Community Fund?

Find us on

Facebook:@ Kccaresradio

Twitter: @kccaresradio

Instagram: @Kccaresonline

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Also available on

Itunes || Spotify || Stitcher || Soundcloud || Youtube 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

KC Cares, Kansas City’s nonprofit voice, tells the stories of Kansas City nonprofits and connects them with the community.  

Produced by Charitable Communications 

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

In partnership with: 

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Take risks. Own success. Be Uncommon.

TW: @kauffmanfdn FB: @kauffmanfdn IG: @kauffmanfdn

Transcript:

00:00:01:06 – 00:00:23:01
Ruth Baum Bigus
Welcome to KC Cares. We’re Kansas City’s nonprofit voice, and we’re telling the stories of Kansas City nonprofits and the people behind them. KC Cares is the intersection of the nonprofit and profit communities making Kansas City a better place to live, work and play.

00:00:54:16 – 00:01:22:11
Ruth Baum Bigus
This KC Care segment is brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. www.Kauffman dot org. I’m Ruth Baum Bigus with the insight of philanthropic leaders in our community, the black community Fund was established as a fund of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation by the Hall Family Foundation. Its purpose was to invest in the African-American community of Kansas City to meet critical needs.

00:01:22:21 – 00:01:49:28
Ruth Baum Bigus
Now, 40 years later, the Black Community Fund lifts others, providing more than 4.5 million to over 200 nonprofit organizations. During that time, organizations focused on education, human services, arts, culture, humanities and faith organizations. Now, Teeka Royals is executive director of the Black Community Fund, and we welcome her as we dig into the work of this organization that’s making change in our community.

00:01:50:08 – 00:01:52:10
Ruth Baum Bigus
The ticket, so great to have you.

00:01:52:12 – 00:01:54:13
NaTika Rowles
Thank you, Ruth. Thanks for having me.

00:01:55:05 – 00:02:23:21
Ruth Baum Bigus
Well, in full disclosure to our audience, we last had someone from the Black Community Fund pre-pandemic, and I would bet by a year or two, maybe before then. So it’s been some time and we’ve been watching around her social media and everything. You all are active, vibrant, doing all kinds of things. Bring us up to speed, though. Give us an overview of the fund and your focus.

00:02:24:22 – 00:03:03:03
NaTika Rowles
Yeah. So I’ve been with the fund. You said the last time you spoke to someone was pre-pandemic. So I think I came along during the pandemic in 2020. And up until then, our fund was focused on grant making scholarships to black students, convening around critical issues that concern the black community. We also did a little bit of convening around the arts and cultural events as well, and I’ve added a little thing that we do, which is mobilizing black philanthropy and communities of color.

00:03:03:03 – 00:03:48:22
NaTika Rowles
So that’s pretty much what our focus has been. We honed in on targeting grassroots, black led black serving non-profits and supporting them, and the need for that has always been around and we’ve always done that. But after during 2020 and all of the racial unrest and social injustices that were going on and living through a pandemic, our board decided that the disparities were this so blatant in the black community and what the needs were that we we just drove into that and started supporting smaller, grassroot and nonprofits.

00:03:48:23 – 00:04:09:27
Ruth Baum Bigus
Well, that’s an interesting pivot and very insightful of a board. So, so much to dove into here. I want to go back to what the board did, but I want to let the audience know. And you came on board in the pandemic?

00:04:10:02 – 00:04:11:00
NaTika Rowles
Yeah.

00:04:11:00 – 00:04:19:05
Ruth Baum Bigus
And you share a little bit what that was like and how you weathered that. Oh, my gosh. Huge storm.

00:04:20:00 – 00:04:53:25
NaTika Rowles
Yeah. So transition is hard. So not only were we transitioning with a new executive director, we were transition, transitioning the needs of the black community as well. So it was difficult, but it was a thing that needed to happen. So for me, we just kind of I just kind of took it as a way to renew, reimagine, just kind of rethink.

00:04:54:03 – 00:05:20:15
NaTika Rowles
But DCF is and what it was and how to stay relevant and those things. So we were literally just trying things. We wanted to do philanthropy different. We knew that we had they had been talking about this. As I said, I came on in 2020. They’ve been doing this for they’ve been supporting, you know, black led, black serving nonprofits.

00:05:20:29 – 00:05:43:23
NaTika Rowles
So we started to rethink what what we could do, how we can take the burden off of the nonprofit, how can we show up in a more trust based philanthropy space? You know, that term was thrown around a lot. How can we focus more on equity? How can we not just allow people to jump through hoops for money?

