The Practice of Liberatory Governance, with Natalie Bamdad and Ananda Valenzuela

In this week's episode, I am talking about an important and really top-of-mind question for so many of you who are listening. The what, why, and how of governance. How do we even do this whole board thing? That's really, if we're honest, the question so many of us have in our minds. I have got a thoroughly enjoyable and meaty conversation with two really amazing thinkers on this topic and in particular the topic of liberatory governance. I'm talking with Natalie Baumdad and Ananda Venezuela of Change Elemental. It's an organization that partners across sectors to disrupt and transform systems of inequity and to create powerful vehicles for justice. Natalie and Ananda do a great job of breaking down what Change Elemental does and why it may so much sense for that organization to take on really the adventure of rethinking their entire governance structure. So this is why I wanted to talk to both of them and why we had such a blast in this conversation talking about today's episode. Libertary practices as they apply to non-profit governance. I wanted to have this conversation on this podcast because so many of my conversations inside my coaching program are about governance. How to support a board in governing effectively and in ways that feel values aligned. What structures and processes to set up to sustain "good governance practices." These are the types of questions I get. So I know this is a question that is on so many people's minds as they are building and growing and scaling their organizations. In today's conversation Natalie and Ananda turn these questions on their head and provide real critical insight into an even more fundamental and important question which is what do and should we even mean by governance? And how can organizations build governance practices that are responsive and accountable to their mission and constituents and that actually like really actually move the work forward rather than just feeling like year after year of meetings and retreats. So this is my favorite kind of conversation. It's concrete, it's actionable and it is truly thought expanding. If any of you listening are thinking about the why and how of governance this conversation is going to give you a lot to think about and a bunch to act on. I will of course share all the links referenced in the show notes on my website. I hope you enjoy. Hi, welcome to the nonprofit mastermind podcast where every week I do a deep dive into the strategies and mindset behind launching, scaling and leading a high-impact nonprofit. I'm your host, Rick Ritchie Babbage. Working to make the world a more just and beautiful place is messy, complex, heart-wrenching and ultimately deeply joyful and fulfilling work and none of us can do it alone. That's why I started this podcast, this mastermind community to hold space for and share the learnings and the questions and the grapplings and the actual concrete strategies that allow us to move our social impact work forward together. So welcome to the mastermind. I'm so glad you're here. Hi, Natalie and Ananda, how are you? Hello, I'm Brooke, doing well. Hey, doing great. I'm so glad we're having this conversation. I've been really excited to talk to both of you for quite a while now, so welcome. Thank you. Likewise, we're excited for this conversation. Yeah, thanks so much for inviting us. Yeah, so I'd love to actually kick off by sharing just more about change elemental and where you guys are and where you work. Your work is really rooted in the transformation of systems of inequity and the co-creation of new models of social change, which just both are so near and dear to what has been my passion, my sort of organizing passion for life, my professional life. And so I would love for my listeners to be able to tap into my excitement about this conversation and what we're going to be talking about governance and liberatory governance by getting a sense for who you guys are. So tell us a little bit about your work to kick us off. Great. Yeah, we at change elemental have a vision for a world where power and resources are shared in just ways. And we are working towards that in two ways. One, making sure that the systems and structures that we're building today prefigure that future where we are liberated, where we are sharing power, where everyone has what they need, and kind of pulling that future forward. And also, as a way of figuring out how to solve problems that exist today, like that we're just like, not just like prefiguring, but also being like, this sucks right now, how do we make it better? And we do that through our work with movement network, social justice organizations, individual leaders, organizers, and also in our work internally to think about how we can create an organization, a group of people working together in ways that mirror that change that we're making outside externally. That's one of the things that I really admire about your organization. Oh, the listeners can't see this, but there's just this beautiful cat right now that Natalie's hoping. Yes, my black cat, Bubz, has joined us. What is the cat's name? Witchy assistant. This is Bubz. Oh, that's fantastic. Welcome to the conversation. So one of the things that I've always just really admired and I followed your work, you know, for quite some time, is the combination or the dual work of the external work, the social change work, and the commitment to, I love the prefiguring, sort of the solving problems today and solving problems in ways that will address future problems and the internal work. And part of why I was excited to bring you guys on to the show is because so many of the organizations that I talked to and work with want to do that also, right? They want to bring how they work internally, how they structure themselves into alignment with their mission-based work. And you guys are so intentional about that, which I just