Welcome to The UPlift with the Tzedek Social Justice Fund!
What if we told you that the key to real change lies in open dialogues, brave spaces, and shared values? Well, we're testing out that belief and invite you to listen in, as we delve into the nuances of social justice, community engagement, and trust-based philanthropy in Asheville, NC.
The UPLift is a monthly 30-minute social justice chat dedicated to holding space for "Real Talk" in seeking "Real Change." The program leverages Tzedek’s values-based, collective liberation perspective to frame local community conversations in working to expand Tzedek’s reach, increase community awareness, and improve community engagement across our focal areas of Racial Justice, LGBTQ Justice, and Dismantling Antisemitism.
We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.
Welcome to The UPlift with the Tzedek Social Justice Fund!
What if we told you that the key to real change lies in open dialogues, brave spaces, and shared values? Well, we're testing out that belief and invite you to listen in, as we delve into the nuances of social justice, community engagement, and trust-based philanthropy in Asheville, NC.
The UPLift is a monthly 30-minute social justice chat dedicated to holding space for "Real Talk" in seeking "Real Change." The program leverages Tzedek’s values-based, collective liberation perspective to frame local community conversations in working to expand Tzedek’s reach, increase community awareness, and improve community engagement across our focal areas of Racial Justice, LGBTQ Justice, and Dismantling Antisemitism.
We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.
We're profoundly, profoundly interconnected. We don't always live that way, we don't always acknowledge it, but if we're going to hear, we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it. Can we create a we where no one's on the outside of it?
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Uplift Real Talk for Real Change with Zedek Social Justice Fund.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you for joining us today. This is series launch the Uplift with Zedek Real Talk for Real Change. We're going to dive into what we do, who we are, why we do it, but first let's start with some introductions. My name is Michael Hoban. I'm the director of communications with Zedek. I'm joined with two of my colleagues. We'll start with Libby Kiles. Libby, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm wonderful today. My name is Libby Kiles and I am the director of community today. Grant making for Zedek Social Justice Fund.
Speaker 3:All right, and we're also here with Jennifer Langton.
Speaker 4:Hey, Hi, good morning everyone. I'm Jennifer Langton and I'm the director of organizational grant making and philanthropic partnerships with Zedek Social Justice Fund.
Speaker 3:All right, sweet. So we hit on titles, but let's talk a little bit about who we are and what brings us into this work. Right, because those are just titles. So I will start myself. My name is Michael. I am a queer, trans man. I am also white. Social justice is not really a choice for me, because it is the future of my people, and by my people I mean those right Like being queer. There's a bit of a superpower experience, because in those clubs, in those spaces where we are so few and we come together as many, there is intersectionality. So when I say my people, I mean all people. So that's where I'm coming from. Libby, tell me a little bit about you.
Speaker 2:Well, first and foremost, I'm a native of Ashville, north Carolina. I am a black woman and, as such, just as you were just speaking about, social justice isn't really a choice for me. It has been a part of my life, all of my life. I truly believe that if we all subscribe to the humanity of all human beings, the world would be a better place. So I do the work that I do with Zedek because I believe that all people deserve the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. They should be thriving and not surviving, and that, just in general, if we respect one another simply on the basis of being human, we're doing the right thing. I love that, jennifer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean the same with me. I feel like we all need to work on each other's issues because we're all raised up together and we're all held to more beautiful, more equitable place so we can all be free to be who we are and just my identity. I'm a white woman, I'm a lesbian and I guess the social justice issues that were personal to me around being cisgender woman and being a lesbian that's definitely catapulted me in certain spaces of social justice, but really so many different other areas of social justice have so much meaning to me.
Speaker 3:Right. So the name we've chosen right is the uplift. That tells you a little bit about our purpose here. But we also have this tagline real talk for real change. So let's talk about what we really mean about that. For me, real talk, right, we're talking about honest conversation, and we're talking about brave, stimulating and challenging conversation. Right, we sit around here from three different, unique perspectives, but we are doing this work together, right? So what for you, is like real talk?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that really being having honest conversations and bringing in people from community, bringing in people who are really closest to issues that we wanna talk about, whether it's racial justice, lgbtq justice, dismantling anti-Semitism just really getting it into the nitty gritty questions.
Speaker 2:And also not just getting into nitty gritty questions, but being able to come together and have discussions where we agree to one thing, and that is that we don't intentionally harm each other. So it's so important for us to be honest and real and to also realize that we can't ever guarantee anyone's safety in terms of what someone says and how it might land with someone else. But what we can do is be purposeful about our intent, and we all know it's our impact and not necessarily our intent. But if we intend to have these hard, challenging conversations, we should do so with an agreement of doing the least amount of harm.