00:05:44:13 – 00:06:11:15
NaTika Rowles
Because we really just wanted to help in a way that during 2020 it wasn’t happening there. These are the nonprofits that we were serving, didn’t have access. They didn’t have the banking relationships. They didn’t have the social networking to access funds. So in 2020 and yeah, it was difficult because the world was on fire, right? So yeah, we were working from home, you know, that was introduced to the board.

00:06:12:07 – 00:06:36:19
NaTika Rowles
We had to build relationships and you know, we still had a job to do. So even the scholarships that we were giving out that year, that was difficult because they weren’t on campus. There. There, the the things that they had planned to do were shifting. So we had to be, you know, pretty flexible in all of our giving in that way.

00:06:36:29 – 00:07:03:17
NaTika Rowles
But I think the thing that that just kind of turned everything around for us was that the board knew all of this stuff was going on in the world. Right. And so statements were going out. Everybody focused on the equity statement, on diversity, justice. So we put a statement out. But the board was adamant about what are we going to do beyond this statement?

00:07:03:18 – 00:07:39:16
NaTika Rowles
We need to put some money to this statement. So we literally just wrote checks to nonprofits that were serving the black community and voting, registration, housing and food insecurity as well. And we granted out $100,000 that summer, no grant competition, no cycle, no application, literally. Here’s a check for the work that you’ve been doing and the work that we need you to continue to do during this pandemic, during this time, you know, of of racial and social unrest in our country.

00:07:39:17 – 00:08:13:17
Ruth Baum Bigus
So so the board really drove this change with you, with the leadership on land, living on Zoom or Microsoft teams or whatever. We all lived on and lived through. Now that we’ve kind of come out of it, like come out of the pandemic, let’s say that I, I don’t know that the rest of the world has changed tremendously, but how are you now moving forward with that kind of sea change that started during the pandemic?

00:08:14:18 – 00:08:42:08
NaTika Rowles
Yeah. So I mean, we had to shift a little bit, you know, for a couple of years we had to do our events online that was new and different. Nothing that, you know, no anybody else had to do. Everybody was doing this. But our focus is still there. We are committed to serving nonprofits that are serving the black community in a way that in a in a way that’s, I would say, more innovative.

00:08:43:10 – 00:09:05:27
NaTika Rowles
We’re open to how we’re making grants now. It’s not just an application. Last year we held a workshop where we paid nonprofits to come to the workshop. We did a pitch competition. So what it did was and it may be a new because I don’t know any better, I’m like, Yeah, we can do that. Let’s do it. Let’s try it, you know?

00:09:06:18 – 00:09:30:18
NaTika Rowles
Okay, you did that last. Okay, let’s do something different. And they were willing to to allow me to be flexible with with ideas as well. So we literally just created this think tank and we said, what? What don’t we like about philanthropy right now? Let’s just not do that. So what does that look like? Oh, let’s try this.

00:09:31:17 – 00:09:55:24
NaTika Rowles
At the end of the day, we helped fund a lot of smaller nonprofits that would not have gotten funding if we hadn’t stepped in. At the end of the day, those nonprofits went on to bigger, larger relationships with foundations and secured larger dollars over multiple years. And that’s what we wanted to do. Right. So we’re continuing in that.

00:09:55:24 – 00:10:02:04
NaTika Rowles
We have some amazing things coming up in order to continue that work in the black community.

00:10:02:25 – 00:10:04:06
Ruth Baum Bigus
You’ve created a bridge.

00:10:05:12 – 00:10:05:23
NaTika Rowles
Okay.

00:10:06:26 – 00:10:35:06
Ruth Baum Bigus
That’s what that’s what it sounds like. So part of KC cares focus, too. We love all nonprofits, but it’s it’s an extra warm feeling when we can bring a smaller nonprofit that maybe doesn’t have that footprint. And it sounds like you are kind of focused on some of those folks that sometimes are that small voice that doesn’t get heard or there’s so much other talking in the world that that they miss out.

00:10:35:06 – 00:10:45:25
Ruth Baum Bigus
So congratulations to you all. All right. You mentioned all these new insightful things. Share with our audience a little bit about your areas of focus and the kind of new things that you are doing.

00:10:46:12 – 00:11:16:24
NaTika Rowles
Yeah. So I’ll talk about the grant making syntax kind of of what people now they know us for before it was scholarships and we really wanted to shift that. Now we’re like we do a lot of things and sounding the alarm on those things. So with our grant making. I think last year we would probably grind it out over $200,000 to grassroots nonprofits, black led, black serving, right.

