124 – Equity Tools for Nonprofits Volunteerism with Faiza Venzant

August 22, 2024

Episode #124: Equity Tools for Nonprofits Volunteerism with Faiza Venzant 

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast, Tobi Johnson invites Faiza Venzant onto the show to discuss equity tools for nonprofits volunteerism. They highlight the ADEVI project and the Equity to Action Toolkit, which has been designed to integrate more inclusivity and equity into volunteer programs. 

Faiza shares insights from her work and personal journey, including her upbringing and professional experiences that shaped her commitment to diversity and equity. The pair also discuss the importance of understanding volunteer demographics and the need for organizations to actively create inclusive environments. 

Equity Tools – Episode Highlights

• [03:34] – Faiza’s Journey in Volunteerism 
• [09:56] – Challenges and Ethical Dilemmas in Volunteerism 
• [16:12] – The ADEVI Project and Equity Toolkit 
• [32:39] – Promoting Equity in Volunteer Programs 
• [35:36] – Data Collection Practices in Organizations 
• [36:45] – Challenges in Collecting Demographic Information 
• [37:25] – Understanding Neurodiversity in Volunteer Training 
• [37:58] – Barriers and Opportunities in Database Management 
• [41:34] – The Importance of Inclusive Language 
• [44:03] – Personal Experiences and Leadership Lessons 
• [47:27] – Creating a Welcoming Volunteer Environment 
• [55:07] – Introducing the Equity to Action Toolkit

Helpful Links

• VolunteerPro Membership Community 
• Volunteer Management Progress Report 
• Get ProNews & Resources Delivered to Your Inbox Every Wednesday 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #055: How to Get Your CVA Credential with Faiza Venzant 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #84: Building an Inclusive Culture at Your Volunteer Organization with Advita Patel  
• Volunteer Nation Episode #122: Rethinking Community Involvement with Ruth Leonard 
• Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration (CCVA)  
• CCVA, Assessing Diversity and Equity in Volunteer Inclusion Study  

Contact Us

Have questions or suggestions for the show? Email us at wecare@volpro.net.

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Episode #124 Transcript: Equity Tools for Nonprofits Volunteerism with Faiza Venzant 

Tobi: Welcome everybody to another episode of the volunteer nation podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I have a good friend with me today, Faiza Vanzant, and you know what? We’re going to talk about equity tools for nonprofits. She has got a toolkit she’s been working on with CCVA and other partners like Volunteer Match and others. It is fantastic. It’s part of the ADEVI project, which we’ll talk about a little bit, but gang, you are going to love this. 

If you have been really wanting to bring more equity and inclusivity into your volunteer engagement. You’re not sure what to do, but you’ve got this urge, you know, it’s the right thing to do, but you just don’t know the next steps to take this toolkit’s really going to help. And we’re going to go into more detail about it. 

So, I’m not going to do any more on that now, but let’s just get, get into it. I think this is absolutely an awesome topic. It’s still timely. It is timely. There’s so much going on in the world, gang. We have got to come in together. You know, there’s stuff going on in the UK. You know, I have friends who are worried about their safety and that’s just not a world we want to live in. 

We want to live in a world where people feel safe, where people can be their best selves. where there’s a level playing field, and what better place to start that kind of movement than in volunteer programs, where we are bringing in people from all different walks of life. People are learning from one another. 

There is no reason why this can’t be a primary thing we do with this enterprise called volunteerism. So, I am so pumped to have you today, Faiza. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?  

Faiza: I’m doing great. I’m doing great. And just to build on what you’re saying, there’s no better time for people to stop feeling left out. And that’s what this is all about. People are getting left out and yeah, we need to do something about that.  

Tobi: Yeah, and you know who, I don’t think anybody in our field ever sets out to say, I want people to feel like they don’t belong. But, you know, no, I don’t think I haven’t met anybody that’s like, you know what, people did not feel like they belong around here. 

That’s not how we set out. That’s not how we do in our field. Well, I just haven’t met anybody that’s thinking that way. But there are things that happen. that lead people to feel that way. And, you know, sometimes we’re completely unconscious of them. Absolutely. So, we’ve got to be conscious, y’all. Get conscious. 

We are all learning. We’re all growing. And we can’t be afraid of this type of growth. You know, we cannot be afraid of it. I think, you know, often people don’t act because they are afraid, they’re going to make a mistake. But imagine all the mistakes you don’t know you’re making, you don’t learn, right? 

So, like you could either be conscious about your mistakes or unconscious about your mistakes. Which one would you like to choose? Yeah. Faiza, let me introduce you in case folks don’t know you. You’re the Executive Director of the Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration. Shout out to all those CVAs, y’all. Hey, CVAs. Yay, CVAs. From a young age, Faiza Venzant’s parents instilled a strong sense of volunteerism in her and her two brothers. older brothers. As immigrants to Canada from Uganda in the early 1970s, they made a successful transition into Canadian life with the help of many generous volunteers. So, girlfriend is paying it back. 

A volunteer herself from a very young age, Faiza has been an advocate for volunteer engagement and an and excellence in volunteer management for the last 22 years. She is now living in Temecula, California. So, she’s immigrated now to the U.S. where she’s the Executive Director for the Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration and an active member and volunteer in the Association for Leaders in Volunteer Engagement Alive. And she’s been certified in volunteer administration since 2016. I think that’s about when I was certified. I think that’s about right.  

Faiza: Yeah.  

Tobi: Actually, maybe a little early. I think I’ve been certified for about, I guess, 10 years, 24.  

Faiza: Did you have to write, like, an essay and a personal, yeah, so, so around there. 

Tobi: So, y’all who are doing CBAs now, let me tell you, I had to walk backwards in the snow uphill to get my CBA. I started to feel old! No, we had to write an essay, a case study, the ethics statement. 

Faiza: Yeah, a personal philosophy on volunteerism, all of that.  

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah, it was a thing. It was a thing. It’s still a thing, y’all. But Faisa, let’s also share with 25, let me share the second half of Faisa’s bio. With 25 years of leadership experience and volunteer engagement, she continues this work with a goal of centering community amongst the profession, improving equity and access to volunteerism, and increasing diversity amongst professional leaders of volunteers. And in 2018, FISA published her first children’s book entitled, My Mama Wants to Eat Me Up, which is so cute. As a mother of two young boys, FISA She has not actually eaten any of her chocolate.  

Faiza: Not yet. Not yet.  

Tobi: Not yet. And we’ll be posting links to the CCVA and links to get in touch with VISA. So, all this will be in the show notes. And I just want to get started if I said, I always like to kick it off asking our audience to tell us, you know, I’ve introduced you obviously all of the, the, um, traditional ways that folks get introduced, but, you know, tell us a little bit about how, you know, if you got into volunteerism as a young age, what were you doing when you were young? 