Speaker 4:Definitely Brave spaces. Right, we can at least create brave spaces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, opportunities for people to speak up, knowing that when you are brave and you speak up, that you must also be brave to hear the response, and that every response isn't necessarily gonna be what we all wanna hear. But that's a part of being human, as well as being able to accept that Even in respecting someone else's humanity there's a difference of opinion, and it's just that it's an opinion.
Speaker 3:Right, we're in relationship right and if anyone who has been in any sort of relationship, a healthy one, requires our times that we shut up and we listen and we hold space for that and we really lean in and look at ourselves and grow. And there are times that we receive that same gift, really. So that's what we're here to do in terms of real talk. What does real change look like?
Speaker 4:I think if we do like you said, both of you said if we really listen and be open to change, I think there's this potential, especially in Asheville and our community, for just really improving that local cross movement solidarity. So my issue becomes your issue. It's not just my issue alone, it's like all of our community, all of our issues. We find that commonality, those values which can bring us together and really work together.
Speaker 2:And actually discover what community is right. So we throw that word around so loosely community, community, community. But the reality is, if we're all in relationship and in community with one another, it's a natural progression that my issue is your issue and that your issue is my issue, Because when we're in community, we're in relationship. And how do you have relationship if one person is not being treated fairly while everyone else is being uplifted or treated in a way that they have privilege? And so for us to be true community, there has to be some care involved, there has to be continued relationship building and there has to be a willingness to step outside of our comfort zones to be able to hear and see and feel something other than what we do normally. Stretch.
Speaker 3:Stretch. Yeah. Ok, so if this sounds good to you, if you're looking for connecting conversations, if you're looking for an open-minded journey, well, here you are. You are in the right place. This is what we intend to do, and we will do our best in doing so. So let's talk a little bit about Zedek as an organization. So, jennifer, you've been with Zedek the longest. Can you give us a little bit of a brief history of how we came to be?
Speaker 4:Sure, definitely so. We have a parent foundation called the Mandel Foundation out of Cleveland, ohio, started by a Jewish family that left the pogroms a lot of anti-Semitism going on in Poland in the 30s. They were immigrants, but they did very well, they were very successful. They started giving back to community in the 60s. They were identified as white Jews, so they had that privilege of whiteness, but they also they were Jewish and they experienced a lot of discrimination before and once they arrived in the United States. But in giving back to community they created a number of foundations, and the Zedek Social Justice Fund is just one of those.
Speaker 4:Underneath this parent foundation and our donor, amy Mandel. She was the founder and funder of our fund and she's the one that really started her philanthropy under this back in the 80s and she really led the charge, especially around the LGBTQ justice and then later on, racial justice and dismantling anti-Semitism. And it wasn't until recently, a couple of years ago, that we really grew into our own organization. We used to be called the Amy Mandel and Katina Rotis Fund, and so we've had a series of evolutions to get where we are today.
Speaker 3:Right. So chapter one is kind of right. If we really narrow it down, we start with that kind of idealized American myth of immigrant comes and makes it in America. So chapter one. Then we have white woman seeds power. But that's not where our story stops. And when people come and ask me tell me about Zedek story, I often that's all that they want to hear about, but there's so much more. So tell me a little bit about this chapter two, chapter three, and how we have transformed from foundation held power to sharing power to community led. Tell me a little bit about that, libby.
Speaker 2:So and this is before I became an employee with Zedek but I believe it was around 2018, 2017, 2018 when Zedek well, at the time, amy Mandel and Katerina Rodespine decided to to be a little bit more reflective about the work that they were doing and they called together a group that they call community advisors, and I actually was one of the community advisors.
Speaker 4:What was beautiful about that process was there were questions that were being answered or asked and for us to answer about the process, the things that were happening through Amy Mandel and Katerina Rodespine, and I can say, as a trusted advisor, I felt very seen and heard and I think that through that process, zedek was born and some things shifted and changed and, jennifer, I'll let you tell more about that because you were actually in the process- it was an interesting process, yeah, and we also had SEDEC fellows at the time every year, and so the fellowship program grew to I think it was eight and it's last year but more and more the identities of the fellows were BIPOC, and so here was a mostly what actually was all white staff at the time, including our donor, our funder, founder Amy, and almost exclusively BIPOC fellows, and so there was something really wrong with that picture, right, and so that also really helped us sort of wake up in getting advice from community advisors. And then Desiree Attaway of the Attaway group did an equity audit on us also, and that was really revealing too. I mean, she just said like here you know, this is what you need to work on, and it was very helpful and these are the steps that you can take, and so that was really sort of the impetus for getting us going. And we ended doing community research project with Tamiko, ambrose Murray and Beth Trigg, and that was instrumental too, because we reached out to funders, we reached out to our local community, to stakeholders, to our trusted advisors and really listened to what they had to say, and so that actually informed our new organization really, our new strategic plan, our mission, our vision and everything.