00:11:18:06 – 00:11:54:07
NaTika Rowles
The cool thing about that was we revamped our application. It’s pretty simple. It’s pretty straightforward. And as I said earlier, we don’t want people to have to jump through hoops to obtain our dollars. Right. We looked at that. We also looked at different ways that we can engage grantees, especially those that don’t have the social networks and don’t know may not have funds to invest in professional development or resource development.

00:11:54:21 – 00:12:32:24
NaTika Rowles
So as I mentioned before, we created what we call the Vision Workshop. We invited 40 nonprofits to come to this workshop to receive training on storytelling, marketing and social media outcome measurement. Right. And it was got them in a room. The feedback that we received was that you see us Black Community Fund, we’re not alone. We’re out here doing this work and you haven’t forgotten about us because we understand that most of these nonprofits are not paying themselves.

00:12:33:01 – 00:13:00:16
NaTika Rowles
They don’t have the budgets to invest in salaries. Most of them are volunteer. We decided that we were going to give them money to come. So every nonprofit that came received a $500 check at the end. And then we were like, Well, how can we give them some, you know, some more money? It’d be great. So at the end of that workshop, they were invited to pitch our enter a pitch pitch competition.

00:13:01:06 – 00:13:25:02
NaTika Rowles
And it was just like you and I are talking, Ruth They just talked to two people about their nonprofit. And then we decided right then and there who was going to get some money. There wasn’t an application process. So the next day, that evening, we invited these nonprofits to our vision gala. It was a gala to just celebrate Black philanthropy.

00:13:25:11 – 00:14:00:25
NaTika Rowles
It was held during Black Philanthropy Month, which is the national recognized time during August. Every August. So we invited them to come to this gala. And at the gala we made the announcement, the winners of the pitch competition, and we granted eight nonprofits $64,000. And so that was pretty exciting. I love to give away money. One of the one of the nonprofits that I don’t know anybody who’s as excited as Attica about giving money away.

00:14:00:25 – 00:14:34:14
NaTika Rowles
So that’s what we’re doing with grant making. If I can talk a little bit about the scholarships this year, our 40th year, our anniversary year, we did grant 40 scholarships to black students to continue their education. And this is like adult learners, graduate school of high school. Yes, community college, what have you. So 40 of those kiddos are young black students.

00:14:34:24 – 00:15:04:07
NaTika Rowles
I call them kiddos and in a sum of $176,000. Now, that may not seem like a lot of money. And we are a small fund. We’re relatively small, a small funder. But that’s that scholarship. Most of those scholarships were in the sum of $5,000. So that’s that’s a game changer for most of these students, right? Yeah. So and we were pretty adamant about you know, that that amount.

00:15:04:15 – 00:15:41:00
NaTika Rowles
Now we do have some scholarships that were around $1,000 for a student. But overall, so the $176,000 in education for black students. So I’d say we’re trying to chip at that. But financial burden gap there and then convening around critical issues. So we’re in conversations with some community leaders about what we want to talk about, what we want to bring people around issues facing the black community.

00:15:41:10 – 00:16:03:18
NaTika Rowles
Where do you on that? In a very sensitive way because we’re not doing this work. We’re not programing. So we’re talking to these organizations that are boots on the ground. They are in proximity with what’s going on in the black community and to see what do we need to talk about right. Or what what do we need to lift that?

00:16:03:18 – 00:16:38:06
NaTika Rowles
What do we need to give a voice like KC cares? What platform do we need to create for you? So we did create a podcast last year, kind of been talking about it throughout the pandemic because why not? Everybody’s on line, right? That was one of my great ideas. So the podcast drop is this year, during our 40th year, and we just talked to leaders of nonprofits and some volunteers about, you know, volunteerism in the black community, affordable housing in the black community, community development, things like that.

00:16:39:00 – 00:16:50:12
NaTika Rowles
So I urge everyone to listen to that. Yeah. So and then now we’re inching up on our big event that’s coming up in a in the next month. Oh my God.

00:16:50:12 – 00:16:53:27
Ruth Baum Bigus
Is here is the panic.

00:16:55:23 – 00:17:17:20
NaTika Rowles
Yes. And we will be celebrating 40 years of giving. It’s our legacy gala. And here’s the thing, Ruth. We’ve been doing this for 40 years, right and right. Kind of been under the radar. So this gap, this this gala is to tell people week, this is what we’ve been doing and this is what we’re going to continue to do for the next 40 years.