Faiza: Well, I was a baby. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this story, Tobi, because you’ve introduced me, you’ve introduced me on other podcast episodes, so I got to come up with some new stuff. But let me tell you this story about my mom. Immigrated to Canada, someone helped her figure out disposable diapers versus cloth diapers, which is what she was used to growing up with. 

And then fast forward six years after that, my mom and my dad were volunteering to help newcomers to Canada through the same sort of like networks that had helped them when they first moved. And my mom was teaching some women how to use disposable diapers. And I was the volunteer baby. So, I was the baby model that was used to show how to tie diapers. 

And that was my entrance into volunteering.   

Tobi: And you were volunteer told. 

Faiza: I mean, yeah, I guess, I guess that’s what it was, but that is literally, that was my upbringing. My parents were always volunteering. So, in our mosque, we volunteered. And then as soon as I was of age, I would volunteer in the mosque. 

I mean, I did it informally. And then we have a formal volunteer program with uniforms and everything. So, it’s just always been a part of my upbringing. And, and, you know, in my life, some people go camping with their family or, you know, they’ve always done rowing or something like that. We just always volunteered. 

And it’s to this day, my brother is a director of park run in Whitby, Canada. Um, my, my other brother has been like a scout’s leader for many, many years. My parents still volunteer. And so do I, it’s just what we do as a family.  

Tobi: That’s awesome. That is so awesome. So how did you transition from being a volunteer in the community to being a volunteer who leads volunteers professionally? 

Faiza: Yeah, so when I was in university, I volunteered for an organization every summer in my university days and one summer they had gotten some funding and so they asked if, you know, could you commit more time and help us build out basically what was a corporate volunteer program going into some different corporations and businesses and doing lunch and learns about the organization. 

All leading up to this 5k charity walk. So, these corporations had champions within their companies that would try to get a bunch of employees together to raise money and then go out and walk together. And I would come in and do these little lunch and learns. And in trying to figure out how to do that. 

I noticed. Or I found TAVA, the Toronto Association for Volunteer Administration, so my local ABA. I found them and I found that there were all these networks and there was a career of people who were doing this. And at the time I was studying social work, and I knew I didn’t want to be a social worker, but I could see that all the things that I was learning as a social worker were directly applicable to engaging volunteers and so I started pursuing that and that one summer job led to another part time job which led to like my first full time job in volunteer engagement and here we are 25 years later. I’ve never done anything else.  

Tobi: Well, hence you are super wise, super wise, lots of expertise and fantastic at what you do. What’s your role at CCVA? You’re executive director. What does that entail?  

Faiza: My role is I work with an incredible board, all made up of volunteers, and I basically administer the CVA credential. So, I am the person that supports all the candidates who are looking to apply for their CVA, processing all their applications, doing all that kind of stuff, making sure people are set up for the exam. 

Then I also do the same thing for CVAs who are renewing. every five years, supporting them through that process. And lately, I’ve been able to take a bigger role in talking a little bit more about the professional ethics in volunteer administration, getting out in front of as many audiences as I can to talk about how important that is and how it really solidifies us and just, you know, gives us credibility as a profession rooted in these ethics. 

And I just got back actually from the AmeriCorps seniors conference where I did a session on ethics. And Tobi, it was so wonderful. People were so engaged, had so many things they wanted to talk about when it came to ethics. We all stuck around for like an extra half an hour, just nerding out over professional ethics and volunteer administration. 

Tobi: Well, you know, I think part of it is because there are ethical dilemmas that the leader of volunteers in an organization, whether they’re doing it full time, part time, whether they have other jobs, wearing many hats, all that, that they are the arbiter of that. Or the person often who needs to bring clarity to the situation that, you know, is an ethical dilemma. 

It’s gotten muddy. People have opinions. And gang, there are ethical transgressions. I’m telling you. I get emails and phone calls from time to time from volunteers themselves. Who asked me, I’m like, I don’t know, I’m not the, the boss of the world of volunteerism. I hear people’s stories about abuse, about a board that they believe is fraudulent. 

I mean, I will hear these stories, it doesn’t happen all the time, I’m not saying, I’m not trying to be overdramatic here. But it does happen enough that gives me pause that we cannot assume, okay, first, we can’t assume even that volunteerism is always good. We hope it’s always good, but it does harm sometimes. 

And we can’t assume that volunteerism in and of itself is ethical because it is people helping people or the intention is. So, it doesn’t surprise me. I mean, I feel like folks are put in this position and they’ve got to be that internal consultant.  

Faiza: Absolutely. A friend of mine, Brianna Durellis, I just did a workshop with her and something that really stuck out with me that she talked about is there’s so much wonderfulness that comes out of volunteerism. 

And yet it’s still okay. She uses the phrase interrogate the good, right? Even yes, even though wonderful things can be happening, good things can be happening. Communities can be getting healthier. It’s always okay to interrogate the good. Right? And, um, I love that. Ever since I’ve heard her say that it’s just kind of given me a different lens with which to look through, how do we do volunteer engagement and how can we do it better? 

And that’s what the toolkit is all about, right? It’s about, it’s not, it’s not about saying things are broken that need to be fixed. It’s just saying, we can do better. We can do better to make sure more people are included because people are getting left out from volunteering.  

Tobi: Yeah, you know, I just today, an episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast just dropped, and it’s my conversation with Ruth Leonard and she wrote a book on practices and theory and practice of volunteer, the fundamentals of volunteer involvement and she has a whole chapter devoted to a critique of volunteerism. 

Like, what are the critical aspects that we need to look at and not make assumptions around? And it’s the same thing. It’s like, let’s have a conversation. Is volunteerism inherently good? And you know, and they don’t give answers. What they’re doing in their book, it’s a, it’s a fantastic book. It’s like conversation. 

It’s, it’s got, it’d be a great book club. I’m telling you that. But it’s just really good. You know, to bring it up in a safe space in a, you know, open, inquiring mind. That’s all we want to do. And don’t we want to do that to be the best we can be?  

Faiza: Absolutely. I think taking care of each other is inherently good, but sometimes the things we build around that to say what’s right and what’s wrong about that can be tricky. 

So, I love that. I love thinking about those things. And I would, you know, it’s Olympics time. And I always think to myself, like someone like a Simone Biles, for example, imagine if she just stood Just did what she did well, but didn’t like to interrogate the good about her profession. We wouldn’t have like new moves, right? 

Like a new, a whole new scale of ways of scoring someone like her, that is somebody that’s such a good example of someone who is interrogating the good and saying like, we could, we could do even more, right. It can be even more difficult. And look how that has stretched that sport. For example, we can do the same thing in our profession. 