Speaker 4:So it was very transformative and we really sussed out and it was probably a two-year process really having deep conversations about power and privilege, and that included, you know, a racial identity very much so and whiteness and what was the white supremacy culture that we had at SEDUC and how do we want to do things differently. But also and this is really largely untapped issue among funders is the issue of class and wealth and money and that, that, that power and privilege, part of that, so the economics of it, and that was really really really challenging and so. But the two consultants I named they were, they just kind of birthed us on that journey and we came out. I mean, we're still learning and growing, but we came out the other side and so much of a better place as an organization because of that. And then we brought on more staff, more diverse staff.
Speaker 3:It wasn't just white women anymore, white cisgender women yeah, and Amy was part of that process right yeah, and so the story, told in its full, is so more, much, more powerful and beautiful. Right, because we have the heart, and the knowledge may be lacking, but in leaning in with that heart, when that knowledge is gained and transformation happens. It's not transformation just because Amy decided, like you know, to hand over power and money. It's transformation. And who she is as a human being, she is within and with the community and who we all are I mean.
Speaker 4:The opportunities that I have personally benefited from from those choices are immense yes, yes, and during that you know I should really underscore that during that two-year process there was a point where Amy was like she realized, you know, I think I just need to step away. And there was this incredible unfolding on her part. That was really beautiful and extremely unusual as a funder who, someone, for someone, who has wealth like her, she was able to really take a deep look at the situation and she stepped away and and that just doesn't happen in philanthropy, it's very rare and she we welcomed a community base board after that and she stepped away from the board completely and basically said to staff you make the decisions because she had done her work she had done her work, and that was a deep, deep, deep internal work and she continues to do that work today.
Speaker 3:We all know as we have a relationship with her and so just total love and gratitude there. And as she stepped away, I'll be remiss if not to mention Marcia Davis stepping in and stepping up. And as Marcia is our executive director and she will be leaving us soon for, you know, beautiful next chapter endeavors on her own, but that's been an incredible experience, libby. How has that been for you?
Speaker 2:you know, being part of a black queer led organization to be honest, zedek is the first job that I've ever had in my entire life and I'm so many years old where I honestly feel seen and heard, respected, and it is the greatest.
Speaker 2:It feels really good to know, and I'll tell you pretty emphatically that the fact that it was black lead and queer lead was very instrumental in my willingness to join the team.
Speaker 2:I've taught for 22 years CEO the YWCA and in both of my previous employment, the patriarchy, the white supremacy culture, um with needy. And that's not to say that Zedek is perfect and we still have things that we are working on. But the difference is that Zedek knows that Zedek isn't perfect and we understand that with every strive that we take, as great as we become or whatever we do, we always have more to learn. We always have to open our arms wider to be able to receive um and that we have to say proximal to community. Because once you start to move away from community, away from the issues, away from the people that you purpose to serve and support, then what you do is you start making decisions that are about the organization and not about the community. And so, yeah, it's been an amazing journey for me. Um, I'm very sad to see Marsha go, but I also understand the need for people to continue to move and grow um. Thank you, marsha you've been amazing and Heather too.
Speaker 2:To you know, heather transitioned on. Heather was, at one point, the co-director. Um, what is also so beautiful about this journey is that, in Amy Mendel's decision making, whether she realized it or not, she really surrounded herself with beautiful, knowledgeable people who, um all, have a zest for humanity.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I would say, that's a reflection right, right.
Speaker 2:Well, we love the world.
Speaker 3:She was manifesting that because that is definitely her heart and she really listened to.
Speaker 4:I mean, I know we've been talking about really deep listening to and listening to community, but listening to each other too and really hearing so let's talk a little bit about how that translates into the work we do, right?
Speaker 3:so let's let's talk about our mission, right? Our mission reads Zedek redistributes money, resources and power to support systems, change and community healing. In Asheville, north Carolina, through adaptive, trust based philanthropy, we resist oppressive systems and work to transform our collective home into a place where everyone flourishes. All right, so redistributing money. How do we do that?
