Hello, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today for our case training strategies to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging goals in capital campaigns. We are so excited that you all have joined us today. We have two amazing facilitators for you today, and I am going to read a short excerpt of each of their bios, and then I will pass it along to them to begin today's session. I definitely want to acknowledge our case leaders who are with us today, Vice President for People, Culture, and Talent at CASE, Rob Henry, and also Dr. Jessica Elmore, Senior Director for Cross-Cultural Learnings here at CASE as well. Thank you for being here with us today. I will begin with introducing our presenters. Dr. Robion Charles is founding partner and senior consultant for Enoni Consulting Group. As Co-Principal and Chief Executive Officer of ECG, Dr. Robion Charles has more than 25 years of experience maximizing philanthropic support for institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations. Previously, Dr. Charles served as Vice President with Grisenbach, Glyer, and Associates, a leading global philanthropic management consultant firm where she led and supported projects at more than a dozen universities, including Boston University, the National Cathedral School, the University of Cape Town, and many more. Dr. Charles has been the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. She is the President-Elect of Rollins College Alumni Board and a National Co-Chair of the Rollins Fund. Dr. Charles earned her Ed.D. in Higher Education and Policy from the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and MPA in Nonprofit Administration from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University and a BA in Philosophy from Rollins College. Please welcome Dr. Charles. And our next presenter, Henry Taylor, is the founder and managing partner of the Legacy Consulting Group. Mr. Taylor has also served as the Vice President for University Advancement at Golden Gate University. He also has, in that role, he led the Division of University Advancement, including the Offices of Advancement, Communications, Alumni Engagement, Annual Giving, Development, and Advancement Services. Prior to joining GGU, he led the fundraising efforts as a Senior Director of Development at Agnes Scott College, the Office of Development, and secured more than $34 million in funding for FY20 and FY21, including the best fundraising year in college history of $21.1 million in FY20. He has also managed the Offices of Annual Giving, Corporate and Foundation Relations, Development Research, and Prospect Management, as well as Donor Relations and Stewardship. Please welcome Mr. Henry Taylor. And with that being said, I will hand it off to our presenters to lead you in today's session. Great. Thank you so much, Carl. Really do appreciate that. Good afternoon again, everyone. I am, again, Robion Charles, and we're not going to be formal. Henry and I are not going to be formal in this, so please do feel free to call me Robion. We are thrilled to have the next two days with you to discuss strategies to achieve DPIB in capital campaign, specifically achieving those goals. And so I am going to get us started, but before starting, we do want to just go over what we consider, because of some great guidance from CASE, to be general guiding norms that we would like for everyone to exercise as we go through this training today and tomorrow. And these are not anything super special. I think everyone is aware of these. It's just having really good behavior as we move through this, but I will go ahead and ask Henry to go to the next slide so that you can see those. As we go through this training, we do have prepared information to share with you, but we expect for this to be a conversation so that you are able to get the most out of it that you can. And as a result of that, we also want for everyone to ensure that you are sharing the time, the quote-unquote air time, with your fellow colleagues that are here. Of course, don't interrupt people. We're going to be talking about DEIB, which can be a very tough topic to talk about, but we want to make sure that you get out of this what you are expecting to get out of it. And I mean, we want to be able to have very open, honest, and transparent conversations. And so confidentiality is of the utmost importance. And lastly, Allison, I mean, there are some other things that are listed there in terms of guiding norms. You can certainly read those. There were just a few that I wanted to uplift on behalf of Henry and me. And the last one is that we do want you to be fully engaged. So please ask questions as we, if you have them, as we go along. And then we certainly have time slated during each of the sections of our training today for you to ask questions. And there's no such thing as a stupid or dumb questions. There's opportunity to always learn. So that's what I'll say about the guiding norms. And again, please do not hesitate to stop me or Henry as we go through this training. So now for the agenda for the day. So for today, we have a set agenda, which you can see here is broken up into 50 minute increments where we'll be covering various topics. However, this is, as I indicated at the top, this is an opportunity for us to engage in rich, robust conversation and learnings about this topic. And so we are not beholden to adhering to this agenda if there's something that emerges organically as we move through the training. And so we definitely do want to ensure that you know that this is the time for you to get what you need during this training. And so with that said, we've developed a framework for this training where we will be initially setting the context or setting the stage about DEIB and capital campaign. So the inclusion of DEIB in capital campaigns work. And we've identified key strategies that we think you should implore, that we implore you to exercise in campaign work. And with each of those strategies, we've identified challenges and opportunities that we've discovered or experienced over or observed over the years. And so we'll talk about those or share those with you with real examples, real tangible, practical examples. And we'll stop and ask you, again, this is about your engagement, we'll stop and ask you, what are the challenges that you have experienced at your institutions or currently are experiencing at your institution that you would like to talk about, get our insight and advice on, as well as others, your other colleagues who are participating in the training. So we will do that for each of the strategies that we've identified after setting the stage. Any questions about the agenda that we have? Okay, great. So now we're going to do introductions, because we want to, Henry and I've had the opportunity to receive a list of your names and the institutions that you represent from Rob and Jessica. However, we would like to know a little bit more about you so that we can ensure you're getting, again, what you need from this training that we've developed. So, Henry, next slide. What I'm going to do is to ask each of you to take five minutes or less and share this information with us. We're going to take notes as you share. So eyes may leave the screen, but we are listening to you. So first, what we'd like for you to do is to share your name with us, the institution that you are representing, your title, and how long you have been in that particular position. And we also want to know how long you've been in the profession of advancement. Second to that, we'd like to know if you're in a campaign right now. And if you are in a campaign, what phase of the campaign are you in? Third, we want to know why did you register for this training? And then what challenges, share with us what challenges you are dealing with. And again, we're going to be taking notes on this. Now, as we go, I want to just underscore this, as we go through the training and talk about the strategies that we've identified for you, there'll be an opportunity for you to identify additional challenges specific to those strategies. But we do want to get a sense at the gate of general challenges that you're dealing with. And then lastly, but not least, what do you want to gain by attending this training? What is your expectation of Henry and me? And what is it that you want to leave the virtual door with tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock? So we're asking you for a lot of information. We're going to leave this slide up, um, but we will, we'll go ahead and get started. And I'm just, because of how you're organized on the screen, I'm just going to, uh, call, uh, call on you. Uh, so Samantha, and if I'm mispronouncing your name, please do let me know how to pronounce it correctly. Uh, so Samantha Dell, you're up. Perfect. Okay. Good morning. I'm on the West coast. So it's like nine o'clock here. So it's so morning for me and Henry he's out in Oregon. So, okay. Yeah. I'm in Seattle. So it's, it's nice and early. Um, I work at Lakeside school, which is an independent school in Seattle. So it's fifth through 12th. Um, and I am the director of our annual fund. I've been in this role for four and a half years, but in fundraising in general for 10, but this is my first like independent school. I worked for, um, community colleges before this and then other organizations prior to that, we are not in a campaign right now. Um, but there is murmurings of a potential campaign coming up, um, which is part of the reason for this. And I focus on alumni giving with the annual fund and the campaign that is being potentially discussed might focus on our alums. Um, so I'm just trying to prepare myself as much as possible. I've never done a capital campaign. We have plenty of colleagues on my team that have, but, um, I want to be prepared. So that's part of the reason I registered for this training. And then I'm really interested in the second day too, of, um, getting that diverse prospect pipeline. And there's a lot of alums that, um, attended Lakeside at some point or another that maybe didn't have a great experience. And we're trying to bring them back into the fold. And I just feel like the more context I have to do that, um, in a way that doesn't add more pain to what happened prior the better. So I just for myself, trying to build those skills, um, that kind of covers the challenges I'm dealing with as well. And then, yeah, just building my skillset is the reason kind of answered all three together. That was perfect. That was perfect. Aren't there always murmurings of a campaign if you're not in a campaign? I know. Yeah, it is. It feels like there's always something potentially going to happen. So the more, the better. Very good. Thank you so much. And then just a couple of questions for you, Samantha. So is Lakeside or what's how old is Lakeside? It's, what's the age of it? And how many alums do you have? Um, so we have about 7,000 alums that are contactable. Um, I think we probably have 11,000. We celebrated our centennial in 2020. So we're a little over a hundred years old. Um, but we were an all boys school until 1971. And then we merged with an all girls school. So in 1972, we became, um, a school for both genders, which also like brings a unique alumni population because I have a bunch of, um, alums who like, don't really see Lakeside as their school because they graduated from a different school. And then a bunch of alums who experienced Lakeside in a different context. So there's like lots of interesting histories around, um, our alumni population. Very good. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Tina Hennessy. Good afternoon for most of us morning for some of us. Uh, sorry, my name is Tina Hennessy. I'm at Penn state university. I'm the senior assistant vice president for principal gifts. Um, I've been in this role for about nine months, I think, but I've been at the institution for 15 years and in advancement for 21, I think at this point, um, we are in campaign quiet phase, very quiet, uh, still, uh, planning and building even as we are counting gifts and, and kind of, uh, lining up some leadership, um, early campaign gifts. Um, I registered for the training, uh, for a number of reasons. One, we have to think about, um, how do we, uh, how do we strategize around DEI goals in our, in this campaign? Um, one of my colleagues is on the call who, um, works with me in this space of, we have, um, an office of educational equity, which covers, um, you know, really a very broad, um, scope of services and supports for our student population, predominantly undergraduate, but graduate as well. And then, um, my colleague is also the director of campaign and university initiatives. She'll tell you all this, uh, I'm trying not to steal her thunder, um, for DEIB at the institution. So that all reports into me in this office. And so in addition to, um, just knowing broadly for the institution, we have to, um, be thinking about our goals in the campaign. I also have some specific, um, programmatic areas that are within my purview. Um, and I want to, I want to learn more about it. Um, challenges. I think you, that's pretty much it, right? How do we do this? How do we do it? Well, how do we, um, fundraise, uh, better for priorities at the institution around DEIB and also for those things at the institution that support a more diverse student population and workforce population. Um, there are certainly big challenges for us. And, and I, you know, I always say from a training, if you walk away from one with one really good implementable idea, you have, it was well worth your time. So, uh, I set my goal there, right? If there's something, something we can take away from this that we can implement at Penn State, um, I will be thrilled about that. Excellent. Thank you so much, Tina. We are Penn State. We are Penn State. They were, so Penn State was, um, as, as, as Carl shared with you, I was at GGNA, uh, for a while. And so one of our clients, I had the opportunity to, uh, to, with your former VP, uh, Rich, uh, yes, yes. So great. So happy to have you here. Thank you. Um, okay. So Emmalina Berkshire Gang? Yeah, pretty close. Great. Hello. It is morning for me also. I'm also in Seattle, Manitta. Um, I am at the university of Washington. I'm the director for campaigns and strategic initiatives and I've been in my role for about four years now, I think. Um, let's see, we are planning for our next campaign in a few years. We will look back at this and say we were in the silent phase, but we are not saying that yet. Um, and for this training, because, you know, I have a personal commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and also we have a very strong, uh, institutional commitment to DEI. And since my job is to help plan our campaigns, you know, want to make sure we are following best practices and doing everything we can there. Um, challenges wise, I think a couple of things. One is scale. The university of Washington is very large. Our campaign history in terms of dollars raised is very dauntingly high numbers, which is a good problem to have. And when we are thinking about inclusion, it's just, it can be daunting because there are so many people, so many alums, so many, um, friends and supporters in our database. And like, you can't just invite all 2 million people to an input session. Um, so that is a challenge for us. And then I think, as we think about our next campaign, you know, we have had a lot of success historically and we want to continue to grow. And I would think, I don't think I, we have discussed an area that when we look back on our last campaign, something we want to do better in this campaign is in the DEIB area and making sure that diversity efforts are authentic and not tokenizing and that we are practicing really true inclusion. Um, that's challenges that I hope to gain. I think just ideas, learning from the smart folks on this call and making sure we're following all the best practices we can. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Emelina. Youda has the opportunity to work with, um, some of your colleagues as well at GGNA. Very good. So happy to have you here. Okay. Uh, Jen Wells. Hi, uh, good morning. I'm coming in from Los Angeles. Um, I'm Jen Wells. I am at Marlboro School, uh, which is a 7th through 12th grade girls' school in LA. Um, I am the Director of Equity and Inclusion and I've been in this role, uh, for 4 years. Um, however, I had a 13-year career in student affairs and higher education. And so have that higher ed background. It's like fun to see all my higher ed colleagues again. Um, and I, I'm really here to learn. I think, um, I'm noticing that there, uh, some folks are talking about kind of, um, the realm of fundraising in opposition to DEI objectives. And I would really like to understand more how they talk to each other so that I can be more helpful, uh, to my Advancement Director and my head of school. Um, so I don't even know how to answer. I, we are, I don't believe we are in a campaign right now. We could be in a silent phase. I don't know. Um, so I, that is why I registered, uh, for the training. Um, and like I said, the challenge is I think, um, sometimes DEI gets pitted against like, um, cultivating donors and, um, finding folks who are willing to do the great work that we're doing because they are not necessarily as informed as our community around DEI issues. So I would just like to be a good thought partner, um, for our Advancement Office and my head of school. Um, and that's mainly what I'm hoping to gain from here. So thank you all for letting me kind of be, uh, on the wall, uh, kind of, uh, not directly involved in Advancement work, but also working closely with them. So. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jen. It's going to be great to have your perspective in the conversations that we'll be having over the next two days as someone who is, um, principally responsible for DEI work, um, at, um, at Marlboro. A couple of questions for you, similar to my questions that I asked Samantha, can you, uh, share with us how old, um, how old the Marlboro school is and, um, and then just the, the, the number of alums that you have and, and the sense of, of, uh, the, um, the instant that, or the school, uh, the school's history with regard to DEIB. Interesting. Okay. So I don't know that I'll answer, I'll be able to answer your second question. It was founded in 1888. Um, and, uh, so alums since then, I would say, yeah, graduating classes these days are, I can't even answer that. But I work, I would say that I'm the inaugural person in my role. But I would say that the like, probably five years prior to 2020, they had already started integrating DEI throughout the institution. So even our current strategic plan has is one in the same as a DEI kind of strategy, if you will, or equity strategy. Yeah, I can do some research, but no, that's that's very helpful. Very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. And again, glad to have your perspective represented. Okay, so now I'll go to, is it Caridad Clark? Hi, hello. Did I get it right? Yes, Caridad Clark. My name is Caridad. I am at Penn State. I, yes, I am. I report to Tina Hennessey. And I am the director of campaign and university initiatives, with a focus on educational equity and diversity, inclusion and belonging. I have been an advancement. I have not not been an advancement. So close to 20 years. And yes, we are, as Tina mentioned, we are in the quiet phase of a campaign right now. I registered for this training, coincidentally, because a colleague suggested it to me, which I'm very grateful for. So suggested this training. I have been in this role for the last one. I know I'm jumping around, excuse me. So I've been in this role for the past, I'll say six-ish months. Tina, please correct me if I'm wrong. But we've been transitioning. It was a strategic initiatives. And, you know, now it's focusing on campaign and university initiatives, and also looking at how we are building out the fundraising aspects. You know, educational equity, we have amazing programmatic elements. So it's really trying to identify, connect our alumni, our friends with these programs, and helping them to realize their own visions around philanthropy and engagement with Penn State. I think some of the challenges that I'm seeing in this space are rebuilding trust. And, you know, I see in these spaces, they're people seemingly being tasked. And I don't know if that's a, you know, so finding sources of support for each other, and for programs that are strong and have, you know, so much behind them, but finding sources of support for each other. And I think that's a challenge for some, especially as things shift, and as the landscape around DE&IB slash educational equity slash all of these types of support as, you know, the national landscape ebbs and flows around the conversation. And I'm really hoping to gain some folks from this, to meet each other, to talk, that this is the beginning of a conversation, and continuing on, okay, because this is an ongoing, this is something ongoing, this is something that I think we're going to continue to have to work together. So I'm looking forward to meeting some of you. So thank you. Thank you so much, Kenadet. And will you just remind us, remind me, so your title is Director of Campaign and University Initiatives, correct? Yes. How are you interfacing with the DE&IB area at Penn State right now? So, I mean, what our office is responsible for is the fundraising element. So I work directly with the Vice Provost of Educational Equity, and his team to highlight programming, to identify potential constituents for the program to, you know, to advocate, in addition to working with our academic partners and identifying, going on the road, right? That's another way in which we're supporting this. So I would say that, you know, we are the fundraising arm behind these programs. I wouldn't go as far as to say, because my colleague works in the, I would say, more educational, cultural elements of DE&IB for the workforce. And I'm more of, you know, working with the communities in order to develop those relationships. Very helpful. Thank you. It does, it does. Glad to have you here. Okay. Amanda Simmons, or Simons? It's Amanda Simons. I am from a small state school in Wisconsin called University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. I've had the alumni relations specialist for affinity engagement. I don't work directly with campaigns or annual giving, but we do only have a staff of four people in our departments. Kind of everybody lends a hand and helps out. I've been in my role for about one year, just over one year. And DE&IB is one of the things that I, is part of my job description and one of the initiatives that I work on here on campus. We are currently in the middle of our Day of Giving campaign, which for us looks more like about a month of giving that accumulates on a specific day, which will be May 7th this year. We're in the public phase. We're kind of sending out emails and doing engagements on campus and through different events. I'm fairly new to advancement and DE&IB in general. I have more of a event planning background and administrative assistant background. I guess kind of one of the things that we're trying to do is just kind of engage our underserved population and alumni. But since we're a predominantly white school, it's a little bit trickier to do so. We have tried doing surveys in the past just to kind of get that feel for how our alumni look at our university and what they would like us to provide to them. And we mainly like pushed it out towards all alumni, but we were trying to focus more on those underserved populations. And they were the smallest amount of people responses that we got back. It's one of the things that I'd like to learn is just how to connect with those underserved populations, both on the philanthropy side, as well as the engagement. So we can hopefully engage with them a little bit better and serve them better. Wonderful. Well, welcome to advancement, to the field of advancement and being committed to this DE&IB work. Can you tell me how many students do you have? And it's undergrad and grad or undergrad and grad? Undergrad, the incoming population, well, undergrad, we have about 8,000. And grad, we have, I want to say around 900 sounds about right. We do have about 90,000 in our active alumni database, though. Great. Thank you. I'm glad to have you here. Okay. Raymond Marsh. Good afternoon, and I'm sorry I was a little late joining the call. I'm yet another member of the Penn State contingent participating in this. Penn State strong here. I see it. Okay. So I am our assistant vice president for external engagement. Within that, I have four offices that report to me, our annual giving operation, development communications, donor relations and special events, and volunteer programs. I've been in this role for about six years. I've been at the university for 21. Those previous years were running our development communications operation. So gosh, when you go last, you're hoping you didn't hear all of your colleagues. You don't know if you're going to answer the same. But we are currently counting in a campaign, but we're also planning the campaign at the same time. So it's a building while flying in a small sense. So quiet phase, but we're nearing the end of pulling together our priorities and ready to not go public, but to go more aggressively private. I registered for this because this is where I need to be better, to be quite honest. It's an area that we're working hard at. My offices really overlap here. I want us to be as good as we can be here. I would say we have not been as successful in this realm as we should be and need to be. So this is an area of focus. That's also the challenge, right? We need to get better. We need to be better. We need to be able to do this in an authentic and meaningful way to get there. So what I want to get out of this are some best practices. I want to learn what my colleagues are doing out there. I like Tina's line that if I can take away one good idea here, it would be really helpful. And I'm hoping Tina and I will each take our own good idea, and we'll have two at least, and Caridad as well. So I'm excited to be part of this. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Raymond. Great to have you here. And I go by Ray, by the way. So even though it says Raymond on the screen, but it's Ray. Wonderful. Thank you. Great to have you here, Ray. Thank you. Likewise. So Jennifer Xu, and I think I saw something in the chat from Jennifer. Let me just, that popped up. Okay. So Jennifer is with University of Northern Colorado, and I see that you don't have microphone capabilities. So I'm just going to go through this. So you, okay, you're in the silent phase of a campaign right now. Want to learn more about implementing DEIB best practices into campaign planning, challenges in the process of developing campaign priorities and desiring to ensure our priorities are inclusive, understanding DEIB practices around campus and how those intersect with campus priority, data segmentation. So identifying the bias in the data in order to communicate and engage in a way that is meaningful and finding ways to engage donors in DEIB priorities, giving the political headwinds that exist right now. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jennifer. Great to have you with us. We, while you don't have a microphone, I'm going to go ahead and to have you with us. We, while you don't have microphone capabilities, please continue to use the chat. We will monitor it because we want you to be actively involved in this as well. Thank goodness for chat. So I'm going to close that and I'm going to go back and just ask everyone to answer. This is a really simple question for Henry and me based on what you've shared thus far and thank you everyone for what you've shared. Again, it's okay, Jennifer, no problem at all. Will you share with us what the CRM is that you are currently using at your organizations, at your institution or organizations? Tina. Yeah, so we use an advanced product called AWNA that we are working towards the transition to Salesforce. Not there yet. Okay, and in your, and actually, are you far along in that process of transitioning to Salesforce or? I think our Go Live is planned for fall of 25, am I right, Ray? Yeah, Ray says I'm right, fall of 25. All right, so you're going to change, there was some change. Yeah. And then, and this is just for all the Penn Staters, are you able, do you feel, think that you're able to capture data related to DEIB in your system? Are you using your system in that way? So we can capture, I think, mostly self-reported data about race and ethnicity. We allow people, I think, to have a preferred name, but I'm not sure the current system lets us manage pronouns, right? Maybe you know more than I do. Yeah, so far, I think you're exactly right. I mean, it's self-reported data for the most part, and it's not, it's not data we can easily use. Okay. So, you know, again, from the perspective of doing annual giving solicitations or invitations to events, we're limited in what we can pull from that and how we can use this. Okay. So it stores it, yes, the nimbleness with which we can use the data is pretty good. We anticipate that being very different from Salesforce. Salesforce. Great, thank you. Jen, what about you at Marlboro? We use Razor's Edge, and that might be the end of what I'm able to offer. So it's interesting because I think for our alums, we've done kind of a Google collection of some of the data you've talked about in terms of identity markers. So I think that they're starting to use that, but I can't talk to the specifics of the system. Great, thank you. Amanda? We also use Razor's Edge, and it's a lot of self-reporting. We are also starting AlmaBase. Right now, we aren't really collecting any information through AlmaBase at this time. We just launched it about not even a month ago. So once we learn the system a little bit more, we'll be able to use that information. Okay, great. Samantha? Yeah, we use DonorPerfect. We transitioned to them two or three years ago. We use Millennium, which I'd never even heard of before coming to Lakeside for a few years. And then we have Graduate, like our alumni platform, and then we're a bear across school. So that's how current students and families enter information. So we have lots of different systems that don't really talk to each other that we use. Okay. Caridad? The systems, correct? Yes. So I'm with Penn State, so it's... Oh, okay. That's right. That's right. Yes. Very good. Thank you. Emelina? Yeah, we use Dynamics, and I think similar... I think it was Penn State saying we have varying levels of data, and I wouldn't say it's easy to use, but it's a lot easier to use. And in fact, we just had a big kind of task force that was focused on DEI data guides, so there's some movement there, but currently, it's not easily usable. Okay, very good. And then I see Jennifer, you all are using Razor's Edge. Okay, well, thank you. Can I just add something? Because I just... Of course. So one of the things actually that has been helpful, and this is outside of what we're using technically for data, has been working with our programmatic partners, and they've been helping supplying lists to us. At first, they're a little hesitant, like, no, we don't want you having our data, especially development. But once they see that what our systems capture versus what their systems capture, it's interesting to kind of compare what we're capturing on the academic side versus an advancement, right? And I find that they're reporting more. So there are more of those markers, there are religious markers, there's gender identity, there's a whole bunch of what they're capturing that we're not capturing yet. And so having access to some of those lists, and then with permission, including them into our systems, and then reporting certain things has been helpful on a small scale, but we're building that up. Thank you so much for sharing that, Kedidad, because that is one of the reasons that Henry and I want to know what systems you're using is because data is a key, is essential to having data, and being able to utilize the data in a way that is, that helps to advance DEIB goals within advancement is key and critical. And we'll talk about, with one of the strategies, we'll talk about how important it is to look, certainly look at the data that you do have, but identify other ways to capture data on your constituents, specifically those who have been historically marginalized or underserved in your institutions and schools. So you provided a little preview there, Kedidad, in terms of the partnering with other areas of campus. Okay, well, thank you, everyone, for doing those introductions and answering the questions that we had for you. You provided good information for us to ensure that we're speaking to where you are and the institutions that you, where your institutions are and the institutions that you represent. So we are, what we have scheduled right now is a break. However, we're about three minutes ahead of the schedule that we outlined. We have a break scheduled before we move into the first content section of the training, which is focused on the context and setting the stage for you with DEIB and really advancement, more so than campaigns, before we get into specific strategies. We can go ahead and move into that if you are feeling good about the time or we can go ahead and take a break. How are you feeling? Want to keep going or take a break? I see keep going. Feeling good. I see head, oh, I love it. No break needed. Anyone oppose? Okay, so we're going to move into, let's set the stage, get this, get to the context of DEIB and advancement and campaigns. And I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Henry, to take us there. Thank you, Rabian. Good morning and afternoon to all of you. I am temporarily in Lebanon, Oregon, at the moment. So on the Pacific standard time zone, but I'm glad to be with all of you. One quick point on the last topic that we were discussing around data. It's, you know, fairly fundamental, but also sometimes we kind of miss the forest for the trees. When we get a goal, a mandate, a directive to make progress around DEIB, but we lack accurate data on who our underrepresented alumni of color or other historically marginalized groups are, then it makes it difficult to measure whether or not we are making progress. And so there are two issues there. One is, do we have the data and how good is that data? And the second is, what's the institutional policy around how we access that data. And more recently, because of the political headwinds to use that term that someone else referenced, there's been a shift in institutions around access to that data. It's almost certainly not that the data isn't there because the federal government has actually required that data for decades now as part of the financial aid process and other things. But who has access to that data, how well that data's been tracked and maintained. And so we'll talk during these two days about both sides of that issue, the data side and the access to that data side. But just fundamentally, if we're asking major gift officers, let's say, to ensure that they're engaging more alumni of color, but they don't have access to see who that is, or it's spotty on what's in there, then it naturally makes it that much more difficult to ensure that you are actually making progress. So that's certainly one of the issues that institutions are going to have to be prepared to dig in on because otherwise, you're kind of asking them to push the rock up the hill, knowing that you're not actually gonna get there and that isn't useful. And it's often a sign of kind of disingenuousness on the part of these constituencies where there's often already issues of trust that are seen as barriers. But in moving forward and setting the stage here, we wanted to take some time and have this be interactive in defining how we think of what diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is. And so rather than us providing you with a kind of set definition, at least to start, we wanted to ask each of you to just share some thoughts. There aren't any particular, like we're not looking for, okay, does everybody get