Tobi: I was just pointing out in yesterday’s volunteer pro newsletter; I mentioned her in the Olympics. I like watching women’s soccer, like you wouldn’t believe because that’s my thing, but she put the pause on her career and dropped out of the Tokyo Olympics. And I talk about the power of the reset, the power of the reset. 

That’s a way of interrogating the good to the bad. A pretty, pretty, I mean, you got to have faith, right? You have to have some faith to say, you know, I’m interrogating the good to the level that I need to stop 100 percent what I’m doing. Take a pause and reassess.   

Faiza: Yes. And there’s a few Olympians that have had that story throughout this Olympics. And I think that’s an amazing thing, right? They’re saying that. Sometimes you need to stop and then take a look to see what else could I be doing here? How can I be doing it better?  

Tobi: And sometimes you can’t see. You can’t get a really good view if you’re moving at the speed of light Because stuff’s going by way too fast! So, let’s jump into taking this pause, but let’s stop for a minute. I want to ask you about what you know. You’ve done a lot of work around diversity equity and inclusion you’ve done immersive workshops for folks on poverty simulations. 

You’ve done things in your life to really move the needle on this, I think, in our field. What sparked your interest in diversity and equity as an area of exploration and advising as you do advise others as well?  

Faiza: It’s such a good question, Tobi, because I think it’s just always. It’s inherently been part of my story just because of the way my parents had to leave Uganda and immigrate to Canada, but I don’t think I felt safe in our community of volunteer engagement professionals talking about it for the longest time. 

So, it’s always been a part of who I am. It’s always been, there’s always been moments where I felt uncomfortable or I felt like, well, that doesn’t sound right. Or I don’t think that. It isn’t where I see myself or I don’t see myself represented, but I don’t think I had a lot of space or place to talk about it. 

And then a few years ago, I was invited at the last minute to replace the brilliant Amira Barger as a speaker at the volunteer management hybrid conference. And they said to me, hey, we need a speaker at the last minute. What do you want to talk about? It’s about tech. And I just jumped at the chance and said I want to talk about equity and inclusion and technology, how to use technology with intention. 

And in my mind, I’m like, this is where I’m going to test out. Is this a safe place? And it was, you know, we had a great conference. I was able to talk about the intersection between technology, volunteerism, equity, and inclusion. And there was a lot of interest, there was a lot of people reaching out to me afterwards to say, I shared a lot of my personal experience, and that’s how I teach and talk is, I try to be as authentic as possible, I try to talk about where I’ve made mistakes, on my equity journey, where I’ve learned, where I’ve had harm happen to me, and what that’s taught me, and Almost at every single turn, I’ve gotten these messages of validation that it is a safe place. 

And so, I kind of kick myself, like, why didn’t I do it sooner? But the thing about this work is, for some of us, there are some stories of trauma that come with doing this work. Sometimes sharing your own information and your own experiences is difficult. Maybe for me, it was not so much that just because I was feeling it, I had to say it. I had to, I had to have that. situation where I felt safe to say it.  

Tobi: Yeah. And make sure, I mean, you knew already you had some allies, right? Already.  

Faiza: Absolutely. Yeah. And then, you know, Tubi, once you start talking about it, it’s just amazing how many other people have started to do work in this space and talk about it. 

And maybe they always weren’t, I just didn’t notice, but I, I’m noticing an emergence of This appetite for wanting to talk about our experiences, but also what does it mean in terms of like who’s been left out of volunteerism, who’s been left out of, or who hasn’t seen themselves in the career of volunteer engagement? 

And what does that mean in terms of all of us, in terms of our mission and how we deliver, right? What does it mean when it’s mostly a very homogenous group of people doing the work, right? What does that mean? Yes, I know that. Yeah, you, I mean, you know that from the results of the volunteer management progress report.And like you said, nobody sits down and says, hey, who can I leave out today? But I think also in our work, you know, there’s a sense of urgency in what we do. We’re always underfunded. We’re always under resourced. Volunteer engagement professionals, you know, wear many hats and they wear them well. And what we, what we were hearing through the, through the ADEBI work that, that I was doing the assessing diversity and equity, and volunteer inclusion work is resounding. 

Everybody wants to embed principles of equity in their volunteer work. They just don’t know how, and they were all saying, we want to do it. We have the support of our leadership to do it. We just don’t know what that looks like. Help us.  

Tobi: Yeah, to the point where I’ve heard some folks in their organizations, they’re really expecting the volunteer program to carry the torch. 

And to be on the bow wave of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which honestly, I don’t think is quite fair to say like, hey, we want you to diversify your volunteer program team, your base of volunteers, but then the organization is doing nothing to diversify its employees. So it’s like, you know what, walk the talk, but that, that shouldn’t deter people because in the end, and it is difficult, I think within organizations, if there’s not a culture, there’s a work on culture globally, I mean, volunteerism within an organization is not a hermetically sealed, like, you know, It doesn’t happen in a vacuum. 

People are interacting with all kinds of people. So, it is a huge challenge for a leader of volunteers to be given that, uh, torch. I am not doing an Olympics thing, but I kind of am, um, and told like, look, you’re going to carry this for the organization. Yeah. Yeah. In a way that’s, you know, I think we need to be critical of that. On the other hand, you know what? Hey. We can start where we’re at and do what we can,  

Faiza: Yeah. Well, I mean, the one thing that I will say that I’ve, that I’ve learned in volunteer engagement is if you’re a volunteer coordinator and you’re sitting there and you’re waiting for someone to tell you how to do the job, you will be waiting for a really long time. 

You can’t wait for someone to tell you what to do and then also at the same time, say, give me a seat at the table. Those two can’t, you can’t be doing them both at the same time. I mean, you can be, but you’re not going to be effective. And so. You know, regardless of someone’s not going to say, hey, you need to build a corporate volunteer program. 

If that appetite in your community is out there, you’re getting all those calls and you know that there’s some work to be done, just go ahead and get it done. And when it comes to equity, it’s the same kind of thing as someone who is an expert. And I don’t, you know, people position themselves as. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion experts. And people like to say that about me. I’m not, I’m just an expert in my own experience. And I don’t think anyone can be an expert in that work unless you’ve met every single person in the world, because there’s just so much to this field. But volunteer engagement professionals, what’s unique about us is that we have proximity to the communities that we exist to serve, right? 

And so that is a special skill that we have. You can have somebody come into your organization that is the. You know, the manager of diversity, but you’re the one that has the relationships, right? And you’re the one that has your ear to the ground. You know why people come to work with you and volunteer with you. 

You know what’s unique about the community that you serve. So, you already have some expertise there and you’re so well positioned as a leader of volunteers to try to do something right to try to move the needle in some way and at least get started and stop waiting for someone to tell you. How to do it, when to do it – just get started.  

Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely. I couldn’t, I could not agree more. First of all, nobody really knows what you’re doing anyway, you know, tell people that, you know, I remember having that, that feeling of waiting and I was, I was the director of Uh, you know, I had a big staff, had a statewide program, and I remember waiting and at some point I’m like, what, what am I waiting for? 

I’m like, nobody even knows what I’m doing over here. My boss would say to me, like, you know what, nobody in our organization has any clue the power of what you all are doing here in your little corner. And I’m like, yep, yeah, you know, we’re just doing our thing anyway. Well, you know, you mentioned ADEVI. 

Tell us a little bit more about the ADEVI study and gang, we’ll put links in the show notes, but this work has been ongoing. It’s very interesting. You’re learning things that are really fascinating above and beyond what, you know, we’ve known already. You know, obviously in the volunteer management progress report, we, we called out and have called out for multiple years about the homogeneity of, of our profession, folks working in our profession on very limited characteristics, right? 

Faiza: Gender identification and, or gender identity and race, ethnicity to a limited extent.  

Tobi: But tell us a little bit more about the DEBI study, how people understand what it was for, what you’ve learned so far that are kind of key takeaways.  

Faiza: So, so it stands for assessing diversity and equity and volunteer inclusion. And we are just finishing up the second year of the Adevi study. We are hoping for a third year of funding and all signs point to the fact that it’s going to happen. It’s a project that’s funded by AmeriCorps. I’m a co-principal investigator in this work and I work with the wonderful Mark Hager. Um, and Mark is a professor emeritus at Arizona State University. 

So, in the first year of ADEVI, we worked with CVAs specifically, and we did a huge survey. And we asked CVAs to share information about their personal identities and what they were feeling about their organization’s equity journey, right? The guiding principle of the project is that if you as an organization are Attuned to inclusiveness and to equity issues in your community, you’ll be able to engage a more diverse cross section of communities. 

So, the connection here is there is this resounding cry like where are all the volunteers, right? There is a shortage of volunteers, right? If you’re attuned to inclusiveness and what those equity issues are in your organization, we think you’ll be able to engage a more diverse cross section. Um, of the community. 

So, we started with this survey about CBAs. I mean, Tobi, I’m proud to say three out of every five CBAs participated in the survey. So that’s a huge response rate, over 60 percent of CBAs participating. And what we found out when you ask people about their identities, the one thing that I loved about the survey is when we asked people about their identities, we, we didn’t give them boxes to check off. 

We just said, things like, with what religion do you identify? Instead of giving them like six religions to pick from, we asked you, you know, CVAs pick 60 percent of CVAs identified as practicing a religion. And when they described it, they described it in 51 different ways. I don’t even know how we would have picked all those 51 boxes for people. 

To choose from, but it made me think about the it made me think about when we’re thinking about engaging different parts of the community were being too narrow, right? If we’re just thinking about people in terms of dimensions of identity, and then we’re thinking one dimension of identity encompasses us. 

One thing is we’re really missing out on all these nuances that people are trying to tell us. For example, you know, 60 percent of CVA saying, I do identify as practicing a religion, but there’s 51 different ways that we talked about that as CVAs. And this is something that came up over and repeatedly. 

So, when we asked people, tell us about your gender identity, how would you describe your gender identity? CBAs came up with 39 different ways to talk about their gender identity and using terms that I’d never thought, I’ve never even heard of before. I wouldn’t have even known to put it as a tech, a checkbox, you know, so that was cool. 

There’s a lot of information on that that you can find on the ADEVI website. A big learning there about how you ask people questions and about people’s willingness to want to share all these parts of their identity with you. So even though it’s been a very homogenously led field, it’s not when you look deep into what, what people are saying. 

Then we asked CVAs to tell us, you know, tell us about your organization and how you feel they’re doing in terms of their equity journey and Mark and one of our grad students, Teresa Oswald, put out a paper called Is Everyone Welcome? And it’s a report card on inclusiveness in volunteer context. And basically, what CVAs reported was. 

You know, our organizations maybe have a commitment to diversity, but when it really comes down to it, that commitment is waning. Um, it hasn’t really gone further than maybe a statement or some of those performative things, but, but our organizations aren’t really backing it up. And so, there’s this tension there between CVAs knowing that it’s important to diversify and being able to welcome safely a broader representation of the community and then. That does not necessarily fit with the organization’s commitment to volunteerism, which is problematic, right? But the reality is there’s never going to be any perfect situation, and we just must start, and we must get going and get doing, you know, get going with the work. 

And so, in the second year of ADEVI, we got a group of about 25 CVAs together. They started working on what we’re calling the equity to action toolkit. And it’s a field building toolkit. So, to build up our field, basically on how we best advance inclusion in our organizations. So then, these CVAs got together. 

They each sort of had a focus area, so it might’ve been like strategic planning and advocacy for volunteerism. Uh, we had a group working on documentation. We had a group working on motivating, recognizing, appreciating volunteers, different focus areas and coming up with some tools to help leaders of volunteers be more inclusive in their work. 

So, for example, one of the tools is addressing volunteer needs and accessing volunteerism. So, helping a leader of volunteers. Think about what are all the possible barriers a community member might have in terms of accessing a volunteer role? And then what’s within your power? What are some of the things that you can do as a leader of volunteers to be able to make it easier or more accessible for someone to volunteer? 

Other things like, you know, an inclusive marketing worksheet. So how do you market to specific groups of your community? Maybe someone that speaks a specific language or I don’t know, practices a specific religion or represents a specific gender, right? Maybe those are important in terms of the context of the work that you do. 

Well, guess what? Marketing to a Spanish speaking young person is going to require different tactics than marketing towards a retired, uh, Banking executive, right? There’s, they’re going to need different tactics. And so, we’ve got some tools to help you figure out what you need to do when it comes to specific audiences. 

So, there’s tons of tools like that. And that’s kind of what’s rounding out the second year of the ADEVI project. So, it’s the equity to action toolkit. We’re fortunatete that our friends at the volunteer match are going to host it on their website. And you know, Tobi, they get a million hits a month. 

So that means there will be a ton of eyes and a ton of people that are going to be able to access this toolkit for free that was created by CVAs, which I’m proud of.  

Tobi: Yeah. And we will put a link in the show notes when it’s released, which will be later in September. Also, we’ll remind everybody I was talking to Faiza before we started recording that we can just put it in our newsletter. 

So, gang, if you’re subscribed to the Volunteer Pro newsletter, we’ll remind everybody as well when it drops and then we’ll add that link to the show notes. Let’s take a quick break and then we’ll come back. I want to, I want to dive into some other kind of interesting conversations. 

Let’s hang on because I want to ask you another question about the ADEBI study, specifically around what you learned about what people know about the diversity of their volunteers. But hold on to that. We’re going to talk about it right when we come back. So, thanks everybody for joining us for this episode of the Volunteer Nation. 

