Ethical Fundraising Practices with Marie-France Roche
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The nonprofit-industrial complex - are we stuck?
In this episode, we delve into the intricate - and evolving - world of ethical fundraising within the nonprofit sector, featuring insights from Marie-France Roche, the Director of Community Engagement and Major Gifts at TNG Community Services. We discuss the challenges and opportunities in adopting Community-Centric Fundraising.
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Key Episode Highlights:
Navigating Power Dynamics: Marie-France shares her perspective on the influence of power and privilege within nonprofit organizations and their potential to drive systemic change. We explore strategies for utilizing this power ethically to foster meaningful societal progress.
Challenges for White Fundraisers: Addressing the unique challenges faced by white fundraisers in predominantly white spaces, Marie-France reflects on her experiences and the importance of supporting diverse voices within the nonprofit sector.
Allyship in Action: Learn how to be an effective ally within your organization, advocating for equity and justice, even when you haven't personally faced the injustices being addressed.
Innovative Fundraising Strategies: Marie-France discusses her journey in implementing innovative, equitable fundraising practices aligned with Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) principles, highlighting the practical aspects of such initiatives in dynamic nonprofit environments.
Community First Approach: The episode concludes with insights on the transformative impact of prioritizing community needs over organizational goals, emphasizing the value of building lasting relationships with donors committed to justice.
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Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/YsndeUvRwdI
Links and Resources:
Marie-France Roche (LinkedIn): linkedin.com/in/marie-france-roche
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mariario/
Support the show: https://www.buzzsprout.com/208666/supporters/new
Transcript:
00:00:00 Marie-France: A lot of the principles of Community-Centric Fundraising, they're principles. All of them in principle, you agree with, but then when it comes to the practical, it actually can be challenging. Maria, when we presented at the conference about Community-Centric Fundraising, we talked about the limitations. I think that was really important too. We talked about all the great things we did, but we also made sure that we acknowledged the limitations. One thing that I have struggled with, especially as someone who focuses on major donors, is the principle of valuing donors in the same way, or anyone who contributes to your organization in the same way, whether you're a volunteer, you donate $10 a month, or you donate $10,000 or $100,000 a year.
00:00:44 Maria: Hi, friends. Ever wondered how you could turn your big ideas into results? I'm Maria Rio, your go-to guide for helping small nonprofits have real-world impacts. Together, let's reimagine a better sector, tackle systemic issues, and yes, raise some serious cash. Welcome back to The Small Nonprofit, the podcast where your passion meets action.
00:01:15 Maria: Hi friends, welcome back to The Small Nonprofit Podcast. Today, I am joined by someone that you might actually recognize if you've been following my work for a little bit. I am here with Marie-France. So I'm really excited for her to share some of her insight with what she's been working on in the past two, three years and to kind of have a really deep conversation about Community-Centric Fundraising. So I'll hand it over to Marie-France to introduce herself. Hello.
00:01:42 Marie-France: Hi, Maria. Thank you so much for having me. So my name is Marie-France and my pronouns are she and her. I am the Director of Community Engagement and Major Gifts at TNG Community Services. And I've been working in the, sort of, anti-poverty sector for about seven or eight years. I started off working in the UK. And then when I moved back to Canada, where I'm from, I worked with Maria, at the Stop Community Food Centre and we worked a lot on Community-Centric Fundraising and really implementing that strategy and reflecting on what that meant to us. And that was super incredibly rewarding and really helped to sort of launch my fundraising career. And now I am at TNG and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
00:02:28 Maria: Me too. Thanks so much for that quick overview of where you're at and what you're doing. That's really great. So let's talk a little bit about Community-Centric Fundraising, because that's something that we're both super into, that we worked really hard to apply. There was, a lot of good things, a lot of challenges. So maybe we can kind of illuminate some of what we did and why we did it. But first, what about Community-Centric Fundraising speaks to you?