love. Yeah, I mean, if we can't figure out how to, you know, have liberated governance within our organization, for example, we have no business doing that. That's right. Externally. It's much, much harder. So let's dive into that. We're going to talk today about liberatory governance, which we'll get into and you guys can sort of walk through what that means. But I'd love to start a bigger picture, just with how you all are understanding and thinking about governance more generally. And just to give you a little bit of context, which I shared, you know, before we came on air, so many of the organizations that I work with are really grappling with governance. What does governance look like? What are models of non-traditional board governance? How can our board work together? And so this is a really present topic for folks. So let's start with governance. How do you guys think about governance? 100% board giving for the first time. A completely refreshed strategic plan in three and a half months. A fundraising engine that led to a jump in donations from $9,000 to over $27,000 in less than six months. Leaders that join the next level nonprofit experience real, meaningful outcomes like these all the time. Now, each of these leaders had reached an inflection point and was feeling stuck, like they couldn't quite push through to that next level of impact. We helped them diagnose what was blocking their growth, showed them how to redesign to fix it, and then provided coaching, training for their full team and board, and real time strategic guidance to help them lock in the systems they needed to see concrete changes in six months. As we head into year-end planning season, now is the time for you to think about how you want to design your organization for growth and sustainability in the new year. If you think next level nonprofit could be a good fit, go to workrichybabbage.com/nextlevelnonprofit and we'll see if working together makes sense. Yeah, that's a wonderful question. I'm coming from the board side, the governance team side we don't even call it a board, and the co-chair of the governance team of Change Elemental. Stepping back and looking at that question of governance, I think we started with naming that governance should not be equated with the board. The governance is this really deep work of power and decision-making and accountability. We carry these narratives, these laws and rules that tell us that somehow power decision-making accountability, it sits at the top of a pyramid, and the board is at the top of that pyramid, and is the governing body. Undoing that narrative that we carry and thinking about it differently is the first step. I think Change Elemental has done a really beautiful job of shifting that narrative and centering governance as this more holistic concept of how we hold power, how we make decisions, and how we have deeper systems of accountability that go far beyond the board as somehow the one function that's able to hold those roles. I love that and also will admit that it feels like a really big undertaking to me. Just coming from a and working in more traditional models where part of how people understand how to distinguish the role of, say, an executive director or a team of executive directors, which is becoming more common, which I love exploring various roles of leadership, and the board has traditionally been a distinguishing between leadership and governance, and so governance is a thing that is owned by the board. And what I hear you saying, Ananda, is that's actually not even the right framework. That's not even the right distinction to make. So governance, do you guys see governance as something that is integrated into everyone's role in the organization? How does what you're saying, Ananda, translate into practice within an organization if we want to think more globally about governance or more expansively about governance? Yeah, so I can take a little bit, I'll talk generally, but I really want to defer to Natalie to talk about change elementals. I think generally that stepping back looks like thinking about power differently. I love naming the wisdom that Cindy Suarez has put out so clearly in the power manual. How do we shift to a liberatory power stance, the power with instead of power over? How do we think about power in terms of natural hierarchies, where each person holds the right amount of power for their role within a complex system, as opposed to assigning all the power to some people and none to the rest within a system? So when we think about governance, how do we have that kind of ecology nature perspective of how does each person in the system hold some power, step back and let others hold other types of power and hold each other accountable within that and get away from that kind of classic hierarchy mentality of what governance means that needs to be the top of the ladder? Absolutely, and I hear sort of different kinds of power held in different ways simultaneously and integrated with one another. And I want to just like underscore something that you named for a minute ago. Oh, like the conflation then, the intentional conflation then of governance and leadership and like being on a board, like all of those things are actually like reflecting these these same value systems. And so when we did work shifting our board to a governance team, that was in parallel to work shifting from a co-directorship model within our organization at Change Elemental to a more like multifaceted leadership model with like a four person leadership team, advisors, these pads within our organizations that feed into decision making at the organizational level. So it's just like a question of how do we expand the pathways to decision making beyond just like these individual like groups of people or individual people? I love that. I'm hearing two themes that are really exciting to me. And I think really relevant to a lot of what leaders are struggling or thinking about and