I am really hoping it’s inspiring you and knowing that you have a support gang, that you’re not alone in this. That there’s lots of people that care about really providing an equitable place for people to give their time and talent. You know, you’re not alone. There are people doing this. And there’s a community of people who care about this. 

So you are absolutely not alone and should not feel afraid to take steps forward or, you know, feel like you’re going to make a mistake because guess what? You are.  

Faiza: We always do.  

Tobi: We’re in the people business, people. We make mistakes. So, uh, who doesn’t make mistakes in human relationships? I’m sorry. I’ve never met anybody perfect in human relationships. 

So anyway, we’ll get, come right back. We’re going to talk about the equity toolkit a little bit more in detail, but don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.  

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Tobi: Hey gang, thank you for sticking with this. We’re going to have more in our conversation about equity tools for nonprofits with FISA Vanzant, specifically around diversifying our volunteer bases. Let’s get back to the ADEVI study FISA for a minute because you learned something interesting in your surveying about how much organizations know about their volunteers. Can you share a little bit about that?   

Faiza: I mean, the truth of the matter is, Tobi, that organizations don’t know a ton about who’s volunteering with them. I think there’s a lot of assumptions that organizations make, but they’re not necessarily formally asking or collecting information about those various identities about their volunteers. 

The one thing we know that a lot of organizations know is age, right? And oftentimes that must do because there’s a minimum age for volunteerism. And some of that’s. Connected to background checks as well. So, we know that most organizations do collect information around age. 

We found out that about one third of organizations collect information on gender identity, sex or race. And I’m going to say that when we say gender identity and sex, it’s pretty neck and neck. And I think. More organizations are asking basically male or female related questions on a binary and not really, um, asking about, you know, how does somebody self-identify, right? 

They’re, they’re basically checking a box in their database that’s there. A quarter or less collect data on things like education level. Ethnicity. What languages do you speak? Do you identify as someone with a disability? Something that I’ve learned as a Canadian that’s immigrated into the United States, questions around military status. 

I had no idea how important that was in some contexts, and even collecting that information, for example. And then asking questions like sexual orientation, religion, household income, um, Uh, political views or things like that. Nobody’s collecting that at all. So, it’s interesting that organizations are saying we want to diversify water to volunteer bases, but they haven’t formally started collecting information to begin with. 

They’re going on. I think more qualitatively what they know and, and sort of what they are seeing. And the thing is when you, you can’t really see things about people just by looking at them. There are things about us that you don’t know just by looking at us. And, our own biases limit when we look at somebody, what we make, what assumptions we make of them based on what we think their physical appearance says. So, that was fascinating to find out.  

Tobi: Yeah. I mean, I think neurodiversity, that’s one that you just don’t know unless people tell you, unless you ask. I had a conversation with a client recently, we were talking about this, and then we were in a small group, and I said, you know, if you’re thinking about your volunteer training curriculum, you might want to think about neurodiversity. 

And then somebody said, I’m neurodiverse. And I’m like, great. There you go. There you go, right? We’re sitting in a group of six people, and we already have somebody who’s neurodiverse here. And so, some stuff you just don’t know unless people want to divulge. I think one of the reasons, a couple things, one is when you mentioned databases, it made me think of databases as a barrier, both a barrier and an opportunity. 

If a database does not allow you to create your own categories for demographics, then that’s going to be a barrier.   

Faiza: It’s also a barrier if you think about some states, for example, where there’s anti trans legislation, for example, there’s pieces of information you legally don’t want to collect about people because, because it’s dangerous for them, for example, right? 

So, our databases may collect some information, but do we even have a secondary way of collecting information so that it’s not tied? To a person it is something to think about as well. Yeah, it’s, I’m glad you brought up the idea of neurodiversity because that is something that was a big learning for us. 

And, and I think a misstep in sort of how we asked some of the questions because we didn’t ask about neurodiversity, but we did ask a question. about, um, tell us in your own words if you have a disability, right? And we found out that 14 percent of CVAs identify as someone with a disability. And if you were to walk into a room of 100 CVAs, you wouldn’t know that just by looking at somebody. 

And then out of those 14 percent of CVAs, they describe their disabilities in 68 different ways. And a lot of the, some of the 68 different ways, not a lot of, but some of those 68 different ways that people describe themselves, they talked about being neurodivergent, right? Or having neurodiversity, or they talked about being on the spectrum in some way. 

And so, it taught me that that’s not a disability. That’s like, I don’t think of that as a disability. Yeah. But for some people, they have been used to being asked the question in that way, that that’s where they, that’s where they put that part of their identity into the survey. 

And so, if I ever did it again, I would ask it a little bit differently.  

Tobi: Yeah. It is so hard. Hats off to you, first of all, because having in the VMPR and the Voluntary Management Progress Report every year, when we asked about race, ethnicity every year, and I’m asking from a global audience, it’s like impossible to get a set of like boxes, like you said, to And then, you know, you have to balance that with, do you have the capacity to qualitatively code? 

Yeah. hundreds of questions, hundreds of answers. So, we had to always balance that. But, but it’s difficult and, and the language evolves all the time. It’s evolving all the time as it should, right? So, you know, we, whenever we’re doing this gang, one thing to think about, if you decide you want to learn this type of information and you want to collect it from your volunteers, I think you’re right. 

Separating it out from the volunteer application, for example. Because it also gives people the impression, like, well, why do you need to know this now? I think we can take a page out of, you know, traditional HR, an employee, often you’ll fill out a survey after the fact, that’s separate, that doesn’t necessarily identify you. 

And the organization explains to new employees, like, hey, we’d like to know the diversity of our employees, but it can be confidential or anonymous. Anonymized, so that we just have a sense of, you know, where we’re at as an organization as a whole when it comes to diversity, but we don’t need to identify people and if they want to identify their identity or any part of their identity, they can do so whenever they want, you know? 

Faiza: Yeah. You made, you made such a good point earlier, Tobi, when you said language changes, right? And somebody reminded me of this, because there was a time where every webinar, every workshop would start with, “hi, my name is Faiza Venzant. My pronouns are she and her.”, and somebody who I am so honored that they trusted to come to me later said, every time you invite somebody to tell you their pronouns, I don’t feel safe and that my pronouns are not on the binary, but I don’t feel safe in this group to tell you that. 

And so, I always must fit into the binary. And so, I feel like I’m forced to say I’m she, her, because I don’t feel safe in these settings to say that I am a they, them. And it never occurred to me, right? I thought, you know what? I thought I was being inclusive, but it never occurred to me. That, that opinion never occurred to me. 