this particular definition? But we really do want you to just share your thoughts here. So rather than calling on people, I'm just gonna ask everybody to come off mute and just kind of start calling out answers here. And we'll start with diversity. And so anyone can feel free to just jump in here with, how do you think about what that word means? Oh, come on now. You guys are advancement. I do have to leave for a one o'clock meeting. I have a note ready to send all of you. I did tell the organizers, but I feel like diversity is about, how do we bring to the table, whatever that table is, every aspect of our communities, right? We're talking about diversity of race, ethnicity, thought, background. And so when I think about diversity, I just, I do think about, what does our community look like if there are no barriers to engagement? And do we have a representative constituency that is engaging with us to represent that community in that way? Great, thank you, Tina. Next, somebody jump in. Amanda, you're off mute. I'm not sure if that was intentional, but I'm happy to open the floor for you. I guess to me, diversity is kind of pulling something from what everybody can bring to the table. Everybody has their own unique perspective on things and diversity is just kind of celebrating all of those different perspectives. Great, thank you. Others? Jane. Yeah, I think when I think about it distinctly different than the other parts of the acronym, I think about it as representation and numbers. And I think there's like the aspects of like personal identity, which might be like thought or majors and those kinds of things. But then there's these social identities aspect where I feel like some folks will talk about diversity of thought. And if we just pay too much attention to that, it doesn't get necessarily at looking at the representation and diversity of some of those social factors, which might've had more barriers towards being represented in a space. And so it's like the sheer numbers and representation, whereas the other parts of the acronym, I think go more into some sort of engagement with that diversity or addressing that diversity. Yep, thank you. A couple more. I don't, I mean, I feel like I agree with a lot of what's already been said. I don't have a ton to add, but yeah, just bringing in all the different populations that are at an independent school from my perspective and having them feel like they have a seat at the table and are represented at the table. And that includes like all the different thoughts and also the diversity of like our population. So alumni, current parents, past parents, like bringing everybody's perspective in from that as well. Thank you. One more on diversity. Hey, maybe just think about it a little literally. Maybe just think about it a little literally. It just is difference in all sorts of different ways and just amplifying what Jen shared. You know, that makes me think about representation and yeah, thinking about difference and apologies and having some internet issues. So camera off, but I'm here. Not a problem, not a problem. So we'll move now to the word equity and Jen appreciated your reference to, you know, equity inclusion of belonging tend to be how did you engage that diversity? At least that's how, you know, a lot of us tend to think about it, but so would love to get some thoughts on how we think about the word equity and what it means. I think of equity as the resources and access to those resources. So yeah, with the diversity being the difference and then, you know, how are resources equitably distributed or accessed or, so I think of that more as the resource part of engagement between those equity inclusion and belonging. Gotcha. Great, thank you. I think about it as a state of similar character, it's the access to opportunity and that being made available, I hate to use the word in the definition, but equally available, equal availability of opportunity. Think about equity as being fair and that doesn't mean the same or equal, but being fair. One of our goals for our advancing organization is equitable outcomes in everything that we do. And so we're thinking about not only the opportunities that Raymond mentioned, but also is everyone having an equal or fair success rate or what is the outcome of those efforts and are those evenly distributed across a diversity of constituents? Interesting. So part of the thinking is what are outcomes and are the outcomes, again, I've noticed the word equal here. Yeah, and one of the things we look at is if race or a demographic piece of information can predict an outcome, then it's not equitable in that process. So if we process equitable, then a demographic piece of information wouldn't predict like our student graduation rates, for example. Interesting. Yeah, I think echoing the points that have been made, I think we often talk about equity as different than equality, right? Like as folks were saying, almost right-sizing the resources towards specific individuals based on their need. And I think some of that is based on power access, barriers, et cetera, and not just giving everyone equally those things. And then I love what Emelina said because I often talk about that in the same way of like, when we will know we've reached equity when we cannot predict outcomes based on specific social identities. And I think part of that too, when I think about equity at my school, it's a lot about making sure that things don't disproportionately impact one group over the other. So when a policy, for example, disproportionately impacts mothers and parenting folks, that's how I know maybe we need to address policy. So, and I think we've, or like that's tied to the resources because sometimes those policies can facilitate more resources than others to specific folks. And again, replicate those outcomes. Gotcha, thank you, June. Other thoughts on the word equity? Of course I can call on people if that's helpful. So I'll move on to the word inclusion. How do we think about the word inclusion? I see it as an authentic seat at the table that you're welcoming points of view, all perspectives in a way that's authentic, that's not forced and reflects the value that you have on community stakeholders that are involved. Gotcha, thanks, Ray. Other thoughts? Caridad, you seem itching to unmute yourself, so please feel free. You know, I have a very expressive face, so excuse me. Yeah. I have a very expressive face. You know, the inclusion and belonging, we, those two are so intertwined for me. And so I'm not answering for both, but, you know, the inclusion, my, let me make this short. My mother used to, when I was growing up, don't be a jerk, don't be mean. Like, just don't, let people live. You know, if you're not getting harmed, if people aren't getting harmed, people wanna just skip and hop all day or sing songs, just don't make them feel like they're not valuable or they shouldn't be in a space, right? And so when I think of inclusion, I think of the ways in which institutions with people, communities, allow people to be and to, and so when I think of belonging, I think of that as well, but I think of the inclusion as an intentional way of making people feel like they're allowed to belong. So whether it's a library that showcases the art of the different art from within the community, not only Roman Greco art, right? But looking at different types of art and showcasing that or a community center that, you know, highlights all of the different cultures, something like that. Like, that's what I think of as inclusion is actively making people feel welcomed. Thank you, I love both the word active and intentional because I do think that that's the key to what this word means. It's a word that requires some action. It's not just, you know, some static state of being, it requires some action. And similarly, I agree that while inclusion and belonging kind of are connected, they're not exactly the same thing, at least from my perspective. And so I'm curious other people's thoughts about what perhaps distinguishes belonging from inclusion. I think- Go ahead, Jen. Yeah, I think oftentimes inclusion is what we, as part of the institution are doing and belonging is the result of folks who are receiving that inclusion. I think that, like you pointed out, active, intentional, a lot of times inclusion takes us looking at how we actively exclude or like passively exclude in order to actively include. And then belonging, so like the example I often give is like when I was in student affairs, we'd have programming at night and then say, why aren't the commuter students engaged? And it's because we, or we included them because we invited them, but they don't feel like they belong because it's at night and they can't go. And so like real inclusion might be like really thinking about what students are we trying to target and then actually incorporate them. And I think Ray kind of alluded to like that idea of everyone is represented in our values and how we make decisions. And we can see that in that inclusion process and belonging is when we know we're successful at it because someone feels like they actually feel included at the institution. Thank you. Any other thoughts on belonging in particular? Can I just add one more thing about belonging? Because when I think of belonging, as you're saying like the outcome, I'm also thinking of going a step further of, okay, you've set up the environment to include people. How are you educating one's, because I like, yes, I, I, and that's great, because I didn't even think about like the outcomes of the inclusion. I was thinking about the part of then transforming each other to educate on how everyone does belong, in a sense. So it's, and I really love that outcomes, like because it's like, and I really love that outcomes, like because that's measurable, right? Like what's the step? What's the next step? What is, then how are we cementing the, these inclusion efforts? How are we, okay, I may not know about your culture, but I'm going to read and I'm going to taste and I'm going to listen because you deserve that. And we deserve each other to learn each other and to know each other and to belong with each other. So I think of that as well, in that kind of like a butterfly type thing, you know, like just, okay. No, thank you. I appreciate exactly what you're sharing. It's one thing to say, okay, well, we purposely invited, you know, a much more diverse group of people to come to, you know, to come to Homecoming. And let's say some of them came, but the programming, once they got there, wasn't particularly engaging so that they felt like they belonged there. So we can check off, well, you know, we tried to be inclusive, but because we didn't think through all of what that meant or could mean, because the other part of our discussion today around and tomorrow around this is, we tend to constantly think in binary terms, meaning, okay, well, you know, we're trying to do this, but not everybody's, you know, not everybody likes this or not everybody who's come to it says it was great. Well, you know, this kind of unattainable goal that, you know, everybody's going to, you know, feel a certain way or because what works for one person, you know, I'm African-American, so is Robion. She may not like sweet potato pie. I love sweet potato pie. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be that, you know, Agnes Scott College shouldn't serve sweet potato pie because Robion doesn't like it. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they should just because I do. So the reality is, I think we've got to be more gray and comfortable with that in the outcomes we're seeking as well, not, okay, well, everybody's satisfied with something because last time I checked, you're never going to get everybody satisfied with anything. That's just not possible. But I think in this space around DEIB, you know, we get flustered perhaps when, okay, well, we're trying, but we're not getting everybody. You were never going to get everybody. And so I say that not to lower expectations or the effort to try, but just to remind all of us that, you know, as the old saying goes, perfection is the enemy of good. At the end of the day, trying to be perfect is what often stops us from trying rather than, okay, let's make some progress because we're never going to be perfect, but we want to make progress. Any other thoughts before we kind of wrap up this? And part of what I hope you gathered from this is, you notice Rabian and I purposely didn't want to create definitions and, okay, everybody's got to, you know, agree on this. We purposely wanted to hear from you. How do you think about each of these words and what they mean for you, for your institution, for the role you're playing? Because again, at University of Washington, for instance, they may be dealing with diversity very different because they've got a very significant Native American and indigenous population, whereas Penn State, that may not be as much of an issue. So, you know, again, what it looks like in one context or in one environment may be different than what it looks like in another, and that's okay. Here's a definition that Rabian and I have used around what does the word diversity mean? Because sometimes we can use words imprecisely, so a word means something and nothing simultaneously because we throw everything into that word. And so this is how Rabian and I are attempting to kind of level set a base around what this word means. So distinctions are differences that make us individually and collectively unique. Now, there are lots of different distinctions or differences. Geography, you know, Rabian and I went back and forth about the words we chose to use as an example here, but we settled on Yankees and Southerners because it was kind of a fun, cheeky way of speaking to the fact that, you know, the country kind of, you could almost divide the country into those two words, gender, male, female, non-binary, some examples on race, Asian, black, Latinx, indigenous, white. Those are words, again, that we use often clearly aren't, you know, particularly precise, but, you know, we've got a couple of examples here for religion, for sexual orientation, and for politics. And while this session over these two days isn't intended to focus on the politics around DEIB, we're certainly not, you know, we understand that there is a context in which DEIB is living right now, and that the headwinds that were referred to is something that we are going to talk about directly. And part of the reason we're going to talk about the political headwinds is to try to untangle DEIB from the politics, particularly in the context of both advancement and campaigns, because when you decouple them, one, I think you can lower the temperature, you can deal with the objections very differently. And I think it's much easier to make progress, which we'll dig into as we go through. But just for all those who were wondering whether or not we were going to deal with some of the elephants in the room, the answer's yes. I'm gonna stop there because I can imagine that there may be some thoughts that people have right now around this issue of politics, or the context that DEIB is operating in right now. And so we'll take just a moment, and you can share your thought particularly about how this may be playing out at your institution. We have seen just this past week that higher education was once again facing a lot of backlash on Capitol Hill alone, let alone in a lot of other contexts. Not, I'd say, directly related to diversity, but certainly tangentially related around this issue of what's going on in Israel and the Middle East. So again, we'll take a moment to open the floor for those who may want to share a thought or two about the context in which DEIB is currently operating at your organization. It's clearly perfect, Rabihan, I guess, at every place. So you and I, I guess, can call it a day. Oh, come on now. Penn State, there aren't any controversies at Penn State, right? Never. Wow, I'm just trying to think about- Yes, I'm picking on you, Ray. Yes, I'm picking on you for sure, come on. Yeah, no, we haven't had any issues. No, I'm thinking like, wow, I don't even know where to begin to answer that question, right? I mean, so on so many different levels, this is challenging. We have, you know, within the communication space, we have colleagues who just don't want to do anything that's going to upset anybody. And so you get this paralysis of decision-making and of action because, no, we don't, you know, we don't want to deal with the fallout, but the fallout is everywhere. Like there, you know, all these issues are now 360 degree issues. You know, there was a time about 11 years ago when we had our tragedy here, and that was a 360 degree issue. And we've had a lot of practice trying to deal with that, but it's hard, but you can't let it stop you. And I think frustratingly for me is we do see this stop our action because we don't want to face the feedback, the backlash. And I frankly think this is probably our biggest hindrance to progress is the intensity that the backlash comes, the speed with which it comes, and the degree to which it slows us down as decision-makers moving forward. Thank you, Ray. I appreciate everything that you've shared. I have a thought. I'm going to hold it for just another moment in case there are some others who want to chime in here, but I definitely have a thought about what you've shared. Great, thank you. Others? I'll just share what Jennifer shared in the chat, scholarship criteria, and her institution's recent designation as a Hispanic-serving institution and how that impacts their constituents. Great, thank you for that. Yes, one of the fallouts, for lack of a better word, from the recent Supreme Court decision is this move to, I'll say, decolor scholarships. That probably wasn't the best word, but yes, we will talk about that during the course of these two days. Any other thoughts before I share my thought back to Ray's point? Go ahead. Okay, I was just going to say something from the event side of things. I know it doesn't relate directly to campaigns, but we are trying to do some more EDI-specific events, Black Student Union