navigating. And one is the theme of accountability. And I personally think one of the really messed up things. There are many messed up things about traditional board structures and governance and that, you know, we could talk about over coffee some other time. But one of them that I've really struggled with is that the way traditional boards are often set up, not in the model you guys are talking about, accountability is a fiction. It's something that either the board can choose to accept. We will be accountable to our constituents, to our staff, to our partners, or we won't. And if we aren't, then that sucks. And there's not much that can be done about it, right? And so it sets up this weird fiction around genuine accountability that can be really hard to navigate and to pierce. And so part of what I hear you talking about Anand is how do you disrupt that, right? How do you take that apart? And then I also hear this theme of I love this idea of pathways to decision making, right? Power and decision making aren't the same thing, but they're often conflated. And in, again, traditional structures, you have different pockets of decision making. Who gets to make which decisions? And they're separated and they're siloed, and they're hierarchical. And so I hear a disruption of that also, which is really exciting. Who is on your governance team? How did it come to be constructed? As in like the people? Oh, no, not the name. What kinds of people are they? Yeah, you're like, okay. Um, yeah, I mean, we have folks that come from philanthropy. We have folks that come from, um, global justice movements. That was like, is really important to us. Like, how do we think about connecting the like work around or the political analysis around colonization and like anti-blackness in the US to other things that are happening in the world? We have folks that do organizational justice development work. And I don't know, what else am I missing, Ananda? I think that's a great subset. You know, like, I think that one of the key shifts here, right, is making sure that the, the board actually reflects wisdom that deeply connected to the work being done on the ground, right? So instead of the board being a bunch of rich old white men, classic thing, it's actually folks who are doing similar and overlapping work in the field in the sector who have a lot of wisdom to bring to change elemental. And I think that's one of the shifts, right? It's like, already, if you have a board that reflects the community you serve, that reflects the services and programs you're providing, then they can provide a different lens on the work, right? And they're able to have a different level of conversation than folks who are several steps removed away from what's happening on the ground. I think that's really powerful and important. And I just want to stay there for a second, because I think one of the, the really frequent conversations I have with folks about traditional boards is how do we get the "right people" on our board? And more often than is great, the way people are defining the right people is older, white, rich, right? We have this idea in our minds of what a board, and it's really rooted in some of the structures, the hierarchies of power that you've been talking about, what the right board looks like. And what I, as I hear you guys saying is your board not just should reflect the work and the constituencies and the communities that you're working with, but should be positioned to be thought partners to you in that work. And I would imagine that changes who you're looking for. And that's partly what gave rise to my question, sort of, as you're going out into the world to build your governance team, the questions you're even asking and the, the profiles you're looking for, right? Who you're looking to bring together, I would imagine would change. Yeah. And I think one thing also that, like, maybe initially I'm realizing threw me off about the question of who, I was like, it made me focus on individual people. And I think that our holding is about how the collective is operating together. We often, we, you know, borrowing from Adrienne Marie Brown the concept of like mycelium, borrowing from Adrienne Marie Brown and like nature, the concept of mycelium, think about our, our, our governance team as like a mycelial network. And so it's like, like, the folks, how, how is our governance team as a whole plugged into like broader movement spaces, like other groups and people asking this, these questions and, and kind of becoming like a whole that's like much greater than the sum of its parts that are kind of feeding lots of different parts of the ecosystem, not just change elemental, but are like taking things from what we're learning out into other spaces too. Amazing. Very, very powerful in terms of what the governance team can help the, the impact that the governance team can have, part of and help the organization have. So you guys write and talk about your exploration of liberatory governance. And I would love to hear more about that. That was one of the things that I reached out to you guys to, to learn more about and talk about in some of my newsletters. I've lifted you guys up as a really fascinating round of which we'll get into in terms of how you have moved from a traditional board to a governance team in your process. But let's start with the nomenclature. When you guys talk about and write about liberatory governance, what do you mean? What is liberatory governance? That's a really good question. I'm so glad you're asking because I think like the word liberatory gets thrown around a lot and sometimes I'm like even like shy away from like wanting to use it myself. And so what I really, what I really mean when I say that is a governance team that is accountable to the vision and the values that we want to like put forward in the world. And kind of holds that as like a primary their primary responsibility. I think so often like