And so, I said to myself, I’m going to stop inviting people to share their pronouns. I’m just going to introduce myself the way I introduce myself and allow people to introduce themselves the way they want to introduce themselves. And language is changing, and language is safe for some and not for others. And I think what a privilege that I have that I can just freely share my pronouns, and I don’t have to think twice about it. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s such a gift because I’ve had folks step up to me. I’ve shared some of this before in the past. I don’t know if on the pod or in writing blog posts or whatever, but people step up and come to me and say, hey, we’ve got a problem here. 

You know, and I’m, you know, I’m doing something I’m not even aware of and not intentional at all and having an open conversation and being able to lean in and just say, well, that’s interesting. Tell me more about that. Okay. Well, let’s see. What would, what would this look like in a different way? Having the relationship with that person get stronger is such a cool thing, you know, like it doesn’t have to be, you know, you don’t, you know, there’s a lot of shame.  

I think especially people of a dominant, you know, I’m a white woman, white educated woman. I’m from a part of me as a dominant, right? Not part of me isn’t, I come from working class, but there’s a, a thing we must get over, which is our own shame, you know? Like, that’s fine, but don’t let it stop you. If your shame is stopping you from doing things, then what use is it? It’s not, it’s not, it’s continuing to oppress just internally in you.   

Faiza: In the same token, like I have found myself in spaces, in volunteer engagement, professional spaces where I’m the only nonwhite woman. And I can tell that my presence is tokenized sometimes, right? Or like, there’ll be, there’ll be a question that comes up and everyone’s kind of looking at me and what’s she going to say, or is it okay, is it, am I saying it right? And I’m like, I’m one person. I make mistakes all the time. Like, I mess this work up all the time and I’m okay with that. 

I am willing to make a mistake. I’m willing to make a hundred mistakes. What I’m not willing to do is not do anything at all. Like I’m tired of, of sitting still and complaining and feeling uncomfortable. I’m willing to try and make mistakes. The other options are just, they’re just not helping us. 

Tobi: Yeah, I remember writing a couple of blog posts back in the day. This was a few years ago. And I swear I was in a cold sweat, right? You know, talking about my mistakes, talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. It wasn’t even called that back then, you know? Just breaking out in a cold sweat. And I remember when I published that, I was like, oh my God, I’m going to get shot down in flames here. 

But I was like, I can’t help it. It’s got to come out, you know, just, you know, we all have our journeys. And I’ve through being in leadership, just had major lessons called, called out to the carpet, made major mistakes. I remember when I, when I was a young leader, a young executive, a young program director, my leadership style was this. 

Get on the bus or I’m going to run you over. It was like I was tasked to build a program from scratch. It was so high stakes. It was a lot of money, and I had to build everything. I had to find the sites. I had to hire the staff. I had to do, develop the policies, everything, write the reports. I mean, you name it. 

It was a build from scratch. It was like, here’s your grant money. Go do. And I hired just an extremely diverse staff. I mean, you, you know, just extremely diverse age, gender, you name it, um, sexual orientation, people’s, um, ethnic and racial background. I mean, you name it. It was a wild, it was a wild ride because I, I set my, I’m like, you know what, I’m going to do this. 

Yeah. I’m going to create the team I want to have, you know, well, my leadership style did not match this team at all. Yeah. for that. Like nobody from these diverse backgrounds wanted to, you know, and nobody in today’s world, this was years ago, you know, 20 years ago. In today’s world, nobody is going to follow a leader that says get on the bus or I’m going to run you over, you know. 

But I was such a hard driver and such a type A that I did not take the time to bring my team together to work collectively. They revolted. I mean, it was a huge, it was, you know, I felt a lot of shame after the fact I’d left the organization. They didn’t do great afterwards. But you know, like I had to own it, and I had to own it. 

But you know, these are the crucibles that, you know, you’re going to be in to win it. And you’re going to learn your lessons and you’re going to screw up and sometimes mightily and sometimes mightily publicly, you know, you got to decide, like you said, is it worth it? Yes, it is for cripes sake. Oh, absolutely. Especially in today’s world.  

Faiza: Yeah. Absolutely. The other thing we must think about, right? It’s like, it’s not just about who do we invite to volunteer, right? Or who are we intentionally trying to get to volunteer, but what are we doing internally so that when, uh, when we build it and they come, they have a great experience, and they feel welcomed, and they feel like they belong. 

And I’m so CVAs who worked on these tools for the Equity to Action Toolkit because A lot of the tools are helping you to plan for those exact things, you know, do you have, for example, if we’re thinking about training materials for volunteers, right? It’s not just about bringing in a diverse group of volunteers, but once they get there, do you have large print training materials? 

Do you have printed materials? Do you have electronic materials? Do you have materials for somebody, um, who may have to use them through a screen reader, right? Are your materials accessible in many ways? And if so, it can’t just be your training materials. It must be some of the other things that volunteers will have to interact with as well. 

So, it’s about also making sure that the environment that you have is welcoming and safe for people. Because you can do a really good job recruiting people. I’ve been recruited to places where I feel so valued all the way up until I walk through the door, and then I’m just like, this place is not safe for me. 

Like, the recruitment process was great. The interview process was great. And then as soon as I walk through the door, I’m not going in there, you know? These tools really think of, make you think about the overall experience, the environment that you have set up, you know, what are all the things you can do to enhance it?  

That’s the great thing you’re already doing. This is not about redoing your whole volunteer program. It’s just taking a look at what you have and then what can you enhance? What can you do so that more people can feel like they’re represented and can, can be like, yeah, I want to apply to volunteer there. 

I feel like that’s, that’s place where I’ll be safe, and I’d be able to make a great contribution.  

Tobi: And then the word of mouth. It makes your recruiting so much easier. You know, once you have a diverse team, it just builds on itself. You know, once you have a culture that’s working, people start bringing people in. 

You know, when you’re talking, don’t you think there’s, you know, kind of called, I’d read written a note earlier, representation versus equity. So, if we’re taking baby steps, we’re often the first place we are is, okay, I want to diversify my volunteer core. And we’re going to, and your study says we don’t even know if it’s diverse or not, right? 

So, we’re probably going to figure out, okay, how can we know if our, our core is diverse? And I’m going to take steps to make sure I have representation. People often say, “I want my volunteers to look like the community they serve.” and I always think that’s open to debate, right? There’s like, okay, maybe, maybe that’s a good thing. 

Probably it is, but why not explore it? So, there’s this idea of representation, you know, like, you know, want my rainbow coalition, you know, like one of my, um, yeah. But there’s this other area of, like, equity and power that I think is almost more interesting. Even in the development of the toolkit, you were sharing power. 

Right? You said, you know what? We’re going to get a coalition of people together from different perspectives. We’re going to develop this toolkit in a way that shares power. That’s not, you know, CCVA and Mark Hager say it needs to be this way. So, we’re going to develop out and we’re going to run it by you guys to review and check it off and tell us it looks good. 