Speaker 2:so we do that in a series of different granting programs. One granting program um that I am director of is the community at grant making. So through that particular granting program we redistribute $250,000 yearly. The beauty of that program is that we um we seek out fellows from community who are already involved in different organizations um to be a part of the decision making as to in terms of what the application process looks like when it opens, when it closes, what are the criteria, and then in the decision making once the applications have been submitted. So, um, we just completed a two-year cycle of community land grant making. In addition to that, we also do some individual awardings. We have our brilliance award, which we give out twice a year at $50,000.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry once a year once a year.
Speaker 2:Don't get excited people. You just want I've made a mistake once a year um a $50,000 each um. Our past recipients this past year were Philip Cooper and Renee White. No, that's not true. No, it's Philip Cooper. And where's my brain today? I thought it was Renee White.
Speaker 3:I think it was we're gonna have to cut this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we might have to cut this part. It's Philip Cooper we have Rashida.
Speaker 3:That's it there.
Speaker 2:It is that's why I was saying Rashida. So let me try that again, michael. So our past reward, um, uh, the two previous award winners for this past year were Philip Cooper and Rashida McDaniels. And then we also give out individual awards, called impact awards. That cycle happens three times a year and during each cycle we give out 14 awards. Each award is worth, is valued at $3,000 and that, excuse me, and that award is really intended to support folks who've been doing the work in community, unpaid, um, and so, looking back over the past two years, if, if you are a person that's been doing that type of work, um, our first cycle is opening up next week, on February the 28th, so be on the lookout for that, and it's also.
Speaker 4:We just change our policy and it's paid or unpaid, correct.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for that and so I'm gonna flip over to Jennifer to talk about our other granting program so.
Speaker 4:And then we have ongoing multi-year um, mostly general operating grant making, and in 2022, because of our strategic strategic plan, we decided to give out five year grants for the first time. In the past, we'd given out three year grants. We did a number of those as well um, so we're very excited to do that just to hopefully support the sustainability more of organizations and um. As I mentioned, that's general operating, and so what we do is we create a more close relationship, ongoing relationship, long-term relationship with a number of these organizations and welcome some new ones as well.
Speaker 4:And we exercise trust-based philanthropy and that's a whole thing like. There's all these different aspects of what trust-based philanthropy is, but one of them is really like giving out the money um connecting authentically and transparently and really taking the burden off of our grantee partners and putting it on ourselves. And that means, you know, having conversations, checking in um off and over a meal to see how things are going, but not really um be anchored to the written word and so often what we do and Libby too, during her community leg grant making process and myself, um, we actually capture what they say when we do a check-in and we record ourselves what they say and then we share it back to them to make sure that it makes sense to them. But again, it's really on us to capture that information and for people, just to have a conversation.
Speaker 3:Okay, so without any knowledge, though, of how this fits within a philanthropic context, like why are these practices different? Is this what everyone's doing in philanthropy?
Speaker 2:This is not what everyone's doing in philanthropy.
Speaker 2:I wish it was yeah, and and we are hoping that other funders will see and understand and hear, and a lot of the reason this whole idea of trust-based philanthropy is important is the idea of proximity right. So when you are in relationship with organizations and you are working closely with them, there really shouldn't be a need for you to have to have people fill out, you know 15 questions and give you 99,000 receipts for every little thing. So the reality is, when we trust our grantee partners, we are acknowledging that they have some expertise in these areas that we are granting and that it is not our job to tell them what to do or how to do it. It's our job to be the support financially and it is their job to do what they say they're going to do. We trust them. What we are saying is you're the expert, we understand and we are here to support.
Speaker 2:Now, that is not the norm in philanthropy and unfortunately there are funders who still believe that people or organizations should have to prove that they are somehow worthy of these specific funds. But I will say there is a trend and trust based philanthropy is a thriving topic right now in philanthropy. I also recognize that there are many funders that are taking pauses right now and they are reflecting and they are reviewing their processes. So I suspect that what we will start to see is that more and more philanthropic organizations will start to lean into this idea of trust based philanthropy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, in fact I just heard yesterday during a grantee check-in with one of our local partners that a pretty large foundation in North Carolina just got rid of reports, completely Awesome.