boards can get stuck in like kind of like fiduciary responsibilities and legal responsibilities and like HR stuff. And those are important trusted like like partners in this, in the thinking about how to, you know, move our vision forward. But that's not, that's not the, that's not what should be leading our work. What should be leading our work is what we're actually trying to do in the world. And we want to make sure that like those things are in order. But it's not, that's not the root of our decision making in a liberatory environment. Yeah, I was talking to a board member of another organization that has a distributed a different power structure, right from a traditional nonprofit. And they were talking about like, you know, we're a couple years into this. And I'm just still not sure what the board does exactly, right? So I think like this is a great question because liberatory governance can sound really beautiful and be really inspiring. We could talk about our values and like alignment with love and equity and liberation. And I love that. And at the end of the day, they're still the sense of like, okay, but what do you do? That was going to be my next question. So let's go there, right? I think that I think this is one of those sort of arenas that we've got some work, right, to try to try to help people make make pictures in their minds of what we're actually talking about. And one way I found really helpful, it's a step back, right? If we can, if we have a shared definition of understanding of the concept of a minimum viable board, what we legally are required for a board to do period, no matter what, then we know our boundaries, because we have to check those legal boxes, some entity has to do those things. So you start from just that as opposed to the many stories we carry about what boards are supposed to do, which they don't. If you can set aside all those stories, you have this like very basic framework, and then you get to shift into this, this creative space, right? This possibility space of what should this group of people do? How best can they serve the mission? How best can they serve your community? And that opens up this liberatory space. And I think what we're starting to see in this sector are these different concepts of what a liberatory board can look like. There's not one definition, there's not one way, but there's a couple of different like possibility spaces that are pretty different than the norm, right? Like I think about change elemental, the concept of a board as mycelium, as feeding and networking and bringing information in and out and learning together as a network. And then there's other places where it's been like a board as a group of trusted advisors, but they're very removed, they do very minimal work. And that's the way that some of these organizations have shifted, they're like, because this board has to check these legal boxes, let's keep it very limited, so then we have other entities, other groups where governance is held more deeply. And it's, and we kind of take away the board as sort of a major player in that ecosystem. So I think like those are just some legal piece. Yep. Yeah. I think those are just a few of these sort of concepts now that we can start picturing people's heads and start telling stories about when we say, okay, instead of just thinking, okay, I got to go to board source and follow the checklist of what a board is supposed to do. Instead, let's talk about these different possibilities for liberatory governance. And let's sit with this question of which of these direction best serves our mission and our communities. And our values. Yeah. Yes. Oh, yes. I really love, I realize I keep saying I really loved it. It's really interesting to me. So I have more often thought about the sort of co-creation or the construction of organizational elements or the design of your organization, either in the space of programs or in the space of like organizational design, which is sort of my happy place, right? Like, how do you build the culture that is aligned with your structure, like all those sort of pieces from an organizational perspective? But just to be totally transparent, usually in that design, the board has been a thing, right? It's one of the elements that you want to bring into alignment with the other elements, but it's a thing. It's, you know, five to 15 people, it has a structure, and that structure changes depending on the size of, right, all the things. And now I'm envisioning a separate design space, a separate play space, a separate co-creation of an entity that works alongside this institution that is the nonprofit and supports it, but is separate from it, is its own organism, which opens up a lot of fun, I think, as you're thinking about, right? We're trying to achieve our mission. What does that look like programmatically? What does that look like in terms of our team and the people power we bring to bear? And then what does that look like in terms of governance and decision-making and power? Does that sound liberatory? Does that sound? Yes, yes, that's so good. That's such a good way of capturing it. And then as that, like when the board stops becoming a thing, but a group that is deeply relational and that is like plugged into a mycelium and a network, the task shifts from how do I manage this group of people so that I can do what we need to do to get our work done to what are all the possibilities that can come from bringing these deep questions, these deep tensions, these deep polarities to this group of incredible folks who can help us figure it out. Yeah, so you guys have evolved in your own thinking in this area, right? And I, you know, we're talking a lot about where you are now in your evolution. Let's back up a little bit to how you got here, because I also think that process and you're really transparent about it, which I think is great. And you write a lot about your own learning and your own exploration and successes