That’s not sharing power. And I, I think for organization, that’s where, that’s where the rubber really hits the road. And it’s hard to do that, to share that power inside. the volunteer enterprise and not have that power sharing or an acknowledgement that there’s a power dynamic in the greater organization. 

I think that’s a difficult nut to crack. And if you’re the person that’s like, you know, you’ve got the torch and you’re like, we’re going to do power sharing. You have got to do it. And I think, you know, from it, you can, you are influencing others. So, do you think the toolkit will help people on that, in that aspect of it? 

Faiza: I think so, because there’s parts of the toolkit which are just challenging you to go beyond sort of the nuts and bolts of what we think good volunteer engagement is. And really humanize it, right? So, it’s not just about good volunteer engagement. It’s about actually visualizing, like, who is it that you want to include and invite and encourage to volunteer with you, but, but then also to get specific, right? 

And understand that, like I said, when you’re recruiting people, you need to use different messaging. You need to use different tactics and. You need to make sure that the space that they come into is one that they feel safe coming into. One of the things that discourages me is when I see websites that say we are inclusive and open to everybody. 

Everybody should come and volunteer with us. And we want everyone to volunteer with us. The reality is, you know, for a lot of organizations, you only have maybe six people. Six different types of roles are available. They’re only available Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. You’re not inclusive to people who work those traditional business day hours. 

You know, you’re not inclusive of people who, you know, who don’t have this, those specific skillsets that you’re looking for. So be honest about what it is you’re looking for. Your organization may also not serve the whole community. It may serve. A very specific community that is underrepresented or underprioritized through no fault of their own. 

And so just be intentional and be specific about what does equity looks like in your organization. If you’re an organization that serves children, you probably don’t want children serving children. There’s, there’s some huge ethical considerations there, but you want Individuals who have proper training and proper understanding of child development. 

There needs to be, there is, there are recommended age gaps when it comes to working with children, you know, that, that their helpers or that their adults, for example, need to be a specific number of years of difference in age. So even when we say we want our volunteers to reflect the community we serve, like, what does that mean? 

And, and why is that important? In some respects, absolutely you want the community you serve to be part of the solutions, um, for themselves, right? And then in some cases, maybe that’s not what you need. What you need is specific expertise, and so be honest about that and then look for that expertise. 

Don’t just look for, you know, the warm body that answers the volunteer application. I think we have a responsibility as leaders of volunteers to do no more harm, right? And sometimes just trying to get the right number of volunteers and the right number of volunteer hours. And not really getting the right people working with the right community members is where we are doing harm. 

We didn’t get up in the morning and say, where can I do harm today? But we did get up in the morning thinking about our targets and not necessarily centering the community. How can we achieve our targets, but also how can we center the community that we’re working with, right? How do we make sure that the right people are partnering with and serving the people that need it the most. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. We’re getting to the end of our conversation, but before we log off, I’ve got a few more questions, but tell us a little bit, give us a little bit more on the toolkit, because we’re going to, Let everybody know in our newsletter, we’re going to put the link in when it goes live. Tell us sort of the nuts and bolts, the 101 on the toolkit? What does it look like? How will people use it? How will they access it? What are the components? Just give us a, you know, short overview.  

Faiza: Yeah. So, it’s basically a series of PDFs. Some of them are guides, you know, some of them are templates that take you through a set of questions and it covers all aspects of volunteer management Cycle, all the competencies and it’s, it’s our version, what Mark calls version 1.0. So, it’s our first crack at a toolkit, you know, instead of trying to get that perfect toolkit out there. This is our first crack at the toolkit. And if you’re going through the toolkit and you have something that you want to add, let us know. 

We’re always looking to add stuff to the toolkit. You know, we’re always going to be wanting to, to add things. And like you said, language changes. So, we’ll be needing to update things as we go. But the toolkit is about if you are someone who works with volunteers, and you’re trying to think about how do I make my program more equitable, right? 

Or how do I think about inclusion and inclusion. In certain places in my, uh, volunteer process, the tool gets there to help you enhance what you’re doing. So, for example, there is a tool in there that was created by Lisa Marie Mooney, one of our CVAs called the defining retention worksheet. And it takes you through thinking about what does retention mean? 

How do you define it? How do you measure that? What do you need to do to make sure you have all the tools in place to be able to do that? And thinking about something like Retention from a lens of equity, for example, Elizabeth Garrabrant, I know you’ve had her on, I think you’ve had her on the time and talent podcast before, but she created an incredible inclusive volunteer recruitment guide, and it’s to take you through thinking about how you recruit volunteers from a very specific. Part of the population and what are the tactics and things that you need to do to do that. So as a volunteer engagement professional, you’re already recruiting volunteers, right? You already have systems in place and processes and things that you do. 

So, you’d be taking the guide like this and really applying it to what you’re already doing. And maybe there’s a couple extra questions you ask at certain parts of your process, you know, maybe there’s a different way to phrase things. The tools are really to help you kind of enhance what you’re already doing and think about ways to look at all the pieces of what we do through a lens of equity. 

So, it’s going to be a series of PDFs. It’ll be on the volunteer match website. You’ll find it by going to the volunteer match learning center and its sort of housed in that main area there.  

Tobi: And it’s free, it’s going to be free to folks, they don’t need to be a CVAA, they don’t need to be a member? 

Faiza: Yeah, absolutely free. And what I would say is take the parts of the tool that apply to you and your organization and use them. Parts of it are not going to apply to you, right? So, some of the questions we ask aren’t going to apply to you because they’re just not, they don’t, they don’t fit with the context of what you do. So, take the pieces that apply with what you do and go from there. 

Really, what we want to do is we want people to just try something. Stop standing still and saying, we want to do this work. We don’t know how to just try and just try one thing. You don’t need to revamp your entire volunteer program. Try one or two things. See what works with your organization. See what your organization’s appetite is and what their willingness is in terms of change. 

How will we really surprised right about what your organization is willing to do and how flexible they are get a couple wins right and then I think what’s most important to be is like as people use the tools and work with them, we really want to hear from people. What worked for you? What didn’t work for you? 

What are some of the challenges you came up with? Because if there’s new tools that we can create to help address some of those things, we want to do that. You know, we just want to get better, right? We want to interrogate the good, get better, have a version 2.0 and version 3.0 of this toolkit, and just like be more excellent in this, in our field because, because we are, and we can be. 

Tobi: Yeah, I would add, just in terms of the power sharing element, get your volunteers involved in these equity tools. Using the toolkit, ask, you know, form a spell team to say, is anybody here interested in this? We’re going to be trying to do some things. We’ll probably make some mistakes. Is anybody interested in making sure that we have a welcoming and equitable space for everybody or 

But we want to increase the diversity and make sure we have a variety of voices here because, you know, the more voices, the better wisdom. So that’s another way to build in equity because you’re going to, you’re automatically adding perspective beyond your own.  

