125 – Diversity & Women in the Workplace: Claim Your Space with Amira Barger

August 29, 2024

Episode #125: Diversity & Women in the Workplace: Claim Your Space with Amira Barger 

In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson invites strategic communications and marketing counselor, Amira Barger for an enlightening discussion on diversity and women in the workplace. They explore the unique challenges faced by women, the role of organizations in addressing systemic inequities, and the importance of advocacy and taking up space.  

Amira shares her personal journey and experiences, offering practical advice for empowerment and the value of diverse perspectives in driving innovation and inclusive leadership. They also touch on volunteer management, burnout, the positive disruption necessary for social change, and strategies for creating a more equitable and supportive work environment. 

Women in the Workplace – Episode Highlights

• [01:20] – Discussing Diversity and Women in the Workplace 
• 05:46] – Amira’s Journey into Volunteerism 
• [15:45] – The Role of Workplaces in Addressing Inequalities 
• [22:18] – Challenges for Women in Nonprofit Workplaces 
• [26:21] – Intersectionality and Women’s Experiences 
• [33:10] – The Benefits of Diverse Lived Experiences 
• [39:04] – Diversity and Women in the Workplace 
• [39:54] – Challenges of Affinity Groups 
• [40:55] – Undervaluation of Volunteer Work 
• [45:00] – Empowerment and Taking Up Space 
• [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 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #122 – Rethinking Community Involvement with Ruth Leonard 
• Volunteer Nation Episode #124 – Equity Tools for Nonprofits Volunteerism with Faiza Venzant 
• Mariame Kaba Website  
• Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, “Hope Is a Practice and a Discipline: Building a Path to a Counterculture of Care,” NPQ, February 19, 2024  
• Connect Amira on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Amira on Instagram  

Contact Us

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

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Episode #125 Transcript: Diversity & Women in the Workplace: Claim Your Space with Amira Barger 

Tobi: I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and we are going to get into it with my guest today, Amira Barger. I have not seen you for a while. And then we ran across each other at Points of Light this year in Houston. And I said, wait a minute, you got to come on the podcast.  

Amira: Welcome. That’s right. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited. I was so thrilled and pleased to be here, but also that we ran into each other. I love how Points of Light tends to facilitate the people that I’ve been thinking about seeing, talking to, or collaborating with for a long time. And then it comes together. Yeah.  

Tobi: I mean, I bumped into someone, I mean, I hadn’t been, had you been going to Points of Light for a while? I hadn’t been for several years. 

Amira: I have, I know I haven’t been physically in a long time, but they added the virtual option. And so, I presented every year for the last eight years, um, but this was the first in person one I’d been to since 2019.  

Tobi: Yeah, I think I, same for me, I think I might have, yeah, I think it was 2019 and I had been presenting and then I kind of, Stopped and then we presented again this year, so it was kind of fun, but yeah, really nice to see you folks may not know who you are, so I’m going to introduce you a little before we get into it, we’re going to be talking about diversity and women in the workplace, and most of you based on our volunteer management progress report survey, as well as the CCPAs, A recent survey that I talked about with Advisor Van Zandt a couple weeks ago, we know that our field is mostly women. 

We know that. And our field is. Relatively homogenous, however, as Faiza and I discussed in detail, there’s lots of types of diversity that we don’t see when we look at folks. So, I think there’s more diversity in our field than we know. And I feel like because volunteerism in some ways is considered quote unquote women’s work in some ways, nonprofits are. 

Almost, you know, most direct service anyway are dominated by women, and I don’t have any problem with that because I love working with fellow sisters when I’m working in my non-profit space, but there’s also some challenges we face and, you know, as women, and so today’s the day we’re going to really dig into this, and Amira has so much wisdom to share about it, but before we get into it, Amira Barger, Is a strategic communications and marketing counselor working at the nexus of health equity, DEI, and employee engagement to aid organizations in addressing society’s most pressing public issues. 

She is a multi-award-winning executive vice president at a global consulting firm providing senior and DEI and communications council. She’s also a scholar, practitioner, as we like to say, pro academic and thought leader who brings strategic communications experience that reaches stakeholders, mobilizes the community and inspires action. 

She is a marketing communication and change management professor at Cal State East Bay. Shout out to the East Bay. I’ve got some very good friends in the East Bay. And she is a data informed organizational architect who leverages design thinking to advance DEI and solve complex challenges. And I always talk, gang, about becoming an architect of the volunteer experience, so we are aligned. 

Amira contributes writing on Black women in the workplace, Black motherhood, and actionable steps both individuals and institutions can take to advance Black liberation. and in her spare time as if Amira has any spare time. She and her family collect stamps in the National Park Service Passport Cancellation Book. 

And you know, my husband is a geologist and teaches a class called Geology of the National Parks, FYI. And I keep bugging him to write a book when he retires. He needs to write a book. But they plan to visit all 417 national parks in the U. S. Hashtag Road trip warriors. And you are going to have fun with some of these, because my husband and I have been to a few, and there, there, there’s a few that aren’t as well known that are interesting, I think. 

She lives in Benicia, California, with Jonathan, her life partner of 20 plus years, their daughter, Audrey, and two furry sons. Bucky and Potato. Are your furry friends the barking kind or the meowing kind?  

Amira: Bucky, he is the big one. He’s a silver Labrador and he was born on a farm where they specifically teach the dogs to be very quiet. Potato, however, his mother was rescued off the side of the road, and he was not born and raised to be quiet. He is very quiet. 

Tobi: And they’re both barkers. Well, Barker, they can bark if they choose to bark.  

Amira: Exactly. It’s mostly Potato. He barks enough for the whole neighborhood. I have a very chatty kitty cat. 

Tobi: She likes to talk. Talk with me. We talk back and forth.  

Amira: That is so cute.  

Tobi: So, welcome to the pod, Amira. Let’s get into this. Just tell us, you’ve, I’m giving a lot about, in your introduction, sharing a lot about yourself and what, the work you do. Tell me, I like to ask folks to get, to share how they got into the field of volunteerism. What was your birth story there?  

Amira: Yeah, you know, I have been volunteering since. I came out of the womb without even knowing it in my parents’ way back when we’re missionaries and ministers. And so, I was born in San Diego, had a beautiful Kaiser Permanente in the sunshine, um, and then, um, very quickly removed to the tiny island of Guam, which is a U.S. state. territory and sort of way out there, remote, much like Hawaii is just out there, smack dab in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific. And a lot of people don’t know it and haven’t been there, and it is a little hard to get to. So, that’s where my volunteerism journey began because my parents were missionaries. 

You know, the whole idea was that we were living in a community with people to help. meet their needs, certainly in regard to their, their faith and spirituality. But alongside that, if you know much about ministries, you can’t really meet people’s faith and spiritual needs until you meet their daily physical and media needs, that’s things like food, housing, clothes on your back, having community and people to support you and lean on. And so that was really the focus of what we did. It’s almost as if the spirituality and faith piece was secondary to just being there with other humans and helping to meet their needs. And that’s All volunteerism is, we’re humans connecting to each other and helping each other with our needs and reciprocating back and forth. 

And so, I grew up in that space of understanding that everyone has needs, right? And sometimes you need a little bit of a helping hand to get those needs met. And so, my whole life has been about this journey and story of. Service and service to community and service to the people that I love and call friends. 

And that has been something that has stayed with me throughout my entire career, um, or vocational journey, if you will, is I’ve always prioritized, how can I do something that is very mission and purpose driven that is about helping to meet the People’s needs, whatever those expressed needs are, I want to be there and be a bridge for people, um, in my community. 

Tobi: So has that, did that Impetus, that vocation, also lead you to get into more and lean into more diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Was that sort of a branch of that or was that something completely different?  

Amira: It was a branch of it. You know, one of the hardest expressed needs to, to meet is often healthcare. Right, it’s expensive, not everyone has access to doctors or health insurance. And so, it always stuck out to me as a theme that we, getting people food, getting people housing; we are helping in all these ways. And the hardest thing was always healthcare, whether that was physical health, dental health, mental health, emotional health, was the hardest thing to get access to and to get people to participate in for a host of reasons. 

And so, that did influence me. I started my undergraduate career, if you will, as a pre-med student. I thought I’m going to go into the health system and help make this accessible and I ended up switching for a lot of different reasons. My career from pre-med, I switched my major to marketing communications and found a way to be a part of the world of nonprofits by communicating to help people change their lives. 

Alright. mindsets and their behaviors and the actions that they take. And that’s a lot of what I’m doing today is a professor who influenced that I took an intro to business class and learned about nonprofits in that class. And I had never considered it a career path. And that professor opened my eyes because, you know, as someone who grew up on a tiny remote island where volunteerism. 

It wasn’t a word we used; it was just a life we lived. I really thought in my early college days that all the people that worked at nonprofits were saintly volunteers. I didn’t know that it was a vocation, that you could have a job at nonprofits, and it could be a path, a career, I thought really, that everyone was a volunteer, I didn’t know there were staff that were partnering with the volunteers. 

So, she opened my eyes and that’s why I switched my major from pre-med to marketing communications. Also, as a minister’s kid, you’re often thrust in front of people and so communicating and being on stages, um, is something that was not foreign to me at all. And communications are all about behavior change, right? 

You communicate to get people to take action, to start something, to stop something. or to change their mind. And I knew that healthcare, which was so hard, again, to fund and to find, that if I could use communication to influence the people who had the power in the world of healthcare, that I could help patients, people in the community that I cared about, um, with their needs. And that includes the volunteerism piece, because volunteerism is so important to the world of health and the entire health ecosystem.  

Tobi: Yeah, I mean, I, I think too, it’s interesting, you probably don’t know this about me, I have been to Guam, if only for a tiny moment. I didn’t know that! I love this. 

Ah! Well, I was there probably, I would say probably no more than an hour, and I was about six years old, and I was on my way to Tokyo as a military brat, you know, to Yokota Air Force Base where we lived for about three years as a child. And, um, yeah, my sister and brother and I, I totally have affinity with you around this because I think it gives a child, when a child grows up in it, in a culture or part of their childhood formative years in a culture that’s different than theirs, even though their surrounding family and we lived on base and whatnot. 

But we were running wild in the streets of Tokyo at times. Oh, yeah. You know, back in the 60s, nobody cared. Kids were running around, um, getting candy and checking out stuff. You know, I think we, when you have that opportunity as a child, and it’s such a crazy blessing, I think because you grow up with the understanding automatically that people are different, they speak differently, they eat differently, they wear different clothes, everything. And it’s just a kind of a given to you. I think it gives you a bit of curiosity.  

Amira: Exactly, that exposure is powerful.  

Tobi: Yeah, and you’re just, you don’t, you know, living in Japan, first, Japan is very child centric. So, it was an amazing culture to grow up in as a child, you know. And I remember, you know, when we would be out in Tokyo about taking the trains and whatnot with our family, and we were, we would stick out like sore thumbs because, you know. 

You’re different than everybody else. This was back in the day. There wasn’t a lot of tourism. Also having that feeling, living in a dominant culture here in the U. S., but also having that experience of not being dominant in, in the culture and having that just be okay and never be a real issue. It’s an interesting, I think, perspective for a child.  

Amira: It is, and that’s exactly to answer the question you asked earlier, is that this parlayed me into the world of diversity, equity and inclusion because of my upbringing similar to yours as I was surrounded by so much difference, whether that was ability, skin color, ethnicity, food, places of worship, faith, all of these differences. 

And it was just a given because I was immersed in it from birth. And. When my family moved back stateside, it was sort of this big culture shock that, oh wow, not everyone has grown up with this sort of mixed bag of nuts of friends and family and differences. That that was not a common experience was, uh, wild to me and a real eye opener that, you know, my parents had sort of curated a world of difference that gave me a worldview and a perspective and helped shape the way I approach people and relationships and my work. 

And that’s part of why I got into the work of DEI is that not everyone has had that experience. A lot of people do have a homogenous. It’s sort of upbringing or community of friends and neighbors. And so, they don’t have the same outlook and lens through which they see the world. And um, it really takes intention as a person to curate that both for yourself and if you’re raising little human beings to curate that for them too. 

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah, it’s so awesome. I just, and it’s interesting even now, and you probably have this as well, you probably have things about the culture in your home, you know, like we, like my sister and I both collect woodblock, woodblock prints. Everybody in our family eats sushi on a regular basis, on the regular basis. 

It’s not, it’s not a, you know, and there’s so many, there’s things we, we, my sister at her house, you take off your shoes before you go into the house. There’s just like Things that are carry over that culture, you know, culture influences us as we grow. And I think it does. It does. It’s a cool thing. Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. 

So, let’s get into this in a little more detail or a little more intensity. Let’s talk about responsibility in the workplace. Let’s kick off with this. I’m assuming, because you’re involved in this work, but maybe tell me why or how workplaces have a responsibility for addressing systemic inequalities that even, you know, sometimes those occur outside of our organizations. 

And today I just actually sent an, uh, our, um, pro news newsletter and I asked who’s responsible for burnout, right? Which, like, we can, we can talk about whether burnout is really a personal, uh, issue or is it a systemic or societal issue. Similarly, for inequality and systemic racism, what are, what are your thoughts on the organization or the workplace role, whether it’s, it’s for profit or non-profit? 

Amira: That, Individuals and institutions absolutely have a responsibility to address systemic inequities and inequalities because we benefit from them. We all benefit from them at varying levels, and that’s what we refer to as privilege, and we all have some kind of privilege. For some, it’s a socioeconomic privilege. 

For some, it’s place based privilege. For some, it’s a skin privilege. It’s different for each one of us. I live here in beautiful, sunny California, and that is in many ways a privilege, um, in and of itself. But organizations, our institutions benefit from the systemic inequities that our, you know, country, if you’re here at us, especially in the U.S is built on. 

And you mentioned earlier that sometimes inequities or societal issues happen outside of our workplace. And I’m a firm believer that for every organization, but especially purpose driven organizations like our nonprofits, there are humans that are entrusted to your care. And that’s how I like to see them. 

I don’t even really like the word employees. I certainly don’t like it when they’re referred to as assets. I really don’t like referring to humans in financial terms. Um, but there are human beings that are entrusted to our care as it’s organizations and to sort of turn an eye or be at arm’s length with the issues in society that affect them and say, that’s not for us to care about. 

That’s not for us to have a stake in is odd to me and irresponsible. Um, I really think our organizations, we have advocacy power, we have organizing power, we have buying power, and we certainly, if we come together, we have collective power to work together. Whether it’s change policy at a local, state, or federal level, or to make change in terms of how people see the world and how they think about ideas and our organizations, if we are values driven, and if we are purposeful in so many organizations, government, nonprofit, and for profit are there. 

Talking more and more every day about being values driven, um, in terms of how they show up in the world and what they do with their products, their services, and their ideas. Um, if we are truly values driven, a value to hold is to know that organizations are made up of human beings who don’t get to turn the world off just because they crossed the threshold of their nine to five workdays. 

The things that happen in the world still. Impact us and they impact the workplace too. You know, you made a comment earlier about burnout. I firmly believe that’s absolutely an organizational responsibility. I think about our structure in terms of the workday. We’re talking a lot in society today about the work week. 

Is it too long? Is it too short? After, um, you know, the world wars when we had 16 plus hour days, we dwindled it down to eight, but is eight really the right answer? In today’s world as well, these are question marks that we have because I think so many people are reimagining their quality of life and what it means to be a member of a community and sometimes it’s hard to be a participating member of your community because of time, because we spend so much time in our workplaces and we’re burnt out and we’re stressed, um, and we don’t have enough time to pour into one another as humans, um, and as community members.  

Tobi: Yeah, it’s interesting when you talk about the time spent in the workplace, whether, you know, it’s headspace, if you’re working from home or office, you’re still, your headspace is associated, and in some ways tends to leak into your personal life or in your headspace, when you’re trying to get, get a good night’s rest, et cetera, when you’re making breakfast, whatever, you know, I think, you know, having worked from home for a long time, I think there is a bit of a bleed between, um, you know, what’s between your work world and your home world, not just physically, but mentally. 

But even, but also, obviously in the physical space, you know, I have a friend who’s an architect and, your work He used to do a lot of work for interior office spaces, uh, in his younger years, and he said, you know, Tobi, we spend so much time at work, I want to make sure that everybody can find joy and comfort at work with their physical environment. So it’s, you know, when you think about how much time, you know, a third of our day, every day, at least Monday through Friday, and many of us on the weekends, We’re spending it work, it’s important that that is an environment or context where everyone can thrive and has a level playing field to thrive. 

And you know, when we look at the non-profit workspace or workplace, at first blush, it’s like, well, it’s mostly dominated by women or, uh, most of the workers are women. Not all and it depends on the cause and sometimes it depends on the level and pay and person at the top. I think we often see more well-funded organizations having more men at the top. 

But overall, we tend to, having worked in the field since I was, you know, just out of college or even before college, That I always just assumed and enjoyed working with women in the, in this workplace that seemed to be more woman friendly. However, I think there’s also some hidden biases sometimes that we don’t recognize. 

You know, what do you think are the biggest challenges in the nonprofit workplace or the purpose driven workplace for women today, even though we happen to be often mostly comprised of women?  

Amira: Oh, that’s a big question. I know. What are our biggest? Talk about, uh, yes. Challenges. A couple. Let’s see. I have felt for a great many years and have experienced it myself in the, um, particularly, you know, nonprofit purpose driven space that there’s sort of a tax that’s placed on our heads and an expectation that because we’re in the, the do good space, if you will, that we will, um, do good with very little or with a lot. 

Less year after year. And what I mean by that, particularly for a female dominated workplace is the, the benefits that are allotted to us as employees of organizations and the benefits that we need access to, particularly when you are a woman, because that tends to very commonly come with some things like having children, for example, and the lack of benefits around caregiving. 

For whether it’s caregiving subsidies as a part of your employee benefits package or flexible work schedules that allow you to make it to school pickup and drop off on time in your physical space, um, that is something that for me is one of the reasons I really prioritize it. being a lead and head of diversity, equity, inclusion in nonprofits. 

When I was in the space is we did such a great job of thinking about access, equity, participation, inclusion for the people in community that we walked alongside and served as nonprofits. We very rarely turned that inward to the experience of our employees. What about their experience? Is it equitable? 

Do they feel included? Um, do they have access to things like this? Insurance and food, are they using our services? Mm hmm. Those were often true of our employees, and we are sort of expected to operate without a livable wage and without benefits that could help us be full, thriving humans. 

And because there are so many women in this space, the kind of access to benefits that we need often looks very different. And I think that is a huge barrier and challenge to more women being able to participate in the ways that they want to and long term. And I do also think that it impacts our trajectory into these, um, leadership roles. 

What I’ve found. Uh, so many, whether it’s peers or friends who are leaders of these nonprofit organizations is that some of them have, for example, a support system, whether that’s a family or friend system, a community system or a partner that help facilitate their ability. To work in the non-profit space for the sometimes non livable wage and benefits that we do and that is a form of a privilege, right, is if you have access to a partner who has good health insurance, if you have access to a partner who has a salary that allows you to not Have to stress as much about your nonprofit salary. 

That is a privilege, in many ways. And I think that’s unfortunate because I do think it creates this barrier to a lot of people who would love to be in this space and who would thrive in this space, but they have the everyday needs of bills and things they must pay. So, they must go into a different kind of field. 

And that’s really something that we have to reimagine and think about is the experience that our employees are having and it’s their experience. Diverse. Equitable. Inclusive. Do they belong?  

Tobi: Right. Yes. Could not agree more. How do you think intersectionality and multiple identities affect women’s experiences? You know, you just mentioned part of it’s a barrier to entry at the beginning, right? And I will confirm that because when I left my Last job and moved into consulting and speaking and, and training and all of that. The reason I was able to hang up my shingle was because I had just gotten married and had health insurance. 

And so, I had some type of safety net so I could, you know, and I, of course I worked my butt off to make it work. But yeah, and it was, I had, we had the option to say and to come to agreement, like, okay, let’s see how this goes for the first year, and I had been offered a job, but the salary was so low. I said, let’s just see if I can make, earn more than I could at this offer. 

I’ve been offered this job in marketing and communications and nonprofit here in Knoxville, I was moving to Knoxville and I said, you know, I said, well, let’s see. And the rest is history, but the reason, and I was fully aware of it at the time, I went, wow, I am so, uh, you know, I’m blessed to have this resource at my fingertips so that I can stay healthy and do this work. 

But yeah, absolutely. So, in addition to barriers to entry, what are the other sorts of ways our intersectionality or multiple identities are affecting women’s experiences, whether it be race, sexuality, gender identity, you know, disability, ability, that kind of thing. Yeah. Just all our variety of ways of being. 

Amira: I think it shows up for us in the form of challenges, because it compounds challenges, right? If you are a woman, there is already, um, in the world of work, there are already several things you might encounter like, um, misogyny, right? Just based on our gender. But then if you put on top of that, maybe you’re a Latino woman or an Asian woman or a black woman. 

So then there are maybe different kinds of biases and isms that you experience, um, a pay disparity or pay differential that you experience. For Asian women, for example, they are the least likely to be advanced into leadership roles, right? And so, there’s a barrier. there, not only with being female, but the way that Asian women are perceived in the world of work is something that we’re fighting against and contending with every day for black women who are paid the lowest on the rung in terms of women in the workplace, if you are someone who has a disability, for example, I am someone I have. 

Three chronic comorbidities, yay me. So, I am disabled. I know, right? Like, I was struggling every day, but one foot in front of the other. So, if you were disabled, that can come with a lot of different challenges. I think about when there are days or maybe entire weeks when I just. don’t feel well and for some people who don’t have a chronic disability or who don’t understand it can be the reaction that they might have to you being out or sick again. 

That can affect you as a woman, I think very differently than it affects men. I had one instance in my career once upon a time, you know, when I had my daughter, she’s the, she’s the only child I have, but there were some people who, you know, felt bold enough to say in a meeting and suggested that I wasn’t ready for leadership because, you know, I was a mom and I had a child and I wouldn’t be able to focus. 

And these are the kinds of conversations that regularly happen in women’s direction. And there is an assumption about our capability, our willingness, and our desire, and our ambition, because we have the audacity to have multiple aspects of our identity and live them. So, I think it compounds the challenge. That’s the deficit side, right? We’ve got to talk about icky stuff, right? On the positive side, I also think, yes, absolutely. It makes us better, more equipped, I don’t want to use the word better, makes us more equipped as leaders, because I do think that the way that we experience the world, the way that we see the world, the way that we work to interact with other human beings and the empathy that we hold looks very different for us as women. 

I do think it makes us powerful leaders of people and it makes us more empathetic leaders, more conscious leaders, more curious. leaders, and I think that’s why we are so ripe and prime to take over all the seats. Leadership, whether it’s in government, non-profit, like make us the CEOs, put us in charge of everything. 

We are ready. And we have linked experience. As women with all these dimensions of identity, right? You’re a woman, but you also, maybe you’re queer, maybe you’re black, maybe you’re disabled. You have so many dimensions of who you are that you bring to how you interact with people and to how you learn and how you see the world. And that is a net positive, that is a benefit to every single person in that organization is to have women at the helm of leadership.  

Tobi: Yeah, I think also there’s a way that this, you know, it’s sort of it definitely having diverse experiences and having You know, lived experiences that ask us to be self-reflective if we’re going to be able to thrive, you know, and ask us to overcome and ask us to have grit and all of the things. 

All of those skills, because they are skills. Yes. There’s skills, communication, politics with a small p, I mean, you know, as women and, uh, diverse women, what, what are the specific benefits you’ve seen to organizations in terms of, you know, part of it, and, and we’re going to take a break in a minute and we’re going to move into how we can claim our power more. 

But before we do that talk about, because I think people need to, we need to all reflect and recognize that this is asset skill, not asset in a financial term, financial term, but asset in terms of our own skills and what we can bring to, to the enterprise of volunteerism and nonprofit work. But what are the specific top things you, you believe this, these diverse lived experiences bring to an organization?  

Amira: I think it opens, first and foremost, it opens the conversation, and it expands people’s minds, right? When you have a person who has all these intersecting dimensions of our identity, the conversation at the table is different. 

The questions are going to be different. I remember sitting in a boardroom thinking about our benefits as a nonprofit and being able to ask the question, well, what about caregiving? For those employees who have children or elderly parents, right? And that was a conversation they hadn’t had before, but because of my lived experience, caring for a sick parent before being a mother, we need to have benefits related to caregiving and bringing that into the room. 

That’s one small example of our lived experiences. We think of different questions, and we have different curiosities that open a set of considerations the rest of the room may not have considered before and that’s so important. That’s how we progress is you got to get curious, and you got to ask the questions, and you must have the conversation. 

Doesn’t always mean we’ll agree on the answer or get to a yes, but you might have just expanded someone’s worldview. And what people will do at any given moment in time is determined by how they see the world and how they see the world is determined by narratives and stories and those lived experiences that we are bringing into the room. 

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. I also think there’s, you know, when you’re trying to innovate and innovation is so required right now, I mean, we live in a rapidly evolving world. New tools are coming on the horizon. AI and all that. And at the same time, we’re organizations that are challenged by the economy, you know, and you know, there’s just a lot of innovation that must happen for us to thrive as an organization, especially a volunteer driven organization. 

If we don’t evolve, we are not going to, you know, we’re seeing organizations struggle with their volunteer involvement if they’ve done it the way they’ve always done it. And I feel like when you have A team comprised of people with multiple identities, that those identities offer perspectives that can be contributed if they want. We’re not asking people. 

Amira: Right. Exactly. We’re not asking for any labor, but if you offer it, we’ll take it. Right.  

Tobi: And, you know, if you’re a team member and you want to share some lived experience that provides a different perspective and a potential for way, seeing something from a different A lens that’s so powerful. 

I mean, if you think about it, you have a group of people, let’s just say in a room of 20 people and they all had the same lived experience. Okay, what’s going to be their approach to the problem? It’s going to be very similar versus 20 people with diverse identities, diverse lived experiences. There’s going to be so many options for actions to take, right? I mean, it’s just a, it’s a no brainer, right?  

Amira: It is a no brainer. And you know, there are copious amounts of studies we can look up that show more diverse teams are better at innovation. They just are. You bring more solutions. And in a world, like you said, that is ever evolving, we must do things very differently. And that means having so many different experiences in the room to offer up potential avenues we can walk down and explore. That’s what it takes.  

Tobi: Yeah. I think, too, we must be careful about, at the same time, asking people to, hey, I’d like you to represent your community. Right, and speak for all of them, get it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I think we need to, you know, address, you know, we need to see diversity in diversity, you know what I’m saying? 

Amira: Exactly. And we must be sure that when we bring people into the room, we’re also clear on it. Definitely. roles and that we give people the opportunity to opt in. Like you, you were, we were joking a little bit earlier about, we’re not demanding your labor. 

And that’s important. I know for me, like I am a heterosexual black woman. And I know that when I walk into the room, I have a willingness and an intention to bring that experience and to help educate and bring that to the conversation. And we must make sure that we are giving people that option to both opt in, but also to opt out, because not everyone is an educator. I choose to do that because it’s part of the work that I do, but you know, it’s not every, whether it’s a Latina person, an LGBTQ plus person or a black person’s job to educate everyone in the room, unless they choose to, and sometimes they do choose to, but we have to be careful to make sure that that’s a conversation and not an assumption. 

Tobi: Indeed. Well, gang, let’s take a quick pause from my conversation with Amara Barger about diversity and women in the workplace. We will be right back. And we’re going to be talking about claiming your power, y’all. So don’t go anywhere.  

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Tobi: Okay, we’re back with a conversation about diversity and women in the workplace with Amira Barger. It’s been a fantastic conversation, just kind of setting the table for what are the challenges, what are the benefits of having diverse perspectives in the workplace. in the room about being a little bit careful not assuming or volunteering people that they need to represent when they don’t feel like it. 

You know, I think people need to realize too that there’s, people must feel safe. People’s own emotional safety, believe me, if people have been experiencing microaggression, they’re not really feeling safe, baby. And you know, we have got to let people move at their own speed and contribute what they want to contribute. 

It’s interesting. I was talking to a friend about corporate groups where, you know, organizations are forming affinity groups within their, their organizations. And these folks who are leading these groups often, they do it on work time sometimes, sometimes they don’t do it on work time. And it ends up being more labor, more emotional labor. 

And folks are kind of taking it for granted that like, okay, you’re going to have your LGBTQ plus, uh, group, um, your employee group and you’re going to run it and you’re going to have fun doing it and it’s creating greater stress on people. So sometimes even, you know, the best laid plans or the best intentions are not, don’t land in the right way. 

Amira: Right. Well, they have an impact, right? And we must always recognize that there is an impact. It’s not without consequence, good or bad, people’s involvement in these groups and that, that labor emotionally and otherwise.  

Tobi: Yeah. Absolutely. So, let’s, let’s get into some practical thinking around diversity and women in the workplace. 

And you know, we hear a lot from leaders and volunteers dismay and frustration that their work is undervalued or unvalued. Do you believe this? As a result, this is a big question, but it’s an interesting one to pick apart. Do you believe it is because folks are undervalued or do you believe from the organization, from the external, or do you believe that folks are undervaluing their own contributions or a little bit of both? 

That is a really like interesting, and of course we’re making great generalizations right now in this conversation. Just for the sake of conversation. But I think, you know, if we talk about claiming our power, that’s sort of assuming that there is some individual impetus or individual support that we can give ourselves. 

Amira: Yeah, it’s often a tangled web of chicken and egg with this one, because when an individual or an entire team feels that their contributions are not recognized or appreciated, there can absolutely become this state of sort of disillusionment, which can stifle creativity, can stifle the Innovation can stifle ambition. 

That’s not the fault of the person, but what I mean is that there, there is an impact if your organization, if your leadership isn’t showing that you are valued and that they trust you to lead, there’s an impact in the way that you will then see your work and yourself and how you will move through the world. 

Not to say that any of us volunteer managers are still doing an amazing job, but there is disillusionment or just a waning of passion. Sometimes that can happen and can take place. And so there must be great intention by the organization to ensure that we are showing and investing in the volunteer management is a valued part of how our organization operates and how we provide whatever it is we do, products, services, ideas to our community. It’s a necessary part of what we do. Our tapestry is the volunteer management piece and the people that make that work happen. 

Tobi: Yeah. I mean, I often think that volunteerism, you know, folks think about women in the workplace, it’s women’s work, we have women running the volunteer initiative often, you know, and therefore there’s a little bit of lack of understanding or appreciation of how much rocket science it really is. I mean, there’s a tremendous amount of emotional intelligence that goes into it, as well as just organizational leadership. 

I don’t know any other job in the non-profit space that is so multifaceted in terms of skill set. You know, you’ve got data, you’ve got human resources, you’ve got policy, you’ve got risk management. I mean, it’s just like all over the place.  

Amira: Right. Volunteer managers are, I call them utility players. You must do all the things and understand all the things. And it’s like, whenever I meet a volunteer manager, or people are interested in the field, I tell them like, Oftentimes, you know, you’re working with people who are unicorns because they do, and they understand HR things. They understand some legal things. They understand some project management things. They understand some philanthropy things. Like they understand so many different practitioner fields because there’s a little bit of all of that in their role.  

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, if this is the case and, and yes, the organization for sure, because they are responsible for the context within this where this work is happening, right? They are ultimately responsible, right? To create an architect, a space where people can thrive. And as you said at the very beginning, where human beings are living, you know, a part, a large part of their lives and contributing, the organization’s benefiting from work. So there, there is a partnership here. 

There’s also the side, I think, and I want to talk about this. about claiming our own power as women in the workplace, as diverse people. What’s your advice? What is empowerment on a day-to-day basis? What does it look like?  

Amira: Empowerment for women on a day-to-day basis. Oh, to me, the first thing that almost always comes up because you also said this earlier is taking up space. 

I think you said claim space but take up space. I think that is so important because I think across every generation, there’s some of this, but the millennial and Gen X generation and women have been socialized to sort of be small in our spaces. You know what I mean? To sound small, to act small, to be small. 

And so, I’m a firm believer and advocate for taking up space. That means speaking up in the room, speaking loudly, proudly, and confidently showing up in the room to say, I should be in this meeting. I should be a part of this conversation. You know, I, I manage all these hundreds, maybe thousands of people that make our organization go round. 

And then we call them volunteers. I need to be a part of this conversation. So, to me, empowerment, part of that is just. Taking up space and finding the advocates, the allies and the friends in the space who will help to hold your arms up as you do that, because for some organizations and leaders, they’ll see that as disruptive, and they won’t like it. 

But it’s exactly the thing that we need to do, and that’s where, you know, this idea of that people say the word allies, and I’ll use that because it’s what people know, but I prefer the word accomplice or coconspirator, because when it comes to disrupting things or taking up space, you need someone who’s willing to quote, unquote, get in trouble with you. 

And it’s good trouble, not the bad kind, it’s good trouble. And that’s what an accomplice does. Like, I’m sorry, I need you to be the getaway driver. Like, that’s what I need. I don’t need a wallflower. You have got to drive the car. I’m going to go disrupt the meeting and then hop in the car and you’re going to drive really fast. 

That’s what I need from you. And so, we need people in our organizations who are willing to help us take up space. And that’s part of what empowerment is.  

Tobi: So, what about additional advice for folks who have additional multiple identities beyond just being women in the workplace? Do you have specific tips for those folks who are listening who are like, you know what, I’ve got other things I’m dealing with too? 

Amira: For those folks, and especially in my own community, I always tell people that you need to prioritize what is most right for you. And so, part of what I mean by that is, there are some days, runes, Organizations, conversations where I don’t choose to take up space. And part of that is, um, sometimes it’s a protective measure. 

There are some spaces where, because of my identity and how people will perceive me or make assumptions, it might be, quote unquote dangerous for me to disrupt this table, to turn the table over. And sometimes I need to just survive, right? I have a family to feed, or I only have so much emotional energy today. 

And I think for people with marginalized or historically excluded identities, um, that is okay. Sometimes the answer is to protect your sanity, protect your soul and do what you need to do. And I think that’s something that’s not often said. I think there’s often this call to action or expectation of us to always be revolutionary, to always be the leader. 

Turn the table over. And sometimes that’s the right tact. And other times it’s rest. Other times it’s sitting there quietly and doing what you need to, to care for you and to care for your community. And then we need to recognize that more because there is often an assumption and desire for our, our labor to fight the good fight so that everyone can benefit. And sometimes that’s too much.  

Tobi: I’m just nodding, if you didn’t see me, folks, you don’t see me, I’m like nodding my head, nodding my head, yes, yes, yes. I mean I think for coconspirators, I love that term rather than allies are a bit passive, isn’t it? Like allies, there’s just you waving the flag, standing. 

Amira: I need a little more action from you.  

Tobi: You’re on the bus. You’re on the bus. If you’re a coconspirator, you are on the bus.  

Amira: You’re driving the bus. You’re filling the bus with gas and you’re loading people on the bus. I need your action.  

Tobi: Yeah, you made sandwiches last night. You painted that fly. You painted that. I mean, come on, you know, and it can be joyful. I mean, I think people don’t, I’ve made this point before on the pod that, you know, working across identities can be super joyful and super fun if you let it, you know. If you let it, and if you’re open to hearing feedback, you know, negative or positive or both, you know. 

Amira: Amen. Amen. That, that, that’s that growth mindset. That’s that curiosity. That’s the, when we say listen and learn, that’s what we mean. Listen to that feedback and then take some different actions after. Yeah.  

Tobi: So, I think as coconspirators, part of our job sometimes is to be attuned to see if our partners in crime are struggling. 

Amira: That’s right. Pay attention. Pay attention because I think there really is a whole set of people who, you know, sometimes will still ask me, why I don’t understand why that was a microaggression. I don’t understand why that was a problematic thing to say. Right? And some of that comes from, well, you might not have grown up or around enough. Differences of people to know that, well, that’s offensive. Please don’t call me as a black woman articulate. Please do not tell me that the norm is not listening and learning and that accomplishment. Exactly. Um, and I, I think that’s exactly what it is because I, you know, I give people an example all the time of, you know, if you’re in the boardroom. And Joe steals Sally’s idea. I don’t want you to pull Sally aside in the bathroom and say, he stole your idea and that was wrong. 

I want you to say Joe. Sally gave us that idea five minutes ago, and you just regurgitated it. That was Sally’s idea, and we’re going to have Sally lead that project. And you need to say it in the room. Say it in the room, be attuned to what’s happening, and be the person who takes the action right then and there that will help change people’s mindsets, change their action, and disrupt the thing that’s happening in the room. 

Tobi: I mean, also, isn’t it the folks who are gaining benefit from their privilege, isn’t it more their responsibility than anything, anybody?  

Amira: Because you have less to lose and you have more, you have more chips in the game. You know what I mean? Like, I come with a negative set of chips to the table, and you’ve got 150 chips. But it happens, you just spend some on my hat. You have got to give me 50, and I need you to go spend your 100 on those people over there, I like. And then I need you to go get some more.  

Tobi: And if you, if you have privilege, it doesn’t take much creativity or self-reflection, if you’re really honest with yourself, to think back in your lifetime and pull out times in your life, instances in your life, where you absolutely got the upper hand on something, not necessarily over somebody else. 

It could be a situation. It doesn’t take much to just sit down. You don’t need to be rich. You don’t need to have massive privileges, but if we all, if we have any privilege part of our identities, it’s not that hard to pick it out of our lives and go, oh yeah, I remember when that happened. For example, I got pulled over. I didn’t get the ticket because of who I am.  

Amira: Exactly. And I think that’s important for people to recognize. And we’ve been trying to educate for, for years across many orgs and communities, right? Is that what we mean by privilege is that it’s not that you don’t also have struggles. It’s not that you don’t also have barriers and challenges, it’s just that those struggles, those barriers, and those challenges didn’t happen, for example, because of the color of your skin, didn’t happen, for example, because of your sexual orientation, right? 

And the difference is that there is something that you innately were born into this world with that you didn’t earn, but that gives you. Access is something that some of the rest of us don’t have, and that recognition can be a powerful thing because it can help you move through the world differently as a true neighbor and friend to the people around you. 

Tobi: Yes, amen. I mean, really. So. Any other advice for folks that are fighting the good fight for just how to stay inspired? Because, you know, I think there’s some inspiring things happening in the world right now. Um, and there seems to be a resurgence of hope, which is fantastic. You know, that doesn’t mean across the board everything’s rosy. 

You know, we live in a, we live in a democracy, especially in the U.S., that is still in development, y’all. Still in development, and we have not reached, reached the ideal yet, or are in a record. Got work to do. So, we have got work to do, but you know, people get tired. So, what do you recommend for folks? You know, you mentioned earlier, obviously, picking your battles, right? Picking your battles and not, not feeling obligated to solve any issue that you don’t feel like you want to solve right now or ever, right?  

Amira: Or ever. You know, you mentioned hope. That’s, I would say, I think one that comes to mind is Mariam Kaba is an activist in the social justice space. Read every book that she’s written. But one of the things that she says is that hope is discipline. And I think that’s an important and powerful framing and discipline is something that you practice every day. You get to get up and be intentional about it. And I think too often hope is sort of seen as this mushy, gushy, ethereal thing over there that’s unattainable, that doesn’t solve anything. 

And I don’t believe that that’s true. I think hope is so important to a good fight, whatever you’re fighting for, whether it’s racial justice issues, social justice issues, all the issues that hope. It is absolutely a strategy. Hope is essential. And we need to practice hope because it’s part of the fuel that keeps us going. 

So, that’s the first thing I would say. I would also say, don’t turn your nose up at quote unquote small actions. I’ve never met a small action, you know, whether it’s curating their world. I think about my 11-year-old, I curate her world of differences and people so that I’m giving her a perspective. 

She moves through the world so that she can be a good human. So, the other humans around her, there’s nothing small about that. If you’re raising small people, please curate their world. Please, please teach them about the difference. Please make sure they have a mixed bag of human beings that they get to live and love with. 

There’s no small action. So, think about what you can do locally in your world. You know, people try to boil the ocean and tell them all the time, like, focus on your world, join your city council, join your child’s PTA group, because you bringing a perspective and a growth mindset and curiosity helps to bring and prioritize that diversity, equity, inclusion, the justice and that adjustment of social issues that we need. We need people who understand these things in every room. So, that’s the second thing I would say. There’s no such thing as a small action. Do what you can in your world. And then the last thing I would say is find the thing that you just can’t stop doing will help make the world a better and different place. 

For me, I write. It’s one of the things that I love to do. I hope it’s the thing that I could, you know, pay my rent with. One day, maybe. Yes, exactly. I so wish. So I wish I could just write books all day long. Um, but I write and Audrey Lorde, uh, she has this great quote that I keep in front of me every single day and I keep in my heart, but she said, I write for those women who do not speak for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. 

And we’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t. And for me, the, one of the ways that I am anything, but silence is through my writing. I write to not be silent. I write because there are women who come to me all the time and say, this is what I experienced in the world needs to know. Can you write an article about that? 

Can you put that in your book? So, I write, I write to bring. Acknowledgement of those experiences and to those realities so that we get to hopefully a world where people no longer ask, well, why was that problematic to say? Why is that microaggression? I want people to understand, right, and to be attuned to the experiences of the humans around them. 

So, find what you are dogged about that you just cannot stop doing. I can’t stop writing and I can’t shut up. I’ve never been able to. So, I keep doing that. And that’s how I help the world. I don’t know how to be quiet.  

Tobi: Another fist bump. A double fist bump. So, what are you most excited about in the year ahead? 

Amira: I’m writing a book.  

Tobi: Okay, tell us about the book. Are you going to give us a little bit of dish on this book?  

Amira: A little bit, a little bit. So, I, many people know me from my articles. I’ve been writing for like MSNBC, Fast Company, and others about the future of work, women in the workplace, Women, the workplace, liberation, all of that. 

And one thing that people know me for saying in my personal life and in the world of LinkedIn, which is where I’m most, um, yeah, quasi famous. It’s unleaded. I always say nice is not the measure, and I mean that in so many ways. Whether it’s nice is not the measure when it comes to anti blackness, anti-racism, misogyny, the way people treat women, that so many of us have been socialized to be nice, to be peacemakers, to not disrupt the conversation, to not turn over tables, to really fall in line and just be nice, do the nice things, say the nice words. 

Don’t call someone out in the meeting, just pull them aside later and, you know, say something very soft and peacemaking and nice to them about what they did. And I’m a firm believer that more of us should stand up and be the villain in the story. And by villain in red, I really mean it’s hero. She Ro. She Ro. 

She Ro. Yes. She Ro because I think that the person who disrupts bad behavior, the person who does the opposite of peacemaking but calls out the truth, so many people view that as disruptive and unkind and villainous. But really, those are the heroes, the people who are willing to stand in the gap and say, I’m sorry, this is, this is wrong, and this is how, not how we should operate anymore, and I’m not going to play nice. 

I’m going to do the right thing, the good thing, the kind thing. Which sometimes, to some of you, who have a, you know, shady perspective, is villainous. And I am so willing to be the villain in that story because that’s what’s going to get us to change. That’s what’s going to get us to more. That’s what’s going to get us to people thriving in our organizations, in our communities, and in the world. 

Tobi: Nice is not the measure. Is that what you’re calling the book?  

Amira: I’m hopeful. You know, we’re having a fight about that. Me and the publisher. It’s hard apparently to sell books that have a what’s the word? It needs to be more asset framed as opposed to deficit framed. So, instead of saying nice is not the measure, it should be like nice is the measure, which isn’t as sexy in my perspective.  

Tobi: Yeah. Yeah, you’re challenging folks and that I sure am challenging folks and you’re and they’re what you know, they’re walking down I’m just like I’m walking down the airport by the Hudson.  

Amira: I saw that title be like That sparks a curiosity. Let me go pick that up. What does that, what, I think I know what that means. Let’s go pick that up. Yeah, exactly. See, it’s sexy. So, I’m going to be dogging about it. So, pray for me.  

Tobi: I will. Well, hey, when your book comes out, we’ll have you back on the pod and we can, we can get more into how to be naughty, how to be naughty. 

Amira: Please. Yes. You are going to be an advanced reader. So, I’ll make sure you get an advanced copy because I want all the thoughts and then we can talk on the podcast about it. So, that’s what I’m excited about because like I said, for me, that’s the thing that I tap into to try to fight this good fight is I write, it’s what I know to do. 

It’s how I put one foot in front of the other, for other people, it’s dance, it’s singing, it’s art, it’s, you know, being an organizer, it’s being a good parent, right? Everyone’s. The first thing that they choose to do to change the world is different for me. It’s the writing. Yeah. Awesome.  

Tobi: So, Amira, where can folks find you? We’ll put stuff in the show notes when the book comes out, we’ll, we’ll circle back and post it in the show notes later, but we’ll also have you on again, but, um, how can people find you, get in touch, ask questions? Tell you, you’re awesome.  

Amira: Thank you. Thank you. I receive all of that. Um, on all the socials, I’m at Amira Barger and I’m working on a website. So eventually it will be amirabarger.com. But really, I’m most active on LinkedIn and Instagram. Find me there. That’s where you can read everything I’m writing, all the thoughts that I’m having. And I’m very actively posting on LinkedIn and Instagram.  

Tobi: Awesome. Amira, this was fantastic. So much fun. 

Amira: Always.  

Tobi: I hope it’s given people some courage, maybe some light bulbs going off, maybe some self-reflective moments, but also just encouragement to clean your space, y’all. Like, you know, like Shirley Chisholm used to say, like, pull up a chair if the chair’s not given. She didn’t say it that way, but we knew what she meant. We knew, you know, I’m not quoting her exactly, but she’s like, look, if nobody’s giving you a chair, pull, pull up a chair yourself. You don’t, you don’t need to wait for permission to do you. You do you, get out there.  

Amira: That’s exactly what I mean. Some people will see you as the villain for pulling up a chair, do it anyhow. 

Tobi: Yeah. Ooh, with that, it’s so fantastic. Gang, thank you so much for joining us. Amira, this was fun. If you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you know somebody who needs a little encouragement in this area, share it with them. And of course, we love five-star reviews. So, if you want to give us one of those, we’d appreciate it. And join us next week. Same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Have a fantastic rest of your week, everybody.