and bumps in the road. I particularly love just to lift up, hopefully we can talk about it, the use of the "how might we question?" framework, which I just love as a framework for organizational design and group work. But I'd love to talk about your process in getting here. What led you to want to explore new models of governance to begin with in your own organization? Was something broken or were you moving more positively in a particular direction? Why did you start down this path? There are so many ways to answer that question, which is why I'm pausing. The, you know, five, six years ago, we had a very traditional, like, kind of high functioning board that was great. It was fine. It was like, we are a good non-profit and we are doing good things. And I think a combination of things, like, just this question of like, is this it? This can't be it. Interesting, I've never heard anybody say that about before. Like, and I think for me personally, there's like a question about like, what do I want to spend my life energy doing? You know, this like, Groundhog's Day of, okay, we have eight people on our board. Next year, let's recruit three more people. Let's make sure that they're- and what's our annual meeting going to be like? We're going to recruit, yeah. It's, you know, the project of figuring that out as like, in addition to, instead of as part of the work that we are doing, is untenable. And so I think that that, in large part was driving, was just- and the- and similar shifts were happening internally for us as we were rethinking like leadership transition. And like, what is the opportunity there? So how do we use like, you know, board transitions as an opportunity that kind of mirrors like the things that we're exploring. And then, and Brooke, you also brought up this, the how might we question that we ask and this framework of experimentation. And that, you know, I became familiar with that through my colleague, Alison Lin, who really helped us build a more rigorous and intentional practice experimentation at Change Elemental. And the idea of being like, it gives us permission to just even ask the question. We don't need the answer. It's just like, how might we do this? It's- I think it lowers the stakes in some ways. That makes it hard to ask our question. Yeah, shifts the conversation. I think a lot of angst and shame, which is something I've talked and written about in non-profit spaces, comes from this idea that there is some magical right way to be doing this. I just have not found it, right? I, in my role as a board member, or a staff person, or as a leader, other people have figured out the way to do this without it being overwhelming, without the board feeling additive, as you said, right, or as part of it. I just haven't nailed it yet. And what I love about the how might we question framework is it shifts even how you think about it to realize, no, actually, there's no right answer. There's just lots of answers that could fit or not fit. And so what are the possibilities? And I think just from a mental health perspective, it is freeing, you know, if you're doing this work. So talk a little bit more about the process that you used, right? So you were sitting in this space, you look around, you have this high functioning board, you're checking the boxes, you're doing the work, you're like, we got this, but there's something, there's something not as much as we would want. It doesn't feel as integrated and as aligned. And so what did you do next? How did you get from there to where you guys are now? I guess I'll start because that is actually that process is how Ananda joined our board. I'm watching Ananda's face light up with a smile. Yeah. So and then maybe Ananda, I'll pass it to you to share a little bit about what it was like once you joined and from your perspective. We started out with this, this idea of what if our board was on my Celia? Like what if we thought about our board in that way? If we did, then what would we want to try or do differently? And that gave like kind of sprawled out into this idea of an open call for folks who would be interested in joining our governance team in different explorations about what governance could even be and what that could look like. And a broader call for partners who wanted to be in that question with us knowing that we only, we only wanted to recruit a few people to our governance team. And I want, I think that that is actually, I serve on, on the board of a grassroots organization here in DC. And that's actually how small grassroots organizations like often do their board recruitment. It's not like, I know five people, let me just reach out to them, get them on board and like, let's just kind of continue this like inner circle of all the people that we know. And so that was an open call. We were back from like, I think 70, 80 people who were like, we're so curious about these questions too, we're interested in your, what you all are doing. And the folks who ultimately joined our, our governance team were people that we, some people we were already in relationship with and folks we didn't know, we'd never, we'd never met before and are so glad to be in relationship with them now. And so one of them was Ananda. So from your perspective, Ananda, how has this process gone? I mean, it sounds like you've been on the journey. How has that been as a participant in the governance team? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a beautiful learning experience. I've been following Change Elemental for a long time. I see them as a thought leader in our field and, you know, outside of Change Elemental, I do a lot of consulting on shared leadership and alternative organizational structures. And I think that we're just tackling such beautiful and fascinating questions around how we do this work and how we hold power. And so getting to come into the, kind of the middle of this process that Change Elemental was doing was really awesome. Like, we got to really explore these, these big open-ended how might be questions around governance and decision making and do this co-creation. And the one thing I'm sitting with about that process is, I think it's very easy to focus on sort of like this shiny, like mycelium and network building and learning together and everything. And I think we did a good job of this sort of polarity management approach of holding that and raising how important it is and holding the importance of accountability and taking a loving accountability orientation towards that. Like, I just want to call out the beautiful nonprofit quarterly article from Change Elemental's own Aja and, and CAD. And they write about this topic really beautifully. And I think it calls in a lot of the values that I see at Change Elemental and that that sense of like accountability being circular in all directions, right? Like, you know, Brooke, you were mentioning earlier the importance of holding boards accountable and how we need to shift that dynamic. And then I think there's another piece around how boards think about their role in accountability. It was beautiful getting to be part of this grant experiment where instead of accountability looking like, oh, the board's got to step in now and vote and decide on these things when they're hard. We went through hard times, but instead of having that orientation, it was like, oh, the board should know what's going on, should be asking hard questions, should be offering different perspectives, and should trust the staff, should trust that the folks on the ground doing the work every day know the best path forward. And how do we shift this orientation of accountability from like a power over stance to a power with stance where we're in this dialogue together, we're asking hard questions, but from a place of love and a place of knowing that we're stronger together. If we build that trust, we build those relationships to go deep when it's hard instead of falling into this us versus them conflict stance. Absolutely. And you talk about hard times. What have some of the challenges been? Because it does strike me as I listened to both of you talk about the process that I think you're right and on it, right? You can sort of see where you are now and say, oh, we're going to lift up the shiny, beautiful parts of where we are and what we're doing and all of the things that are deeply values aligned for us. And I would imagine it's messy at times and that you have probably had some, I won't assign the word challenges, but that it has not always been necessarily as clear as easy. I'd love to hear about some of the challenges or things maybe you're still figuring out or working on as you continue your evolution in this space. A couple of things come to mind. The first one is at the beginning when we were in this sort of experiment and we're like, we want our born to be in mycelia. Some of our board members were like, what do you even mean? Everyone was like, yes, this is amazing. Or some people at least were like, huh? And our response is like, you know what we mean because we picked you and you have these skills. And so it's like, it sometimes can feel like an emperor's new clothes situation when our language is a little bit ahead of our practice. Yeah. And we're like, simultaneously nobody knows, but we all know because we're sharing this vision. And it can be tricky because, and I thought about this when you said, even just the use of the word liberatory, that you don't want to be the person in the room that raises the pan and says, could somebody just clue me in on what we mean by that? You sort of know enough to follow along, right? So I would imagine that happens sometimes in your conversations. Yeah. Yeah. But I think we have to be in that practice of vulnerability. Let's check in. What are we really saying when we say mycelium? Or what are we really saying when we say liberatory? And I think that what has served us well is the focus on process and not so much product. It's not like, let's figure out this perfect definition. But let's make sure that we're continuously, when we're together, realizing it's like, what is it? What does that mean? What does our mycelium look like today? What could it look like tomorrow? What and, you know, using not just language and words, but metaphor and storytelling, storytelling, I guess could be words, but visual art and like, lots of different ways of knowing to help us make those connections and align around shared meaning, especially for things that we might not have seen yet or we've forgotten. And for the folks who need it, we wrote down a very clear list of responsibilities for government teams. Yeah, we did do that too. So it's like, it's managing that tension. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask Nana, you know, again, from your perspective as a person on the governance team, you know, how have you guys sat with that tension and the messiness and, you know, and I love, I love to hear that you wrote some stuff down, right? There's a, the both am is wonderful. Yeah, I think a piece there has been like, first, just that we have a joy in spending time together, like we're all looking at each other in the room. Oh, you're brilliant. Everyone here is amazing. And so there's so much joy coming into these how might be questions, these wondering some possibilities, doing what Natalie was describing. Like there's a lot of generative energy that comes out of our spaces. And knowing that we are, we're moving important work forward. We do still support fundraising, you know, we do engage in some kind of typical board tasks, while at the same time, doing some things differently, like getting to be at the table with the staff and these generative conversations around the questions that staff are sitting with around how to do their work well, and how do we like, be in generative question spaces together instead of boards being seen at the place where