00:17:17:20 – 00:17:39:27
NaTika Rowles
And we’re celebrating that. And then we want to invite people along for to mobilize their giving, to mobilize their philanthropy. Right. And we want to we want everybody to look at themselves as a philanthropist, especially black, because this is what we do. Right. So I’m excited. What’s going on?

00:17:39:27 – 00:17:49:27
Ruth Baum Bigus
Where is the best place for folks to go to find out what everything that you’re doing, find out about your event, look at your grant making opportunities, etc..

00:17:50:19 – 00:18:17:24
NaTika Rowles
Yeah. So we do have a website in that black community find out or so you can definitely visit our website. We’re on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Our offices are out of the Greater Payne City Community Foundation on Broadway. You can pop in. Give me a call. Yeah. So there’s tons of ways to get in touch with us, but I would say our website is probably the easiest.

00:18:18:05 – 00:18:19:09
NaTika Rowles
And the social media.

00:18:21:04 – 00:18:41:28
Ruth Baum Bigus
And again, for full transparency, just disclosure. Folks that are not black or African-American, could they apply for grants if they’re serving the black community or really focused on, you know, black leadership, black, etc.? I think.

00:18:43:05 – 00:19:06:27
NaTika Rowles
Yeah, they can they can definitely apply and we prioritize black lives black survey. So what that means is that we may look at them more. We, we focus on that, right. But if there is a program that just happens to have a white area that’s serving the black community and serving them well, then they could definitely be funded.

00:19:06:27 – 00:19:31:09
NaTika Rowles
And if you look at some of our past grants, you would see that now that we have. So the focus is on serving the black community. What we found during 2020 and leading up to that was that a lot of black leaders, a lot of black professionals did not have access. And not only not only did they not have access.

00:19:31:09 – 00:19:52:10
NaTika Rowles
So there’s something real about when black people are being murdered in the street around you. Right. It’s hard to come to work that day. It’s it’s hard it’s hard to do the work that you know, that you love to do. It comes heavy. It becomes a wait. Sometimes. So our focus on black leaders is to care for them.

00:19:52:17 – 00:20:23:03
NaTika Rowles
Right. Is to let them know that we see you, that we’re here to support you, not only the work that you’re doing, but you as a person that you that they are valuable. Right. It’s not just it’s not just the work. It’s not just the programs. We know that the black community was hit hard during during that time and still really trying to process some of these things.

00:20:23:03 – 00:20:50:10
NaTika Rowles
I mean, the ebbs and flows of the social unrest, the racial unrest in our community affects black bodies. It just does. Right. So when we create a space for them to talk about capacity building, we’re also building camaraderie. I mean, most of those nonprofits are still in touch with each other. They meet I don’t even know they’re meeting.

00:20:50:10 – 00:21:10:00
NaTika Rowles
And they’re like, yeah, they built a mentorship. They built a group of people that that they can process with that are that they’re that’s in the trenches with them. So I think that’s great. That’s the focus on the black leaders.

00:21:11:17 – 00:21:24:23
Ruth Baum Bigus
Where today does the preponderance of your funds come from? You’re handing out you’re handing out money. So somewhere money’s got to be coming in, right? Somewhere.

00:21:27:25 – 00:22:01:04
NaTika Rowles
That’s a great question. I would say, um, for a while we’ve had a pretty substantial grant through the Kellogg Foundation that allowed us to do some pretty innovative work that Grant has now centered. So last year I will say that we received our largest gift from the Sanderlin Foundation a half a million dollar gift. And so but that’s the largest in 40 years.

00:22:01:04 – 00:22:41:08
NaTika Rowles
So, yeah, there’s some some private donations. We do we eat events and fundraising is not part of our resource development plan. And, and and I don’t know that that is a way that we will effectively raise funds. We have a philosophy of investing in the black community. And when we decided to do that in a radical way, like we did and we gave people started giving, well, yeah.

00:22:41:08 – 00:23:11:03
NaTika Rowles
So I don’t know. I mean, most people say you got to spend money to make money. I mean, that’s an entrepreneurship in business, but we have a mindset of whether we are supported or not. This is what the needed. So this is what we don’t do right. And having that mindset, that confidence that we are investing in the black community, people are on board with that.

00:23:11:14 – 00:23:23:28
NaTika Rowles
People want to be a part of that. It’s almost a sense of empowerment to be able to do that. So we have granted a lot of money in the past. Yeah.

00:23:24:17 – 00:23:25:02
Ruth Baum Bigus
Right.