00:02:55 Marie-France: That's a great question. So I think I trace it back, I think when I was living in the UK, I did a part-time Master's in, really in charities management. And as part of that, I shadowed the director of fundraising at a really wonderful organization called Crisis, their housing organization in the UK. And my research paper there focused on the use of service users in fundraising campaigns and really was calling into question or certainly evaluating and looking at dignified storytelling. And I think that was something that really I didn't have the language for at the time. I actually wasn't familiar with Community-Centric Fundraising. I didn't know it was a formalized movement. But I think that's what got me thinking a little bit about how we can have fundraising practices and how donor-centric fundraising can actually be harmful to the very community that you're working with.
00:03:56 Marie-France: And so I was excited about pursuing a career and focusing more on fundraising in my role when I moved back to Canada, but I really wanted to work at an organization that upheld Community-Centric Fundraising. And so when I came across the job description at the Stop and saw Community-Centric Fundraising and learned more about it, I just felt so validated. So it was really my work at Crisis, looking at how they did their fundraising and then moving to the Stop and seeing how we really formally championed Community-Centric Fundraising and learning about so many organizations that were doing the same thing.
00:04:30 Marie-France: And we're at different stages in the process. There were a couple that had sort of declared it as their strategy and were working to implement it in a really formalized way. There were other organizations where there were maybe fundraisers that were feeling uncomfortable with a lot of their practices and pushing back perhaps against leadership to really reform and revise and modernize what they were doing to be in line with Community-Centered Fundraising. And so it's been a real journey to be part of it. And I just have to say, I feel like I'm learning all the time. It's something that intellectually I feel I engage with, and I'd like to also engage with on a practical level as well.
00:05:07 Maria: And I love that we were able to be one of the earlier adopters. So I do want to just give some additional context for anyone who doesn't know what we worked on. So Marie-France and I, we worked together for I think almost two years on implementing Community-Centric Fundraising principles at like, $5 million organization just under that provides services around food security. So we took a look at a lot of the strategies that we were doing and we changed them to be more welcoming to our community. That was not an easy process. That was very hard.
00:05:44 Maria: So we were making like a quarter of our revenue through donor-centric galas and events, which the pandemic stopped. So we had a really great opportunity to switch our fundraising to be a little bit more focused and aligned with our values, which is something that, I know we'll have another guest come talk about values and how to align that to your strategy. So it's really exciting to see how we were able to actually raise more funds. What were your favorite parts of how we implemented Community-Centric Fundraising? Was there anything that sticks out?
00:06:17 Marie-France: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, Maria, we talked a little bit about this a couple of weeks ago about really, I think, prioritizing the collective mission and working with, both with other organizations in the implementation of Community-Centric Fundraising and seeking out partners in that way, and then also supporting other organizations, especially those at the grassroots level. And I think the organization I'm currently working at and the Stop did this really well. And I know we're gonna probably touch on that a little bit more. I think also what I really liked was, which I think you need to do constantly, is that we have these sets of principles and I think they're very well defined.
00:06:58 Marie-France: And I think the CCF movement or collective or group of people, they've really done a good job of, with all of their content, looking at how Community-Centric Fundraising can be implemented in practice. But when you're at an organization, every organization is different and you need to really define that for yourself and you're constantly doing that. And we weren't doing it perfectly and no one is. And so really acknowledging that looking at... And it doesn't happen overnight. And I think that self-reflection I really, really enjoyed. And I say, also the public policy piece. I really felt so fortunate that as a fundraiser, I got to work on public policy that was part of the Stop being a smaller organization and so public policy not being taken on by one person where you didn't have the capacity for someone to be dedicated to that.
00:07:49 Marie-France: But also, I felt that those public policy and advocating for broader change was so intertwined with fundraising to me. It wasn't just about making the ask. It wasn't just about these transactional approaches or being a salesperson. It was so much more than that. And I think that's what, those were the three key areas that I really, really enjoyed, the Community-Centric Fundraising, especially working together.