Faiza: Absolutely. And most of the tools are somewhere in there, right? Like where have volunteers been involved in part of this? There’s a cool tool called guiding questions for equity. What is it called? Guiding questions for equity and inclusiveness in volunteer engagement, and it was Built from an article that Sue Carter Kale wrote, and we approached her and said, we love what you’re talking about in this article. 

Can we take it and create a tool out of it? And it basically takes you through what’s your organizational readiness is when it comes to equity, how do you apply that to planning for volunteers? So, before you even involve volunteers, how do you apply that? When you’re thinking about roles and qualifications, how do you apply an equity lens to that? 

When you think about recruiting volunteers, engaging volunteers, recognizing them, we go through all those pieces. There are some great guiding questions. We take people through what their next steps could be. And then even it drills down even to having a racy for every section, like who is responsible, who’s accountable, who needs to be consulted, who needs to be involved. 

And that’s going to be, you know, that’s one of those tools that’s a little bigger, right? It’s going to involve a little bit more people, a little bit more strategy, but for those of us who are ready to go there, it’s a great place to start. And what I love about that tool is it talks, there’s a section in there about voice and it talks about who decides all of these things, right? And do volunteers have a say in all of these changes and things that affect them directly.  

Tobi: Absolutely. On that, this has been such a good conversation. These equity tools, gang, I cannot wait to get my hands on them and check them out. But also, gang, we’ll let everybody know when they’re ready and you can download them yourself, let you know where they’re at, where you can grab them. 

This has been fantastic, Faiza. This, these equity tools are going to be amazing, uh, helps to people. I think they’re going to help people just get unstuck and stop kind of worrying too much and, and really like just having some small baby steps they can start taking forward. One last question as we wrap up, what are you most excited about in the year ahead? 

Faiza: Oh my gosh, Tobi, what am I excited about in the year ahead? I am really excited about it. It has been amazing but also very insular working on this toolkit because I can see how much these CVAs have invested in creating it and I can see how perfectionism has been at play like they’ve been so hesitant because they want the most perfect tool to be made. 

I’m really excited for those CVAs who worked on this toolkit to sort of See the fruits of their labor because there has been like literal tears and sweat and heart that have gone into creating this tools because these CVAs, they’re all listed on our ADEVI website, are so invested in our profession, just moving forward in terms of excellence and supporting each other. 

I know it’s going to be great, and I want them to see every single one of them. I want them to see the fruits of their labor and that this was an amazing investment in their time.  

Tobi: Yeah, I hope they’re listening, thank you so much. 

Faiza: Tobi, what are you excited about? You always get to ask everybody, but what are you excited about?  

Tobi: Oh, Lord, let me think. I, you know, as some of, you know, listeners of the pod know, if you’ve been listening for a while, we had a flood in our house in Washington and it, you know, we had a traumatic year. I’m not going to lie. It was rough. I’m just starting to see the light of a new day, you know, it’s been months of really, and I know for a lot of people, and I’m going to talk about my journey a little bit more later when I get to the other side a little bit more, but I am really starting a journey of, um, recovery from, you know, this trauma and from just really having a really difficult year and, and, and just feeling, you know, a little bit fatigued. 

And, and I know there’s a lot of people out there that are feeling that are really struggling, because they’ve had COVID or because they were tired of all the pivots or because they had to take care of their kids for two years and do homeschooling, whatever it is, you know, and I think we’re at the precipice right now. 

We’re either going up or down. And I think for many of us, we’re feeling like we’re starting to get spring back in our step and we’re starting to get focused. And I feel like I know this is a long answer. I feel like I’m starting to simplify and starting to take things away. And I feel like that’s the route, route, route forward. 

And I’m excited about what simple life is. that I need to get to, to find resilience. Yeah. And so that’s what I’m kind of, I don’t even know what it is. So, I’m like, okay, well, let’s figure out what it is. So that’s what I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year is really getting really focused, extremely focused, removing any distractions, a lot more self-care, back to my self-care routines. 

And seeing what comes of that, because I already kind of known in the back of my mind, because there’s certain self-care. I used to meditate daily. I have given it; I have not done that recently. I’m going to get back to it. And I know what kind of effect it has on my body. I, I’m on my, you know, just my wellness. 

Faiza: I ask you that question because I think when we’re talking about equity, maybe this is a good way to wrap it up. But. A huge part of doing this work, because it’s hard and it’s heavy, is committing to this work and then also finding those things in your life that make you smile and make you feel hopeful and give you a bit of joy. 

Because it can feel like there’s no end to suffering and there’s no end to exclusion. The reality is, is that Both of those things can be true at once and they need to be, for me, there needs to be hope and joy present to be able to move forward.  

Tobi: Yes, for sure. Could not agree more. And in fact, I have had many moments in my life where I’m working in a community with people who are different than me and it’s been joyful. It is possible. It’s, and, and, you know, sometimes you don’t, you can’t foresee it. It just happens organically. You know, people are giving of one another because it is in our human nature to be together. Because we, you know, we have a DNA, we have a compassion gene, we have it in our DNA that we cannot survive unless we are clanning. And you can do either clanning for the good or clanning for the bad. And when you do clanning for the good, it feels so wonderful. I mean, you see things going on in the world right now. I don’t need to get into it, but there’s joy in the world right now. And, yeah, you couldn’t have said it better. 

I mean, I think we must also take care of ourselves, take care of one another, and things will be okay in the end. If you keep doing those two things, it’s simple, really. I mean, it’s, it’s not, it’s complex as hell. But, you know, if you can keep those two guides, take care of yourself, take care of each other, just keep that in mind, then, you know, you’re going to do the right thing most of the time. 

Faiza: Well, take care, Tobi. Thank you for having me.  

Tobi: Faiza, anything else? How can people get in touch with you, learn more about what you do? I’ll put some links in the, in the show notes. I’ll put CCVA in for sure, but anything else you want to share as we log off?  

Faiza: Yeah. Check, you know, check the show notes and if you need to get in touch with me, I am always learning from other people and I’m always up for a chat. Find me on LinkedIn. I would love to learn from you as well.  

Tobi: Fantastic. Take care. Thanks again for joining me. These equity tools, I cannot wait to see them. And I can’t wait to see you in person at some point. I’m not sure where. I mean, we saw each other at points of light, but that was so dang busy. It was busy. 

So, we got to see each other in person sometime, somewhere, somehow. Yeah. All right, take care. Well, thanks for joining us today. If you liked our conversation, share it with a friend. And as always, we would love a five-star review rating. Give us a review, ask us questions, whatever you want to do, you know, help other people find and listen to our fabulous, so wise guests. So, take care everybody. We’ll see you next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation.