This month I am proud to share a guest blog post by Chariot's Head of Strategy, Mitch Stein.
I had the distinct pleasure of moderating a discussion yesterday on Queer Inclusion with 3 sterling examples of queer nonprofit leadership - here were some of the highlights 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
From Brandon Bryant on Inclusive Strategy:
1️⃣ Practice Intentional Allyship
Don’t underestime the power of feeling truly seen by your peers, your employer, your managers, your service providers, etc. Allyship is not about box checking, it’s deeply impacting people’s lives 💞
2️⃣ Take allyship beyond Pride Month
Think about the support and acknowledgement your organization offers queer people internally and externally year round 🗓️
3️⃣ Pass the Mic
A good way to not practice performative allyship is to share “the stage” with more queer people and partner with LGBTQ orgs for new initiatives 🎤
From Eugene Lovendusky on Inclusive Communications:
1️⃣ Build Healthy Habits with Pronouns
Adopt a uniform format for people - Full Name, Job Title, Pronouns. Use that structure everywhere - spoken introductions, email signatures, name tags, etc. 🏷️
2️⃣ Create Safe(r) Spaces
Providing all-gender restrooms, removing gendered salutations when addressing an audience, training event or venue staff on these best practices are just better for everyone 🙌🏼
3️⃣ Audit your Marketing Materials
Take a deeper look at who is representing your brand in your marketing materials and make an effort to make sure those images are showing the real spectrum of humanity included in your community! 🌎
From Juliana Weissbein, CFRE (with critical input from T. Clay Buck, CFRE) on Inclusive Data:
1️⃣ Better Forms
The fewer required or binary fields, the better conversion & more informative inputs you’ll get from people 🌟
2️⃣ Eliminate Honorifics!
Just get rid of Mr. Mrs. Ms. etc. - They don’t serve anyone and lead to cringe-worthy mistakes! 🥴
3️⃣ Evaluate your Gender & Relationship Tracking
Think twice about why & how you’re tracking gender. If you’re asking for spouse, re-phrase to partner. Most important is just letting people tell you how they want to be identified and recognized - not imposing an old standard 🙅🏾♀️
We had some incredible discussion with the audience as well. Most important takeaways from those questions were:
✨ These changes are not all or nothing, take incremental steps and add on as you make progress
✨ Advocating for these changes is not only better supporting queer people, it’s better supporting everyone AND highly practical for a broad audience (not misgendering someone with a more ambiguous name, not mislabeling a relationship based on an assumption, etc.)
Anyone else who joined, let us know what your highlights were and if you have other questions, let’s talk about it! 🗣️
Download our presentation here:
Mitch Stein is the Head of Strategy for Chariot, a charitable payments company that's accelerating philanthropy. He previously founded Pond, a nonprofit marketplace and community, after leaving his role as a VP on Goldman Sachs' Technology Investment Banking team. He's a long-time board member at The LGBT Center of NYC, active alum of the Startup Leadership Program NYC and graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Juliana M. Weissbein, CFRE is a respected leader and decision influencer in regard to fundraising operations best practices. With over a decade of experience, Juliana thrives on professional growth, team success, measurable results, and inspiring fundraisers to utilize data-based strategies. Juliana currently serves as the Associate Director of Development Operations at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She has served as an AFP Global Board Member, AFP Global's 2019 Outstanding Young Professional Fundraiser and is a member of the AFP Global Women's Impact Initiative. Juliana is immediate past chair of the AFP New York City chapter’s Emerging Leaders Committee and currently serves on the chapter’s board chairing their mentorship program. She resides in Houston, TX and never turns down a good kombucha.