00:08:13 Maria: I love that self-reflection piece and getting to see what we're doing collectively to support the community. But I did find it a little bit difficult to do that self-reflection, especially as a team, because there was, a few circumstances where, you know, like I'm the director of development, I should have the answer and I don't. Like there's some limitations to what I could do as a member of the team to apply CCF principles. So one of them, while we were doing our audit as a team, that was very, very obvious was, so as part of the, like CCF audit document that they provide, you can see and check off the things that you could be doing better. One of them is, can you provide your racialized fundraisers with additional funds for personal development?
00:09:03 Marie-France: Oh, yeah.
00:09:04 Maria: And that was a really interesting one because, like, of course, I see the value in that. I 100% see that racialized fundraisers are also facing different issues that white fundraisers face when it comes to interacting with board members or major donors. But because we were in a unionizing environment, that was a limitation that I couldn't actually put forward. So I like what you said about like, each organization implements it differently. And that's why it's so important to self-reflect because you have different constraints or capacities and different pieces on the board. So yeah, I think that was really interesting.
00:09:40 Marie-France: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I've found certainly when it comes to self-reflection is that piece, I'm always thinking a little bit about the fact that I am a white fundraiser and I'm someone that I present as feminine. And so I think I have advantages, certainly, and privileges that and I think especially in fundraising, and I think this is true of most sectors, or all sectors, there are significant privileges and advantages. So, and I'm really glad that we were having those conversations too, because I think those are hard conversations, because they get personal. And it's not just about the work, it's about the people involved as well.
00:10:25 Marie-France: And another piece I found with, reflecting that I found unique to the two organizations I've worked for in Canada, the staff and TNG Community Services with the dignified storytelling. And I think that looks very different at an environmental organization versus an organization that delivers social services and anti-poverty work. And I think the dignified storytelling is so important when you are representing people that are experiencing poverty, experiencing homelessness, experiencing, you know, having mental health challenges. And we've seen, and I think this is across the board at all organizations, but I'd say it's particularly pertinent in social services and anti-poverty.
00:11:11 Marie-France: There is a lot of messaging out there. There is a lot of really undignified storytelling or exploitation of people's personal, very traumatic and often very painful stories. I think that's something that I was really passionate about and really trying to… I've always felt that people shouldn't be on display. I think that's something that as a social service or poverty organization, it's important to outline or develop some key code of conduct or key guidelines for how you represent and you choose to represent people. So whether that's you don't take photos of your service users or you don't think about how you share their stories, how people are able to come forward and share their stories, the kind of rights that they have when it comes to asking their stories to be removed or not be used. So that's something that's really important.
00:12:13 Marie-France: And something else that I have thought a lot about in the self-reflection is that a lot of the principles of Community-Centric Fundraising, they're principles. And so all of them in principle, you agree with, but then when it comes to the practical, it actually can be challenging. So Maria, when we presented at the conference about Community-Centric Fundraising, we talked about the limitations and I think that was really important too. We talked about all the great things we did, but we also made sure that we acknowledged the limitations.
00:12:41 Marie-France: And one thing that I have struggled with, especially as someone who focuses on major donors is the principle of valuing donors in the same way, or anyone who contributes to your organization in the same way, whether you're a volunteer, you donate $10 a month or you donate $10,000 or $100,000 a year. And that makes a lot of sense, but in practice, that's hard because how are you going to invite everyone who gives $10 a month in for a personal tour of the organization?
00:13:12 Marie-France: In a very, very scarce environment, you want to make sure that you're, especially an organization where the budget is $5 million a year and you almost entirely rely on individual donations and donations from foundations. You are going to steward that $100,000 donor in a different way because you want to make sure that you renew that year on year because that could have a significant impact on your deficit. So that's something I've certainly struggled with.
00:13:40 Marie-France: And I think what I've also thought a lot about recently is the origins of Community-Centric Fundraising and its alignment with community organizing, I think really it's about getting as many people involved as possible and seeing that as beneficial to everyone, everyone being involved in the collective mission, everyone being involved in social justice work, because that means more people are invested in the community and actually makes the whole space more diverse and more accessible and better for everyone, just as you were touching on. So I realized I just, that was a very long-winded response to what you said.
00:14:21 Maria: No, no, that's great. Yeah, I wanted to touch back on the conference that you were talking about and how you show up in the workplace. I think having you there was always like, super helpful for me as someone who, you know, has a lot of lived experience around poverty or, you know, came here as a refugee, I'm Mexican, like whatever, even though I'm pretty white presenting, I would say. Like, it was always helpful to know that someone like you with that kind of privilege would be heard in the room, even if I wasn't. And like we were on the same page when it came to allyship and our principles and then also would be able to kind of like take on some of those more, I wouldn't say difficult questions, but more uninformed questions of like, why should we care about racism?
00:15:14 Maria: Like our audience is white and our donors are white and you know, our service users are white. And it's like, it's not just about that. It's about, you know, equity and power and the limitations of what we're doing as a nonprofit sector, which also makes me think of the limitations of CCF in general, because like, while I love the principles, a lot of fundraisers don't know how to apply them actionably. And then it also, a little bit feels like trying to apply these really great principles in a very broken system.
00:15:52 Marie-France: Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:54 Maria: Yeah.
00:15:55 Marie-France: I think too, there's a real attachment to the status quo, because as we touched on, we operate in a very scarce environment. And so people are scared to change the way they're doing things because they're very attached to the way things are working. And because we're constantly told that there's the economic downturn, there's not enough funding, we're always operating on a shoestring budget, costs are going up, so why would we do things differently? And so I think there, I'm happy that we were able to work together to change the dial slowly, and it takes a lot of time.
00:16:30 Marie-France: And I think something that I also found I was, we reckoned with a lot was, and I think, as you said, implementing the principles is really hard, even if sort of ideologically you subscribe to them is sort of the origins of a lot of the donations, right? Thinking about your gift acceptance policy, thinking about who you're accepting donations from, and that's really hard because I think you talked about the dirty money dilemma. And I think especially, we couldn't investigate the origins of every donation that we received. That was impossible. And if we did, I think we would encounter a lot of challenges. And I think especially, team comes with corporate fundraising. If you're aligning yourself, especially publicly to a certain corporation, do they align with the values of the organization? And how do you define that?
00:17:26 Marie-France: And I think every organization I've worked at, we have asked ourselves those questions. And that's really hard. And so I think that's when a robust and well thought out acceptance policy comes in. And also a certain acceptance of your limitations of operating in a very flawed and problematic environment. But then seeing it as, just seeing that as part of the onus to change things and to work with other organizations, not just within your silo, within your own organizations, but it's so energizing to work with other organizations and see that they want to do things differently too. And I think that will happen slowly over time.
00:18:08 Marie-France: But to see even, for example, what's, there’s been a lot of immediate attention on Mackenzie Scott and her approach to philanthropy. And it's not necessarily, it's not perfect either. But I think people are actually, sort of, there's been a more sort of like bigger public conversation about this in a way that makes me really excited and feel hopeful.
00:18:34 Maria: Yeah, it is very hard because each organization has to make that decision for themselves when it comes to value line gift receiving. But I think it's, I don't know, I think it's just so complicated that you end up opening this, like, huge can of worms and I don't even know where to start or where to begin untangling.
00:18:53 Marie-France: Yes.
00:18:53 Maria: Because you're looking for clean money and there's no such thing. I remember having a conversation with a donor that we were touring and I was like, you know, white supremacy, wealth hoarding, tax avoidance, blah, blah, blah. It's really hard to be wealthy without doing unethical things, right? And she was like, well, my money was not made on mining or X, Y, and Z. It was made on one of her parents digitized, the first version of a thesaurus or dictionary or something like that. And that's how they made all their money.
00:19:28 Maria: And it was just like, really interesting to see that reaction because like in principle, she agrees with what I'm saying. But in practice, it was a little bit harder for her to wrap her head around it to kind of like see like, it's not just about this one specific action, but it's about the other actions that you're taking to, like avoid paying taxes or, you know, dividing your wealth. In that situation, we have someone like this donor or Mackenzie Scott, who are trying to give away their wealth.
00:19:59 Marie-France: Yeah.
00:20:00 Maria: Organizations are coming up with a really difficult challenge of, well, what makes this wealth acceptable and this other wealth not acceptable? Because, as I said, there's no such thing as clean money, so it's really hard for organizations to make that distinction. Is there anything that you would recommend for them?
00:20:20 Marie-France: I'm still looking for the answers too. And I don't know that there are. I think it's that gift acceptance policy. I think we worked with FoodShare and I felt their policy was really good. They said, I think it's on their website. And they just said, anything that works against the value of the work that we do, we won't accept. And so I felt that was a very... I felt that they simplified it in a way that I think for the most part made it easy to make that distinction. And they gave an example of a gift that they turned down or where I own a word that they turned down. And I felt that was very, very clearly misaligned with their values. And I felt, I really respected that. And I really saw them practicing what they preach.
00:21:11 Marie-France: But again, we don't, we're not in a perfect system. And like I said, even just distinguishing between major donors and small donors or volunteers, you know? And so we do things, we try to do things that will, I think, value everyone who contributes to the organization. But it's not perfect. And we're kind of slowly working to change the system, but it's not going to happen overnight. But I am seeing donors as well, really bringing up these issues sometimes proactively, which is really incredible. I had a donor. I never forget having a donor who said to me, she actually approached me just out of the blue and I was expecting, they were, they'd been a long standing donor and I was expecting something that maybe they didn't agree with something we'd said or they'd read something in appeal that made them uncomfortable.
00:22:04 Marie-France: I was thinking about all these things when a donor asked to speak to you and so she took me aside and she said, you know, I never said this but a couple of years ago, I went to an event and I, it was a really fancy event and I just felt so uncomfortable with it because I felt that I was having this amazing dinner and what I would have really liked was that the people who are the community members to have also had access to this. We had a short conversation and I think they were just sort of wrapping their heads around Community-Centric Fundraising. What was incredible is that this person had been a long-standing donor and I think maybe was the kind of, but sort of, part of the community or group where I think there was resistance to change because, or it's perceived that there's resistance to change because they think, oh well, they like the way we do things.
00:22:58 Marie-France: They're used to the status quo. These donors will leave if they're not stewarded in this way or if they don't have events. And I don't think that's true. And it was really inspiring, I think, and incredibly, it just gave me, certainly a lot of hope. I felt very optimistic walking away from that conversation because I felt that I hadn't even had a conversation with this donor about Community-Centric Fundraising and they were coming to me and expressing discomfort with some of the, sort of status quo practices.
00:23:28 Maria: Yeah, I always found that really interesting because it feels like donors are kind of much more ahead than fundraisers, board members, EDs in a lot of ways. But I love to dive a little bit deeper into that. What were some of these conversations that you had with major donors? Did anyone say, like, oh no, I need my name on the building. This is it. It's happening this way. Or were most of them coming with an open mind as to what you had to say when it came to recognition and stewardship?
00:24:01 Marie-France: I think there was a lot of open-mindedness. And I think I will say though, I am in the anti-poverty social services sector. And I had a good conversation with a colleague the other day, and we were just talking about what causes tend to resonate most with donors. Do people, are people kind of jumping on trends? And are they fickle? And I said, you know, people that donate within our space are generally, generally pretty social justice oriented. They're not in it because they want recognition. And I'm not, I'm saying that across the board, that's what I've seen. I think people are generally informed.
00:24:44 Marie-France: And the reason they donate to us is because they see injustice. And they see that they live in Toronto, and there's so many things that aren't working. And, or things are working for very few people. And it's very hard to thrive here. And so they see that and they're willing to put their weight behind it. And a lot of the time, donors have said, Oh, I prefer actually not to be recognized. We had to... Just before I left the Stop, we had two upcoming matching gift campaigns and I believe it was both donors, said, we don't want to be recognized, which made it easier for us. I was like, great. So we don't need to run all the content by you and everything. And so I feel there's a lot of promise, but I think there's resistance to change more internally.
00:25:29 Marie-France: And I think that comes from, like I said, the safety in these status quo strategies because they've worked and people feel, well, that's what's generating income. But when you really talk to donors, I think there's change. And even, you know, my mom noticed, this was a couple of years ago, that there was an organization that focused on health and they had a partnership with the LCBO. And she felt, well, that doesn't really align, values align. And it really bothered her. And I encouraged her to write in. I said, well, why don't you write them a letter or write them an email? I think they would respond to you and respect what you said. And it was just interesting to see that because it was an organization my mom really admired and an organization she supported and she brought that up. Go mom.
00:26:21 Maria: I love that. Yeah.
00:26:22 Marie-France: Yeah.
00:26:23 Maria: Yeah, it's actually really interesting how much some fundraisers think people donate to get something out of it instead of, donate to do something good for the community and good, you know, in general. So that's really, really interesting.
00:26:40 Marie-France: I would just say to respond to that too. I think in fact, it's more sustainable long term, isn't it? It's more sustainable long term to have donors that are donating because they care in the broader mission, they see injustice, and they want to support that, not because they're expecting to get something out of it. Those transactional approaches are really sustainable. And because if people aren't getting something that satisfies them, or they're asking for things that you just can't deliver on, then the relationship is over. And I think what I saw so much was so much really sort of more progressive approaches to philanthropy. People say, you're the experts. You spend the money how you see fit. That's longer term, much better. There's really a relationship based on trust.
00:27:30 Marie-France: And when I tell people that, I don't even really necessarily identify as a fundraiser because I feel like I do a lot of different things. But when I tell people that my job focuses on fundraising, they'll say, oh, well, that must be so awkward. You must have to ask people for money all the time. And I say, it's not really about that. It's not really about the ask. You can be the biggest wheeler dealer ever and be really sort of a good negotiator. But that doesn't mean you're going to be a good fundraiser.
00:27:58 Maria: Yeah. It's not usually about the ask.
00:28:00 Marie-France: No.
00:28:00 Maria: Which is so funny. Yeah, it's usually about the relationship.
00:28:04 Marie-France: Yeah.
00:28:05 Maria: But I wanted to jump back to something that you said a little bit earlier about, you know, navigating the space as a weight fundraiser. So you're a manager, now you're a director who's implementing these principles based on lived experience that you may or may not have with a community that may or may not have that experience as well. Talking to donors who usually don't have the kind of lived experience that your community does. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how that feels for you, if that's different when there's like racialized fundraisers in the room and like what you think your role in that is.
00:28:42 Marie-France: Yeah, absolutely. I'd say certainly as a white fundraiser and as a white person, I have a lot of privilege. I also present as feminine. And so I think that gives me advantages, especially because in terms of the donor population, in terms of the people that hold wealth, that is predominantly people who are white. And I'd say that gives me huge advantages and privileges. And I also recognize that I don't have, like you said, I don't have lived experience of poverty. I've been extremely lucky and privileged in my life. And I, so I think that there's there's a few areas where I think I try to be mindful of the time, but certainly I'm trying to be mindful in terms of the dignified storytelling piece. And I think what we really tried to emphasize at the Stop and what I've taken through to TMG is that we're not speaking for people.
00:29:45 Marie-France: And we want to empower people to speak for themselves or to, if that's what they want to do. And that we're always really trying to be very sensitive when we are talking about people's lived experience, when we're talking to donors and talking to them about the conditions that people are living in, about their life experiences that we're being really accurate when we're talking about that. We're not using, sort of inflated language or emotionally heightened language just to get a donation. And I think also really making sure that we're not sort of acting as if we're speaking for people. I think that's a really important piece to me.
00:30:32 Marie-France: And I think also part of that, I touched on this earlier with the public policy piece and seeing it not just as an investment in the organization, but an investment in a more just society and sort of illuminating to people and trying to have conversations about what makes things unfair, what makes life extremely hard for people, what sort of arbitrary circumstances and conditions that make people's lives. If you are a refugee, if you're experiencing homelessness, if you have a disability, why life is so much harder. And I think what I really enjoyed about my conversations with donors was really having those longer conversations about that and kind of sharing that. And I really, I think that's what made engaging with them enjoyable.