the rubber stamp is placed or the decision gets made at the very end when everything was already figured out or totally separate from, I think that's another thing that a lot of organizations have is like the real work is happening over here. And then there's sort of this make work that the board's doing that, you know, everybody feels burned out. And, you know, you were talking Natalie, but like, is this all, is this all there is, right? Nobody likes that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually reminded me of the second, this like second challenge or thing that we're working through, which is when you're shifting from a power over model, what, what does power with look like? What's replacing it? Yeah. And I think for a while, our governance team, like we were like, it took a minute for us to actually get to a place where we can actually be in generative conflict, because that's what power with sort of looks like to me. And not just like, you all are impacted, you know best, and like, we're going to go with it. But like this other piece about like, we're going to ask some hard questions, we're going to push you to take more risk. And I think that like, building the skills and the relationship needed to be and the trust needed to be able to do that is like also a big part of the work. What's an example of a generative conflict that you guys feel like has arisen either as an outgrowth of this process or just because of the work that, you know, change in elemental and the governance team do? Uh, I mean, I think like, one, one place that like, we have had like some discussion about is how risk seeking to be with our financial resources. Like, what is the right level of risk? And like, how do we, how do we want to take those risks? And I think that that I want to keep asking, that is, I want our governance team to be asking us that question. That's like, that's the point. And I want us to be in tension around it, because if, you know, the answer is like, this is the risk we're going to take. And everyone's like, that sounds great. Like, if that doesn't feel risky, it must not be risky. It's easy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I just, I just echoing that. Like, I was like, what happened? I was like, Oh, yeah, that has been such an area of generative conflict. And it's brought up some really cool stuff. Like, I love that the staff then entered into this inquiry of like, where couldn't we put money that we haven't thought about it? And investing money in amazing grassroots organizations on the ground, like being able to give away some of this wealth that change in elemental has to support other really crucial work that's happening that's related, but in a normal nonprofit context, because you wouldn't think to turn around and hand $10,000 of your money to another organization out there doing work. And I think it's really amazing and inspiring that change elemental is taking those kinds of steps. And that part of that has been seeded by this sort of generative conflict stance of like embracing and stepping into these interesting conversations between the governance team and staff. Yeah, you're making your reminding me and that that tension actually gave birth to like lots of different experiments related to money at change elemental and was kind of the beginning of this pathway to where we are now where we're rethinking our compensation approach and like thinking about how like we can, um, you know, be in deeper alignment with equity and how we set salaries and and also just super cool. But actually, the governance team was the one wanting to be more risky. Like one of the people who is like, can we spend some more money? I remember feeling really weird about it for us. Like, oh, I don't like I'm on the governance. Like telling them to spend more money like this is weird. And just say one thing when almost never happened here. I love I mean, that's the point of generative conflict and generative discussions is to give rise to and to create space for new things to emerge, right? Something and you talked earlier Natalie about the the the sum being greater or the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. I think that's true for the decisions and and ideas that arise from generative spaces also is that you arrive in this place that nobody even contemplated when you started down the path. And that's that's one of the promises that I'm hearing as an outgrowth of being willing to think in more expansive ways about shared decision, making shared power, shared governance, etc. Yes. And that is necessary. And that is actually a necessary condition. And like that emergence is a necessary condition to get us to this, like, impactful place. But, you know, we haven't experienced yet fully of like a liberatory world and like shared power and shared resources. Like, if we think we already know what the path is going to look like to get there and exactly what we need, then we're probably, I don't know. I'm guessing that we're probably not going to get there. I'm not sure. We have like total clarity and a complete plan. I'm like, I feel a little bit dubious about it. You feel like you've thought through everything. There's that's clearly not true. Did you experience 2020? Exactly. So, so I'd love to bring us, I don't want to come to a close, but I would love to sort of wrap up with this. I would love for each of you to share a key lesson or takeaway that listeners of this episode, who are sitting in their own spaces in some position in a nonprofit, in a philanthropic space in a social impact movement, and who are thinking about governance and power or boards. What's something that you recommend they think about? What's a takeaway that you'd like to leave? You only get one, so make it good. Yeah, sort of what's one key lesson that you'd love to leave for each of you? I think coming from an action stance, my invitation to staff and to boards would be like coming to a shared