Reunion, and Native American, Asian American, we have a very high Hmong population in our part of the state, and so we end up having to reframe how we're promoting these events. So instead of it being a Black student reunion, we had to tie into the student organizations so that it was more student organizations, so that way we weren't showing up on those radars and being flagged by some of those groups. Gotcha, thank you. Samantha, go ahead. Yeah, I think this is part of the reason that I also attended this training. I feel like sometimes donors, they feel like their voice is attached to their donation, and so we're the first to get the backlash of whatever it is. It's like my phone rings and they're upset, and they use their support as a way of trying to get a voice. Where I am in the institution, they have no voice. I'm at the bottom of the, I'm not their person, but I think that's where I struggle, is the backlash, and then it comes to my phone, and I am not a decision-maker. I'm a worker bee. Well, Samantha, you have perhaps the easiest response to those in that, whereas Ray and others at higher levels have to take this on in a different way, but here's my overall kind of premise, and we'll dig into this more, but I've been doing advancement work for a little under 30 years now, and last time I checked, and I've worked at a variety of institutions, large, private, large, public, small, HBCU, majority, I mean, I've worked at a variety of institutions. Probably the single most common thing I have ever encountered is that alumni complain. That's what they do, and so what's interesting to me is when alumni complain around the EIB issues, for some reason, we tend to be more afraid to engage on that than we do when they hate that the football team keeps losing. They hate that the president is a Yankee or a Southerner or whatever the case might be, but last time I checked, literally, I mean, Ray, you've been at Penn State a long time. Was there any year that you didn't hear a complaint from alum about something? Of course not, so I think it's too easy to stop doing anything with the hopes that nobody's gonna complain. Well, last time I checked, probably, I worked at Princeton years ago, and Princeton was one of the first institutions that America founded. I'm sure in year two of Princeton's existence, there were students on campus complaining about something. What it might have been, I don't know, but I'm sure they were complaining about something. I say that, and obviously, I'm saying it a little tongue-in-cheek, but I'm actually saying it in a real way as well. Like, alum complain, that's what they do. So if we know that, I'd rather have them complain because we're doing something than have them complain because we're doing nothing, because one way or another, they're gonna complain. Now, I understand that when the heat comes, it feels hot. I get that, but the reality is, around DEIB, particularly for institutions where we know this has been an issue for a long time, we've not made the kind of progress we need to yet, and again, I'm gonna pick on Penn State, you've had diverse alum for years. Many of them are very successful now, so not making progress, you're literally leaving millions of dollars sitting on the sidelines because it's not like Latino Penn State alum can't write a six or seven-figure check. I'm sure you have some who can. So the longer that you leave them on the sidelines in the name of, well, we don't wanna have to deal with backlash or trouble or problems, okay, how much deeper does the hole have to get before you finally say, well, if I've gotta take some heat to make some progress, it's probably worth it. Now, Penn State may not be in a situation that other higher ed institutions are, but these days, I read the higher education headlines, and at least almost every week, some higher ed institution is announcing their closing, and I'm sure having more money from a fundraising perspective would help address some of those issues. So fundraising is becoming not just a nice-to-have, but a must-have. So the reality is, and I'm making this point on purpose, the reality is choosing intentionally, and that's what we're doing, to not use a DEIB lens in advancement, you're purposely leaving money on the sidelines. Now, maybe you've got more than enough, and so it's not a big deal, but for most institutions, having more money is important. I appreciate seeing some of the smiles on people's faces when I said that, but we're in the fundraising business, so raising more money, I doubt your president's gonna say, no, don't raise more money, we've got enough money, we don't need to engage alum who can write checks to us, and we know they can. No, don't worry about that, because somebody may be mad that we intentionally targeted people of color, or whatever the case might be, because they don't complain when we talk to former football players about the football program, or talk to former econ majors about the econ department, what's going on today, or for some reason, if we were to talk to female alumni about issues on campus that are focused on women, or issues on campus that are focused on diversity, somehow that's bad segmentation, but segmentation focused on other characteristics is good segmentation. So part of what you'll hear throughout this presentation is Rabian and I want to bring DEI down from this kind of big, scary, controversial topic to when you really look at the principles of DEIB, they line up almost perfectly with best practice advancement. What's important to the donor? That's best practice advancement. So we're gonna dig into these things, yes, in the context of campaigns, but the reality is when you take DEIB out of this big kind of controversy and bring it down to, this is about trying to engage more alum and raise more money. The moment you say, that's our goal, all of a sudden, it's a lot harder to shoot this down when this isn't about politics or being woke, or we're trying to change people's minds, we've got to engage as many of our alumni as we can so we can raise as much money as we possibly can to support this institution. The moment you ground DEIB in that premise, again, I think you're able to withstand a lot of the attacks around the politics of this instead. So I hope that that thought helps center how Rabian and I are gonna be approaching the DEIB lens during the course of this. Yes, Jen, please. You know, this might play into me not having a full picture of our donor base, but I think in a smaller setting at a school, I worry that part of that pushback in politics tend to be the larger donors versus some of our smaller donors and actually developing relationships that can then cultivate, as I think was named, some, like in a school like mine, and I imagine the other independent schools in the room, we are having to do a lot of healing from when they were here and actually bring them back into the full. And I don't think that that's specific to independent schools, but we just have a smaller alumni base, and then it gets even smaller when you focus on specific identities. So that's something that I'm grappling with, but I do love, which is what I've always been told is kind of like this, what's important to the donor and like, how do we diversify the donor base so that that can be supported or even going back to values versus politics, which I found helpful as well. So thank you for this. Yep, definitely, definitely. So I'm just doing a quick time check. It's 1030. We've been going for 90 minutes now. I am happy to shift our break and pause now. Rabian, if you have any thought here, please jump in, but I'm happy to take a 10 minute break now and give people a chance to perhaps get up, go to the restroom, take a drink of water. So just doing a quick temperature check in the room. 10 minute break. Yes. Quick hands or something. All right, perfect. We're gonna take a 10 minute break and we'll come back at what would be 1040 here in the Pacific time zone, another nine, 10 minutes from now across every time zone. Thanks. Welcome back, everyone. So following the conversation we just had defining DEIB, part of this, again, elephant in the room context is how people tend to perceive both the positives and negatives around DEIB. So on the positive side, words like diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is about being inclusive, about affirming people's identity, about bringing people together, about achieving equality. Multiple people have mentioned representation, enhancing a sense of community, particularly for those who've not felt as a part of the community and having an environment that's free of barriers. On the negative side, people tend to associate DEIB with, it's exclusive to people of color or to those who were discriminated against or underrepresented, that it's often divisive and it's about separating people. And too often, there's a perception that it's unfair to a particular group of people, whether it's, and that part of the reason it's unfair is because it lifts up people who are less qualified than others. And now, we have the thought that it's actually now illegal and discriminatory. And part of that thinking is because of quotas. So I'm sure that if I asked, are there other words that's missing from the perception of DEIB, we could spend the next hour adding words to this list. But I'd assume that this kind of captures the sentiment that we experience of trying to balance the positives and the perceived negatives of DEIB. So I will ask Rabian to share this, which comes directly from a case and the great work that Jessica, Karl, and the OIC team have developed. Thanks, Henry. And so we wanted to include this diversity will in this training today, because it shows or illustrates, it's a wonderful illustration of the varying dimensions of diversity that exists. And it's actually an adaptation from a will that was created by, it's known as the Loden Will. And what it says is that, at center to every or central to every individual is who we are as an individual. And then you move from us, if you are a move, but break down or move out from us as an individual, their internal dimensions to diversity that exists. And Henry and I captured some of these things in the description of diversity, our description of diversity earlier. And not to go through all of them, but you can see race, age, religion, our sexual orientation or identity, our physical abilities or neuro, being neurodivergent as an example. And so that would be that first level outside of ourselves as an individual, and then continuing to extend their external dimensions of diversity, some of which we touched on as well. Geography, our political ideology, income is something that we did not talk about. The, what our marital status is, what our personal habits are. Those are things that make up who we are as an individual, but they're external or identified as external versus being internal. And then moving, continuing to move out on the will, their organizational dimensions that exist. The status that someone can hold in an organization, thinking about it from a fundraising perspective. And Jen, I know has to drop off the call for a meeting and we'll be back. But she talked about the dynamics that she has to deal with with donors who give a lot of money, who have status because of the level of giving that they have at, with her school. And so that's an organizational dimension of, an example of an organizational dimension of diversity that exists. So we thought this was a wonderful illustration of the varying dimensions of diversity that are at play as we do the work that we do in advancement for us to consider. Now, I wanna just add a little bit to make sure people are letting this sink in. Part of this is intuitive because it's, you know, we're all human beings and we all have these aspects, but when you think about the DEIB lens being fundamental to advancement work and how you use that lens in the campaign context, understanding the connecting points between what internally defines who we are, what then shapes us further through those external dimensions, and then how that shows up in organizational dimensions, that is really where the ability to create policies, goals, become critically important. Because as that old saying goes, the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing but somehow expecting different results. So understanding how to connect these dots and that they all influence or can influence policy organizational decisions is important background that enables us to really affirmatively decide, you know, here's why we've got to make sure that we have a diverse staff so that they are engaging as comfortably as possible our diverse constituency as an example. So part of, again, setting the stage, clearly over the past five, six years, there's been unprecedented amounts of money given in the name of DEIB. We've seen, these are just a few of the headlines, obviously some of those headlines have changed recently where we've seen wholesale both in the for-profit and the non-profit world, DEIB being scaled back significantly, if not completely stopped, as we've seen in higher education, particularly in states like Texas. But having said that, the reality is even for those institutions where those in DEIB roles have been taken out, it doesn't change the fact that University of Texas at Austin, I'll use as an example because Robianne used to work there and she and I often talk about UT. The reality is they have a diverse alumni population. Whether there's a DEIB office or not, that's just a fact. And so if the institution seeks to increase the amount of engagement and support from an ever-increasing diverse alumni pool, they've got to figure out how to still engage that diverse population, whether there's technically a DEIB office on campus or not. So as we work through this, these headlines are the context, but ultimately regardless of the fact that these headlines have now changed to some degree in the opposite direction, the practical reality on campus is we still have to make progress and that progress is essential because our institutions are ever more reliant on philanthropic support to help them continue to stay relevant, continue to actively serve and support the students they have on campus, and be the kind of institution that not just students want to go to, but candidly that the world needs. So why does all of this matter to philanthropy? Well, part of it is understanding the difference between charity and philanthropy. If you haven't been able to tell, I love words. And so the dictionary definition of charity and the dictionary definition of philanthropy are not the same. They're similar, but they're not the same. The dictionary definition of charity is helping someone in need. The dictionary definition of philanthropy, and you can probably tell which word I prefer, is here on the screen. The desire to help others by donating money or volunteering time to a worthy cause. Now why is this distinction important? Because philanthropy has become so much more competitive than it used to be. We are now not just competing against the institutions that might be in the region that our institution is. We're now competing against every non-profit, not just in America, not just in the state that our organization is in, but literally globally, because the internet now enables people to touch anybody, anywhere. So if you think just about your own, how often you're solicited personally, whether your church, whether your local Boys and Girls Club, whether the local homeless shelter, whatever the case might be, there's an increase. All of us are feeling that more. The pandemic only heightened that. And so the reality is, and because the number of higher education institutions have closed, their alumni still have money. They may not be able to give it to their alma mater anymore, but they still have money. So the reality is philanthropy has become even more important than it already was. And so fundamentally, if you engage more people, you raise more money. I don't think there's anybody who would disagree with that. So again, you're going to keep hearing this theme of this is about Advancement 101. This is about best practices, because the more we take this conversation out of this political woke conversation down to, I'm doing it to achieve some very practical goals that are critical to the life of my institution and organization, that can help simmer some of those political headwinds that all of us are seeing. So to the point that several of you raised earlier, why aren't we making progress? Well, part of it is we don't really understand the issues that caused the problem in the first place. Several people have said, you know, people, alumni of color are underrepresented. People have not necessarily had the best experience here. Okay, well, what exactly does that mean? Do we really understand what, and some of it may be, well, there was a small number of people 40 years ago. And so naturally, they didn't experience as diverse a campus as, you know, students today do. Okay, but there are often other factors that both cause disaffection, you know, going back to going back many decades. But understanding that enables you to then have the conversation with those constituencies about those issues, rather than not understanding them. So you can't really address them, because you didn't really take the time to understand what got us to the place we're in. So that's really critical. The other is, so, you know, you say DEIB is important, but I'm uncomfortable having one person or office focused on this, because that may take the burden off of everybody to feel like it's a fundamental part of their jobs. So the story I tell is when I was at Stanford, I was the only African American manager in Stanford's Office of Development, which was 450 people when I was there. When you added the Stanford Alumni Association's additional 120 people, I was still the only African American manager. Well, naturally, issues of diversity just seem to kind of gravitate to me, but they weren't a part of my role. So I was having a conversation with the vice president and said to him, you know, I think we should be doing more on this. And he said, yeah, my