00:23:25:22 – 00:23:55:02
NaTika Rowles
Right. A lot, almost as much as we’ve done in the past ten years. But we’ve also raised a lot of money in the past three years, more so than we’ve done in the past ten years of this fund. And that was by talking to folks like you, this platform that you have, inviting people to join us in philanthropy in a way that is relational, all alone, not transactional.

00:23:56:19 – 00:24:20:03
NaTika Rowles
And people are giving and have donors that are black leaders that are supporting us now. And that that says a lot to me. So, yeah, not an influx of funds. You know, we’re are still a funder that would welcome any donations, right? I have to say that.

00:24:20:27 – 00:24:23:23
Ruth Baum Bigus
Oh, absolutely. Of course. And go to your website. Oh.

00:24:24:09 – 00:24:25:06
NaTika Rowles
No, to my website.

00:24:26:08 – 00:24:27:07
Ruth Baum Bigus
Absolutely.

00:24:27:08 – 00:24:27:25
NaTika Rowles
Like to donate.

00:24:27:25 – 00:24:50:11
Ruth Baum Bigus
But you have such enthusiasm for this work. Give us a peek of where in the tech it came from and landed here. We feel like. Yeah, yeah. Well, here’s because you’re the you’re leading the charge. So I want, you know, the man and woman behind the curtain we want to see. Yeah.

00:24:50:11 – 00:25:23:04
NaTika Rowles
So I have a background in nonprofit on the Ely side of of running a nonprofit. So I was there with the nonprofit that we’re serving, and I think that’s where my passion comes in. I’ve been, you know, one of the leading the grassroots nonprofit writing grant up and I know. And so that’s my background. I have a husband, I have five children.

00:25:23:04 – 00:26:00:02
NaTika Rowles
And I think we we’ve been in Kansas City for about seven or eight years. My husband is from Kansas City. He’s been trying to get me here for the past 25 years of our work. And it finally happened. And it’s the best place ever. So, yeah, I just have a heart for community. I have a heart for community development in a way that citizens should be empowered right to to to change, to be the change makers in their community.

00:26:00:02 – 00:26:35:28
NaTika Rowles
So I try to interject that in any and everything I do and with the black community Fund, and I really can’t take that. You know, I really can’t sit here say, oh, yes, we’ve done all this work. But my board of directors, our board chair, I will name namedrop. Is that okay? Absolutely. Okay. So our board chair, Emmett Pearson Jr, who’s been on the board for years, is quite instrumental in the direction that Bishop has taken Desmond Bryant, who’s also been on the board as long if not as long as Emmett.

00:26:35:28 – 00:27:03:26
NaTika Rowles
He’s getting there. Huge influence on the direction of the fund and story. Shannon Barry and Dan Haley, that’s it is the Mighty Five, right? And with them, I’d say they allow me to kind of float around the city and see what we can put our hands into and find. Right. May not be a lot. I mean, we don’t have millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars.

00:27:03:26 – 00:27:09:06
Ruth Baum Bigus
But don’t tell anyone that you will. You will as.

00:27:09:09 – 00:27:14:26
NaTika Rowles
Well. And we’ll look back on this podcast and go, yep, we spoke that, but you heard it.

00:27:14:26 – 00:27:36:01
Ruth Baum Bigus
Here first on KC Kurzweil. It’s it’s your 40th anniversary, which is monumental, if you think about it and what’s happened in that 40 years. Oh, my gosh. So much change. Probably you weren’t even born yet, but you’re leading that. And I can’t believe you have five kids and you’re doing this. Oh, my gosh. Kudos to you, Mama. You work.

00:27:36:03 – 00:27:54:18
Ruth Baum Bigus
And Mama, we are so grateful for your time. I want to remind everybody to go check out the Black Community Fund doing great work. So it’s black community fund dot org. And I’m sure Nautica would answer any question that you have. Thank you so much for your time.

00:27:55:01 – 00:27:57:00
NaTika Rowles
Thanks for having me, Ruth. It was fun.

00:27:57:25 – 00:28:20:03
Ruth Baum Bigus
Yeah. Thank you for joining us. For KC Care’s Kansas City’s nonprofit voice were produced by Charitable Communications, also a nonprofit. This KC Care segment was brought to you by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, www.kauffman.org. If you’d like to be a guest on KC Cares, please visit our Web site. kccaresonline.org and spread the love.

00:28:20:03 – 00:36:22:01
Ruth Baum Bigus
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter at KC Cares Radio and on Instagram at KC Cares online. Don’t forget, you can catch us on Saturday mornings at 8 p.m. on ESPN 15:10 a.m. and 94.5 FM. Thank you for joining us on KC CARES.

 

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