Speaker 4:And I thought that, well, that's exciting. You know that eliminates so much time. Right Now I will say I love to check in with our grantees because I like to find out what's going on. Are they having any challenges that we should know about, so maybe we can support them in those challenges? So I still think it's a nice way to have a conversation and to really connect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we're kind of like highlighting this multi-year and operational, but what does that really mean, like why is that beneficial to our grantees?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, when you give a general operating grant or offer that to an organization, you're saying we trust you to spend the money how you best think you should spend it, because you are the experts, you're the ones doing the work. We're not. We're sitting here and we're giving out money, you know, and a sentence, so really supporting people to know that they have that expertise and not dictating how they spend that money, maybe meeting them where they're at right, because these people are on the front lines doing the work and we can do the little quick call and record the report right, but letting them continue to make the impact where we're supposed to be investing in and what we want to see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I take off my funder hat and put on my Libby community hat, you know as someone who's founded an organization, it was so frustrating to hear foundations say over and over again well, you need a two-year track record or we will fund this program but we won't pay for salaries. Well, who runs the program If you fund the program but we can't pay the salary? So when we talk about operating grants, it's this realization that you cannot operate a program. You can't do this work that we're intending to do without somehow supporting with operating costs like salaries, utilities etc.
Speaker 3:Okay, and then also I heard this like the individual awards Is that also something that's really common in philanthropy?
Speaker 4:Yes, come on, my people, oh my goodness, I go to conferences, you know quite a bit and I feel like sometimes we're the only foundation giving out awards to individuals for prior social justice work. Now, I know there's some scholarship that goes on, but it's extremely rare.
Speaker 2:And you said prior Well, and they also say things like how do you do that Like the IRS, and it's like I don't really know. The IRS doesn't require all that. So I think that a lot of foundations, again based off of what has happened in the past, have been stuck in this cycle that we can't give money to individuals, and that just simply isn't true.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the one thing I love about this is that there's so many brilliant leaders in our community doing such great work, whether it's paid or not, and often a lot of this work is underpaid too right, and that's the reason why we do give out these grants to people who actually are getting paid already.
Speaker 3:And I'm going to highlight that prior and the prior work that they've done. Already done. Not going to do, not going to show me, prove to me that you did it Always has to be prior Not current, not future. You did it Right. It's a thank you.
Speaker 4:It's a thank you to leaders that are of all different. You know stripes who do all different things, all different positions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, All right, beautiful. All right. Let's talk really briefly because we're coming to the end of our time here and shortly about our focal areas. Right, we have racial justice. What does that mean? Who fits under that? Non-white?
Speaker 2:Non-white? Yeah, if you're not white, you are.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the club Racial justice. We are here for you.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 3:LGBTQ justice If that's you, welcome to the club. Dismantling anti-sexism, anti Semitism? That is a whole nother animal that I think we in Asheville need to start to wrestle with, because there are our Jewish brothers, sisters, and others are under attack, and they are black right, they are queer, and so we will be delving more into that topic, as well as other topics collective liberation Before we head out and say goodbye, are there any announcements, any final thoughts you want to share?
Speaker 2:Well, again, I want to remind people that the impact awards open up on February, the 28th. We will announce a session, a technical session, probably within the next two weeks for anyone who might need support. If you need support before then, you are welcome to contact me at Libby at ZXSocialJusticeFundorg.
Speaker 4:And yeah, we're so excited, yeah, and check out our website too. There's a lot of information there, and so as soon as those awards are live, you can go to that website too and check out all the information and join us every month as we discuss all these topics that are coming forward Bratwell in public.
Speaker 3:It should be fun and reach out. I mean, we are five human beings, five human beings that are invested in this work because this work is for us as well. So, if you have a question or something you need to share or interested in, please do reach out. Our next topic will be why should people of color care about anti-Semitism? And that could be flipped around, twisted all the ways. Why should anyone care about anti-Semitism? Right, but really we are talking to people of color because we are in the south. Yes.
Speaker 3:Right. This is Christian-dominated south, and let me tell you my people, when we talk about systems change, we mean systems change. We're not here saying that Christians are wrong, straight people are wrong, white people are wrong. We are talking about changing systems that have been deliberately set up to divide and conquer, and we are being divided and conquered. You do not have to want to marry each other, drink a beer, be best friends, but we can do more in terms of solidarity, libby.
Speaker 2:And we recognize that people aren't incidental casualties Right. So systems are created to do exactly what systems do. So we don't need to reform systems, we need to replace. So I just wanted to put that up there.
Speaker 3:So, as we do that, we talk about the systems. We are here for community healing. Thank you, I appreciate you all for listening. We look forward to seeing you again next month. Peace.
Speaker 2:Thank you have a great afternoon, thank you, thank you.