concern is, if we create a person or an office, you know, that's really going to take everybody else off the hook. And I said, well, I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure how well that's working so far. It was clear, you know, that was where, you know, his thinking was. So I said, OK. Few months later, he and I had a follow up conversation. I said, so I'm curious, how's that, how's that everybody's responsible forward approach working? And he said, point taken, I get it, that at the end of the day, if nobody's pushing this agenda, we can't be surprised we're not making progress. Now, at Stanford, if we were creating a new fundraising initiative, the initiative on K-12 education or whatever else we were focused on, we would create a role so someone could be driving that agenda, someone would be responsible for making that happen. Without that, how do we expect progress to be made if nobody's consistently focused on it? Now, there are certainly what that looks like at the Marlborough School may be very different than what it looks like at the University of North Colorado. But the reality is the likelihood that you're going to make progress in something that no one is truly focused on moving forward is just not likely. So the reality is, if you're and, and when you're trying to rebuild trust with constituencies who have felt underserved, marginalized, not connected and committed, not having somebody but hearing the words DEI is important, sends a very different signal than the words that may be coming out of your mouth or on a piece of paper. And so the reality is that authentic, real commitment has to be demonstrated in action, not just in words. Because otherwise, and candidly, that's not any different, I think, than any constituency. But clearly, for those for whom there's already eroded trust, there's already disaffection, your actions become even more important than your words. Because you're, you're digging out of a hole, you're rebuilding that trust. So the other thing, you're unwilling to have difficult conversations, both internally and externally, to be clear on the problems, develop solutions and measure progress. So I was at Princeton, and was meeting with a group of three Princeton couples, both the husbands and the wives of all three couples were Princeton alum, African American, and they were expressing that they loved their engagement with me. But the reality is, to the point that someone made earlier, I'm a worker bee, I think it was you, Samantha, I'm a worker bee, I'm down here. I'm not the one making decisions influencing policy. And they said, very bluntly to me, you know, Henry, we appreciate, and all of these couples were capable of making seven figure gifts if they wanted to. And so, so they said to me very bluntly, you know, we appreciate our engagement with you. But candidly, until somebody above you really, you know, hears us, you know, we'll make a gift, but it's not going to be what we could give. Because until we feel that commitment above, you know, we're just not prepared to step in, in any significant way. So I went back, shared that with my boss, who shared with the Vice President. And so I asked for a meeting with the President. And initially, there was a lot of hesitation about that. But ultimately, the Vice President agreed. He brought the idea to the President, she agreed. So we had a dinner at her home. And in preparing her, I briefed her not only in writing, but then I went up and met with her. And I said, President Tillman, I, you know, I want to be clear with you beyond what I've provided in writing to you about their concerns, and, and how I think you should, you know, address those. I just want to be clear, you're going to have to take some heat. I said it, I think just like that. I said, but because you're willing to take that heat, listen to them and say, you know, I wasn't aware of that. Or, you know, I understand your anger or frustration about that. That simply by hearing them, by allowing them to share, she was going to make progress in turning these couples around. And because of who they were, the stature they had, they were going to influence lots of other alumni being prepared to re-engage as well. Princeton has since made great strides. They now have a number of culturally focused alumni gatherings every year. They've become wildly successful and have significantly strengthened the relationship the institution has with its alumni of color. I certainly wouldn't say it's a panacea, but definitely they've made progress. And part of that was going back to that conversation some 20 odd years ago now, and her being willing to have a difficult conversation. At the end of the day, expecting to somehow not have to deal with what brought us to this place, that's just not realistic. So I'm going to, you know, just reiterate, you're going to have to be willing to have those conversations in order to move forward and make progress. And I'm not saying, you know, you've got to say yes to everything somebody's saying needs to change at the institution, but being heard can often, you know, satiate a lot of concern. I'm sure there are other objections, and I'm happy to open the floor for a moment. What are other things that you've heard are barriers to making progress, both internal perhaps, and external? So, these are the only barriers. Nobody's experienced any other objections at their institution, the whole, well, we don't really have money for that, you know, to focus on that, or, you know, well, you know, I'm not sure now's the right time for that. Other objections? So I, and this is, I don't know, it's a question. So having navigated varying degrees of this across different institutions, what I have now been, I've seen a degree of savviness that alumni have now in how this process works and shortcomings of institutions not being afraid to voice, right, their discontentment, but also asking questions about the cultures of our advancement sections, right? So where are representations? Where are, you know, where is this community response being applied? You know, where is, you know, funding being, right? So just some pretty, I think, pretty thoughtful questions. I'm interested to hear from you both, right, you and Rabihian, about your experiences in working with those willing partners within your institution, because not everybody is willing, okay? So working with those willing partners within your institution to make this right, right? There's so much conversation around authenticity that, you know, we need to explore that, right? And saying, are we practicing what we're preaching and are we doing right by our constituencies and ourselves? Because many people in this space, or not many people in this space, I would say, are the, well, maybe that's not true, because there's different ways in which we represent. So it just can be, again, taxing, right, for communities of people. So how have you both navigated that and helped to make that, you know, a forefront of, like, no, this is, you know, in addition to saying, look, it's dollars and cents, right? Even about, because we're also fundraisers, right? So it's dollars and cents. It just makes, but I'll pause and I look to hear from you. Thank you. So I'll start and Rabian can chime in as well. So without question, did I feel personally the weight of kind of representing my race as the only Black manager in Stanford's really large Office of Development? Absolutely, I did. There's no question that I did. And I can, you know, share multiple examples of that. I won't right now. But absolutely, I did. And were there times when I would have loved not to have that weight? Sure. And actually, I will tell one quick story. So I, my first role at Stanford was in the central major gifts office, I managed the national team. So the frontline major gift officers who covered the territory outside of California for the central development for the central major gifts office. So not a school based development shop, but central major gifts. So I had five frontline fundraisers who reported to me. So one left or moved to a different role or whatever. So I had to hire a major gift officer. And one of the candidates was a woman I had met at a conference, who was an associate vice president at an HBCU. Well, I was impressed with her during the conference, and, you know, thought she would be a great addition. And so I encouraged her to apply, she did, she went through the interview process. And in my meeting with my boss, and the vice president, you know, I shared, they shared their thoughts with me. And they said, you know, we were more impressed than we expected to be. But our concern is for her $25,000 is a big gift. And for us, like, we barely even think about a gift of that size. And I said, Okay, but think about that. For her institution, that is a big gift. But if she's successful there, imagine with our resources, what she would be capable of doing? Well, ultimately, she wasn't hired. But this, this sense of who's qualified, is part of the subtle undercurrent that I think you're, you're referencing, of ways that we can find to justify continuing to do things the way we've done them, or, you know, accept you, but still appear as if we're open and receptive to, to DEI or making progress. And so I recall somebody, a diversity consultant that we brought in to speak at Stanford to the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs, say to us, you know, this whole qualification thing, you're either qualified or you're not this whole, you know, more qualified, less qualified. Nobody in fundraising has ever successfully solicited a million dollar gift until they've done it, which means they have to have the opportunity to do it. So, at some point, everybody has to be in a position to do it. Otherwise, you know, none of us will be able to say that. So the idea that we only want to hire people who've already done something, again, doing the same thing, but expecting different results. So part of this is us looking internally and saying, why is this important? Why is DEI important? And once we answer that question, then it becomes a lot easier to make the kind of changes that aren't about excluding other people. But it's about making sure that we have a staff that can help us engage as many people who are our alum as possible. So that's an example that I might provide. Ravion, I'm happy to have you share as well. Sure. Thanks, Henry, and thank you for your for your question. I'm going to start by I'm going to start by when I answer your question in part by telling a story. And then I want to give some very tangible examples of things that either I did or that I that I know others have done at other institutions that have seen success, for lack of a better word. Actually, I want to use the word that have resulted in movement. Which I think can be different from what says more than success. So the story I want to tell is when I was at one of my previous institutions, I was a I was a major gift officer at the time. And the and the the president and the and this institution was in in campaign. So this is the University of Evansville, midsize, comprehensive institution. They were in campaign and the president was very committed to diversity and he won and he was laser focused on increasing the number of faculty of color at the institution. So laser focus on diversity, specific racial and ethnic diversity. And and I think since the campaign priorities included increasing the number of of faculty professorships or professorships for faculty, he he wanted to see diversity in that. And so for him, that meant including increasing the number of faculty of color. So he so he tasked the the advancement office with raising dollars that while adding faculty lines for people for faculty of color. And to have that be a part of the campaign. And so the advancement office would be responsible for raising those dollars. And based upon conversations that he had already been engaging with, with alums of color, he and one of whom was a trustee member. He said, here's a short list of people who I think are potential prospects to support this faculty or these. He wanted to initially add to faculty lines of color and he wanted it to happen pretty quickly. So the vice president basically delegated the that the reach out to those prospects, that short list of prospects to me as a major gift officer and number one and number two because I was an M.G.O. of color, the only one in the office. And I was interested in this as well. So I have a conversation as I reach out to the first of two, which is a happens to be a trustee of the of the university. And that this trustee is pleased that the president wants to increase the number of faculty of color and make that commitment and and happy about the fact that that the institution by way of me was engaging in the conversation. With with respective donors. However, what she said to me was, while I'm happy and pleased that this is a priority that is being brought into the campaign that that we're in right now, and that you're having the conversation with me. I want to know where the institution is beyond the verbal commitment of wanting to have more faculty of color and the willingness to do that. And so I said, Okay, well, you know, tell me more. Wait. And she went on to say what she would what she wants to see is a financial commitment, a resource commitment from the institution. Prior to her giving funds weren't such an effort. And I asked for elaboration and I'm I've been at the institution now for for less than two years so fairly new. And in my asking for as a result of her asking for an elaboration. What she shared with me is that there have been numerous stops and starts with diversity related efforts at the at the university. Not most of which were outside of advancement, but some were within advancement and within advancement, those stops and starts were principally from her perspective because they were contingent upon external donor funding. And not and the institution's commitment was not represented. And so she wanted to have that be foundation before before other for other dollars were asked for. And she said for her that would signal again beyond verbal commitment that, for example, the provost or the the the division of academic affairs was willing to really have skin in the game as it related to faculty of color lines. So I ended up being the case that the institution did make a commitment she toward toward dollars toward to support those faculty lines. She ended up she and her husband ended up making a gift and being very involved with diversity related initiatives at the other beyond faculty financially. At the at the university, which was which was great. But I shared that story because it speaks to the In part, what you were talking about, and I really picked up when there are two words that you've said that I picked up on savviness and taxing. And so in terms of the savviness that exists with our with our constituencies as it relates specifically constituencies that represent not exclusively but More often constituencies that represent those who have been marginalized or have been underrepresented about what an institution says it is committed to and how it demonstrates that commitment through Sometimes policies practices programs initiatives and resources that the institution is is committing to to those efforts. And so to provide some I want to give some examples now some specific examples beyond the story of of how this how you how navigating this when your look at this this sphere, if you will, when you're You're not the president or your locus of control is is limited and it's not all of advancement, you may not be the VP for advancement. Or you may be focused on one specifically your work may be in only one of the functional areas within advancement. How do you navigate that to To have tangible results and actually have movement. So the first example that I'll give is it actually underscores or underscores and relates to the point that Henry made about the Being willing to engage in difficult conversations with external with external audiences or key constituencies at the institution. When I was at the University of Texas at Austin. There was a UT has a history of being exclusionary even when diversity was accepted on campus representative diversity. There was not equity or inclusion and for those representatives on the campus. They, they're during that period. There are very vocal about their experiences. Well, what I found when I was an AVP at UT Austin is that A good number of the advancement officers were not knowledgeable about that history at at the university. And so one of the things that I Implemented with this with the support of the Vice President and the President was educational training for all advancement frontline Clarification all frontline advancement officers on the history of diversity as it's specifically related and this this was there was a specific group that this was focused on, but I think it's which were African Americans. Which were African Americans, but I think it's a can be applicable to any of those who need to be brought more into the fold with your institutions and your organizations, but for all advancement officers who are frontline to To have training to go through a training. So there was a training series created for that to learn about the history at UT Austin and to under and to understand that As a result of that training being done at UT Austin for all frontline frontline officers. It was then picked up by UT system. So then it was done for all of the institutions that were part of the UT system. Now, why was that. Why was that important. I've said it, but I want to go back to it and just reiterate it reiterate it The, the expected outcome of that training was for our frontline development officers to be regardless of what their race or ethnicity is was to be Have some level of comfort with engaging in conversations with those who have bad experiences. And not only and to listen to understand the importance of listening, which Henry referenced and not only to have that level of level of comfort ability. With engaging in those conversations with with those who have been underrepresented and marginalized at the institution, but also to be able to then say, okay, now let me Tell you about now I've listened, be able to talk about the institution today and where it was at that point. So that's the first example that I would give the second example that I would give is that With this was actually at UT as well. UT Austin had a lot of different has I'm assuming they still do have. Well, actually, I shouldn't make that assumption, but affinity groups. That were that were based on based upon race and ethnicity and those who and alums who were these were alumni affinity groups who That were based on race and ethnicity and those who are first generation as well as sexual orientation. Those when the those affinity groups at UT Austin or were pretty built out, meaning that there was leadership with each of those affinity groups with a with a chair or president, a vice president or vice chair. When the campaign when the where Texas campaign happened and the campaign commit leadership committee structure was was created. What we did was actually pull from the leadership of those affinity groups and have them be a part of the of the universities of UT's overall campaign campaign leadership committee. I think for obvious reasons to make sure that there was that to ensure that there was representation. That existed. As a result of of doing that again. It was focused on the leadership with those affinity with those affinity groups. As a result of doing that, not only did it was did we end up having broader representation on the campaign leadership committee, but their voices on that leadership committee resulted in the creation of What we called gift propositions that That were trans institutional so they they they spanned the institution in terms of who benefited from the gifts that were received. But they also resulted in increased resources for for those for those affinity groups. So two examples there and a story. I know that was long winded welcome questions. So the other point I want to make sure that we get from those two examples is What Robbie on was describing from my perspective are still kind of advancement best practices. Right. For those of us on the fundraising side. Normally, before you go meet a prospect, you take a look at their Prospect for at their profile. What are they interested in and you prepare for that meeting. So what Robbie on is describing took place at UT that she led Is exactly the same fundamental prospect meeting preparation that would normally happen, regardless of who you were going to meet. Back to fundamental advancement best practices. So you can say, but wait a minute. You know, ensuring that we're prepared to talk to an alum of color about what's going on around Diversity on campus like I would if I were going to talk to a former football player, I might want to brush up on. Well, what's going on with the football team. So those fundamentals. When you use the lens of actually engaging with the students, you're engaging with the students. And ultimately, the more connected they feel, the more likely they are to make a gift. So, I hope that you keep hearing those themes as we're talking and providing examples that this isn't just a one time thing. So I can engage them more deeply more authentically. And ultimately, the more connected they feel, the more likely they are to make a gift. So I hope that you keep hearing those themes as we're talking and providing examples that this isn't okay we're doing this for some other non what I might call business focused purpose. These are fundamental practices that are consistent with what our profession says are best practices. Any other questions or comments right now. I'm looking at people's facial expressions is the habit from our profession. And so I'm just making sure we're allowing for that because You know, as much as Robbie on and I enjoy talking. We much prefer listening and responding to things that will help you bring this back and use it. Or thoughts. It doesn't have to be a question. It could be it could be a thought or a reflection as we're going through this. Yes, Samantha. And when you were when you did the you was a UT the training about the history. Like, how did that get started because I mean, so I've been at least like for three or four years and I still think there's a lot that I need to learn. And it was something, something that I want to propose, but like I would love to have steps to kind of like start that process. Sure. And it might not. So I'll tell you what we did at UT how I got started at UT, which may or may not be applicable for for use ensure at an independent school, but we can talk through that. So what What I did was actually work with there were there was one group already in place, which were called the precursors. So this is a group of alums who named themselves the precursors. As in, and that was because they were the first to integrate UT Austin. And so they were or they were not organized by by UT outside of the school they were meeting they were doing their own thing, basically. And so I essentially tapped into that external group of alums who happened to be organized that it might for you. It might not. This may not be an organized group of alums, but they happen to be an organized group of alums tapped into them and and basically said, Like, would you be willing to tell your story, tell the story of your experience. So this is anecdotal. This is personal information right to tell that story. And they said, Yes, we, we would. And so that as a side note that ended up becoming a book, you know, there's a there's a book that that exists right now about the precursors. But that was coupled with working with the university's archival office, so that the director of that office or ED of that office. Said I approached them and said, Would you be willing to essentially put together a timeline story about this history at at the university. And so they said yes so I brought those two pieces together. So then we had the the institutionals institutions archival information in data, coupled with the the personal experiences and anecdotal stories of of alums, which again was brought together and then it was put into a training series. So that's how I did it. But Samantha, starting with alum who predate you, it's a great way, I mean, what alum, if you said the institution reached out to me and said, we'd love to hear your story. Why did you choose this place? What was your experience like when you were here? What have you been doing since? That's a great way. Even if it's not yet part of a kind of master plan of we're gonna build this training and re-engage people and use this to help us rebuild bridges. The reality is alumni almost always will feel honored to be asked by their alma mater. Hey, we'd love to hear your story. What worked when you were here? What experiences were really great? What things do you look back on and say, this could have been better? And in doing that, I think you open the door to learning about what took place in the past that helps the institution understand what some of those historical barriers were. The current head of school probably wasn't here when that took place, but it helps him or her understand how they have to be prepared to engage constituents who feel disaffected. The other thing I think that's particularly important as well is at the end of the day, again, the more connected they feel, the better because it'll lead to a lot of other things. So you may not know, and this goes for all of your institutions, you may not know who all the right people in these constituencies are, but trust me, they know each other. So Latino alum from Penn State, they know the other people who are moving and shaking. You might not know who they are, but trust me, they know each other. And that's my experience across the board in any particularly underrepresented community, they know each other. They often go to the same church, they belong to the same organizations, et cetera. So by building ambassadors and allies in these communities, they will help you build bridges to many other people in these constituencies, but start by building a bridge with key allies and do it genuinely. Like I say, tell me your story. We'd love to feature you in the upcoming issue of the alumni magazine as a way of opening that door. And as you're building trust with them, they'll start, well, hey, have you guys heard of, cause they're doing great things right now. And you're like, actually, no, we had no idea. But that's how that starts. And it happens in a much more organic way because now it's not the institution kind of forcing itself on constituents. Instead, they're kind of volunteering, well, you should also talk to this person. And well, actually the next time the president's in New York he should make sure he visits with, because they're a great person, but definitely allies and ambassadors in these communities is a great way to start. And as Rabian put it, because UT embraced this, and again, it was happening outside anyway, but when UT embraced it, it then became an even bigger thing. So now all of a sudden these group of people who felt disconnected because the institution reached out, now, at least they're somewhat more on the inside, but you've got to start with them because the moment the institution is coming and saying, well, we want to do this and we want, if there's already disaffection there, it can just be hard to get over that versus find somebody who can help you open that door. Thank you. Yeah, and just one more thing with that, but I want to pick on something Henry said. In terms of reaching out to alums, individual alums, Samantha or anyone, if that's, to learn about them and to learn about their experience, I think it's, I cannot stress enough the importance of really being authentic and genuine in doing that. And so what I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth at all, but as an example, Samantha, but as an example, reaching out and saying, I am fairly new and I'm really wanting to know about your experience as someone who is new and I'm learning about the institution being genuine and authentic personally with that person that you're doing the outreach to is especially important for those who have felt slash experienced marginalization from our institutions and schools. Other thoughts, other comments. All right. So this is an example of how Stanford approached a diversity effort specifically connected to the Stanford Challenge campaign that we executed while I was there. So I got to Stanford, and there was this, what was called the Bigger Black House campaign going on prior to my arrival but it had not been moving much. And the Bigger Black House campaign was an effort to raise, I think it was a little more than $2 million to build, to renovate the existing black community, black student community center on campus. So it's one of the student ethnic centers on campus, affectionately called the Black House. And to renovate the existing space and to build another space kind of connected to it. And it was blessed by the provost and kind of assigned to the office of development. But practically speaking, the office of development wasn't really kind of leading it. Was somebody saying something? I'm sorry. Okay, not a problem. So I got there, and there happened to be an African-American trustee, Dr. Joy Simmons. And this effort was just not really going anywhere. And part of the reason it wasn't is because the office of development wasn't really helping move it. They were responding to some requests for information, but raising $2 million, that's just, I mean, at Stanford, that's probably coming in, in I don't know, two or three hours in a given day. So it was kind of like, this isn't much, like this should just happen. So once the trustee got on board, she basically made it clear, this isn't gonna fail. And in order for it not to fail, I need the office of development to step up for real and really get behind this. So my boss, the AVP came to me and said, look, Henry, who on your team can take this on and really own it? We've had a couple people, but they've not truly owned it. And so ultimately I took it on, even though I was the director, worked with Joyce Simmons and it took off and was a wild success. And when I say wild, I truly mean wild success. As you can imagine, Stanford alum generally graduate and go off to do very well, just as well as any of their counterparts, regardless of race or ethnicity. And so all of a sudden, as part of this bigger black house campaign, there were tons of people who were making gifts that our ratings had no idea they were capable of making. So we were getting people whose lifetime giving was three figures making five figure gifts to this campaign. And it was just, I mean, it was literally just stunning to the office of development. They were like, we had no idea these people could make gifts like this. Now I can tell you from the alum's perspective, and this is an actual quote they said, because part of the campaign was this brick effort outside this new space that was gonna be built. And literally I remember alum after alum saying, this is the cheapest you'll ever be able to get your name on Stanford's campus. And so literally we could have doubled or tripled the size of this brick garden. And we still, it was just a mad rush. And so following that, the timing just happened to coincide with our planning to launch the Stanford challenge campaign. So the bigger black house campaign ends and it happens to be leading right up to the Stanford challenge campaign. And so we said, look, we've got to keep this momentum up. If we've engaged dozens and dozens of alum for whom they weren't engaged before at dollar levels that seem to come out of the blue, we've got to leverage that. So as we talked about it, we said, let's create an effort as part of the Stanford challenge focused on increasing the major gift support from Stanford's alumni of color. So we then asked Joyce Simmons to lead it. She agreed to, but let me back up for a moment and share a kind of, a moment of anxiety. So the day before we were going to publicly launch the Stanford challenge campaign, all the directors were called to a meeting where the campaign video was shared with us. So we're all in this big room and we watched the campaign video and I go back upstairs to my office and my boss comes in, the AVP. And she says, so I'm curious, what'd you think about the video? I said, of course it was spectacular. I said, but I noticed a problem. And she said, what? I said, well, we keep talking about the Stanford challenge campaign as being more than any other campaign in the history of the university about this campaigns about the future of the university. And so, and there were 50 members of the campaign steering committee and the video showed a picture of each individual member, not them standing collectively together in one shot, but it actually showed an image of all 50 people. And I said, well, we just came off the bigger black house campaign. There were efforts from that where we were starting to engage other ethnic groups of alum who saw the success of that and said, hey, we like what we saw there. We wanna kind of start digging in and engaging as well. I said, and so, I noticed that of the 50 steering committee members, there was no African-Americans, there was no Latinos, there were two Asian-American or two Asian alum, one who lived in somewhere in, I don't remember if it was China or Japan, and one here. I said, so, I looked at that and said, you're telling alumni of color that they're not really part of the future of the university. And to my boss's credit, she was like, wow. Like, she's like, I didn't see that. Like, wow. She immediately picks up the phone, calls the vice president and said, we need to come down and see you right now. She and I walked down to his office and she says, tell him what you told me. So, I shared with him. To his credit, he called the director of Development Communications and said, we've got a problem. We've got to fix this video. It's not diverse enough. And so, I was tasked with finding some additional diverse members to join the campaign steering committee. And yes, I'm not gonna lie, it was awkward calling people saying, you kind of were an afterthought, but we need you to step up because we're launching this tomorrow because they were not gonna not launch tomorrow because everything had been set to launch. And so, I had to have some candid conversations with some people, but we got some diverse alum to join that and ultimately it was successful. But definitely there was a moment where, because there weren't enough diverse voices influencing the both who should be on the steering committee and what the video looked like, we wound up with a video that wasn't reflective of who the institution was and certainly of how important this campaign was to engage as many alumni as possible. So, that's a very tangible example of ensuring in a campaign that you're thinking about people who can help demonstrate the breadth of the university's constituencies as part of the campaign leadership. And as a result of them being part of the campaign leadership can help influence the voice, the images, the content of the campaign as well. And ideally doing that in the planning phase, not as you're about to implement it, because literally I can just tell you the conversations because I was the one asked to reach out to alum and ask them at the last minute to join. And candidly, there was no way for me to sugar coat that. It was an oversight. I think two of the people I called were like, no, I'm good. But I did get several people to join, but without question, because we weren't thinking more during the planning phase about this, that's how it showed up. So, definitely I strongly encourage you. Yes, please. Whoever that is. Let me jump in for a second and ask here. So I know, so Henry provided with the example of the bigger black house campaign, it talked about the, well, in segue to talking about the campaign video and the misstep that happened with the campaign video. And that's, you know, things happen. No one just comes out the gate perfect, nor do we reach perfection. And so recognizing where there are opportunities, recognizing the opportunities to exercise D-E-I-B in your campaigns or in your advancement operations is critically important because there are always gonna be opportunities to be better and to do better. And so number one is recognizing it. That was the first point I wanted to make to what Henry said. The second thing that I wanted to pick up on is the fact that I was just looking at my notes. A good number of you are in the planning phase right now for your campaigns, or, you know, you just kind of maybe hear about it, hear that there may be something coming down the pike. And so for those of you who are in the planning stages of your campaign, are there conversations that you are either a part of or that you are aware of about the communications and messaging tools and strategies that you're going to be using? Are those conversations happening for you? Well, I'll start because this is my job. So yes, I mean, that is one thing. I'm thankful that we have, you know, while our planning is happening simultaneous to our start of our campaign, or at least the start of counting, you know, we've had both with our past, our immediate past vice president and our current interim, you know, a high degree of focus on representing, you know, being careful about our DEIB approach. And we have four planning committees, all of which have a DEIB component to them, as well as our director for DEIB, who is sitting and looking at all of the planning that we're doing to make sure that we're being inclusive and planning around that. So yeah, it is fortunate that we have, we have, you know, we're fortunate here at Penn State. We have a big operation, a lot of resources that we can bring to bear. And so that's been good for us. But I, you know, and I wanted to just make a comment from what Henry was sharing with us. And frankly, both of you, part of the success here is being willing to speak when you hear something, right? So, you know, I think our team has been trying very hard to create more license for folks to be free to share their concerns and their, what they see and what they are, what they see is missing or what they see is not right. And that's helpful. And I would encourage colleagues on this call to feel that empowerment, to share and speak up when they see or see something, listen to that voice and share it with the appropriate person in your hierarchy that should know it. It will go nowhere if you say no. Great, thank you. I went a little off message on that, but I thought it was a really important thing that I took away from what both of you said, which is, and it's sometimes it's the courage, right? But to speak up and say what you're thinking and what you're feeling and trusting that you're right in that, in those concerns. Absolutely, Ray. I know Rabian and I both agree with that. And candidly, it does not, everyone should feel empowered to do that. It shouldn't just be, okay, well, if the people of color who work in advancement aren't gonna say anything, then I probably shouldn't say anything. No. If you feel like, okay, I'm seeing, it's jumping out to me, say it, share it. Now, maybe raise your hand in the middle of an all staff meeting, but find a way to lift it up. Because at the end of the day, we're all part of helping our enterprise engage more alum and raise more money. At the end of the day, the purpose of advancement at any institution, regardless of its size, whether it's an independent school or a higher education institution, from my perspective, the purpose of advancement is to increase the interest, involvement and investment in the mission and impact of the institution. That's fundamentally our job. And I don't care what institution you're at, public or private, secondary, I mean, independent school or not, fundamentally, the purpose of advancement is to increase the interest, involvement, and investment in the mission and impact of the institution. And that's a burden all of us carry. Prospect researcher, gift processor, database manager, everybody owns that responsibility. So everybody should feel like, hey, I see something that, you know, seems inconsistent or is missing or, you know, how are we thinking about this? Because at the end of the day, it demonstrates that you want to be part of helping make progress. And I think that is where this isn't about, you know, okay, there's always somebody, you know, complaining about something. No, it's, I care enough that I'm lifting up a question or a concern. And even the best intentioned individuals sometimes forget or miss something, right? So you're helping everybody out by acknowledging and sharing what you've seen. Yep, exactly. Exactly. So as part of the diverse communities effort, we created a position to lead it. And initially that position was going to report to me because most of our communities of color, our concentrations of alumni of color fell to the national team's territory anyway. Yes, in California, we had concentrations, but the majority of our alum were outside of that. But ultimately the vice president said, you know, look, we've never had somebody in development focused on diversity. We know you, you've been here, you know us, we trust your instincts around diversity. And so we'd like you to take this on. And it took me a while to agree, to say yes to it, but ultimately I did. And one of the things that I did was work with a development researcher who was just amazing. And we looked at all of the records of alumni of color to confirm their prospect rating because of how much money we raised annually at Stanford. I knew that, you know, what was going to make this effort, you know, truly impactful at Stanford. And so one, when we designed it, we purposely focused it on major gifts, not kind of broad across all of development. We expected there would be influences in other areas of development, but we centered this diverse communities effort on major gifts. And as a part of that, you know, we knew, and I knew particularly because of my previous role. So when the president was going to New York and the major gift officers who covered that territory were coming up with the list of people to invite to the small dinner the president was going to have with 40 or 50 people, if there weren't many rated major gift rated alumni of color, then even if the major gift officer was trying to be more inclusive in the invite list, he or she wasn't going to have much to draw from. So we had to go further down the pipeline to understand, are we missing wealth that would then lift them up so that major gift officers can invite them versus expecting them to somehow see people who there weren't enough factors lifting them up into the major gift prospect pool in the first place. So Chris Butler and I met, I think it was, I don't remember if it was weekly or bi-weekly, but we met for several months and looked at every single record, not only of those who were already major gift rated, we looked at every alum of colors record dug into with research tools and kind of other things that occurred to us to figure out who might be underrated. And in that effort, we wound up uncovering half a billion dollars of gift capacity that Stanford didn't realize it had among existing alumni in our database. And even for Stanford, half a billion dollars of gift capacity is a lot of money, even for Stanford. So the moment that, and trust me, I couldn't wait to bring this report to the powers that be because I knew it was going to be like, wow. Now, a lot of you are saying, okay, great, but how'd you figure that out? So there's no question having done a lot of work in this area that traditional prospect research methods and tools tend to struggle when it comes to people of color, because people of color's wealth doesn't tend to show up exactly the same way as non-people of color from research perspective. So there are other ways of trying to understand who they are, how they give, et cetera. And so I'd imagine that people are waiting with bated breath to hear, okay, so what are these secrets? Because that's why I really showed up here. So part of it is understanding the nuances that are typical in each ethnic group. So if we're looking at the kind of major underrepresented groups of color, African-American, Latino, Asian-American, I apologize to my colleague from University of Washington and a good friend of mine, David Ayol, would strongly encourage me to be lifting up Native American and indigenous people as well. But the Native American population is even more difficult to kind of understand wealth factors in. And so unfortunately, I don't have a lot to offer with that specific community. David, I think, may have more to share than I do. But there are unique elements of each community that help you understand what other sources beyond Wealth Engine and the typical research services that we have, LexisNest, et cetera, looking at their real estate, whether or not they've got stock in a publicly held company, et cetera. So I happen to know that in the African-American community, if you are a member of the Boulay fraternity, you are professionally successful. Now, I understand that if you're not African-American, that's not something you would likely know. But Chris Butler and I thought about not just in the African-American community, but in each community, what are organizations, professional associations, other things that help reinforce unique things that help us find other sources of information? So looking at the Form 990 or the annual impact report or annual report from organizations that represent professional people of color, whether it's the National Hispanic NBA Association or the Asian-American Foundation, which is a newer group that was started, I want to say, right before COVID hit, if I recall correctly. So that's one of the avenues to look at because if you look at, okay, well, they've never made a five or six-figure gift to us, that doesn't mean they've never made a five or six-figure gift. And for those who have Blackbaud, one of Blackbaud's products regularly scans the annual reports of significant organizations. But I know for a fact that they're not typically reaching into organizations that are specifically dedicated to these cultures and these racial ethnic groups. So looking kind of beyond the normal sources and saying, what are the organizations that represent Asian-Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans that looking at their annual reports, I might find out, wow, I never would have realized that they made a half-million-dollar gift to one of the easiest examples is the National African-American Museum that the Smithsonian did almost 10 years or so ago now. Go look at their donor list. And I promise you, you'll be surprised at how many of your alum may have made gifts in amounts that you didn't realize to that particular project. So that's one of the ways that Chris and I, it was incredibly time-consuming. I think we met for, it was typically like two to three hours every week or every other week, and it took us months. But it was an effort that uncovered half a billion dollars of gift capacity. So it was worth it. Now for a small independent school, that may be really difficult to undertake. So what are other ways to do it? At Princeton, a lot of people may not know this, but annual giving at Princeton's done almost exclusively classmate to classmate. So there's a lot of asking alum to look at lists of their fellow alum and offer their perspective on what they think they're capable of, what they think their giving interest might be, et cetera. So using these peer-to-peer screenings as an opportunity to ask alum to share with you what they know. Now, many of them may say, well, okay, well, I don't know exactly how much they make, but I know because they have a membership in the same country club that I have a membership in, so I know that they have to be well-off. So you can use your own constituents to help you gain direct information on their classmates. Because as I mentioned earlier, they know each other. You may not know them, but they know each other. So if you can tap into them, ask them to share who are the people we should be talking to, who you believe can make five, six, seven-figure gifts. And maybe you don't put it quite that way, because that could sound a little like, wow, I'm opening the door for them to go hit my friends. So maybe it's, hey, the dean of the engineering school at our school is excited about expanding his dean's advisory council. Who are the people you know in the circle you travel in that maybe people we should think about considering for that? Who are alum in your class, and typically it means the class in front and behind you, who could be allies and ambassadors for helping us engage more alum of color, more African-American alum, more alum who want to be part of advisory councils for various centers, academic centers, and others on campus. Tap directly in, because they know a lot about each other. So even when your prospect research team has done some of what I described of looking at, you know, impact reports and annual reports from organizations, churches, museums, professional associations, outside of that, tap directly into your alumni and ask them to share their insight on classmates, because you'll find a treasure trove of information there, because trust me, you know, they know long before it's published somewhere that somebody just got a promotion to a C-suite level position at a Fortune 1000 company. Long before it becomes public knowledge, trust me, you know, they know who's moving and shaking. So I'll stop there for a moment. Any thoughts, questions people want to ask, particularly perhaps as it relates to this prospect research effort? I'm curious how you think about fundraising from diverse communities, like versus fundraising for something that supports equity and inclusion. That's conversations we have a lot and, you know, opinions vary, but there are certainly some folks who argue very strongly that we shouldn't be setting out to extract wealth from a community that might have been historically disadvantaged. We should be seeking to fund projects that will help to improve equity and be less focused on who that money comes from. So I'm curious how you think about that. Yeah, so Robion is waiting with bated breath, because she knows that I'm about to swing hard on this. Candidly, I think it's an insult. Candidly, I think it's an insult to say that, you know, communities of color, because they're have been historically marginalized, or are not had as much access to wealth, that somehow we shouldn't be actively soliciting them. Absolutely not. Now, I'm sure there are people in the DEI space, who would who would disagree with me. But as someone who isn't just, I don't just think of myself as a DEI consultant or something. I think of myself as a kind of fundraising philanthropic consultant, who also, you know, has kind of expertise and experience in DEIB. Definitely, you know, I don't think it's one or the other. Now, I do think being thoughtful and strategic about how you approach it. Absolutely. But candidly, I think all of us should be doing that in any regard. Because that, again, is fundamental philanthropy. So a couple of examples. So this idea that, well, you know, we're uncomfortable with having gift opportunities specific to these communities. So if, you know, at the end of the day, the job of fundraisers specifically, but advancement more broadly, is to get people to give. So if right now, a lot of your alumni of color aren't giving at all, would you rather them keep not giving, or give to something that speaks to them, which may be specific to their community? Because once you get them giving, now you can open the door up to more things. But this idea that, well, you know, I'd really rather have them giving generally to the annual fund or to their class fund, and not, you know, be able to target it to that, that just doesn't make any sense to me. As an example of how institutions are kind of, well, if I, you know, if I encourage them to give, you know, broadly stuff, then, you know, they're not going to give to their class campaign or this, that, and the other. At the end of the day, if they're not giving right now, or giving very little, let's get them giving before we start worrying about what they're giving to. So that's the first point I might make. The second point is, you know, I'm an alum of color of Fairmont McKenna College. And, you know, I certainly don't have the wealth that, you know, perhaps other classmates, whether they're of color or not. But, you know, if my alma mater was saying, well, Henry, you're African American. And so because of that, you know, we don't want to tax you because, you know, we recognize that you may have a lot of other things, you know, that you're carrying, like, excuse me. So I don't subscribe to that. I think I know Robbie well enough to know that she doesn't either. But it is about bringing opportunities to our alum that not only speak to them and what they care about, which, again, is Fundraising 101, but also opportunities that reflect what the institution says they care about. So if we say DEIB is an important priority, but when we look at the gift opportunities, very few of them, you know, actually reflect that, then we're actually contradicting what we're saying. So that's how I would start. Emelina, I appreciate the question and would love any feedback you have. And then Robbie, I can certainly chime in as well. Yeah, let me just, I'm going to go ahead and chime in first and then open it up. So, yes, thank you so much for the question, Emelina, because that is, it's a common question that exists. And I agree with Henry that it's not, you know, it's not an either or, or I don't subscribe to an either or approach, but a both and approach to this. And some of what I'm going to say is, it's going to be redundant to what Henry said with some personal elaboration. So when thinking about approaching, don't put potential prospects, or not approaching potential prospects of color, to give to your schools, your colleges and universities, because of the history that exists, that exists, where those individuals were not included, I think