00:31:20 Marie-France: And then when it comes to certainly fundraising, fundraising is also predominantly white. I don't know the stats in Canada, but I read something and there was a piece in CCF that talked about that in the United States and I think we're similar. And I think really trying to, it's not only trying to support colleagues who are from minority backgrounds, who have experienced marginalization in all kinds of ways. It's really important that, also I think that we are engaging a broader audience in philanthropy, in volunteering, and also in the work that we do, because it will not only mean that it's not just about your HR policies and supporting people from marginalized backgrounds, it's also about making the space itself, like the space of philanthropy itself, more diverse. So it feels to me it's all connected, if that makes sense.
00:32:21 Maria: What kind of advantages would you say you received that were, like less tangible? So yes, we know like racism and a broader spectrum, but like internally and externally, what do you think are some things that other white fundraisers can be more aware of, of how they're perceived?
00:32:39 Marie-France: I'm trying to think of something tangible and more concrete. But I'd say–
00:32:45 Maria: The examples that come to mind for me are like board members and then, how people treated you and white donors more willing to listen to you?
00:32:53 Marie-France: Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I'd say when there is, there's inevitably going to be pushback with Community-Centric Fundraising, I'd say. And there's often pushback from donors. I think that whether it's Community-Centric Fundraising or whether it's donors or board members being attached to perhaps strategies that are part of the status quo. And I think as a white fundraiser, as someone who has a lot of privileges and is perhaps naturally more comfortable in those situations, it's important to have the back of marginalized fundraisers and to recognize that the privileges that you hold and support them as and where it needed in those tough conversations and when there's a lot of pushback.
00:33:48 Maria: Great. So I want to just go back to something that we had talked and that we worked on together. So we did a lot of public policy work off the side of our desk, which was not fun. It was very hard. But it's something that the whole team was very committed to. So we chatted with partners and we chatted with representatives to try to move things along. What was that experience like for you as, you know, I don't know if you have experience with public policy before that, but I certainly did not. So I found that very challenging, but I'd love to hear your take on it.
00:34:20 Marie-France: Yeah, so I think part of the Community-Centric Fundraising, one of the principles is really about addressing the root causes of the issues that you're seeking to address. So it's not just about the, I guess we call them sort of the band-aid solutions or the temporary solutions. It's also about addressing the very systems of oppression that perpetuate the issues that you're trying to address in your organization. So at the Stop, public policy was very sort of baked into our mission in that we were about tackling the root causes of inequality. So we did a lot of engagement with politicians directly through letters. We really tried, which I really liked, was connecting community members to politicians directly. So having their presence at events, just coming by our locations to speak to people. I think really that helped not only, sort of, advocate for important changes that we wanted to see made, but also made people feel certainly more connected to decision-making.
00:35:29 Marie-France: And that leads them hopefully to vote and to vote in ways that will lead to changes that will improve their lives. And I really enjoyed that. We also did a lot of op-eds, and I think those were extremely effective sort of getting attention and particularly when it came to building awareness, building our brand as an organization and also to getting attention, sort of spotlight on these issues. That was really important. And then at TNG, we've done a lot of public policy work. By we, I mean the people that have been here much longer than me and focus on this a bit more. But there's been the Child Care Legislation advocating for personal support workers and their wages, really get out the vote campaigns.
00:36:12 Marie-France: And what I've seen to, is, there's someone I spoke to yesterday whose job is to get participants voting, getting them to make deputations to really connecting them to decision making. And again, I think it, all the principles to me really weave together and work well together and they're very cohesive And I think it's really, a big part of Community-Centric Fundraising is about getting people to everyday people sort of involved in bringing about change and seeing that as important. It's not just about one person bringing about change. It's not just about the philanthropist who can give $100,000 or a million dollars.
00:36:57 Marie-France: And I think particularly it's beneficial to people who are participants to actually feel that they are connected to decision-making and to see that we are inviting people, if they want to, to make deputations, to respond to questions about what legislative changes would be meaningful to them.
00:37:21 Maria: I found that our strategy was really good, you know, just saying, where we asked over 200 service users what their public policy priorities were for the near future. We gave them a list of 20 and then we got the top three back, which was affordable housing, OHIP paid or free dental care, and then increased social assistance rates. So I found that having those three tangible items selected by the community was actually really helpful in donor education, bringing it back to the root cause of an issue. It's not just like, oh, people are poor, food insecure because of their own fault. It's like, no, because this person has a disability and disability support is literally not enough to survive on for any extended period of time, really. So I thought that that was really helpful when it came to donor education, having those stats and also for the public policy work.
00:38:22 Maria: So bringing it to politicians and saying, your constituents are saying this. But I did have one kind of like barrier that I kept seeing when it came to our public policy work, even though we were crushing it in many ways, like doing donor education and teaching people about what local candidates were saying about these specific issues and having politicians come on site to meet community members X, Y, and Z. I did find that when you and I were reaching out to politicians, that we were definitely having a very different reception, whether that politician was male or female. So we had the female politicians who obviously saw that we were very bright and didn't mind that we're femme presenting. And then we have some of the male politicians who were a little bit condescending when it came to us doing advocacy work.
00:39:16 Maria: So it's like, one of them even said like, girl power to us. And you know, like, good for you, girl power. And do you know what these politicians and these other countries have in common? They're all women and they're beautiful too. You know, so like, really stupid things. And that actually makes me question, like how nonprofits can move forward some of these things because with that additional barrier of sexism on top of everything else, even the white fundraisers might not break through, right? Might not be heard. So I was wondering when you thought about that experience because that really sticks in my mind as something that was hilarious.
00:40:01 Marie-France: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I forgot about that. It is hilarious. It was, I'd say, yeah, that also makes me think about how, if you think about the nonprofit sector, it's… is also predominantly female. And so if we are, the charity sector, I think we have a tendency to focus just on direct services, right? Or doing sort of what we're set out to do and shying away from advocacy work. And there's all kinds of reasons for that, all kinds of barriers that we come up against in terms of limitations on what charities actually can do legally, and also the misinterpretation of that, and people also being scared, which I understand, because they can have big consequences if you violate certain laws. And, but also, like you said, coming up against politicians and people that just don't take you seriously, it's really tough.
00:40:56 Marie-France: But I see doing public policy work as such a critical component of what charities should be set out to do. And we're not really addressing the mission effectively without it. But it's really hard because we're all strapped. We're all running on shoestring budgets. And we don't have a lot of time. And public policy is really slow. And even talking to someone, I'm doing a lot of introductory meetings still at TNG because it's big and I'm still quite new talking to one of my colleagues who does advocacy work and saying, it's very hard to attribute your success to anything because even if there's some law that passes or some big changes or a bill that's passed, you don't necessarily know who is your organization that did that, that achieved that. And even though you're a part of the solution, it's hard. It's a real slog. And you could also then have an election and everything changes. And so it's really tough to stay motivated in that space, but it's so important.
00:42:04 Maria: Thank you so much for joining me today, Marie-France. It's always so lovely to hear from you and to hear your insights. For people who would like to stay connected with you or want to ask you for more insight, where can they connect with you?
00:42:19 Marie-France: LinkedIn.
00:42:19 Maria: Okay, just LinkedIn, perfect.
00:42:21 Marie-France: Yeah.
00:42:23 Maria: Okay, easy. So they'll find you there. We'll have that linked in the show notes below. So are there any other things, bits of wisdom that you'd like to leave our audience with today?
00:42:32 Marie-France: I think we've covered everything.
00:42:34 Maria: Thank you for being on the podcast today and thank you all for listening to this episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you'd like to see our lovely faces, as always, we will upload this to YouTube so you can see the full video. And until then, see you next time. Bye for now.
00:42:53 Maria: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to connect with our guests directly or find me on LinkedIn. Let's keep moving money to mission and prioritizing our well-being. Bye for now.