understanding of what a minimum viable board with legal requirements actually truly are because you almost certainly are wrong if you think you know what those are and then use that very boundary framework as a leaping off point to imagine into what governance can and should be and what best aligns with your values and the work you're doing. I love that and I love the act. I'm a very sort of how do we put this into action. So that's a really great just even starting place, right? So for people who want to say how can I take the first step? I love that. What you just shared Ananda, the thing that comes to mind feels like really simple and kind of a dull thing but I think it's answering this question of like what are we actually here to do together and grounding in a shared vision first because I think in some ways the way that nonprofits are structured for like form comes before function and purpose. Absolutely. So often, yes. And I think again that's where a lot of the angst and the stress and the tension and the resentment and the shame can come from is I'm not getting this form right and it's because it's divorced or not aligned with what are we actually here to do? What's our purpose? What's our shared purpose? Yes, yes. So I know people are going to want to learn more about change elemental and what you guys do. As I said, you've written really wonderfully and transparently just about your process in thinking about governance and your evolution and that thing but also shared leadership and just sort of organizational growth processes. Where can folks go to learn more about the work that you guys do? I just want to check in. Can you hear my puppy, my foster puppy crying in the background? Okay, good. No, okay. This is like an episode of welcome to Natalie's petting zoo or something. Very sad to be on the other side of the door right now but the so resources, yes. So of course, like Change Elementals website, we have a blog where we share very openly about the work that we're doing. We have a deck of cards and workbook coming out that we have been working on in partnership with actually a couple decks of cards. I am so into decks of cards. It's like a random thing. I love that. Yeah, just like a way of distilling a lot of learning that we've done within our organization with other groups like the one that I'm thinking of in particular we have been working on with this network, leveraging a network for equity and Sage Crump at thinking about like what does liberatory organizational infrastructure look like? What might that be? It's amazing. Yes, that's great. When did those come out? When did the deck of cards come out? That hopefully will be out at the end of the year and we'll be sharing about that. The best way to keep in the know is to sign up for our newsletter on our website. And then we also have like different webinars coming up. We just did one on sociocracy, which is like, you know, just like another word for liberatory governance I think or share power and decision making. Yeah, and we'll be sharing about that in our newsletter. Ananda, what else? What am I missing? And what do you have going on? I feel like you're always just like sharing knowledge with everyone. So needed. A couple more resources. I mean, I do consulting, so you can find me at anandavolansfollow.org, but out in the networks and things coming to mind is the nonprofit democracy network is doing a collaborate to collaborate learning series right now, which is very interrelated with this these kinds of questions. And then the Libertory Leadership Partnership is doing beautiful work around this related question of what is Libertory Leadership and how does that show up? And then the national, no, the they just changed their name. Nonprofit Association of Washington is doing a reinventing boards summit on September 27th. And they're inviting in, there's some great folks out in Canada who are doing cool work around reinventing governance. And so they're bringing those perspectives in as well as some Washington based nonprofits that are playing with different governance forms. Fantastic resources. I'm going to note all of these in the show notes, along with links to both your organization and your website, Ananda. This was a great conversation, even better than I knew it was going to be. You guys are just really, really doing exciting work. And I am always so inspired by people and organizations who really do the hard work to try to live and work in alignment with their values. And it is hard work. And I just think you guys do it really admirably. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your experience on this podcast. Thank you so much, Brooke. Thank you for bringing us together. I feel like I learned so much just in this short time with you all. This was wonderful. Thank you so much. Have a great afternoon, guys. Have a good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Nonprofit Mastermind podcast. If you want to begin to put into practice a lot of what we talk about here on this podcast, I encourage you to download the architecture of Impact Toolkit at richiebabbage.com/architecture of Impact Toolkit, where I translate what I talk about on this podcast into really great and actionable worksheets and toolkits so you can execute everything in your own organization. If you liked this podcast, I would also love for you to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you think that what we talk about here could benefit another leader in your life, please share with your friends. Finally, if you'd like more leadership in your life, you can sign up for my weekly five minute read, Leadership Forward 321 newsletter. I send articles, resources, and inspiration every week curated around a leadership theme to help you lead your nonprofit better. You can sign up at richiebabbage.com/leadershipforward321. That's it for this week. Thank you for joining me and I'll see you back here next week for more Mastermind.