that were marginalized. I think that that undermines the essence of what we talk about in terms of going back to defining DEIB, and the different elements of DEIB. And part of it includes, pardon the redundancy here, being inclusive, and inclusionary. And so for an institution with good intentions, I want to just put that in there, an institution with good intentions in, in, or intentions with the, with the purpose of engaging people of color for focus on that focus on that particular dimension of diversity, people of color, as an example, to say, I'm going to take off the list for you, the opportunity to give without having that discussion or conversation with you. That is, that's problematic. And again, it undermines what we're saying we want to achieve with the incorporation of, or by the incorporation of DEIB in advancement, in advancement work. Now, with all of that said, it's, I think it's critically important to, to do what, you know, Henry's spoken about this, to do good at good fundraising work, and ensure that you are having conversations in earnest with those, with those potential donors. And furthermore, that you are aware and well aware, ideally prepared, and certainly sensitive to what your institutional or school organizational for, for the independent schools, history has been for those that you are, that you are approaching, potentially to, to make, to make gifts. And so that's why I say that it is, it's not an either or, it is, it's a, it's a both and, and the institution or the organization, as organizations, I believe, have a responsibility to ensure that there are also, at the institution, offer gift opportunities that represent the commitment that the institution says it has to diversity. I think that's also critically important. The last thing I want to say about this is in doing this, I think what in doing this work, in taking a both end approach, it's also important not to be assumptive. And what I mean by that is, while the institution certainly should have gift opportunities or propositions that represent its commitment to diversity as the institution has, assuming that the institution has done work in defining what that is for the institution, that as development officers or advancement professionals, we do not assume that our prospective donors of color want to support those respective gift propositions or gift areas. Please don't make that assumption for them or simply because they are a person of color. And what I mean by that is segmenting people out of other opportunities because of the fact that they are a donor of color or not presenting those other opportunities as well. Let me add one additional thought. So I can imagine that, despite what Robianne and I both shared, there's still a concern, okay, but what happens if somebody complains? Why are you asking alumni of color to give if we know that they've been historically victims of racism or have been underrepresented, this, that, and the other? So the reason I say that is because, again, this sense that, well, if one person raises an objection, that should freeze me and say, okay, well, maybe I need to look at this again or maybe that's not such a good idea. Again, there's always gonna be a breadth of people across the spectrum, and there's gonna be somebody who says, I don't think this is a good idea or you shouldn't do this because. At the end of the day, you're gonna be criticized, be criticized because you're doing something. You've sat down, thought through, planned, but it's not about, okay, well, somebody raised their hand and said, I didn't like it. And you can avoid some of that by, as Robianne just put it, not being assumptive, not saying, okay, the moment I walk in to a meeting with this one Latino alum, first thing I'm gonna lead with is, well, here's what's going on in the Latino studies program on campus. Just have a conversation with them about, hey, what's going on? Why did you choose this institution? And if they express some interest, be prepared to share that, but be prepared like you would with any other alum to talk about the things you think they might have an interest in. That's the point I think that Robianne and I are making. So I'll stop there. Emelina, any thoughts you have in response to what Robianne and I have shared? Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think it's a nuanced topic. I do wanna clarify. I don't think, I mean, maybe people are, no one that I've heard is saying we should not be asking our alums of color or anything of that nature. I think sometimes we get in conversations about what we should prioritize when we're looking at all the different levers we could pull when we're trying to be more equitable or further DEI efforts. So appreciate your perspective. Thank you. Yeah. Any other thoughts, questions, concerns? And welcome, Renee. We didn't, you joined late. We didn't get a chance to have you introduce yourself and maybe right before the break, we can do that. So if nothing else, Renee, if you wanna introduce yourself, I can, I guess, quickly go back to the intro slides so you know what you're being asked to respond to. There you go. So Renee, if you are having technical difficulty, you can also put it in the chat. Okay, so by my watch, it's almost 1230 Pacific time zone. So I was gonna suggest another 10 minute break. If that works for everybody, great. So we'll come back at 1240 or 11, 12 minutes from then. Great, so what lessons did we learn from the Diverse Communities Initiative at Stanford during the Stanford Challenge campaign? First, engagement's important. Identify your allies and ambassadors. And so what's the difference? Allies are those internal to the organization. So deans, vice presidents, AVPs, others who can help make the case internally that we need to be doing this. And ambassadors are those who are going to help who are external, so your alumni, friends, et cetera, who can help you bring the message to the constituent you're trying to reach. So you need both allies and ambassadors who will help. So what's the message we're conveying? DEI is important because it's a fundamental part of engaging more alumni and thus raising more money. And who's the messenger? You know, if you've got internal allies helping to carry that internally and you've got ambassadors who are bringing the message of, you know, DEI be as a fundamental lens to help us engage more alum and raise more money, they have credibility in their communities already and can lend some of that credibility to making progress with others. Second, all gifts matter, particularly for those who may have not been as engaged or are giving at smaller levels. The more you help them see the collective impact of their gifts and that it's directly touching people and priorities they care about, you know, you will move the needle. One of the things we did at Stanford during the Stanford challenges, instead of just highlighting how much money overall we have raised, the vice president and the rest of us began talking about, here's how many thousands of people gave in the one to $5,000 range. Here's how many people gave in the, you know, 5,001 to $25,000 range. Because that made everybody feel like your gift matters and it's leveraged against other people giving at your level, rather than only lifting up the people who are writing the big, you know, seven and eight figure checks. The more you help people feel like their gift matters, the more likely they are to keep giving and consider increasing their gift. You've got to maintain and deepen the relationships. There's no way around, there's no shortcut to doing the work. As we've heard before, people remember how you make them feel. Listening to alum, even those who are complaining can often be exactly what they need to have felt heard and thus be ready to engage more. And then last, manage expectations. Define and measure what does success look like? And then once you achieve it, celebrate that success. So it might be, we, you know, on average have you know, 10% of alumni of color who are giving. We want to move that to, you know, 20%, you know, over the course of a five-year campaign. Define specific measures and then celebrate success as you make progress towards that. But ideally, clarity, candor and commitment equal trust. They want to trust you. They were disaffected at some point, but you can rebuild that relationship by being clear, being very candid and demonstrating your commitment to them. And let me just jump in here and say something about, you know, thinking something Henry said made me think about this, in terms of alumni of color in particular. And I know we've talked about institutional histories that may exist. It absolutely may not, or excuse me, it absolutely may be the case that you have alums of color who did not feel marginalized from your institutions and they have, or schools, and they have simply not been involved because of the competition that exists with other pools to support other organizations. And so just as Henry mentioned earlier, good advancement work, good fundraising means finding that out. But again, I just want to make that point because it's important in this work that we're not making assumptions at all. Great, thank you. So here's the other lesson learned, that there has been a paradigm shift in diversity. In the 20th century, there was a lot of focus on representation. Do we have enough diversity on the board of trustees or board of directors if you're a nonprofit? Is the staff representative of our students and constituents? Are students of color measuring up to the performance of non-minority students? In the 21st century, there's been a change in that dynamic where it's focused less, not not, but less on representation and more on influence and impact. So are all board members fully contributing their time, talent, treasure, and network to assure effectiveness and success? And when we say board members, we're not only talking about board of trustees, but perhaps other advisory boards. If we're diversifying them or ensuring that there's some representation, how effectively are they bringing to the table their time, talent, treasure, and network to the endeavor? Do staff feel, to the point that Ray made earlier, informed and empowered to engage all stakeholders? In the sense that non-people of color can't or are less capable of engaging alumni of color, like that's not true because first, they're people. So if you think about it that way, yes, should we be prepared to talk about things that we think they may be interested in? Sure, but we don't lead with that because we don't want to be assumptive. And what resources are we bringing to bear if we think about this question of students, underrepresented students, feeling more, having more equitable outcomes? What resources are we bringing to bear to ensure that the potential of all students are realized and everybody feels vested as members of the campus community? Those are examples of how the paradigm has shifted. Clearly, in higher education, things are still very dynamic and those are issues. It's one of the reasons why I'm glad I'm not a college president these days, but the reality is we've got to be thinking through, not just from the lens of representation, but also influence and impact because we've got additional voices at the table. They can help us think through, plan, and execute things that utilize DEI as a lens, but ultimately to achieve the purpose of what advancement is, increasing the interest, involvement, and investment in the mission and impact of the institution. And finally, what are some keys to success for kind of thinking about Diversity 2.0? Define what specific goals, monetary and non-monetary, you want to achieve. You gotta have evidence and data to ensure that you're gonna make progress. If you're not, so that saying, you can't improve what you don't manage and you can't manage what you don't measure. So we'll dig in some more tomorrow around the data side, but ultimately, you can't say, we're trying to do something, but we don't know how to really measure whether we're successful. That's a recipe for not making progress. Plan a collaborative and strategic approach to getting buy-in internally and externally. Again, who are your allies internally? Who are your ambassadors who are gonna help you make progress in this regard? Engage your prospects and partners in shaping the vision. Don't just say, here's exactly what we want to do. Give them a voice in designing. How do we ensure our campaign is much more inclusive? How do we ensure that we've got more people at the table? You can have some ideas, but allow room for them to contribute to that as well. And naturally, ask them to invest. Don't bring them on in a token way to diversify the campaign steering committee or to have staff who are diverse as part of the staff, but not have them truly have skin in the game. If you're inviting people to be members of the campaign steering committee, don't not ask them to give simply because they're alumni of color or maybe they don't have the same wealth or giving history as someone else. Everybody still has to be invested in achieving the vision associated with your campaign or an initiative, et cetera. And then finally, share stories of impact because that's what's gonna continue the momentum. As we know, campaigns are about momentum. So you celebrate the stories of impact, both from your volunteers who are leading the campaign, your staff who are helping execute the campaign. That's how you keep that momentum going in a way that keeps DEIB right there at the table every step of the way. So that is kind of finishing up for today, but we certainly wanna leave a little bit of time, nine minutes now for kind of closing reflections and things perhaps that you wanna make sure that we focused on tomorrow as well. So Rabian and I want to ask each of you if you wanna share any closing thoughts and things you want to make sure we cover tomorrow, please feel free. You can jump in or I can call on you and I'm gonna stop sharing. Ray, I've been picking on you all day, so I'm gonna continue picking on you. Yeah, I was anticipating that. It already turned off my mic, turned off my mic. You know, for tomorrow, one thing I'd be curious about is specific metrics. You talked about, you know, you need to have measurables, right? So I'd be curious to hear some of the measurables that you recommend as we do this. I think that would be helpful to us, particularly as we're in this process of moving to a new database and knowing the things now that we want to track. So that is part of what we're doing. So that would be valuable for me. At least. Otherwise, I've enjoyed the opportunity to learn from your experiences. I think there's really good lessons here to take away from the efforts that we have going forward. Great, thank you. Amanda. Kind of to piggyback off of what Ray said with the measurables, is there a mode that you would recommend to get the data back a little bit better that's been more successful for self-reporting? Okay. Samantha. Yeah, measurables is one for me too. And then I think it kind of like the conversation touched on it today, but I was really interested in the session tomorrow around identifying and engaging underrepresented alumni. I just think that's an area that I know I need to grow in. So that was like one of the reasons I signed up for this. So I'm just looking forward to that tomorrow. I don't have any, like what I need to get from that. I'm just looking forward to gaining information tomorrow. Gotcha, gotcha. Caridad. Thank you. This was cool. Thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you. So I'm really interested in exploring your experiences with your experiences around, and this team really around when you're engaging with constituencies that perhaps institutionally, again, this is, I think, a new landscape for many and not a new landscape for many, right? So institutionally, you have alumni who've said, oh, this happened in the 50s, this happened in the 80s, this happened in the 90s, this has happened, right? What is happening? So I'd be interested to see how the work with leadership to create sustained, something that's sustainable effort, something that is, okay, this is a long-term, this is not a campaign effort, this is an institutional effort. So I'd be interested in how those efforts and those measurable things tied to that. So thank you. Perfect, thank you. Jennifer, I know you may need to type yours. Learn more about how to integrate an alumni and development team around DEIB. Thank you. The Stanford Challenge and the Diverse Communities effort was to some degree joint, so we can dig into that more tomorrow as well. And Renee, I know you came in late, but we would love for you to share perhaps what you want to make sure we touch on tomorrow. And tell us as well where you're representing. Yes. Oh, yes. I work at Georgia State University and I'm Senior Director of Alumni Relations. So I'm not a frontline fundraiser, but I work in advancement. We have a new VP coming in. And also before my former VP left, we were talking about me working with more diverse populations of alumni and fundraising. So also I just, I guess, trying to figure out the best way to integrate some of alumni engagement with looking at DEIB and connecting it to fundraising. And we are in a silent phase of a campaign. Yep. Got it. Thank you. And Renee, I live in Atlanta, so I look forward to connecting at some point. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, definitely. So thank you all. We look forward to tomorrow. We hope that today not only set the stage, but provided some specific examples of how you begin to blend DEIB in advancement and more specifically campaign. And with that, I will certainly give my better consulting half the last word. Nothing else to add, then we're giving you two minutes. Get two minutes back. Thank you for your time and your engagement with us today. And we look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Take care.

diversity

equity

inclusion

belonging

DEIB

advancement

fundraising

embracing DEIB

challenging discussions

building trust

integrating DEIB

training

diverse leaders

campaign committees

alumni engagement